How to Make a Classic Timeless

The other day, I was surprised by sappiness.* I was in the middle of doing something I love--picking up and examining every single plant for sale on a large table at my local garden center. I was focused only on the plants. I had forgotten, completely, any troubles held in the world, or in me, personally. I had achieved a meditative, blissful state. I was oblivious to anyone around me, but I was half-listening to the nursery's radio. And so I heard Linda Ronstadt. 

Let me say, fist (with respect): I am not a fan--not of the song "Long, Long Time," and not of Linda Ronstadt, generally. But, without any warning from myself, I burst into tears less than halfway through the song. Maybe it got to me because I had completely forgotten anything that could have upset me, and so wasn't protecting myself from being upset. Maybe it got to me because, every once in a while, the weirdest, sappiest, cheesiest, most-unlikely things get to us. I have no idea why this happened, but whatever the song unleashed was extreme. 

Several hours later, when I was finally done with my crying fit, I complained to some friends. I don't mind that these things happen to me--surprise emotional attacks happen to most, if not all, of us, and often through unlikely triggers. I do mind that I was somehow moved to tears (lots of tears) by this particular song, a sappy relic of a most unfortunate musical era. 

"It's not a bad song, really," opined my friend Pamela. "The problem, as you said, is that overblown 1970s orchestration. I'd like to hear it sung with just an acoustic guitar (kind of like the version of  "The Long and Winding Road" without all the George Martin orchestration, which was Paul's original conception of the song all along)."  Unfortunately, we weren't able to find a satisfying remake of "Long, Long Time." (Anyone know of one? Any musicians want to try one?) 

I believe my comments about the orchestration had been no more than random potshots. Pamela put it all together brilliantly. Some things need to be lifted from their original context and allowed to shine on their own. Or, maybe, some "classics"--ones that are very much a product of their era--need to be freed from the elements that date them, and allowed to become timeless classics, instead.

So it is with some recipes. I can think of a few from the Victorian era--maybe we'll talk about those another week--but, since we've already tripped lightly back a few decades in America, let's start with green bean casserole. This dish originated in the 1950s. I remember eating it in the 70s (and so it's sort-of linked with Linda Ronstadt in my mind). I hated it then, and, when it surprised me** at some too-traditional-for-me Thanksgiving dinners in the early 2000s, I was unable to feel anything more positive about it.

To echo my friend Pamela, it's not a bad dish, really. The problem is the over-processed arrangement of 1950s convenience foods. This is a dish that cries out for a remake, a cover--anything. 

Unlike "Long, Long Time," green bean casserole has been "remade," many times. Over the past twenty years or so, a panoply of fine chefs has made it into gourmet comfort food. I'd like to separate out a few elements: frozen green beans, mushrooms, some sort of dairy (or dairy-like product), crisp-fried onions.

This is not a casserole. I like recipes that cook faster than casseroles usually do. Is it timeless? I don't know. Maybe it counts as an acoustic version.

Green Bean Casserole This Is Not 

 

2-3 tablespoons flavorful olive oil

1 onion, sliced in half lengthwise, then each halk sliced into "half moons"

I package frozen green beans (your choice of cut, "French style," etc.)

1/2-3/4 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

i package fresh mushrooms, sliced thinly

salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste

freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste

crumbled feta cheese

optional: toasted chopped walnuts

Madhur Jaffrey offers this method for crisp-fried onions:

 Put the oil in a medium saute pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion. Stir and fry, turning the heat down as needed, until the onion is reddish-brown and crisp. Remove the onion with a slotted spoon and spread out on a paper towel.***

 These need to cook for about five more minutes

Empty the green beans into a strainer or colander. Run them under hot tap water until they're no longer frozen. Set aside.

 Add the cumin seeds to the hot oil in the pan (you might need to add a little more oil) and stir them for a second or two. Add the mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms release their water. 

Add the green beans, salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes. The beans will be cooked much less than they are in traditional green bean casserole; that's part of the point. 

Turn off the heat and add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. You can either put the onions on top, or stir them in. Top with feta cheese and, if you like, toasted walnuts. 

When green beans are in season, use fresh, not frozen. When it's not green bean season, I find the frozen ones are often better. Frozen, we could say, are more "timeless," in some ways.

*with apologies to C. S. Lewis, who was surprised by joy

**surprised by green bean casserole: worse, and far less cathartic, than surprised by sappiness

***from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, p. 61

A Vegetable in Any Other Language Would Taste as Sweet 

 

When I first heard the song Why This Kolaveri Di, I had to ask the person who'd introduced me to it what "kolaveri" means. Rage, he explained; it's a Tamil word.That made sense to me. I know what "di" means, and felt I had a reasonable grasp of the song's meaning: why this black rage (sung to or about a love interest).

Not quite. I do know what "di" means, except not in Tamil--not in any language even remotely related to Tamil. "Di," spelled variously but pronounced the same as it is in "Why This Kolaveri Di," means "black" in Celtic languages like Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. In Tamil, it means "girl." That lyric is actually "why this murderous rage, girl?"

My mix-up comes from having learned too many languages; sometimes my brain just gets confused. The song itself is a very different kind of mixed up--no random or confused mixing, here.  It's an addictive mix of a traditional rhythm and newer sampling and music mixing techniques, for one thing.* For another, it's in a portmanteau language, Tamlish (a mix of Tamil and English).

In thinking about the idea of "portmanteau," I began to wonder if it isn't like "culture": all over the place and hard to define or delineate, exactly. It involves mixing, but only partial blending. Each element of the mix retains some of its identity. We see it often at the word level: alphabet (alpha+beta), manscaping (man+landscaping), but words are far from its limit. The concept works with food--brilliantly, here:

Quebexican food

Please, all you punny readers, help me come up with portmanteau recipes like the Quebexican ones. I wasn't quite up to that level this week. But, while making kichdi, I thought of...something.

Kichdi is a very flexible recipe of rice, dal and whatever vegetables and spices you like (or happen to have on hand), cooked together. In some ways, it's like my brain and the "di" mix-up; if you randomly switch out one ingredient for another, the kichdi will still taste pretty much like kichdi. But like "Why This Kolavery Di," kichdi is also mixed more intentionally.  We could say it mixes traditional cooking rhythms with non-traditional ingredients, or that it has, in its nature, the ability to incorporate other mixes and less-traditional elements. In fact mine was a remix. I had an entire pint of leftover rice (an unexpected accompaniment to a take-out dinner) to use up.

kichery (kichdi made with celery) 

 

1/4 cup hulled and split mung beans
1/4 cup red lentils
1 cup rice (if you're using cooked rice, use two cups and add it later in the recipe, with the vegetables)
1-inch piece fresh turmeric, peeled and grated (or use dried, powdered turmeric)
1 medium-sized potato, diced
1-2 tomatoes (or, if you're like me and you forgot to buy tomatoes, about 1/2 cup tomato puree or unflavored canned diced tomatoes)
about 3/4 small head cauliflower, cut into bite-sized pieces (or, in this case, half cauliflower, half celery, also cut into bite-sized pieces) (or other vegetables)
generous tablespoon mustard or other vegetable oil
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 green chili pepper (from an Indian grocery store, or use a serrano chili)
1/4-1/2-inch piece fresh ginger, grated

Assess your green chili pepper. If you have a very hot variety, split it lengthwise but, otherwise, leave it whole. You'll use it for flavoring but perhaps not eat the whole thing (or even part of it--just remove it from teh finished dish). I happened to have only Korean green chilies, which are on the mild side. I decided to slice mine thinly and leave all of it in the kichdi.

Pick over the mung beans and lentils, wash them and put them, with the rice and turmeric, in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add water to cover them by about an inch and a half. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about ten minutes.

Add the potato and tomato. Simmer for ten more minutes.

Add the cauliflower and celery, and about a half cup of hot water. Cook ten more minutes. Check periodically during the cooking time to make sure there's enough liquid; you don't want the dal to catch on the bottom of the pot. This kichdi has a porridge-like consistency.

While the cauliflower and celery cook, heat the oil in a small pan over medium heat. If you've never tempered spices in hot oil before, make sure the pan has a lid, and make sure you're holding the pan's lid in one hand. The lid isn't necessary for this process, but the hot oil may spatter, so you want to be sure you can put a lid on the pan to protect yourself. Test the oil by putting a drop of water in it. The oil is hot enough when the water sputters immediately. At this point, drop the cumin, chili pepper and ginger into the hot oil. Let the spice mixture sizzle for about a minute, then remove it from the heat and add it to the pot of kichdi. Add salt to taste.

My kichdi is undercooked, by traditional standards, especially the vegetables. Such is the delight of a flexible recipe; we can add or adjust to make it a better fit. I would like to think that language is similar. Those who know me have heard me say (more than once, no doubt) that language is an inexact form of communication. I might change "inexact" to "flexible," now that I think about it. Whether through random mix-up or calculated mixing, there's more than one way to say something. And, of course, when it comes to expression, words are far from the limit.






*We'll come back to this particular mix another week