M.F.K. Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf: Chapters 4-7

 

As I said in the last post the following chapters are filled with recipes and those I am not going to share.  However, there are good points made in each chapter that I would like to share.  Note please that the order of the chapters makes no sense at all in my opinion, but they are presented as Fisher wrote them in her book.

Chapter 4: How to Boil Water

Do you know how to boil water?  I'm going to confess to you that per what Fisher has to say, I did not.  There's boiled water and then there is a point where water has been cooked to death and isn't fit for a thing or so Fisher assures her readers.

First, she gives us Webster's definition of water, which I thought rather silly, but she does make the point that water comes from a tap, a well or spring.  She touts the privilege of those who have water from a well (I nod here) or spring (I've never had spring water except from a sulfur spring and I daresay that was not the water to which she refers.)  Our well water is indeed wonderfully clean and clear and has no mineral flavor but comes up cool and refreshing all year round.

Water boils at 212F.  According to Fisher, water is boiling when it bubbles with energy and makes a rocky rather than a murmuring noise.  I concur with that as well.  But it is here where I learned something.  At the point where water has come to a boil and is boiling energetically, it is BOILED.  At this point, she feels that the quality of the water is decreasing the longer you continue to boil it, becoming "flat, exhausted, tasteless."

Fisher believes that one must turn it off at that point when it comes to a rollicking boil.  Make a pot of tea if you must but turn it off and when you need boiling water again, you would then turn on the pot or kettle and bring it up to a boil once more.

Now if you think about it, she's making good sense.  Who of us doesn't turn down a pot once it's come to a boil, whether we're making pasta, jelly, rice, a vegetable, broth or meat?  Indeed, such is written in the directions on packets of pasta and rice and is in most recipes as well.

At this point, she transitions from water to soup.  A natural progression if you ask me.  Who of us, ever wants to drink or eat just plain boiled water?  Fisher surmises that soup, after roasted meat, is likely one of the oldest cooked foods on earth and it came about when someone tossed in the bone from the roasted meat, a few scraps of meat, a root vegetable and a handful of herbs.

Fisher reports upon the long winded and elaborate making of 'stock' in the proper French way.  She laments that these methods will have long since disappeared in the future.  They have! No home cook has time to make an elaborate stock as prep for the meals ahead, but she also acknowledges to make stock in the manner of the great chefs would not just take time, but a good deal of money and the end result would be a steady diet of consommé and nothing but consommé for the poor who make them because they'd have no money left to make anything else.

Jacques Pepin has made mention several times of his mother's soup pot which simmered day in and out at the back of the range and into which she tossed bones, leftovers bits of this and that, lettuce leaves, bits of unused vegetables, etc.   He never yet has complained of how the concoction tasted.  Fisher decries this method feeling that the pot should be cleaned and started afresh weekly.  I confess, I lean more towards her way of thinking, though I've yet to have a permanent or even semi-permanent, soup pot.  Just lately I've been contemplating such a thing.

From here Fisher begins to delve into a variety of soup types and recipes for what she considers the best and most reasonable for both budget and time: Chilled, Chowders, Onion, Chicken, Minestrone and Vegetable.  The chapter then ends finally with a reminder that canned soup too can be quite good and urges her readers to stock a pantry shelf with really good well-known soups and not to fear combining them.   We've pretty much limited our tastes to Campbell's Tomato Soup which John prefers over all others.  Otherwise, I make my own soups.  I do keep 'cream of' canned soups, the cheapest store brands, on hand for recipes but we never eat those.  I like to stir in a little pesto or crushed basil and a sprinkle of parmesan at times.  At others I will do something that my mother did: a that bit of leftover cooked rice.  

I keep a few cans of Chicken noodle soup on hand, because John feels it is a good cold remedy when made as his ex-wife used to prepare it.  Her secret was to add in garlic, onion and green onions.  I heard about this soup for years and years and when I had a chance I asked her about her 'secret' recipe.  She looked much amused and said "Start with a can of Chicken Noodle soup..."   Here I'd been making the man good homemade chicken soup when he was ill and what he craved was canned chicken noodle...Go figure!

I am reminded of a soup recipe I've seen in magazine advertisements from the 1930's and into the 1960's called Soup (or Potage) Mongol that is a combination of split pea and tomato soups.   I've never had it myself.  In fact, I can say honestly, I've never combined canned soups to create another soup except perhaps to combine cream of chicken with chicken noodle when one of us is ill and happens to also be the cook of the household.  Not adventurous at all but I wondered if any of you have combined canned soups to create another soup.

Admittedly for myself, soup tends to lean towards vegetable, vegetable beef, chicken noodle, chicken and rice and chili in our household with an occasional pot of Kale and Farro soup (in which I have never used kale but always sub in Spinach), or cream of potato.  

Chapter 5:  How to Greet the Spring

I was expecting a chapter on greens...Having heard all my life of my grandmother's foraging for dandelions and tender leaves of poke in the early spring when they were so very hungry for fresh green foods, or how good tender green peas were, planted in winter (that's when we sow them here), or the first spears of asparagus which grows wild at roadside here in my area.  I expected I had correctly discovered what Fisher was about to write.

Not at all what this chapter refers to.   The clue comes at the end of the chapter when she refers to a Japanese poem about a fisherman catching the first bonito of the season.  Apparently, bonito is a fish very similar to mackerel or tuna, for those of you who were as clueless as I. Fisher is writing about fish.   

Here I will share the bit of history gathered from the book that I did not know and have never really heard. During WWII (and for a while in the aftermath) many fleets of fishing boats were safely in harbor and fish became quite scarce, both fresh and canned.

At Granny's it was often catfish, breaded in cornmeal and fried in cooking oil.  When we ate fish depended upon when Grandaddy had gone fishing.  At home, Mama's version of fish was anything already breaded and frozen and reheated.  John prefers the same himself.  He can rarely be induced to eat fish.  Fish is neglected in our household, but I do like it very well and will occasionally treat myself to a fish dinner when I'm out with Mama or on my own.  It is not however, a 'spring' dish or even common in our homes.

It is Fisher's considered opinion that fish should be fresh (if caught by the one about to prepare it still better) and then either grilled or broiled.   Her next thought is of fried fish but not battered and overcooked.  It is best lightly breaded with flour/cornmeal and cooked only in either butter or bacon grease.   

She goes on to share a plethora of recipes for canned fish (tuna, salmon and shrimp).  Her sole reminder before sharing those recipes is that canned fish has already been cooked and therefore needs only the gentlest of heat to warm it through.

We often ate canned fish when I was growing up, but generally tuna or salmon.  I like a good salmon patty to this day.  I was less keen on my former mother-in-law's preference of canned mackerel.  

For John, tuna pasta salad is a must in the hot months, and it is a recipe he himself brought to this marriage.  I expanded upon it by extending it still further for our hungry hoard with a plethora of freshly diced vegetables.   I have made salmon cakes in various ways but he's no great fan of them.  I've been thinking that I could do the same with canned tuna.  I have a feeling he'd like that.  And we do enjoy tuna casserole in the winter months as well.

However, reading through Fisher's recipes, I find that while I might feel less than adventurous with my recipes, she hasn't much better ones to offer up either.  That's a consolation.

Chapter 6: How Not to Boil an Egg

I'm not sure that Fisher really likes eggs...For sure, she feels that, as with fish, the best eggs are the freshest possible eggs, but she has a great deal to say about how indigestible they are overall long before she ever gets around to sharing her few recipes on the subject.  

Over the years, I've eaten strictly fresh eggs and store-bought eggs (fresh but not that day's eggs which the author considers the ultimate in freshness).  I prefer the freshly laid ones, but I don't keep chickens, so I am at the mercy of the store.  I often buy about 60 or 75 eggs at a time when they are low in price, which are well within the 'best buy' date when we finish them off but not as fresh as Fisher would like them by any means.

That said, I do agree with her about her theory that not boiling an egg is the best way to boil an egg.  I often use the method of heating water and eggs until they are just simmering hot, then clamp on a lid, cut off the heat and let the egg sit.  I choose to let them sit about 15 minutes.  The eggs are what we would call hardboiled, and the yolk is firm and yellow.  That's my method.  Perhaps you prefer your eggs soft boiled or perhaps you prefer not to boil them at all.

To fry an egg, she recommends bacon grease or butter.  She says any other oil is simply too oily.  Slip the egg from the shell into the hot oil, clamp on a lid, turn off the heat and wait exactly three minutes for the 'perfect egg'...which she admits is not a fried egg and immediately excuses herself and suggests that if you would like to know how to properly fry an egg to ask anyone, consult any book, but not herself.  She says that this is the portion of cookery where she fails repeatedly.  I find that admission refreshing and reassuring.

The rest of the chapter is devoted to recipes for frittata, omelets and scrambled eggs.  It is my personal opinion that Quiche is a wonderful way to enjoy eggs, but John is not at all fond of them.  When he worked I'd make one and eat from it all week long for lunch or supper.  Now he's home, I don't make Quiche at all.

There are a variety of good recipes for eggs.  In my early first married years, I often made Cheese Souffle.  It was impressive and very economical and not nearly as difficult as I'd been led to believe.  While eggs have risen considerably in price, they are still cheaper than meat per serving (I usually figure two eggs per person).  And they do lend themselves well to casseroles.  If you've never tried a casserole that uses deviled eggs, then you really must try it at least once. It's surprisingly good, and comforting, on a blustery spring day.

Chapter 7:  How to Keep Alive

Appetite, a universal wolf.  ~Shakespeare

I expect this quote was the original inspiration for the book's title.

There are times when helpful hints about turning off the gas when not in use are foolish, because the gas has been turned off permanently, or until you can pay the bill.  And you don't care about knowing the trick of keeping bread fresh by putting a cut apple in the box because you don't have bread and certainly not an apple, cut or uncut.  And there is no point in planning to save the juice from canned vegetables because they, and therefore their juices, do not exist.

In other words, the wolf has one paw firmly wedged into what looks like a widening crack in the door.

Fisher suggests if you have no money for food that you borrow some.  She recommends 50c on which she says you might live for at least three days and up to a week.  Remember that was WWII pricing and post war her postscript to this statement was that she was being overly extravagant.  Oh goodness.

However, let it be noted that $20 is doable to feed two or three for nearly a week these days.  I've proved it myself with posts under the tab "Budget" on my blog page.  And even managed reasonably well this year when prices have soared.  Click on the Budget tap at the top of the page to read the Mother Hubbard posts among others.

She recommends one then asks as well to borrow a stove (since you yourself have no gas, remember) paying 10c for the use of the gas, buy10c worth of hamburger, 10c worth of whole grain cereal and 20c upon vegetables.  Grind the vegetables, cook the meat add in the vegetables and cereal all in one pot and eat cold or warmed.   Does not sound the least bit appetizing to me but I will admit that it would keep hunger (the wolf) at bay and that's the important thing.  

Fisher goes on to share a few stories of how others managed during the depression and in the WWs to feed themselves on similarly short rations and survived but is equally quick to point out that a steady diet of such limited means while necessary can be detrimental to the healthiest minds and bodies.  And she is quite right.  Desperate times call for desperate measures but at some point, one must agree that desperate days are ended and reintroduce good solid foods back into one's diet.  

Since in our early married days John and I were feeding ourselves, our family of five children and quite often enough 2-5 guests at our dinner table most nights, meats were stretched hard with starches, and cheap vegetables.  We all gained weight and in the coming years when our means had somewhat improved, we lost it once again, due to eating better.  I think often of those days and I'm grateful that we were able to feed our family and friends who showed up regularly enough, but I would not wish those days to return, and I mean that quite sincerely.  

However, now and then I do pull out some of those recipes and use them, albeit with less starch to stretch the meal and made as the original recipe called them to be made with good wholesome ingredients in proper measure.  Those recipes are still delicious to this day and enjoyed, but perhaps all the more so because it is no longer necessary for the additional pasta/rice/potatoes.

I think that's as far as we shall go today.  I'll pick back up again in a few days' time.

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