M.F.K. Fisher's How To Cook a Wolf: Chapter 3

 

How to Distribute Your Virtue

This chapter was packed with a load of ideas on how to economize in the home as well as in the kitchen.  

But first she begins with a strange story of a man who was poor and who gradually decreased his cost of living until he found himself at the end, licking a plate clean because he hadn't any water to wash it with.  And that was the straw that broke him.  He determined to take a loan, go live in a proper boarding house where food and water were provided and never again lived in such an impoverished state.

There may be a lesson in this...At least it proves that when he is living with himself a man can do things that in front of other people might seem ugly, or undignified, if he needs to in order to live at all.

Reading of this, I was reminded of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, in which the genteel women lead impoverished lives.  There were two sisters with whom the narrator is staying who tell of their having two candles each evening.  Indeed, they did.  However, she soon learned their secret.  They burned only one candle until it was lower than the other and then lit the other and snuffed out the one.  In this way the two candles were burned to equal heights, but never did they actually burn both candles at one time except for the purpose of lighting the other.

Essentially, this chapter is a jumble of tips and hints.  She mentions the use of hay boxes to cut fuel costs.   It is an old-fashioned practice to use boxes packed with hay, then a pot brought to boil, wrapped well in a thick coating of newspaper and then blanket and placed in a nest of hay, more piled on top and the box shut.  I saw this method of cookery demonstrated in the War Kitchen videos.  She recommends pressure cookers for quick cookery that uses even less fuel.  Today's modern Instapots are nothing more than electric pressure cookers.

She mentions that another economy would be to stretch food by adding other things to it.  The suggestions include adding bread crumbs to scrambled eggs, which she felt was acceptable and then mentions adding 1 cup puffed cereal to three eggs when making souffle for four people but adds 'at least three of whom, I feel impelled to add, you dislike intensely and hope never to see again. 

She goes on to discuss the cutting of sugar in jams and jellies and stretching fats such as butter or shortening.   Here I think she says something that I would agree with: I have always felt I'd prefer too little of the best to plenty of an inferior kind.

Here are a few of her hints that I felt were rather genius:

If you eat much bacon, save the fat, and pour it always into a metal container and then pour water over it.  The burned food particles will sink into the water, the fat will rise as it cools, and be clean and easy to use.  She suggests storing the fat in a cool dark place, but not in the fridge.

In the section on the icebox, she urges readers to keep it meticulously clean and then tells how best to store items.  One suggestion I thought would be very useful was that of washing, draining, and then putting into tightly covered jars green onions, parsley and sturdy herbs.

Add a teaspoonful of butter, suet or oil to pasta and rice when cooking.  This is meant to keep it from boiling over but in the case of the pasta she suggests (shades of Tamar Adler) saving the cooking liquid and adding in a bit of onion, some bouillon cubes and make a nutritious broth that would shame nobody.  She recommends cooking twice what you need of pasta, rice, or potatoes whenever you are cooking either of these because it requires no more heat to cook twice as much and you can reheat easily and quickly.

Another suggestion is to fill the oven full when you use it, in order to save on fuel.  She recommends a pan of apples always be baked alongside whatever else is in the oven, because they can be used as a side at breakfast or any other meal or used as dessert.   Other suggestions are potatoes which may be baked for meals or side dishes later in the week, or even to toast walnuts in the shell to be served a tthe end of the evening meal.

She goes on to add that one might also add in a pan of stale bread to make into crumbs or melba toast.  I'd add croutons to her list of suggestions but will share that whenever we have leftover bread these days, I always manage to make a pan of breadcrumbs or croutons if I'm not going to use the bread to make strata.   And one more hint for stale bread from Chef Jacques Pepin is to quickly dunk a loaf of stale bread, or rolls, in water, then pop into the oven.  He swears they are like fresh bread all over again.

She suggests a large Dutch oven on stove top is economical as well with an array of vegetables cooked all at once (in separate packets I am assuming) but she also says after that even cooking one after the other but reusing the same water to steam them all and then saving the resultant vegetable steam water and adding tomato juice or steeping parsley stems and adding that liquid or a squeeze of lemon juice to the vegetable broth.  

You can still live with grace and wisdom...

And that is the closing thought I pulled from this chapter.  We so often forget in our pursuit of a frugal and thrifty life, whether it's fully our choosing or by necessity that grace and wisdom do indeed go hand in hand.  I think of bloggers, Brandy @The Prudent Homemaker and Annabel @The Birds are Nesting on the Farm.  Both of them have made their homes and gardens, their yards and their persons lovely and gracious and yet they are both great economists who intelligently look and listen and learn as they go along.

The future chapters are filled with recipes.  I shall likely not share each chapter in a separate post as I have the first three chapters but will combine highlights that I found of import in a sort of combined posting that I'll do in two parts.  

I hope you all are enjoying this bit of sharing.  If so, please follow these posts through the end of posting this month.  I have a surprise.

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