Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Valery Cooks

I stumbled upon an article in the New York Times recently illustrated with a photograph of a plate of noodles upon which were artistically arranged three locusts and what might have been three moths. The first sentence read “David Gracer eats bugs.” After my gag reflex had relaxed a bit, I thought about why it is that eating a grasshopper seems so nasty while I would be happy to bury my face in a plate of shrimp. And then I thought I have eaten some pretty revolting things that are well within the realm of Conventional Food.

For example, I once enjoyed a long visit by a Russian glaciologist during which we wrote a paper about snow compaction and loafed around in front of the fire eating fatty foods and drinking cheap wine. After a few weeks, our life settled into a routine in which we worked in the morning, took walks in the afternoon, then I cooked, and he washed the dishes.

Then one dreary day, I was quietly messing around on my computer - nearly happy hour – when in comes Valery and asks would I like a drink.

Of course, I reply.

The usual? He asks, which is gin.

We had discussed tortellini earlier, with leftover spaghetti sauce for dinner. I thought a bit of cabernet would go down nicely. I verbalized this notion.

I’ve got started on dinner, says he.

What, the tortellini?

A pause. You can looking.

In the kitchen Valery had laid 2 carrots next to the stove, an eggplant beside them, a plastic bag containing leftover turkey from Thanksgiving 2 weeks ago, and an onion.

We have this, he explained, indicating the ill-assorted group.

Together? I asked.

Yes, of course, he replied.

Did you have some particular end product in mind?

You could fry this, he suggested.

I could fry this? I exclaimed in some alarm.

Yes, of course.

After some discussion, during which I had my glass of gin, it was decided that Valery would cook. I sat down to watch and record this historical preparation.

Get a 5” frying pan out of the cupboard and put it on the stove next to the ingredients that are about 12 times the contained volume. On suggestion of observers, put it back and get a pan out of the oven where it has been stored so that the cats won’t get tongue prints on the sausage fat contained therein.

Put it on the stove. Turn the stove on to high against recommendations of observers.

With the knife on its side, scrape the carrots in the general vicinity of the compost bucket such that SOME of the orange residue gets in. Ignore protests of observers and offer of vegetable peeler.

Cut carrots into many slices and put into hot sausage fat, splashing fat over much of the stove.

Using a vegetable peeler at last, peel the eggplant, grumbling loudly about wasting the best part, which is then placed in the compost bucket along with 20% of the carrot peelings.

Pour half a glass of $2/liter box wine into the carrots, the other half into the cook. Back away from the stove until the steam disperses a little. Turn the stove down a notch as if you had just thought of it.

Rattle around among the cookie sheets and strainers, humming tunelessly. When observers begin to squirm anxiously, admit you are looking for a bowl. Get one out of the cupboard across the kitchen that is almost big enough.

Cut the eggplant into large chunks and demand the whereabouts of the flour.

Go through every drawer in the kitchen except the one with the spoons and then loudly complain that there are no spoons. Once you have found them, get several.

By now, smoke is rising from the frying pan. Push the rapidly blackening carrots around with a spoon. Pour another blast of $2 wine into the pan to dislodge the carbon deposits that are forming and turn the stove down another notch under cover of the steam cloud, so as not to reveal to the observers that they had a worthwhile idea.

Place eggplant chunks in the nearly-big-enough bowl and spoon a generous quantity of flour into it in a single wad. Then, with 2 of the other spoons, one in each hand, reach down to the bottom of the bowl, first with the right-hand spoon, and then with the left-hand one, and churn the contents vigorously. The purpose of this ambidextrous technique is to assure that the eggplant and flour that escape the bowl will be distributed widely on all sides of the bowl rather than in one big heap. Do this until the escaped material pretty much covers the table.

Now cut the onion into big, random chunks and place them in the pan with the carbonized carrots. This at least will mask the smell of the burning sausage fat and distressed carrots.

The elderly turkey is already picked off the bones, so it is a simple matter to subdivide the larger chunks. Add this to the carrots and onions and stir it all around while the observers find a sponge and clean up the flour and eggplant that has found its way onto the floor and is already spreading.

And now the final step in the preparation, adding the eggplant. This is done by inverting the nearly-big-enough bowl over the other ingredients, producing much hissing, steam, and an impressive cloud of unattached flour. Now, using any two spoons, and a technique similar to the flouring of the eggplant, the mixture is churned until all ingredients are uniformly distributed and small escaped fragments that have found their way onto the burner are releasing smoke and smells, at which point the observers belatedly turn on the exhaust fan.

This is followed by another foray into the cupboards, accompanied by much clattering and muttering, yielding, at length, a domed cover which serendipitously fits the pan. And a lucky thing that it is domed, since the ingredients still in the pan form a pile a good deal higher than the lip. Lid in place, this memorable Russian meal is left to cook, while both cook and observers retreat to a less sticky room and imbibe $2 wine for a while.

When the smell of something burning can no longer be ignored, it is time to check progress, which is that the eggplant has rendered itself down to a grey slime matrix in which are imbedded largely brown carrots with splashes of black and orange, long fibrous bits of the same color as the eggplant, which represent turkey, and short textured bits that could be onion, or maybe more turkey. The base layer, which is the primary source of the smell, is a ¼” layer of charcoal.

Now we can eat, declares Valery, scooping great blobs of this onto plates.

Now this may not be the most disgusting meal that was ever put before me, although I can’t offhand recall one to beat it, but I will say that had there been a choice between this and a plate full of locusts, with or without noodles, I would have had the locusts in a flash.