Busy with ‘B’
This week I was marginally less behind in things and so have not been merely browsing the B section of Larousse’s Gastronomique (as in last week’s entry, Browsing ‘A’), but reading every word of every entry under ‘B’. Adam joined me at one point and wanted to know why the cows were drawn this way — the book has three B E E F butchering diagrams, French, English, and American, and the fanciful cow pictures below the gore made it impossible that Adam would interpret the diagrams as, say, random arrangements of lots of raw meat. “Why are the cows cut up like that, Papa?” I decided to go with directness. “Because we need them cut up like that so we can eat them.” I was steeling myself for some sort of toddler vegan backlash (in part because I had recently been reading about this delicate topic in the comments below Lance’s excellent zoo-visit photo-essay). I needn’t have worried — Adam: “I want to eat that cow!”
Here are three short entries from the ‘B’ section reproduced in their entirety…
B A R N A C L E, G O O S E pouce-pied A crustacean which lives on sea-washed rocks, fixed at the foot and standing about 5 cm (2 in) high. It is difficult to harvest and therefore very expensive. The outside is blackish and mottled and, fancifully, a group looks like a gaggle of geese with upstretched necks because the tips are whitish, like parted beaks. Found on the stormiest parts of Europe’s Atlantic coast, and in Canada, it is a specialty in Galicia. The Spanish name is percebe.
Cooked briefly in court-bouillon or boiling water, it is eaten with or without vinaigrette after peeling, or squeezing out the soft orange cylindrical inside.
I admit that I am both intrigued and horrified by these things, and can’t wait to have an opportunity to find out whether I would be able to actually eat them. Fafmuffem is on the case. I am also quite taken with the tautologous eaten with or without vinaigrette, which could fairly apply to all food everywhere, even grizzly.
B E A R A large quadruped, once common in Europe but now very rare, even in mountainous areas. In Canada and Russia the bear is still hunted as a game animal. The Gauls enjoyed it stewed, and in North America the fat was valued for cooking. At the beginning of the 19th century a few Parisian restauranteurs, encouraged by Alexandre Dumas, brought bear back into fashion. Chevet created the speciality of ‘bear ham’. The best parts of this animal are its paws. Urbain Dubois suggested a recipe for bear paws marinated and braised with bacon, then grilled (broiled) and served with a highly seasoned sauce. In China bear’s palm is listed among the ‘eight treasures’ of traditional cuisine.
Wow, where to begin? I toyed with the perennial favorite bacon-based line, briefly considered laying into that busybody Alexandre Dumas, but ultimately decided just to be thankful that Adam didn’t catch a glimpse of the bear butchering diagram, particularly the inset of its paws.
B O L I V I A The country where the potato originated (with Peru), Bolivia boasts some 300 varieties. Chuños, potatoes which have been frozen, then dried, are a favorite potato product — they are very light and are soaked before being cooked. Besides a fondness for chillies, spicy soups and fried food, Bolivia has another interesting speciality: the conejo estirado, a rabbit which has been stretched as much as possible, making its flesh extremely tender and delicate.
And here I had always thought ‘stretching the rabbit’ was a euphemism for something having nothing whatsoever to do with either cooking or Bolivia.
The day after I left my comment about Sg being non-squeamish about the food chain (or maybe later the same day), we were watching the bit of Happy Feet where our hero penguin is being chased by a hungry leopard seal. Sg said something like “he’s chasing the penguin?” I replied that the seal was hungry and wanted to eat the penguin.
Sg’s angry response: “He’s not food! Penguin’s not food!” I assured her that penguins are most certainly food for leopard seals, and she still didn’t like it.
I explained that penguins eat fish, hoping to explain penguins:fish::leopard seals:penguins. Sg, apparently wholly untroubled by the plight of the fish, said “yeah” as though I were correcting a mistake I had made. I think I would say “yeah” the same way if Sg had first said “do I stab you repeatedly with this rusty knife?”, then corrected with “oh, so I should put the knife away then?”
Things are maybe a bit more complicated than I realized.
Comment by Lance — Sunday 22 February 09 @ 18.39 MST+2.00
I was surprised which photo you linked to. This one is more apt to the percebe discussion. Local barnacles cost 10x more than imported ones.
Eating barnacles is a Spanish custom that confuses me. But I’ll make an exception and do a blog entry next time the opportunity presents itself. All I’ve ever managed to do is suck the salt water out of them.
Comment by Erik R. — Monday 23 February 09 @ 12.24 MST+2.00
Percebes are ugly as sin but the essence of the sea. Think single perfect oyster and chilled Sancerre standing at a beachfront bar at the edge of the world with winter winds at bay. It’s late in the season but we had them grilled last week (with but separately from grilled baby eels and grilled caviar – a texture you can not even begin to imagine)
Anything under 100€/kilo (in Spain at least – where they are highly prized) means they are from warmer waters perhaps insipid with flesh that is disturbingly soft. Wait until next winter. You don’t need many so better wait for the good ones.
Oh, fish? You mean Sea Kittens? Another rant entirely.
Comment by GTR — Wednesday 11 March 09 @ 16.26 MDT+2.00