The Raw and the Cooked
The Raw and the Cooked
© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 11 April 2005
"I will never forget my first pastrami sandwich."
- Jim Harrison
I have my favorite authors, but I must admit that much of my reading material consists of “found objects.” Some years ago, I regularly found The Raw and the Cooked, which was Esquire magazine’s Food column, written by Jim Harrison. Jim combined his love of the outdoors with his love of cooking by going to his remote cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and typing his food column while bears rummaged outside in the snow.
Jim Harrison is a very talented writer. I found myself looking forward to his monthly column, and he progressed from “found objects” to my “favorites.” In one of his columns, he wrote that he had an epiphany as he was looking at the many cookbooks in his bookcases.
He realized that he could have something different every time he ate. There were so many different recipes available, he could spend the rest of his life trying a new recipe at every meal and never have the same dish twice.
That stirred my imagination. I would never have thought of that. Of course, I hardly ever think about cooking per se, as I am afflicted with CADD (Cooking Attention Deficit Disorder) and find myself unable to focus on cooking for very long. Just this evening, I stopped at the grocery store to buy some bread, and when I got home I discovered I had picked up a different loaf than I had expected. A person who doesn’t pay attention long enough to buy the correct ingredients does not have the earmarks of a great chef.
Jim Harrison decided to embark on the grand experiment of trying a new recipe at every meal. At one point, faced with dwindling food supplies while snowbound in his cabin, he was left with just one can of Campbell’s tomato soup. He had already tried Campbell’s tomato soup, so what was he to do? He sliced some cheese into cubes and dropped them into his soup! His determination and grit impressed me. If Joe DiMaggio had had Jim Harrison’s single-minded focus, maybe Joltin’ Joe would have extended his record achievement of hitting in 56 consecutive games and won the $10,000 prize offered to him by the Heinz “57 Varieties” Company if he hit in 57 consecutive games.
As I remember the story, Jim Harrison was conflicted about his new-pledged commitment, as it meant that he could never again enjoy some of his favorite dishes in some of his favorite restaurants. I cannot recall whether he decided to make special exceptions to his rule, but it caused me to think of some of my favorite restaurants, and how I would feel about giving up some of my favorite dishes.
Of course, there is already a pantheon of “favorite meals” memories that I have been forced to give up. I am referring of course, to Mom’s cooking and some of her specialties, such as apple dumplings and applesauce cookies, and even her pork roasts! I haven’t tasted a pork roast in more years than I can remember – I have no idea how to make one, and I never see pork roast on restaurant menus. I would even settle for another taste of the brown gravy that Mom used to make (it was excellent on meat and on mashed potatoes), but I think it had something to do with making pork roast, so the secret of making brown gravy is lost to me too.
It seems that restaurants seldom offer entrees that (some) people can make easily at home. I miss those home cooked meals. Now, the only times I get them are when I visit my Aunt Dorothy, which is like taking a fantasy visit in a time machine to the Long Lost world of home cooking. Aunt Dorothy is Mom’s sister, so she knows how to cook like Mom (even better, Mom used to tell me), and I typically gain five pounds an hour during my visits to Aunt Dorothy’s home in McClure, Illinois.
Two years ago, I was visiting my cousin John Killion in Ava, Illinois, and his wife Frances announced that we would be having Sloppy Joe’s for lunch. Then she apologized for not having something fancy. Wow! I had not had a Sloppy Joe in thirty years, and I couldn’t believe my great luck! Frances graciously gave me her recipe for Sloppy Joe sauce – Maull’s barbecue sauce and Brook’s ketchup, and I thought I was set for life (I knew how to cook loose-meat hamburger), but when I returned to Florida, I discovered that those Midwestern brands are not sold here. Feeling my pain, John and Frances kindly mailed me a “care package” of Maull’s and Brook’s.
Oh, I know what you are thinking. Why don’t I just learn how to cook? Well, why doesn’t a pig just learn to fly? It is not in our Natures. If I could eat a banana without peeling it, I would. I am missing the cooking gene (I suspect it is attached to the color vision gene), and that’s the scientific explanation for it.
That’s not to say I don’t like to eat food. I am like those barnyard animals in the children’s story The Little Red Hen. I don’t want to plant the wheat, I don’t want to gather the wheat and take it to the mill, I don’t want to bake the bread, but I am more than happy to help eat it!
When I was in the Eighth grade, Miss Scheiterle, my English teacher, told us to write a story about our favorite meal. I wrote about pork roast, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, and fried apples. Miss Scheiterle had never heard of fried apples and acted as if they were some Missouri hillbilly secret (she was from the East Coast). She also made fun of how I pronounced George Warshington and that I wore sharts (not shorts) in the summer. She shamed me into changing some of my pronunciations, but I have never turned my back on fried apples! Too bad I don’t know how to make them.
I am not sure what I would choose as my favorite meal today. The one I wrote about in the Eighth grade seems such a distant memory now. I like just about every kind of food and ethnic cooking. I learned from my travels that some things taste better in some parts of the world than others. For example, papayas in Brazil are fantastic, but papayas in Florida are feeble.
On my first day in Puebla, Mexico, I had Chiles en Nogadas and heard the birds sing. Chiles en Nogadas are large green chili peppers stuffed with meat, nuts, and fruits, slathered in a cream nut sauce and garnished with pomegranate seeds. Immediately, I made plans to buy some as soon as I got home (in my fantasy world, Stouffer’s made them and Publix Supermarkets stocked them in the frozen food section, conveniently located next to the Cherry Garcia ice cream). To my utter dismay, I learned that even the local Pueblans get Chiles en Nogadas only about six weeks out of each year. It seems the variety of fruits required have overlapping windows of availability, so they are “in season” together for only about six weeks. Supposedly, the first batch of Chiles en Nogadas was prepared in the 1500’s, when some Nuns whipped up some for a visiting Bishop. It seems the Nuns were desperate to outdo the nuns from the other convents visited by the Bishop, so they came up with the idea for Chiles en Nogadas.
Another time, I was in Singapore on the last day of the Chinese New Year. I went to a local restaurant with some clients, and we all had the same kind of Chinese salad. It was the best I have ever had! I took out a pen and paper, I was determined to write down the name of this one! When I asked what the salad was called, explaining that I would like to order it when I was back in the US, my companions laughed. It seems this particular salad was a special salad that was made only one day every year – the last day of the Chinese New Year period. Why?!
But there are plenty of other dishes that remain more or less available to me year around, and I would hate to think of never being able to repeat the experience of enjoying them – items such as Tom Kha Gai soup, Imo’s pizza (with its Provel cheese from St. Louis), chicken tikka masala, Petrale sole, Barramundi fish, potstickers, sirloin steaks, barbequed pork steaks, creamed chipped beef on toast, Sloppy Joes, taverns, beef on weck, Hot Browns, perogies, and FRIED APPLES are just a few that come readily to mind.
What was Jim Harrison’s favorite restaurant meal? "In Paris, at Faugeron," he says. "For an appetizer, sweetbreads and a caviar-stuffed three-minute egg; for the main course, a ragout of truffles."
Jim Harrison never ate at Aunt Dorothy’s.
What’s your favorite meal?
© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 11 April 2005
"I will never forget my first pastrami sandwich."
- Jim Harrison
I have my favorite authors, but I must admit that much of my reading material consists of “found objects.” Some years ago, I regularly found The Raw and the Cooked, which was Esquire magazine’s Food column, written by Jim Harrison. Jim combined his love of the outdoors with his love of cooking by going to his remote cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and typing his food column while bears rummaged outside in the snow.
Jim Harrison is a very talented writer. I found myself looking forward to his monthly column, and he progressed from “found objects” to my “favorites.” In one of his columns, he wrote that he had an epiphany as he was looking at the many cookbooks in his bookcases.
He realized that he could have something different every time he ate. There were so many different recipes available, he could spend the rest of his life trying a new recipe at every meal and never have the same dish twice.
That stirred my imagination. I would never have thought of that. Of course, I hardly ever think about cooking per se, as I am afflicted with CADD (Cooking Attention Deficit Disorder) and find myself unable to focus on cooking for very long. Just this evening, I stopped at the grocery store to buy some bread, and when I got home I discovered I had picked up a different loaf than I had expected. A person who doesn’t pay attention long enough to buy the correct ingredients does not have the earmarks of a great chef.
Jim Harrison decided to embark on the grand experiment of trying a new recipe at every meal. At one point, faced with dwindling food supplies while snowbound in his cabin, he was left with just one can of Campbell’s tomato soup. He had already tried Campbell’s tomato soup, so what was he to do? He sliced some cheese into cubes and dropped them into his soup! His determination and grit impressed me. If Joe DiMaggio had had Jim Harrison’s single-minded focus, maybe Joltin’ Joe would have extended his record achievement of hitting in 56 consecutive games and won the $10,000 prize offered to him by the Heinz “57 Varieties” Company if he hit in 57 consecutive games.
As I remember the story, Jim Harrison was conflicted about his new-pledged commitment, as it meant that he could never again enjoy some of his favorite dishes in some of his favorite restaurants. I cannot recall whether he decided to make special exceptions to his rule, but it caused me to think of some of my favorite restaurants, and how I would feel about giving up some of my favorite dishes.
Of course, there is already a pantheon of “favorite meals” memories that I have been forced to give up. I am referring of course, to Mom’s cooking and some of her specialties, such as apple dumplings and applesauce cookies, and even her pork roasts! I haven’t tasted a pork roast in more years than I can remember – I have no idea how to make one, and I never see pork roast on restaurant menus. I would even settle for another taste of the brown gravy that Mom used to make (it was excellent on meat and on mashed potatoes), but I think it had something to do with making pork roast, so the secret of making brown gravy is lost to me too.
It seems that restaurants seldom offer entrees that (some) people can make easily at home. I miss those home cooked meals. Now, the only times I get them are when I visit my Aunt Dorothy, which is like taking a fantasy visit in a time machine to the Long Lost world of home cooking. Aunt Dorothy is Mom’s sister, so she knows how to cook like Mom (even better, Mom used to tell me), and I typically gain five pounds an hour during my visits to Aunt Dorothy’s home in McClure, Illinois.
Two years ago, I was visiting my cousin John Killion in Ava, Illinois, and his wife Frances announced that we would be having Sloppy Joe’s for lunch. Then she apologized for not having something fancy. Wow! I had not had a Sloppy Joe in thirty years, and I couldn’t believe my great luck! Frances graciously gave me her recipe for Sloppy Joe sauce – Maull’s barbecue sauce and Brook’s ketchup, and I thought I was set for life (I knew how to cook loose-meat hamburger), but when I returned to Florida, I discovered that those Midwestern brands are not sold here. Feeling my pain, John and Frances kindly mailed me a “care package” of Maull’s and Brook’s.
Oh, I know what you are thinking. Why don’t I just learn how to cook? Well, why doesn’t a pig just learn to fly? It is not in our Natures. If I could eat a banana without peeling it, I would. I am missing the cooking gene (I suspect it is attached to the color vision gene), and that’s the scientific explanation for it.
That’s not to say I don’t like to eat food. I am like those barnyard animals in the children’s story The Little Red Hen. I don’t want to plant the wheat, I don’t want to gather the wheat and take it to the mill, I don’t want to bake the bread, but I am more than happy to help eat it!
When I was in the Eighth grade, Miss Scheiterle, my English teacher, told us to write a story about our favorite meal. I wrote about pork roast, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, and fried apples. Miss Scheiterle had never heard of fried apples and acted as if they were some Missouri hillbilly secret (she was from the East Coast). She also made fun of how I pronounced George Warshington and that I wore sharts (not shorts) in the summer. She shamed me into changing some of my pronunciations, but I have never turned my back on fried apples! Too bad I don’t know how to make them.
I am not sure what I would choose as my favorite meal today. The one I wrote about in the Eighth grade seems such a distant memory now. I like just about every kind of food and ethnic cooking. I learned from my travels that some things taste better in some parts of the world than others. For example, papayas in Brazil are fantastic, but papayas in Florida are feeble.
On my first day in Puebla, Mexico, I had Chiles en Nogadas and heard the birds sing. Chiles en Nogadas are large green chili peppers stuffed with meat, nuts, and fruits, slathered in a cream nut sauce and garnished with pomegranate seeds. Immediately, I made plans to buy some as soon as I got home (in my fantasy world, Stouffer’s made them and Publix Supermarkets stocked them in the frozen food section, conveniently located next to the Cherry Garcia ice cream). To my utter dismay, I learned that even the local Pueblans get Chiles en Nogadas only about six weeks out of each year. It seems the variety of fruits required have overlapping windows of availability, so they are “in season” together for only about six weeks. Supposedly, the first batch of Chiles en Nogadas was prepared in the 1500’s, when some Nuns whipped up some for a visiting Bishop. It seems the Nuns were desperate to outdo the nuns from the other convents visited by the Bishop, so they came up with the idea for Chiles en Nogadas.
Another time, I was in Singapore on the last day of the Chinese New Year. I went to a local restaurant with some clients, and we all had the same kind of Chinese salad. It was the best I have ever had! I took out a pen and paper, I was determined to write down the name of this one! When I asked what the salad was called, explaining that I would like to order it when I was back in the US, my companions laughed. It seems this particular salad was a special salad that was made only one day every year – the last day of the Chinese New Year period. Why?!
But there are plenty of other dishes that remain more or less available to me year around, and I would hate to think of never being able to repeat the experience of enjoying them – items such as Tom Kha Gai soup, Imo’s pizza (with its Provel cheese from St. Louis), chicken tikka masala, Petrale sole, Barramundi fish, potstickers, sirloin steaks, barbequed pork steaks, creamed chipped beef on toast, Sloppy Joes, taverns, beef on weck, Hot Browns, perogies, and FRIED APPLES are just a few that come readily to mind.
What was Jim Harrison’s favorite restaurant meal? "In Paris, at Faugeron," he says. "For an appetizer, sweetbreads and a caviar-stuffed three-minute egg; for the main course, a ragout of truffles."
Jim Harrison never ate at Aunt Dorothy’s.
What’s your favorite meal?
posted by Tom Shawcross | 10:25 AM
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