It’s been a sad couple of weeks. It started when my mom called to inform me that a family friend had died 11 days after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Then Phil Role died after a much longer battle with cancer. And just the other day, my friend Sarah e-mailed me that her young niece had had a skiing accident and wasn’t expected to live.
Needless to say, I’ve been doing my fair share of crying.
The memorial service for Phil was particularly moving. I barely knew him but that didn’t stop me from using plenty of the tissues someone had thoughtfully left on all the chairs. I cried, not only for his family, who must now continue on with a large gap in their life, but for myself and the hole in my life left after my dad died when I was only 20. I cried all the way home from the service. Then I had to hold off calling Sarah for a day to make sure the phone call wouldn’t just be us listening to each other sob.
Aside from shedding tears, I also had an overwhelming desire to feed both the Role family and my friend. What is it about death that makes me want to cook? Why is it that food seems to be the best way for me to express how truly sorry I am and how I wish there was something in my power to make it all better?
I’m not alone in these feelings. Feeding the bereaved has been a part of many cultures and religions since funeral rites began. Each culture has a different take on what food is served when and by whom, but the reasons behind the food are similar.
The poet Jeanne Nall Adams hints at one of the reasons for having food as part of the funeral rites. “Atop the beans he piled the ham/Atop the cake, the pie./Take time to stuff, O mourner./Full stomachs cannot cry”
But it’s not just that it’s harder to cry with your mouth full. Food focuses our thoughts on the needs of the living. People have traveled for miles and are hungry. The bereaved are too disconsolate to think about eating but still need to take in nourishment. And food may help ease the stress-induced fight or flight reaction that grief causes (your brain knows it’s not in danger if it has time to stop and eat).
Food sustains life and often the foods that are served symbolically represents life such as hard boiled eggs, or are circular to represent the circle of life such as the lentils traditional served during Jewish Shiva.
Food brings a community together and gives us something to talk over as we remember the dead.
And of course, food is comforting. Most often, funeral food is synonymous with comfort food. Folks in the southern United States have the comfort thing down and their “repasts” are filled with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and apple pie.
Knowing that bringing food to the bereaved is the right thing to do is easy; deciding what is the most appropriate is a bit harder.
If you are bringing food for the immediate family, simple easy to serve and eat food is best. Soup or sandwiches will do the trick. Casseroles are great to bring to stock their freezer for later when things calm down and they still don’t feel like cooking.
If you are bringing food to share after a funeral service or memorial, then your favorite potluck dish is fine as long as it’s not too fancy. This is not the time to try and compete for the Iron Chef title. Everyone there is going to want comfort food so bring your favorite.
The exception to this rule is if the person whose funeral you are attending was a great lover of food. In that case, it would be in their honor to make something spectacular (please note my request for Thai green curry in the accompanying recipe).
Aside from offering comfort to the family and friends of the departed, making food and producing something nourishing and good helps heal the cook. The act of creation is a soothing balm to a mind filled with loss and sadness.
It turned out that, to date, my cooking impulse served only to sooth me. I wasn’t able to take food to Phil’s memorial (not that anyone noticed, there was enough food there to feed all of Sandpoint) and Sarah left for the East Coast before I could send her a care package. Instead, I baked a batch of cookies, thought about the loved ones I have lost, then shared them with the loved ones I still have.
Thai Green Curry over Coconut Rice
Serves 4
This isn’t your typical funeral fare but I’d like to have it served at my funeral. It’s one of my favorite foods.
3 ½ c. coconut milk (divided)
1 c. jasmine rice
2 T. green curry paste
½ c. chicken broth
3 T. fish sauce
2 T. brown sugar
1 T. sliced ginger
½ medium onion, quartered and sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced into chunks
1 can bamboo shoots
10 oz. lean beef steak, cut into thin strips
¼ c. chopped fresh basil
¼ c. chopped fresh cilantro
Juice of one lime
In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups of coconut milk to a boil. Stir in the rice. Lower the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook until the milk is completely absorbed and the rice is done.
Meanwhile, in a large wok, combine the remaining coconut milk, curry paste, chicken broth, fish sauce, brown sugar and ginger. Bring the mixture to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the onions, red pepper, and bamboo shoots. Simmer until the vegetables are almost tender. Add the beef and continue simmering until the beef is cook through, about 5 minutes depending on how thick the slices are. Stir in the chopped herbs and remove from heat. Serve curry over the coconut rice.
This is coconut overload and can be enjoyed with plain jasmine rice when not served at my funeral.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Salt: The Only Rock We Eat
Four years ago, my mom took me to Italy for my 40th birthday present. It was an incredible trip. We saw famous art up close and personal and ate pasta and pizza like I’d never experienced. We had gelato everyday (and sometimes twice a day when it was hot). The tour took us to Rome, Florence and Venice; each of which I’d gladly go back to and spend a month exploring. We also spent a day in Siena.
The Campo
The Stairwell
The View
The men behind the counter were friendly and flirtatious. They listed off all the different kinds of cured meats and cheeses they had to offer. I was overwhelmed and just asked that they make me a sandwich with whatever they liked best.
Oh my god! It was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. I have no idea what was in it or what made it so amazing. To the naked eye, it looked like a salami and cheese sandwich on good crusty bread. In my mouth, it turned into a magnificent combination of flavors and textures that I’m afraid will never be repeated.
Since then, I’ve tried and failed to find cured meat of the caliber I had in Italy. I haven’t found cheese with the same intense flavor, and I haven’t found bread with the same crusty bite. But recently I realized there is one common ingredient in all of those sandwich components, which was probably in perfect proportion in each of them, to make the whole thing come together for that consummate experience. That ingredient is salt.
Yes, lowly salt.
We take salt for granted. Sure, you know it enhances the flavor of foods, but when was the last time you thought about the fact that without salt we would all die. Salt (sodium chloride) is essential to the human body. Without it, our muscles wouldn’t work and our cells would cease to get nutrients. Of course, in our culture of highly processed foods, which are loaded with salt to make them taste slightly better than cardboard, we’re not in much danger of dying from salt deprivation.
Because our bodies need salt, we’ve developed quite a taste for it. Salt is the only one of our five tastes that only comes from one source, so we tend to add it to most of our food to round out and intensify the flavor.
But salt does more than just make food taste better. In the case of my perfect sandwich, each ingredient wouldn’t exist without it.
Bread without salt isn’t really worth eating. Besides being flavorless (with the possible exception, ironically enough, of some traditional breads from Tuscany), bread without salt lacks strength. Salt tightens up the gluten or protein matrix that is the backbone of bread. Without it, bread does not hold its shape as well or rise as high.
And that Sienese sandwich bread was stout and flavorful.
Cheese needs salt for similar reasons. It’s a flavor enhancer and it firms up the protein structure. It also helps draw whey out of the curd and regulate the ripening process. Most importantly, it destroys or inhibits the growth of bacteria and other microbes that might spoil the cheese.
I can assure you the cheese on my sandwich was perfectly ripe and flavorful without a hint of spoilage.
When it comes to cured meats, like salami, most wouldn’t exist without salt. Salt regulates the fluid exchange in cells. A concentration of salt outside the cell wall draws water out of the cell and draws salt, and any flavors added to the salt, in. It dehydrates cells and flavors them at the same time.
Salt also changes the structure of the protein molecules, unbunching them and making them firm but tender. While it’s working on the muscle cells of the meat, it’s also dehydrating and disabling any spoilage microbes, thereby preserving the meat.
And dry-cured aged meat like my salami undergoes more changes as it ages. Because the salt preserves it for months, the protein in the meat has a chance to break down into flavor molecules and the fat cells get to break apart into volatile compounds, both of which greatly enhance the flavor.
And, boy, was my sandwich meat flavorful, tender, and well preserved.
Salt has made our civilization what it is. It allowed us to explore far-off places because we could keep food fresh longer. It has been used as currency (the word salary derives from the word salt) and caused revolutions. And it made my perfect sandwich possible. I just wish there was a way to use in to get back to Siena for another one.
Gravlax (Salt and Sugar Cured Salmon)
serves 10-12
2-3 lbs center-cut fresh wild salmon fillet of fairly uniform thickness, with skin on (preferably from our local Alaska fisherman, Chris White)
4 oz. sugar
6 oz. kosher salt
2 tbs. crushed black pepper
3 tbs. Aquavit
4 oz. fresh dill sprigs
Mix the sugar, salt and crushed pepper together. Sprinkle half of it onto the bottom of a non-reactive baking dish that’s just slightly larger than the filet. Place the salmon skin-side down on the salt-sugar mixture. Pour the Aquavit over the fish. Cover the fish with the remaining salt-sugar mixture. Cover all of it with sprigs of dill. Cover with plastic wrap.
Place a flat plate or pan on top of the fish and weight it down evenly with cans or a brick (about 4-8 lbs) to compress the salmon. Refrigerate for 1-3 days, until the thickest part of the fish is firm to the touch. If it feels raw and swishy, let it cure for another day. Redistribute the cure ingredients as needed halfway through the cure.
When the salmon is firm, remove it from the cure and wash it off well. Slice it paper thin and serve on salad, bagels, or toast points with crème fraiche.
The gravlox will keep for 3 weeks in the refrigerator, wrapped in parchment paper. Change the paper if it becomes wet.
Siena is a city frozen in the Middle Ages. The center of the city, the Piazza del Campo, still hosts a horse race that has been run since medieval times.
The CampoThe Palazzo Pubblico, at the base of the shell-shaped plaza, has a tower that beckons tourists to climb it. Well, it beckoned this tourist. Mom and the rest of our tour group stayed below and had lunch while I climbed over 500 stairs to be rewarded with a heart-stopping view.
The Stairwell
The ViewAll of Tuscany was laid out before me. I wanted to stay for hours, but the climb up had made me hungry, and being on a tour meant I had to be back to the bus on time.
When I finally got down, there wasn’t much time to eat. We slipped into what I would call a deli but what the Italians probably call by a much sexier name. I’d noticed it on our way to the Campo because of the colorful cords hanging in the doorway. It was a very simple shop with a giant display case across the back wall. Two men stood behind the case; one fat, one tall and skinny, while an older man stood in the corner washing greens.
When I finally got down, there wasn’t much time to eat. We slipped into what I would call a deli but what the Italians probably call by a much sexier name. I’d noticed it on our way to the Campo because of the colorful cords hanging in the doorway. It was a very simple shop with a giant display case across the back wall. Two men stood behind the case; one fat, one tall and skinny, while an older man stood in the corner washing greens.
Oh my god! It was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. I have no idea what was in it or what made it so amazing. To the naked eye, it looked like a salami and cheese sandwich on good crusty bread. In my mouth, it turned into a magnificent combination of flavors and textures that I’m afraid will never be repeated.
Since then, I’ve tried and failed to find cured meat of the caliber I had in Italy. I haven’t found cheese with the same intense flavor, and I haven’t found bread with the same crusty bite. But recently I realized there is one common ingredient in all of those sandwich components, which was probably in perfect proportion in each of them, to make the whole thing come together for that consummate experience. That ingredient is salt.
Yes, lowly salt.
We take salt for granted. Sure, you know it enhances the flavor of foods, but when was the last time you thought about the fact that without salt we would all die. Salt (sodium chloride) is essential to the human body. Without it, our muscles wouldn’t work and our cells would cease to get nutrients. Of course, in our culture of highly processed foods, which are loaded with salt to make them taste slightly better than cardboard, we’re not in much danger of dying from salt deprivation.
Because our bodies need salt, we’ve developed quite a taste for it. Salt is the only one of our five tastes that only comes from one source, so we tend to add it to most of our food to round out and intensify the flavor.
But salt does more than just make food taste better. In the case of my perfect sandwich, each ingredient wouldn’t exist without it.
Bread without salt isn’t really worth eating. Besides being flavorless (with the possible exception, ironically enough, of some traditional breads from Tuscany), bread without salt lacks strength. Salt tightens up the gluten or protein matrix that is the backbone of bread. Without it, bread does not hold its shape as well or rise as high.
And that Sienese sandwich bread was stout and flavorful.
Cheese needs salt for similar reasons. It’s a flavor enhancer and it firms up the protein structure. It also helps draw whey out of the curd and regulate the ripening process. Most importantly, it destroys or inhibits the growth of bacteria and other microbes that might spoil the cheese.
I can assure you the cheese on my sandwich was perfectly ripe and flavorful without a hint of spoilage.
When it comes to cured meats, like salami, most wouldn’t exist without salt. Salt regulates the fluid exchange in cells. A concentration of salt outside the cell wall draws water out of the cell and draws salt, and any flavors added to the salt, in. It dehydrates cells and flavors them at the same time.
Salt also changes the structure of the protein molecules, unbunching them and making them firm but tender. While it’s working on the muscle cells of the meat, it’s also dehydrating and disabling any spoilage microbes, thereby preserving the meat.
And dry-cured aged meat like my salami undergoes more changes as it ages. Because the salt preserves it for months, the protein in the meat has a chance to break down into flavor molecules and the fat cells get to break apart into volatile compounds, both of which greatly enhance the flavor.
And, boy, was my sandwich meat flavorful, tender, and well preserved.
Salt has made our civilization what it is. It allowed us to explore far-off places because we could keep food fresh longer. It has been used as currency (the word salary derives from the word salt) and caused revolutions. And it made my perfect sandwich possible. I just wish there was a way to use in to get back to Siena for another one.
Gravlax (Salt and Sugar Cured Salmon)
serves 10-12
2-3 lbs center-cut fresh wild salmon fillet of fairly uniform thickness, with skin on (preferably from our local Alaska fisherman, Chris White)
4 oz. sugar
6 oz. kosher salt
2 tbs. crushed black pepper
3 tbs. Aquavit
4 oz. fresh dill sprigs
Mix the sugar, salt and crushed pepper together. Sprinkle half of it onto the bottom of a non-reactive baking dish that’s just slightly larger than the filet. Place the salmon skin-side down on the salt-sugar mixture. Pour the Aquavit over the fish. Cover the fish with the remaining salt-sugar mixture. Cover all of it with sprigs of dill. Cover with plastic wrap.
Place a flat plate or pan on top of the fish and weight it down evenly with cans or a brick (about 4-8 lbs) to compress the salmon. Refrigerate for 1-3 days, until the thickest part of the fish is firm to the touch. If it feels raw and swishy, let it cure for another day. Redistribute the cure ingredients as needed halfway through the cure.
When the salmon is firm, remove it from the cure and wash it off well. Slice it paper thin and serve on salad, bagels, or toast points with crème fraiche.
The gravlox will keep for 3 weeks in the refrigerator, wrapped in parchment paper. Change the paper if it becomes wet.
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