Manolo’s Food Blog

Who isn’t trying to save a few dollars these days?

To that end, two recent newspaper articles caught Mr. Henry’s attention this week. In the New York Times Dining & Wine section Marlena Spieler reports from Britain on the increasing appetite for squirrel.

Coincidentally the Jacksonville Journal, a daily newspaper deep inside the Gator Nation, reports this week that squirrel hunting is a year-round southern tradition. Although writing in the sports section, the author thoughtfully includes the following robust recipe for “manly” squirrel stew (in case your own family recipe happens to be for sissies).

Note the addition of an entire cup of barbecue sauce (K.C. Masterpiece, original) as well as ¼ cup of flour for thickening. Mr. Henry particularly appreciates the delicacy of adding only ½ bay leaf. Evidently ten squirrels boiled for 45 minutes only achieve those subtle aromatic top notes when seasoned with the slightest hint of bay.

MOLTON’S MANLY SQUIRREL STEW
INGREDIENTS
- 10 squirrels.
- 11/2 cups lean ham (diced).
- 3 large potatoes (chopped into 3/4″ dice)
- 2 medium onions (chopped)
- 1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes (chopped and drained)
- 1 16-oz can whole kernel corn (drained)
- 1 10-oz package of baby lima beans (frozen)
- 1/2 bay leaf
- 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup K.C. Masterpiece barbecue sauce (original)

DIRECTIONS
Salt and pepper squirrels. Place in large soup pot, adding enough water to cover them. Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cook it for 45 minutes or until meat begins to fall off the bone. Remove from stock. Allow to cool and remove meat from bone. Add all ingredients to the stock (leaving out the squirrel). If it’s a little thick just add water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add squirrel and simmer for 30-45 min, stirring occasionally. To thicken, mix 1/4 cup of flour with 1 cup of cold water and add to stew. Serve with corn bread.

This recipe vividly reminds Mr. Henry of the special stew served as a hazing ritual for admission to his high school athletic-letter club. After downing a quick bowl, hapless pledges were forced to run wind sprints which never failed to purge the stomach violently. Worthy traditions like this one doubtless help prepare for economic downturns by engendering manly appetites for quarry freely and abundantly available in North Florida’s hardwood forests.

According to the Jacksonville Journal, you will be relieved to learn that hunting the wild squirrel is not as difficult as it may sound.

“A squirrel is smart, but will usually lose the mental match-up with a hunter of average IQ or better.”

In Britain squirrel hunters only aim for the head in the belief that a body shot spoils the meat. Not so in Florida:

“There have historically been fistfights over whether to use a shotgun or .22-caliber rifle on a squirrel hunt. Neither work any better than the operator when it’s all said and done. The truth is that there’s room for both guns.”

If you can’t stand up to a manly stew, borrow an idea from the celebrated London chef Fergus Henderson.

Mr. Henderson, who cooks with both poetry and passion, sometimes prepares his squirrels “to recreate the bosky woods they come from,” braising them with bacon, “pig’s trotter, porcini and whole peeled shallots to recreate the forest floor.” He serves it with wilted watercress “to evoke the treetops.”

There must be more squirrel recipes in this useful kitchen companion.

Was it the change in the weather, the change in the economy, or the change in the presidential polls that set the stage for the savory pie, that stalwart, antique, Anglo-American fallback? Clearly the Henry household craved stability, the succor of tradition, something certain in an uncertain world.

Mrs. Henry ferried home some stewing beef. (Who knows whence these urges come? Once decided, however, she completes her missions with military determination.)

She made a standard brown stew with carrots and celery, thickened with flour. Just before crowning it with mashed potatoes, she mixed frozen peas into the stew. After half an hour in the oven, the peas perfectly hot yet still crisp, she served a storybook cottage pie fair enough to grace the table of Old King Cole.

Little Henry tucked into it at dinner and once again for breakfast. For three days straight the strapping child left the house fortified by an ample breakfast of savory pie.

In riposte to this triumph, for dinner Mr. Henry concocted a simple, delicious, and very easy chicken braised in vermouth. Preparation time – 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350º. Using your trusty Le Creuset dutch oven sauté in olive oil two cloves of garlic, a stick of fresh rosemary, a double pinch of herbs de provence, sea salt, and a whole chicken trimmed of skin and fat.

After browning, add 3 cups of vermouth, yes, 3 cups. (Equally you may use dry white wine, but Mr. Henry prefers the woody aromas of vermouth which marry wonderfully with herbs de provence.) Bake ½ hour covered and ½ hour uncovered until the broth has reduced to the consistency of  a sauce. Serve with brown rice and a sauvignon blanc.

Not to be outdone in the culinary competition, Mrs. Henry used the leftovers to make a chicken pot pie beyond compare. Since Mr. Henry is incapable of matching Mrs. Henry’s flaky crusts, tonight he requested a delay in the contest.

Tomorrow for presidential debate night as his weapon of choice he will prepare a Moroccan tagine of lamb with prunes. (Hmmm. Might he be accused of cozying up to Islamic regimes? Must reconsider. On second thought his tagine will be an American tagine of lamb with prunes.)

From the New York Times:

 

July 8, 2008, 3:40 pm
Dept. of Oops

By Stephen J. Dubner

The Economist is, almost inarguably, a great magazine.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t make the occasional mistake. Consider this lead from a recent article about a huge Mexican mining company called Fresnillo, which was recently listed on the London Stock Exchange:

In the hills north east of Mexico City it is not uncommon to find Cornish pasties for sale.

They meant to write “pastries” but, considering that miners work really hard, they might also be hoping to encounter the kind of people who go shopping for pasties.

Yesterday the famed Freakonomics writer stepped right in the middle of his very own pie. Responses and corrections to this howler make very good reading. One true disciple wrote that Dubner could not have really meant what he said and instead was proving his own point about “the occasional mistake.”

The Cornish pasty (pass-tee) is yet another British savory pie, one designed to be held in a sweaty, arsenic-dusted, tin miner’s hand. You eat the pie and toss the hard, folded crust that serves as a handle. It’s the first hot pocket sandwich, an inventive adaptation for a worker hundreds of feet down in the ground.

To really appreciate English food, Twistie says “Have a hearty, flaky, utterly delectable Cornish pasty.”

The savory pie is the very soul of British cooking. It is a preparation suitable to an antique hearth rather than a modern stovetop, a dish prepared in the morning and left out all day, perhaps two or three days. Incorporating meat and vegetable, it constitutes a complete meal.

According to the OED, “pasty” and “pastry” are both derived from the French pasté, but pasty is the older coinage.

Pasties are first mentioned in the 13th century, before Chaucer, before Piers Plowman, before the modern language known as English. It seems British cooking has changed less in 800 years than the English language itself.

Perhaps because they couldn’t afford finely ground pastry flour, the Scots employed a sheep’s stomach to house their national dish, the haggis. There is nothing airy-fairy about those Scots. In haggis no morsel of offal is too humble to include.

Why are English eating habits so conservative when their language is so dynamic? Isn’t culture bound up in language and vice versa? If so, why is the English menu stuck in the Middle Ages? Surely tradition can bend to accommodate a few improvements, the stovetop, for example, or the refrigerator.

Indeed, it was the traditional absence of refrigeration that sustained the tradition of bitter ale. Lager needs to stay cooler than bitter ale. Though he tries every decade or so to appreciate English bitter, Mr. Henry finds it consistently revolting. Thank the glorious angels for Guinness – rich, palate-cleansing, draught Guinness.

Did the medieval French plate look like the quintessential French plate today. That is, was there a meat with a sauce (butter based), a separate vegetable, and a starch? Unlikely.

Was medieval Japanese cuisine composed of fish or fish stock? Yes, probably. Like Britain, Japan is an island kingdom. Like the Brits, the Japanese drive on the left. Like English, Japanese is a dynamic language that appropriates foreign words. (Does this seal the argument? Probably not.)

Mr. Henry is no pasty man. He takes little pleasure in the genre of savory pies. Even the South American fried empanada holds no allure. Granted, Beef Wellington, the aristocrat’s pasty, is a pleasant diversion, but almost inarguably a filet of beef is tastier when baked without crust.