“People have
even made eating into something else: necessity on the one hand, excess on the
other; have muddied the clarity of this need, and all the deep, simple needs in which life renews itself have become just as muddy.” – Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke
I will be brief as I have to slip into my clogs and head
into work shortly. New Year’s Eve is one of the busier shifts in a busy
restaurant’s year and I’d like to finish my list in time to slip into a party
frock before midnight. Tomorrow morning’s frenzied feed will mark the end of
the seasonal madness even as it signals the beginning of the New Year. The popularity
of fried potatoes and eggs, washed down with a few Bloody Marys, epitomizes my
feelings about going into a new year: Excess tempered by resolution, optimism
haggling with experience.
The corridor between Thanksgiving and New Year’s requires
focus and determination, energy, cooperation, vodka, and a good sense of humor.
The jokes I make to the Expo about needing to push the rock up the hill, despite
the high-wind warning and avalanche conditions, the silly puns we make from the
names of prep items, the absolute hilarity of mislabeled containers, well, a little
laughter goes a long way during the Big Push. Okay, but before I digress into an exposition on The
Relationship Between Laughter and Flavor-Profiling, let’s tackle this New Year’s
Eve Clog Blog.
The two things that interest me the most about Black Eyed
Peas are, number one, they illustrate a Food Path, and, number two, they are
considered “lucky.” The spelling of will.i.am’s name (not to mention apl.de.ap –
are the periods meant to evoke the “eye” on the pea?) is another thing I find
interesting about the Black Eyed Peas, and also, were I in the same green room
with the group, I might have some questions about that Superbowl Half-Time
performance.
Ah, digressions. At this rate, I’ll never get to work. The pepper jelly and the tomato-basil jam
will remain unmade, a collection of separate ingredients sharing only an
undetermined fate, rather than undergoing the transformation over heat into well-balanced
accompaniments to the charcuterie. Also unmade: The mashed potatoes, the trinity, and the
millions of gallons of stock. This paragraph is only here to mark the
progression of my procrastination.
When a large population of humans is displaced, whether
willingly or by force, the movement of the group across the globe creates a
sort of Food Path (a term that is about as juicy and scientific as a piece of
old bread). The Romans, with their vineyards and olive trees, forever changed
the existing regional food in the entire Mediterranean basin. The Portuguese,
and their consummate curiosity about What Lies Past the Horizon, opened up the
world of spices and effectively Unblanded the Western World’s cuisine. And then
there was the Slave Trade, which gave the New World peanuts, black-eyed peas,
cucumbers and watermelons, and created a divisive element evident in pretty
much every aspect of modern civil discourse. Things to think about for the New Year: how
does the method of an ingredient’s incorporation into a cuisine – the way the
ingredient arrived – affect the ways in which the ingredient is used and/or perceived? According to the source of all information in the world, Wikipedia, Sherman’s
Yankees ignored the fields of black-eyed peas, even as they torched pretty much
everything else, as they considered the pea nobbut animal fodder. And yet, two
hundred years later, the humble sun-dried tomato swept across the culinary
landscape, leaving a scorched swath of California Pizza Kitchens and Wolfgang
Puck restaurants in its wake.
Was the Northerners' disdain one of the reasons hoppin’
john, a traditional New Year’s dish made from black-eyed peas, typically served
with rice, greens and some kind of pork, was considered lucky? Because they
were left alone? Our font of online information suggests that the peas, because
they swell, symbolize prosperity, the greens symbolize money, and the pork,
because pigs forage by rooting forwards, symbolize progress. The article also
mentions that hoppin’ john is usually served with cornbread, but offers no
insight into what the side dish might symbolize.
But the idea that food symbolizes anything is what interests me. Nicole Mones' book, The Last Chinese Chef, is practically an
exercise in scratch-n-sniff reading, so clearly does she write about flavor and
aroma. There is no shortage of symbolism in a culinary tradition as old as
China’s – each ingredient is an element in a larger story; the completed dish
has a clear narrative, a strong beginning, middle and an end, and the
relationship between story and food is relatively easy to parse. American food is a mish-mash of different
cultural markers and meanings as a
result of a bunch of pretty obvious factors that I don’t have time to analyze.
But consider this. The black-eyed pea, as a legume, fixes
nitrogen in soil, is extremely drought tolerant, is versatile and has a nice
buttery flavor, and bees love its flowers – it’s the kind of crop you want to
plant when you’re entering another year of uncertainty, or during a post-apocalyptic
rebuild, or when you decide it’s time to start your own apiary. Right there we
have practicality, hope, and ambition. Not a terrible set of words to start a
new year with.
We had, for a minute, a Black-Eyed Pea Succotash on the
menu. Served with molasses-braised short ribs, some mustard greens and sweet
cherry tomatoes, the dish was a nice mix of traditional Southern cooking and
the brightness of Pacific Northwest flavors.
Here’s a quick overview:
Sort and
rinse the peas (there is a surprising number of pebbles in a bag of black-eyed
peas).
Cook 4 cups
of beans in lightly salted water for about an hour, or until tender. Drain and
set aside.
While the
beans are cooking, prepare your mise en place.
½ cup slivered
garlic
¼ cup thinly
sliced Serrano pepper
1 cup bacon,
cut into lardon
1 red onion,
brunoise
2 cups of
corn cut from a cob (a bag of frozen corn is fine)
A handful of
blanched haricots verts, cut into pencil-eraser sized pieces
10 piquillo
peppers, diced (roasted red peppers are fine)
½ cup of
apple cider vinegar
Salt and
pepper to taste
Set the bacon
in a large sauté pan and cook over medium-low heat to crisp up the cubes and
render the fat.
When the
bacon is a nice ruddy color and the fat is crispy, add the garlic and the
serranos and gently cook them until the garlic is golden.
Push all that
action to one side of the pan and turn the heat up. When the fat is lively, add
the onions and corn. Toss, toss, toss. Saute for about 4 minutes, or until the
onions will have lost their “raw” flavor. Add the beans. Toss, toss, toss. Add
the peppers. Toss.
Combine this
mixture with the cooked peas. Add the vinegar, about a tablespoon of salt and a
nice teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper. Stir and taste. Maybe a pinch of
sugar if you feel like the spice and the vinegar call for it.
Serve with whatever you like – a braised pork shank, roasted
chicken, short ribs, pork chops, a heaping pile of spinach – but be mindful of
the New Year’s story you are telling – pay attention to the images each
component on the plate evoke, because therein lie possible clues to your feelings about
the New Year. I hope those feelings are delicious.
