Do all uncooked foods talk back? Snap crackle crunch; that's how cerealized infants learn words for eating. Yet the sound of celery is curbed by wilt. And then comes heat, and silence. Steady, serious warming hushes carrots, apples, globes. In chicken noodle soup, celery logs sog after a simmer unless added optimistically toward the end. Who are the wasters who'd have us "flavor" our soup and discard the sodden stalks that Edward G. Robinson would give his life for in Soylent Green? The same goes for stew, too. I’m a voyeur now, the boy … [Read more...]
I Never Cooked for My Father
"I learned about cooking and flavor as a child, watching my mother prepare food in our kitchen in Virginia." Maybe I'm worried that it's too easy, or dislike the part of me that's a permanent boy, but I've become increasingly shy of drawing from the same family well to recount my early fascination with food. Recently, though, I came upon a recipe for creamed scallions by the late chef Edna Lewis taken from her kindly and expert "memory" cookbook, In Pursuit of Flavor. The line at the top of this post is that book's opener, and here's how she … [Read more...]