I went to a vinegar tasting at the Creamery a couple of days ago and the talk came around to what we used to consider food. I remember thinking that a meal of those oval pieces of mystery substance labeled veal cutlet, topped with Ragu and a slice of American cheese and sides of Minute Rice and canned asparagus was real gourmet fare. I would no more eat that today than I would my dirty socks. Velveeta cheese, Wonder Bread, there are lots of things we ate routinely that would not be considered fit to eat around here. On the other hand, I made a casserole last night that was made of reconstituted mushrooms, gathered and raised, onions, turnip greens and nettles, all sautéed with some bacon then topped with some sour cream that we all thought was delicious. I am quite sure that in my Wonder Bread days, I would not have eaten such a wierd dish.
I am getting the ground prepped for planting and among the things that I have not planted before that I plan to try this year are salsify, kolrabi and celeriac. I am game for anything that will store in the root cellar as this is the least energy intensive (mine and the planet’s) there is. I am also putting in some new perennial greens, salad burnet, watercress and garden sorrel that I will be able to gather year after year.
The first thing to go with cheap oil will be our food prejudices. We will eat what grows locally and in season and what is easily preserved and learn to like it. I have to say that a diet based on pork and potatoes has been pretty easy to live with. Pickles and fruit sauces, root vegetables and dandelion wine, delicious and accessible.
April 21, 2010 at 7:45 am
My grandma served frozen dinners from time to time when I was a kid. Do you remember those things? A bit of rubbery meat, instant mashed potatoes and overcooked carrots. Ack! I’m sure that if you read the label it doesn’t say frozen meal; it says frozen processed imitation food product. Give me a pot of dried beans, a pan of wilted kale or mustard greens with a bit of bacon and a big slice of corn bread anyday.
April 21, 2010 at 7:51 am
I put in a few salad burnett plants last year, and they did indeed survive our winter with zero help from me. I wasn’t very excited by them as a green though. Sort of fiddly, with stems and leaves arranged like cilantro. And the flavor…meh. Not offensive in the least, but not something I relish either. I guess when the pickings are lean I won’t complain. I hope it’s not fussy about transplanting though, because I’m rearranging the garden this year and it’s now in a bad spot.
I wonder, have you ever made a real veal cutlet? It’s quite good. My mother made wienerschnitzel fairly often when I was a child, because money was tight and veal was quite cheap back then. It was one of my favorite dinners. I would get excited whenever I heard her pounding the cutlets with a meat tenderizing hammer. After the cutlet is nice and thin, you just dip it in beaten egg, dredge it in seasoned breadcrumbs, and panfry. Spritz with a lemon wedge, if you’ve got one, at the table. She learned to make that dish when my father was stationed in Germany. Nowadays of course veal is quite expensive, but I got a good deal on some veal from a local grass-based dairy farm not long ago.
April 21, 2010 at 8:00 am
I do remember frozen dinners. They were out of our budget but sooooo cool on the few times I had them. The amounts were so small. Can you imagine serving one of those to a grown man? I have had real veal but to get the humanely raised stuff is really hard and dreadfully expensive. The taste is amazing.
April 21, 2010 at 8:38 am
I remember when frozen pot pies were the coolest! lol
There’s a rumor that Wonder Bread lasts forever, along with another old time favorite; Twinkies! Rofl.
Let us know how the celariac works out. I’ve always thought it would be a good thing to grow.
April 21, 2010 at 9:16 am
I loved pot pies but I never could stand Twinkies.
April 21, 2010 at 10:59 am
I could never stand Twinkies either. But, those plastic chocolate Hostess cupcakes–I loved em! I was raised in the midwest (Indiana) where the Wisconsin Dairy people had a big hold. We couldn’t afford real butter so we had to eat margarine which came in a plastic bag and in order to make it yellow, there was a reddish dot in the middle which you had to break and massage through the magarine. Great fun when you are a kid–for a while at least. At least we always had a garden and we had vegetarian meals all summer. Not that we called them that. I was an adult before I realized that corn on the cob was not a main dish. Seriously.
April 21, 2010 at 1:45 pm
I like frozen pot pies. It’s a sickness I know. But hey I also like homemade goat cheese and home grown radishes.
April 21, 2010 at 9:48 pm
have not had veal in the years since my sainted mother passed and then a few also, and have not seen it in the supermarket for years plus, tho meat is out of my diet scheme now a days as i try to train my mind not to desire any seemingly anti health meals, wish i leaned toward novelty spices rather than the tried and trues…
April 22, 2010 at 8:41 am
Oh Lord! We watched Food, Inc. on PBS last night. Talk about a paradigm shift without a net! I already had my head around the horrors of industrial meat production, but I had been unaware of nefarious corporate practices, including farmer and worker abuses. An NC processor figured prominently there, alas. The take-away for me is to be VOCAL and go LOCAL. Our CSA starts in two weeks, and I am so ready. Donna