T, revisited just once

A thanks, friends, for picking up my slack. Good discussion.

I'll be ready to dish about Erin's selection June 1.

KC has suggested we reprise a Fisher recipe at some point (please ... not the borscht). Cast your votes on any possibilities?

From A to Z: The Perfect Dinner

Do you agree that six people at a home can produce the best possible dinner?

Z is for Zakuski

What do you think about appetizers? With my unrefined palate and background, I don’t have a lot of experience with them. Probably the most common first course for me (when I have more than one course) is chips and salsa, although I’ll get the occasional Caesar salad.

Y is for Yak

And other strange animals. Have any of you eaten any strange meat? The strangest I have eaten was fried alligator sausage, in New Orleans in 1996.

And what did you think of the Christian pretending to eat what he thought was stewed newborn baby? I could have lived without that anecdote.

X is for Xanthippe

Hmmm. X is always hard to come up with in these alphabet games, so I admire the choice of Socrates' wife. Again, I was turned off a bit by Fisher's analysis of gender differences as a function of gender rather than culture. I mean, I sense that she sees through bullshit — she understands that a lot of so-called gender differences are learned, not innate — but I wish she'd be more explicit about that. I've come to think of her as sort of an intellectual Helen Gurley Brown — where the point is not so much to question or diminish sex role stereotypes as to get on the winning end of them!

If Xanthippe had been the typical Greek wife — meek, servile, unassuming — we wouldn't even know her name today, and Fisher wouldn't have her X.

Having said that, though, I do admire her notion that dinner conversation should be upbeat and polite. Sour talk spoils the food. The dinner table should be sacred, like the bed. You wouldn't offer up a bunch of complaints about your day while you're having sex, and you shouldn't while you're eating either.

Her idea of separating the kids from the adults periodically at first rubbed me the wrong way, but then I became more sympathetic, and I identified with her wish that her parents had spoken more naturally about certain adult matters in front of the children.

I want to try her scrambled egg recipe. I saw on a show long ago that you really shouldn't beat the eggs as is so often done and that they should be cooked very slowly. That's exactly how she does it.

W is for Wanton

This was an interesting one. I'm again surprised by Fisher's openness, given the time period she was writing in.

I don't quite understand the seductiveness of food. Generally, when I'm eating, it's all about the food. And if I have really enjoyed the food, I have probably eaten just a bit too much to feel very seductive right afterwards.

Pardon me if this is too much information, but I generally prefer the reverse order. First I'm wanton, then I'm hungry.

V is for Venality

I loved Fisher's descriptions of the restaurant's seedy Hollywood deal-making. I was also reminded of all the deal-making that takes place in restaurants on "The Sopranos." There's something intriguing and romantic about it.

U is for Universal

Mmmmmm, salt and bread. Two of my favorite things.

KC and I were talking just the other day about a former roommate of hers who forgot the salt in her homemade bread. She didn't find the result as charming as Fisher describes here.

I love salt. I salt my vegetables, my fruit, my orange juice. But like Fisher, I was raised to believe it is rude to salt food before you've even tasted it. And I agree that food is commonly oversalted, in restaurants especially. After eating in certain restaurants, I find myself completely parched a few hours later. And that does not give me a warm feeling about those restaurants.

My dad had high blood pressure, and his doctor recommended a salt substitute called NoSalt. We kept it in a special shaker by the stove. It tasted terrible. Poor Dad, he should have just eaten the salt.

"Good bread will forever send out its own mysterious and magical goodness, to all the senses, and quite aside from all the cookbooks, perhaps the best way to learn how to make it is to ask an old, wise, and, above all, good woman."

Amen, sister.

T is for Turbot

... which I had never heard of before this. I'm happy to hear that it's "esteemed as food." Hehe

I have a pressure cooker, but I've never used it. What am I missing?

Fisher's trout recipe sounds quite good -- except for the gelatin, which I find horrifying.

Q also is for pâté, quacking

KC suggested we try Sole Veronique sometime, which has a heavy sauce with grapes. Yum. I was going to suggest we have it on a cold winter night and, like Hercule Poirot, precede it with pâté on hot toast by the fire. Except the idea of pâté has really turned me off since I read an article in Gourmet about the whole process (basically force-feeding ducks) and how inhumane it is. On the other hand, because I've never had it, I wish I'd tried it.

Has anyone had pâté before? What was it like?

S is for Sad

As you all know, I have bipolar disorder and I've been through several clinical depressions in my life. Depression leaves an emptiness inside of me that I often try to fill with food. I always gain weight when suffering from a long depressive episode.

Does sadness, depression, or death have that effect on any of you? I thought the anecdote about the man who ate all the steaks after his love died was quite strange. I suppose it is understandable, but it still is strange.

R is for Romantic

Romance and sex are recurring themes in this book. What do you think of her using 8-year-old Red as an example of romance? She clearly (from all of her hints in other chapters) had other incidents she could have chosen. Why did she choose Red?

Q is for quantity

Do you suffer from the ill that she talks about in this chapter: Increasing certain ingredients in your cooking beyond all good taste? I'm afraid I've done that. When I was a boy, I always thought that more of whatever made something good would make it better. I found out that this was not true when I put way too much garlic powder on buttered toast!

But I still put too much of stuff on meals I make for myself. Too much Miracle Whip or peanut butter on sandwiches, too much sugar in or on anything sweet, too much ketchup on my fries, too much sauce on anything saucy. I think I've learned from my mistakes in putting too much flavoring into dishes, but you never know when my boyish stupidity might return and we find out just what it tastes like to have too much basil in a red sauce.

P is for peas

Have you ever had peas that fulfill her three requirements: Very green, freshly gathered, shelled at the last moment? I wonder how much better they can be than the best peas I've had. I quite like good peas, but without having had fresh ones, I wonder how much better they might be!

O is for Ostentation

Have you ever served certain food, or eaten at a certain restaurant, to impress someone?

N is for Nautical

As I mentioned in a comment on cl's blog, I don't enjoy boats or ships. I have an irrational fear of being on the water, so I would probably be unable to enjoy meals on a cruise. Those of you who suffer from motion sickness, would you be able to enjoy meals on board? Are cruiseships large and stable enough to prevent seasickness?

And for further discussion, see cl's blog.

M is for Monastic

This is related to the first chapter, as it is on dining alone, but it is now restricted to men. What are the differences between Monk's stew followed by licking the plate clean and the author's dinner of Ry Crisp, tomato soup, and California sherry surrounded by pocket detective stories?

L is for Literature

I remember the Boeuf en Daube from Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse."

"It was rich; it was tender. It was perfectly cooked. It was a triumph." In fact, when I took an interest in cooking in fall 2005, the first Bon Appetit I purchased included this recipe, except I subbed beef instead of venison.

It was not a triumph, but still, I like authors who trouble to tell you what their characters are eating. It's just as important to mood as where they're at and what song is on the radio.

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot is a gourmand, and as I tried to remember great meals he has eaten, I pulled out "Funerals are Fatal." He is host to the elderly Mr. Entwhistle, a retired attorney who has met with the survivors of a rich client and suspects that one of them did the client in.

To stimulate Entwhistle's storytelling and soothe his palate, Poirot serves:

Pate de Foie Gras on hot toast by the fire
Sole Veronique
Escalope de Veau Milanaise
Poire Flambee with ice cream

Served with Pouilly Foisse, followed by "Corton and a good port."

(Poirot, "who did not care for port, sipped Creme de Cacao.")

Any sources of literature ever whet your appetite?

K is for Christy hates borscht

And I have little to say about the Kosher chapter. I did like this:

"It is an astonishing and moving thing that after so many flights of terror, after so many vigils in strange lands, many Jews still feast as Moses told them to do."

"K is for Kim"

A dish indeed.

"J is for Juvenile Dining"

It must be frustrating for an author of Fischer's taste to succumb to her child's mealtime preferences the way all parents eventually must do. Toddlers are tyrants at the table. You cannot make them eat anything, and they can outwait their masters for days, with no apparent consequences, until a jittery parent succumbs and gives them their cut-up Jenos pizza or a generous serving of Shrimp Poppers in lieu of taking them to the doctor for intravenous caloric support.

And to accept that TV commercials and peers' tastes will sway the child to a preference for sugary cereals, pizza and soda pop. I guess it's a precursor to when those forces will direct a child how to dress and act, and what she will read and watch and listen to. And a parent has to stand by and accept it.

My nephew Alex, 3, was eating Shrimp Poppers at Thanksgiving while the rest of us laid into various homemade hors d' oeuvres, and my grandparents began stealing them off his plate, and now they get the fried little snacks as appetizers to go with their daily "happy hour." (Which they have at 4 o'clock.)

Usually there's a link between Fischer's storytelling and the recipe that ends that essay. If you can place the context of snails in "J," do tell.

Has anyone eaten snails before?

I is for "Innocent"

The Innocent can, "with a child's bland happiness, do the most God-awful things with his meals and manage, by some alchemy of warmth and understanding, to make an honest gourmet pleased and easy at table."

This was more than an essay about a cook who prefers recipes with gelatin or Miracle Whip. The Innocent built meals in memory of his late wife and observed all the rites from their time together -- the music, the types of food, the place at table. Through that he elevated his belching beloved's preferences into something more grand than they were. Don't you think of people no longer in your life (alive or not) and romanticize any of their habits, tastes and mannerisms? Is there a person you would immortalize at table or elsewhere because sentiment would sway you to do things "their" way?

Fischer had more than a meal; she participated in a ceremony to honor the departed.

"H is for Happy"

My favorite in the series, I think.

Fischer makes me feel like I'm accompanying her through all of her memories in this essay. First I'm climbing the hills with Aunt Gwen, an unsanctioned fried egg sandwich in my pocket, and then I'm singing with her family in Berne, sipping cognac while road construction debris falls around the car in a kind of enchantment. Maybe they were representative of two dining experiences, too -- the homey and simple treat for an afternoon walk and a luxurious meal at an elegant hotel. In both cases, and as she's covered before, it's the company who makes the meal.

My first go-round with these essays, more of the recipes sounded appetizing, and upon re-reading, I'm a little turned off. But don't those fried egg sandwiches sound kind of naughty and good?

"G is for glutton"

"I cannot believe that there exists a single coherent human being who will not confess, at least to himself, that once or twice he has stuffed himself to the bursting point, on anything from quail financiere to flapjacks, for no other reason than the beastlike satisfaction of his belly."

Fischer later exposites about why there is shame tied with gluttony, that important people no longer stuff themselves in public, and I found that ironic considering she wrote "Alphabet for Gourmets" at a time when the average woman was a size 12. Today a state of gluttony might best be characterized by a cafeteria table of high school girls, drinking Diet Coke or water, critiquing their peers for consuming solids.

Anyway ...

Don't you think there are different stages and circumstances of gluttony? Like special-occasion gluttony, when you eat a lot because the circumstance won't be repeated (eating on vacation at a fine restaurant). Wedding or anniversary or party gluttony.

Mood gluttony (one day a month, I feed my PMS and feel much better, quality of meal notwithstanding).

Love gluttony. Continuing a meal with someone because you don't want the date to end, and eating too much as a result.

I even had a case of jingoistic gluttony. I traveled with my youth group to Mexico for two weeks of mission work, of which we seemed to do little, and had no problem with the local cuisine, but we did become homesick, especially spending the Fourth of July out of the country. So when we crossed the border two weeks later and stopped at a South Texas Pizza Hut, we went crazy for American food. Greasy, salty, all-American Pizza Hut pizza, served by English=speaking workers. I still remember pillaging a cheese pizza. Isn't that awful?

Any gluttony experiences you'd like to share?