Pemmican-Schmemmican

I haven’t been posting for a little while because I have been busy with my other blog that Melinda and I have been setting up, Project Newbery Award. Our goal is to read and review all the Newbery Award books and some of the Honor books.

So, being of a rather bookish frame of mind, I decided to scan my books and see if one made a particular food pop into my mind. One did. When I saw “Two Against the North,” by Farley Mowat, I instantly thought of Pemmican.





Pg. 108 and 109: “…wizened little berries,…partly dried. The drying process was completed over the fire so the berries would not ferment later on. … mixed them with ground-up deermeat (that they had pulverized between two stones) and with boiling hot deer fat. This rather sickening-looking mixture was then poured out to cool in slabs, and the slabs carefully wrapped...”

It didn’t matter, the word “sickening-looking.” I just skimmed right over that. It sounded COOL! The perfect trail food. In my mind, it was not a greasy, mouth-coating, fibrous hunk peppered with sour bits. It was a cross between…

Have you ever had a “peanut patty?” It is an old-fashion candy that is shaped into a round, flat little pat. The sweet matrix is a soft, translucent, pink material that holds shelled peanuts in a nubby suspension. I was never all that fond of them, but they were sure cute, and I could appreciate their novel make up.

What was much better was a Cadbury “Fruit and Nut Bar.” As far as I knew, they only came family-size, which was good because we always got one as a family. The big milk chocolate slab was scored into small squares for breaking off individual pieces. Nuts and raisins were embedded in the chocolate. With one nice bite, you got the sweet chocolate, the tangy-sweet raisins, and the rich, crunchy nuts.

So I just couldn’t shake the feeling that pemmican was a cross between a Peanut Patty and a Cadbury Fruit and Nut Bar. And what is strange is that even now, I have a hard time imagining that pemmican isn’t a tasty treat. Maybe it’s partly the name. Pemmican. When you say it, it makes you sound like an insider. Like an experienced wilderness adventurer. Maybe it should be called “Rancid Lard and Protein Slabs.”

To keep my fantasy intact, I shall have to come up with my own pemmican recipe. Stay tuned!

Six Things I could not, would not eat...

(Scorpion Soup- not currently on my list because this dish had never occured to me before, therefore wasn't lurking in my mind. I ran across this most revolting photograph on the web)

OK, Who really knows what one could manage to choke down if one were starving? I’ve never been starving. I’ve never even been really hungry, I mean really hungry. So if ever I were in that position, I suppose I may have to eat my words. But gladly. I think I could even eat crow before I could eat, well, lets just have the list now, shall we?

Before I begin, I must admit that there are some awful things that people around the world eat that I wouldn’t even know about unless I started digging around for “weird, unusual things people eat.” (try the Google search yourself!) But I’m not counting it unless it was something I already knew about and had already put on my bad boy list.

6) Termites. We could just expand this to include all bugs. In fact, I could happily expand it outward to include all insects, spiders, ticks, caterpillars—in short, things with an indecent number of legs. But it is termites I can’t get out of my head. Years ago, I saw a National Geographic article on termites that had a big color picture of village folks frying up a mess of winged termites over cook fires. Crispy brown with wings sticking up all over in a big black frying pan. No thanks.

5) Shark Fin Soup. I’d never heard of it before I found a recipe in a Chinese cookbook I’d gotten as a gift. Two whole pages were devoted to the preparation of the fin. The picture of the finished dish showed a big white bowl with a single meaty lump wallowing in a clear yellow broth. Yawn. Later, when I read accounts of how sharks were “finned” to obtain the necessary ingredient, I was repulsed. Never!

4) Brains. My dad would sometimes hanker for exotic things to eat. Various organ meats showed up at disturbing intervals, coincidentally when we kids happened to not be very hungry. Brains were the hardest item to wrap my mind around eating. One day, I couldn’t get out of it and allowed a small portion of scrambled Brains ‘n Eggs on my plate. Okaaaay… it was edible. But… Thankfully, with Mad Cow disease, I don’t have to come up with a polite way of saying, “No thank you, really!”

3) Dog Food. Wait! you say. I thought we were talking about regular people food! Yes, we are, but this one is allowed because I used to eat it when I was a kid. Yum! Just opening a can and smelling it brings my childhood back. Because it was cheap, we used to buy Skippy brand canned dog food for our dog. When we opened each end and pushed the food through, we’d slice off a half inch with a butter knife and nibble on it. Sometimes we’d get lectured because we weren’t leaving enough for the dog. I can still hear our shrill little voices, “Mama! Your meatloaf is good! It tastes like dog food!” Gag.

2) Yak Butter Tea. Yes, I know it is highly unlikely that I will ever be put in the position of having to drink this particular poison, but when you have read the National Geographic as long as I have, anything seems possible in this world. For some reason I can really imagine how this must taste—salty tea with rancid yak butter blobs floating around in it. Congealing even as we speak.

1) Corn Smuts. Yes, smut. Have you ever seen a corn smut? Some years ago when I was raising a few rows of sweet corn, I pulled back the husks to find the invasion of the body snatchers. Instead of rows of demure pale yellow kernels grew huge grotesque gray-purple tumors, wallowing all over the end of the ear. I couldn’t throw it fast or far enough. I didn’t know what it was until I watched a TV show featuring a man traveling around in Mexico, eating various indigenous food items. One strange item was called huitlacoche, which turned out to be young corn smuts stir-fried and served up in a tortilla. Supposedly, it is a delicacy, and folks have been trying to bring this fungus to American and European diets, but with little success. You can see why, if you look on Wikipedia and see the pictures. I don’t know which is ickier, the life-size or the microscopic view.

What is your list like? What makes a thing hard to eat; the taste, texture, or is it just the thought of it? Does your conscience play a role? What intriguing things do you eat that others would put on their lists?

A Jaunt in Sutter Creek; subtitle: They did WHAT to the Bread?

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of driving down to Sutter Creek in the Mother Lode Country to see a concert by Old Time Musician Bruce Molsky. I was to meet up with my daughter there and enjoy dinner together before the show. Always keeping in mind the possibility of new material for my blog!

My daughter was running late, so I took advantage of my time to visit a little wine tasting shop that carried wines for three local wineries. One nice thing about these little places is that the tasting is free, so you don’t have to worry about which ones to try or how much it will cost (thinking of Napa Valley 5 or 6 tastes for $25). I know what I like, so I went for the Chardonnay, the Zinfandel and the Cabernet Sauvignon, in that order. I ended up purchasing a very nicely complex and oaky Chardonnay and a fairly intense Zinfandel. While I was there, a younger woman and her mother came in. I knew they were in over their heads when they asked for something “sweet.” The first pour, a blush, was too “sour,” and the next, a chenin blanc was also too sour. They should head straight for the supermarket and pick up some Boone Hill or Wild Vines Peach.

With my daughter’s arrival, I stashed my bag in the truck and we walked the block to the restaurant. I had chosen “Susan’s Place.” It was totally charming. We ate in the patio, though I’m not sure if you can call it a patio, since it was at the front of the restaurant itself. All was rustic with lots of greenery and checked tablecloths and patio lights. Green market umbrellas hung from the translucent roof panels instead of sticking up on poles. At this point, the review will be divided—the food and the service.

The dinner entrees were cleverly designed. You chose the entrée itself, the sauce, and the side that the entrée would be arranged on top of. I chose an eggplant portabella entree, Mediterranean sauce, and a side of polenta slices. It was excellent. The sauce was garlicky and tangy pesto-ish and the polenta was browned on the outside and creamy on the inside. I ate every crumb. A Greek salad came with it. The dressing was another pesto-ish creation. I made a note to myself to copy it at home. Pesto, lemon juice, some sort of garlic seasoning, olive oil, white wine vinegar perhaps. As you would expect in a nice little place like this, a platter of bread and garlic butter was served while we were waiting for our food. More on the bread later…

When we went in at 6:15, the place was about half full. We were seated promptly and cheerfully by the greeter. And then waited. And waited. Now I have been in places that you are legitimately afraid that they don’t notice you, or that you have been placed to make you conveniently unnoticeable. But this wasn’t the case. It was like being at a garden party with the wait staff walking by you every time they have to do something. After about 5 minutes she came by and said she could take our orders in about 2 minutes. She forgot to add a zero, because that was how long it took. In the meantime, she served food to 2 different tables. I kept thinking, if she would just take our orders (obviously we knew what we wanted, as our menus were folded beside us) then the kitchen could get started on our meals!

She came by, with an apology for the delay, and took our orders. About 10 minutes later, the bread came. More on the bread later… With pleasant efficiency, the salad followed and then the entrée arrived. While we were eating, the most astonishing thing happened. My daughter and I were in deep discussion over a topic of personal interest, when the waitress, who had overheard a fragment of the conversation, injected herself into our talk with a mistaken impression of what we were talking about! I was speechless. My daughter managed to stammer out something like, “That’s not what we were talking about.” And then we just waited for her to leave. Now you would think that a new 17 year old waitress might make this mistake, but she was about 45. Hmm.

This particular trait of customer service-type folks to insert themselves into your purchases and your conversations really annoys me. I just had that experience at the Goodwill when a young clerk had a good look-over at the movies I was buying as she rang them up. “Oh, I saw that one, it was good.” “I haven’t seen that one yet, what’s it about?” I thought, what would she say if one of them was a sex movie? And the time I was buying a sack of groceries and the young bagger wouldn’t let up on trying to discuss all my items with me. Maybe some people like this, but I think it is unprofessional.

Anyway, back to the bread…

It was warm. It was microwaved! How do I know? Of course I know! It was chewy, darn it! Rubbery chewy, as you’d know if you ever microwaved sourdough bread! Now that is a crime, when it doesn’t take that much to pop the loaf into an oven!

So out of 5 stars, I’d give Susan’s Place a 4 in food, a 2 in service and a 1 in bread.

Lowly Onions

Coconut, peppermint and hot dogs. Squash, cooked carrots and horseradish. And onions.

There is a list somewhere that contains the things that most little kids don’t like to eat. These were my top players on that list. I still remember staying at the table overtime while my mom waited to see if I really could eat those cooked carrots. Once, I was fooled by being told that fried zucchini was really fried okra, which I loved. I still can’t believe that I bought that one.

Over time, I’ve learned to enjoy most of the foods that I used to hate. But onions stayed on my ambivalent list. Raw, they were a little overwhelming unless chopped very fine and used sparingly. Boiled in soup, they were limp and strangely textured.

While looking at recipes some time back, I started to notice some directions to “caramelize onions.” I worked around with that method, and –My! What a difference! The onions acquired a soft, buttery texture and a sweet, rich flavor along with a soft caramel brown color. I started piling these onions on top of steak and mixing them with fried potatoes and peppers. I also learned that a fried egg perched in a nest of these onions is a nice meal.

Onions are a wonderful little food to enjoy. They are usually pretty inexpensive, keep for awhile and are nutritious. Here is just a sample of what we have learned about onions:



Higher intakes of fruits and vegetables have been associated with a variety of health benefits. Research shows that onions may help guard against many chronic diseases. That's probably because onions contain generous amounts of a flavonoid called quercetin. Other sources are tea and apples, but research shows that absorption of quercetin from onions is twice that from tea and more than three times that from apples. Studies have shown that quercetin protects against cataracts, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
In addition, onions contain a variety of other naturally occurring chemicals known as organosulfur compounds that have been linked to lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

These compounds will cause crying when you cut them up, so here’s a tip to avoid that. Take your big cutting board and lay it on the top of your range. Turn the hood exhaust on high and cut away!

I have two favorite recipes where these caramelized onion star. They are simple, lowly recipes that you wouldn’t think could be so nice. But they are. And I am going to tell you how to make them. I use yellow onions.


French Onion Soup

Thinly slice 2 or 3 onions and then cross-cut once or twice. Saute them in a little olive or canola oil at a low to medium heat. Stir frequently. It will take about 10 minutes to caramelize the onions. If they start to get too dark too soon, turn the heat down. Cook them until they are soft and an even light caramel color. I like to turn up the heat at the end of this process and get just a little browning on some of the onions.

Add beef broth until you have the proportion of onions to liquid that you want. (I use “Better than Bullion” soup base paste in hot water.)





Now pour in a little white wine. I also like to squirt in a little lemon juice to add a fresh tang. Salt to taste, if you need that.





The next thing I do is not in the recipe book, but it makes the soup easier to eat. Make a little cornstarch slurry and stir it in to the simmering soup until it thickens slightly.





And the finishing touch--in the individual oven-proof bowl, lay a thick slice of crusty bread on the surface of the soup. Generously sprinkle whatever cheeses you happen to have on hand over the bread and soup. Stick under the broiler until everything is toasty and bubbly. Eat!





Onions and Tofu with Cheese





Thinly slice 2 or 3 onions. Caramelize them in a skillet. Use oil sparingly, but as needed. Meanwhile slice firm tofu into bite-size pieces. Press some of the water out with paper towels or clean cloth. Add the tofu to the onions and see if you can get a little browning on it while you finish up the onions. Add soy sauce with a generous hand and then a little sherry. ( I had Marsala wine, so I used that) Turn off the heat and spread cheese over the top to melt into the onions. You'll be amazed at the tasty vegetarian meal! With a slice of whole grain bread it covers all the food groups.

The Big Kahuna

Have you ever been invited to the perfect dinner party?

Imagine: your dinner companions are delightful company, the setting is beautiful –a grassy green park shaded by graceful trees, the repast is delicious and varied, the wine is generous, and your hosts are so pleased to enjoy your presence that toasts are offered up to you and your visiting troop. And it is the perfect time of day, that lovely hour or so before dusk when the temperature moderates and the air is softer.

But wait! That’s not all! Just when you think you are impressed enough, you approach the table of the main entrée and see…

But let’s back up a little bit.

One of my hobbies is Civil War reenacting. One year ago this month, I volunteered for the temporary-soon-to-be-permanent job of Camp Cook. Our unit is the 3rd US Artillery, a mounted artillery unit which participates in Civil War reenactments and Living History demonstrations up and down the state of California. In many of the military units, the soldiers cook for themselves or create small “messes” to share the job of meal preparation. But because so many of our members are busy caring for and tacking up the horses during an event, the 3rd US is one of the units to provide a provisioner, or cook, for the benefit of our group.

After I had agreed to cook for the upcoming reenactment at Gibson Ranch Civil War Days 2009 in Sacramento, I discovered that our captain had invited the James River Squadron from the Confederate camp to dine with us. So instead of 25, I was to prepare for 50. Eeek! I knew our Captain was counting on me to make him proud of us, so I took extra care in considering the menu and the details. Everything went very well. (For an example of a cooking weekend for me, see Cooking for the Third.) At that time the James River reciprocated and invited us to dine with them at Gibson Ranch 2010.

Our captain was very happy with the success of our “dinner party.” He and I both wondered, what will the James River cook up for us? Will it be like ours? I wondered if it would be more elegant, more elaborate. I was already considering 2011, when I would likely be planning their return engagement to the Union Camp. What new delicacies could I call up when it was my turn?

Saturday evening rolled around, and we all gussied up for the long trek to Confederate camp. We combed our hair, straightened our caps and pulled on our navy blue shell jackets. As a group, heel plates clicking on the paved road, we marched (ok, so the artillery doesn’t really “march” well; remember most of us prefer to let the horse march while carrying the soldier), let’s say we strode into Confederateville, finding protection from the slurs and barbs of the lounging Rebels by the very size of our troop.


Our captain greets one of our lovely hostesses.

The James River Squadron greeted us with genuine friendship and affection. The ladies were dressed in their hoop-skirted finery and the men in their naval uniforms. ( I would use the word “charming” to describe the uniforms, but dare not.) Cloth table linen, candles, bottles of wine decorating the table, dutch ovens that held warm peach cobbler, refreshing salads, women standing ready to wash our dishes –all were bracketed with white canvas tents and green lawn. The setting sun sent beams of light on the pastoral party.

And then, remember I promised you more. And there it was. The Big Kahuna, the Top Dog, the Coup d’état, the Big Pig.

It was absolutely Glorious. It was big, very big. And golden and crispy. Steaming and tender cuts were carved from the Beast and laid on our plates. The server cut a nice piece of crackling skin with it to keep the meat company.

We ate until we groaned. The dessert was served; cobbler with whipped cream and cookies. We ate some more. And then a jug of homemade applejack was passed up and down the table. We found common ground and shared geography with our tablemates and chatted through the evening. Their commander stood on a chair and offered a toast to the friendship between our units. Hear! Hear! Our captain stood and offered a toast back.

I was one of the last to take my leave. As the captain and I left, shaking hands and reiterating our pleasure at being able to host the James River next year, their man looked at me and said sincerely, “Keep it simple.”

I had been thinking, “What can I possibly do to match this? A whole pig, for goodness sakes!” Pondering the evening on the walk back to camp, I came to this conclusion. As stunning as the Pig was, as delectable as the cobbler was, as well-laid as the table was, it was not the food that made the evening so delightful. It was the welcome, the hospitality and the friendship that made the evening special. This is no competition between cooks, this is the pleasure of hosting friends and breaking bread together.

So I’m not planning my dinner next year yet. I’ll wait and see what comes to me. And I hope it is good. But I’m not stressing over it.

Bullwinkle and Waffles

Who taught you to cook? Was it your mom or dad, or some other family member? Did you read a lot of cookbooks or maybe figure it out from trial and error? Or were you in school when there were lots of homemaking classes available to teach you? Maybe you were lucky like me and learned from all three.

My mom is a great cook. I was fascinated to watch how she made cornbread. Scoop in some flour and yellow cornmeal with a pinch of salt, a pinch of baking soda. An egg, some oil or grease or something. Tip in some buttermilk. Stir it up, dump it in a pan. When it looks done, it is. How could someone just “know” how much of everything to put in, what temperature, and how long to cook it?

Being a novice, I plugged away with cookbooks and directions. After awhile, I started to realize that years of measuring ingredients would give me the magical touch of proportions and estimations of ingredients and eventually I would be able to cook like my mom.

Title 9. I didn’t understand its significance much at the time. I wasn’t interested in high school woodshop class or boy’s sports. But with this new law, now girls were no longer excluded from classes or sports just because of their gender, and boys could make a claim to classes that historically belonged to girls. In my sophomore year, the biggest impact I felt was the first day of homemaking class when four boys showed up in the middle of a room full of girls. No soft milquetoast fellows could have pulled it off. These were jocks. Popular guys who played football AND basketball. They stuck together, probably for protection, and the four got their own “kitchen” to themselves.

In general, it was hugely entertaining. They flirted, we flirted. They cracked jokes and made funny mistakes; we felt smug at times. But we couldn’t feel too superior because most of their stuff turned out fine. And they never burned out the disposal by leaving it running all night, or set a dishtowel on fire like one of the girls did. It was rumored during the “brownies” lesson that they had put pot leaves in theirs, but I never did find out if it was true.

My husband never took homemaking classes. When I married him, he knew how to fry eggs, sort of. But that was fine, because I was prepared and experienced enough for the both of us. And eventually, I was full-time cook to the six of us. But somewhere around kid #4, I could feel the reserves draining away. It was tough to cook dinner seven nights a week, and it was even tougher to THINK of what to cook seven nights a week.

Even though my husband couldn’t cook, he was very agreeable. When baby #4 was born, I felt like I just couldn’t manage the dishes all the time anymore. (just to keep from maligning him, my husband was studying engineering full time at UC Davis and supporting us with 3 different part time jobs) So I made him the offer: He and my 8 year old could now take responsibility for the dinner dishes, or… he could buy me a dishwasher. The next day we were at the appliance store with a credit card.

So I repeated the process.

“I am not going to cook on Sunday nights anymore. From now on, you are responsible for what we have on that night.”

He got the deer-in-the-headlights look.

Taking pity, I told him, “However you want to do it; order something, have the kids make something, cook something…Only, I don’t want to have to think it up myself.”

He started getting a better expression on his face, but it wasn’t because he could foist it off on someone else. No, it was because he apparently started to feel his creative ability surge up within him.

The first Sunday night started off optimistically. “We’re having waffles,” he announced. I left the kitchen to enjoy my new freedom and so that I wouldn’t be tempted to jump up and interfere. The kids went in to keep him company. “The directions are on the box,” I called out. But men are apparently more likely to discover and follow directions if they are encrypted by a secret society and buried in a vault at the Vatican than if they are printed on the box under the title “Directions.”

He used the whole box.

“Well, I stirred up some batter, but it didn’t look stiff enough, so I put some more mix in, but it didn’t look like it would make enough, so I added some more milk and an egg but then it seemed thin, so I added more mix, and it’s a little doughy, but it makes the waffles nice and thick?” He had all three of my waffle irons going at once, trying to get them all cooked in time for dinner. At least no one went hungry.

The next Sunday rolled around. Obviously, he was most comfortable with “breakfast food.”

“I’m going to start with hash browns and then add some stuff.” As before, I ducked out. This one took a little longer. He shredded the potatoes, lots of them, and fried/steamed/ browned them in the cast iron skillet. Then he took out one of my pint jars of home canned beef and stirred it in to cook with it. There was some reaction to his ingredients that made everything have a sort of blackish cast to it. It didn’t taste that bad, but it LOOKED terrible. The kids managed, mostly, to get past the appearance and eat some. We asked him, “What is it, what do you call it?”

He said, with an unsmiling face, “ I call it “Bullwinkle.” We let it rest.

After that, we discovered Papa Murphy’s You Bake pizza and became one of their steady customers. Nowadays, my husband has become pretty serviceable with spaghetti. I sit at the counter with a glass of wine and watch him make it. Except for his heavy hand with the garlic, I can’t complain. It’s hugely entertaining. He flirts, I flirt. Sometimes I feel smug. And I try not to feel superior because most of his stuff turns out quite well. But mostly I am very grateful and appreciative of his good humor and willingness to do this very nice thing for me.

A Trip Down Cookie Lane

While growing up, cookies were the other food group. If there weren’t cookies in the house, it was either because we had already eaten the last ones up, or we hadn’t bought or made the next ones yet. My mother liked cookies, so that made it very nice for the rest of us, since she couldn’t eat a whole bag herself, or at least until we had all had a go at it.

Although I make most all the cookies we eat today, back then, we seemed to buy more than we made from scratch. Since Mom’s favorites were all crunchy ones, that’s what we always had around. Which was perfectly fine with me!

When I think nostalgically about cookies of bygone era (bygone because I will never again be able to eat cookies with the impunity I did as an active, normal-weight kid) I think first of the bag of odd little cookies called Hey-Days. They were based on a crispy wafer and had caramel, coconut and chocolate coating drizzled over them. Sort of a candy/cookie. Since I haven’t seen them for decades, I’d guess they are gone-gone.

When we would stop by the market to pick up snacks for working in the bee yard, we would usually grab a package of cookies. Even then, I craved variety. I especially liked the “Mother’s” assortment that had five types in the tray. Not because I was crazy about any of them, but it was because they were all different. We often got Nilla Wafers, vanilla or lemon sandwich crèmes, those hard, flat oatmeal cookies, Lorna Doon shortbreads, Vienna Fingers, Windmill cookies, and Fig Newtons, the only soft cookie available.

Once in a great while, just to be nice to us, Mom would buy those pink and white coated animal cookies with the sprinkles. Not that you could tell what animal it used to be before they encased it in that strange waxy mixture, but it was fun guessing.

We had our home-made favorites too. Toll House recipe chocolate chip, Quaker’s oatmeal cookies, Nola’s No-Bake cookies, pineapple squares from the old Blue Ribbon cookbook, and peanut butter cookies, though we never stayed consistent on the recipe for that.

My kids are going to have their nostalgic cookies too. The recipes I have used most often have now been transferred to them, and have become a standby in another generation. We like Molasses Crinkles, from an old 1950’s Gold Medal flour cookbook, and Sugar Cookies, fondly called “One-Half Sugar Cookies,” due to the peculiar measurements of one-half this and one-half that. For special occasions, we make my grandmother’s special persimmon cookies.

I am interested in seeing what cookie recipes my kids all come up with that are true keepers. Let them experiment away, trying out the oddly flavored and textured ones until that true gem appears. And please, let me in on some of the experiments!