There was a time in the 1960s and 70s when I thought that I was a good cook. Of course those were the times when gourmet cooking meant using canned soups to thicken your sauces, or as the sauce itself. You may dispute me, but I have a cookbook, entitled “Gourmet Cooking” that includes a recipe for pork chops slathered in a sauce make from tomato soup and Worcestershire sauce. Just typing that makes me shiver. This was also the era of Jello-based salads and desserts. Some of us remember the seductive commercials that had Sterling Holloways’ voice enticing you into wanting layers of Jello, molded Jello , blocks of Jello or a mousse created from Jello and whipped topping that came in a box. More shivers….
Of course you could match Jello commercials with Ed Herlihy’s velvet invitation to dishes made with Kraft cheeses that made Velveeta into a tantalizing all-purpose cheese substitute. Remember the famous dip created by mixing melted Velveeta and a can of diced tomatoes with chilies?
To be totally transparent, I do have Jello in my pantry. My grandsons love it and, last summer, I resurrected a Jello fruit salad from a recipe that my neighbor gave me when we moved into this house a zillion years ago.
So, here I am, brought to the sense that I am not an especially good cook. Ok, there are few items that I am not ashamed to serve my family and friends, but I no longer am enticed by the need to excel at recipes that are novel, exciting and require odd ingredients. The challenge of shiny magazines or the luscious offerings of Food TV no longer can induce me to attempt the newest culinary fads.
I do, however, print out recipes from the internet, perhaps too often. I have hundreds of them stashed on a bookcase in the kitchen. I use about 10 of them with some regularity. The rest? Well, it’s one of those “it looked good at the time” things.
I also read and save recipes from a few periodicals, far less these days, since so many of them are now relying on herbs and spices that I don’t have, and I find that most of the stores where I shop don’t have them either. One of these spices, sumac, is derived from sumac shrubs that grow along our roadways, but I also know that there are two kinds of sumac and one can bring all recipe testing and breathing to a close, so I haven’t tried to harvest my own in order to concoct one of the more au courant recipes. I still haven’t figured out what to do with leftover xawaash, a spice that came with one of those pre-prepped meals that are delivered to your door. By the way, those meals aren’t bad at all. A tad bit on the pricey side, but the few that I purchased were considered to be a mini vacation for me … very mini since I still had to cook and clean up. There I go off subject again.
Yesterday, I received my latest Living magazine in the mail. On page 13 Martha has a picture of the sandwich that she makes using eggs. I, too, make a sandwich that uses eggs.
There are several differences between Martha’s sandwich and mine. First, she uses eggs from her chickens. I do not have chickens. Five cats is more than I can handle. She bakes a delicate custard for the innards of the sandwich. I boil, peel and mash two eggs mixed with mayo, salt and pepper as the filling. She adds hand-picked water cress while I use whatever green leaf is in the crisper (and is still crisp).
And the bread? I use Heidleberg peasant bread (from Nojaims in Marcellus) She uses Japanese Milk Bread. Are you kidding? Where does one or anyone find Japanese Milk Bread? I know that Nojaim’s doesn’t carry it. Neither does Walmart, Aldi’s, Tops or Wegmans. I can just imagine what that bread costs.
My family and friends will have to be satisfied with the very ordinary, the lost-in-the-past simple comestibles that are reflected in my pantry, which is basically the same as my mother’s – no canned soups, sumac or Japanese Milk Bread.
Of course there is that xawaash. How long is it before you can throw a spice out?
More about Jello … my students should remember this. The product named Jello, a fruit dessert, was created by Pearle Wait in 1897 but the process of using gelatin (don’t ask how it’s made) to solidify liquids was created by Peter Cooper in the 1850s. Mr. Cooper was also the designer of “Tom Thumb,” the first steam locomotive in the U.S., and he ran for President in 1876.
