Ruth Reichl's Blog, page 27

And Now.... A WWII Recipe that's Delicious!

In my novel, Delicious!, Lulu's mother engages in a Thrift Contest with the other women working at the Goodyear Plant; the idea is to reward the woman with the most patriotically spare lunches.  It's an idea I came upon in one of the Department of Agriculture pamphlets, which the government put out to encourage people to ration their food. The prize was an entire ham, an almost unheard of luxury during the war.

But of course once you'd won your ham, it would have been your patriotic duty to parcel it out in little bits, making it last.  I went through all my WW II cookbooks, looking for thrifty ways with ham. And there, hidden among the Peanutbutter Lima Loaves, the Liver Gems and Eggplant Puddings, I finally found a recipe that sounded like something I'd like to eat.  I was so excited that I ran right into the kitchen and made a batch.  They're good!

Ham Turnovers

Filling:

½ cup finely chopped ham

2 tablespoons pickle relish

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons mustard

Dough:

1 cup flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons shortening

1/3 cup milk.

Preheat oven to 375.

Stir together filling ingredients.  

Mix dry ingredients and cut in shortening.  Stir in milk.  Roll out to a 16 inch square. Cut into 4 squares.

Put ¼ of ham mixture on each square, fold over into a triangle, press edges together and place on a greased baking sheet.  Bake until golden, about 20 minutes. 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Weird WW II Recipe

I found this recipe in a group of war time recipes torn from a magazine.  The page had a date, but the name of the magazine is lost to history. 

I tried it because I imagined Lulu, the little girl in my novel Delicious! finding this recipe and thinking she would try it.  "Mother will love this dish!" she would have said to herself when she read the ingredients.

She would have been right. Mother wasn't very adventurous, and she probably would have appreciated the inoffensive, eager to please nature of the eggplant.  But Lulu, I'm pretty sure, would have been bored. 

 

Eggplant Pudding

1 large eggplant

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

½ onion, minced (1/2 cup)

¼ teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

3 tablespoons cooked rice

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons breadcrumbs

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees 

Boil the eggplant in salted water, stirring occasionally until it is fork tender, 15 minutes. (I found it took half an hour, and even then it wasn't completely tender.)

Cut a horizontal slice from the top of the eggplant and carefully scoop out the eggplant with a spoon, leaving ¼ inch of pulp all around. Finely chop the pulp and set aside to drain.

Melt the butter in a skillet and sauté the onion, salt, a few grinds of pepper for 5 minutes.  Mix in the parsley. Transfer to a bowl until cool, and mix with the eggplant pulp, rice, egg yolks, and breadcrumbs. Moisten with a little cream if necessary. (I did not find it necessary; it was moist enough without the cream.)

Fill the eggplant shell with the mixture and bake for 25 minutes until golden.

 

Notes:

Ever try to boil a whole eggplant?  A very strange process; it wanted to float like a boat, and I kept having to push it down to submerge it in water.  It took half an hour  to cook all the way through, not the 15 advertised minutes, and even then, it wasn't completely soft. Still, I managed to scoop out all the flesh.

It wasn't bad. But it was very bland, and having made it once I don't think I'd bother to do it twice. Lulu, I imagine, would have been disappointed that she didn't have something more delicious after all that trouble.  "Eggplant," she would have thought, "surely there are better things to do with it." And then she would have written to James Beard and asked for his advice.

A Few Random and Delicious Bites

A brief stop at The Lobster Place in Chelsea Market, before going upstairs to tape Close Up at NY One with Sam Roberts.  I love the energy of this place, which is almost always packed with people tearing steamed lobsters apart with their fingers, slurping oysters at the bar, eating sushi or simply browsing the extensive seafood offerings. I thought I was just looking around, but when I saw whole sea urchins at the oyster bar, I couldn't resist. 

Even though they weren't as well-cleaned as they might have been, each fat orange lobe was sweet, sexy, singing of the sea.  It felt like the most indulgent treat - just the thing on a gray New York day.

How can something as simple as a broccoli rabe frittata be so satisfying?  Stopped in to meet some friends at The Breslin, thinking I'd have just a few bites of this puffy little egg cake before moving on. It turned out to be so delicious I had to order my own. Deceptively simple and utterly seductive, this was gently bitter, soft yet slightly crisp, spare and somehow rich.  I litterally couldn't stop eating it. Then I had to steal some of this spectacular Caesar salad, dripping with anchovies, larded with crisp croutons and wonderful finger food.

 

Wandering down Elizabeth Street on my way to the Leonard Lopate show, I walked by the new Black Seed Bagel.  I'd heard there was always a line. There wasn't. Impossible to pass up this opportunity to get in the door. It's a tiny place, spare and very crowded, and I stood for a while, studying the offerings.  In the end I decided to go old school. This is the #1.

I like the size of the bagel, the density, and the way each one is baked over fire. Such a relief not to be faced with those airy baseballs that pretend to be bagels in New York these days.  Small and compact, this one was delicious right out of the oven. But I can't help wondering what the bagels taste like once they cool down.  Next time I'll get some to go.

Traveled on to Boston, where I ate one of the most delicious sandwiches of my life: heaps of rare roastbeef with crisp shallots, cheddar and Thousand Island dressing on a lovely little brioche from Cutty's in Brookline. It was so delicious - and I was so hungry - that I'd eaten the whole thing before I thought to take a picture. But I'll be back for another.

But  here's my favorite flavor of the week.  

After our talk at the Brattle Theater, Barbara Lynch took me to B&G Oysters.  The oysters were perfect: cold, gorgeously opened, spilling with liquor. These clams, however, were even better. Fried Ipswich clams are my guiltiest pleasure. I've loved them my whole life. When the bellies are fried just right they turn into a kind of crisp, mysterious clam pudding. The B&G clams were so spectacular I ate two orders almost single-handedly, and I know I'll be thinking about them all week. I wish I'd eaten more when I had the chance.  

Just one of many reasons to go back to Boston. 

 

Things I Love: Real Popcorn

If you’ve stepped into a movie theater in the last twenty years, chances are you’ve been lured into buying a bag of day-glo popcorn. It's often delicious, especially when doused in that fake butter. But consider something I just learned: the oil that’s poured over the kernels before it’s popped can cause skin rashes in concentrated form. Unsettled yet? A medium bag of popcorn and a medium soda have the same number of calories as three Big Macs. It’s hard to imagine why.  But it certainly doesn’t make me want to eat the stuff.

But I love popcorn.  And so I make my own.

My favorite is Rancho Gordo red crimson popping corn. (I wish it popped red, but sadly it turns white with heat.) I haven’t been able to get it for an entire year, but I just discovered that it’s back in stock, and I can't stop making it.  This is popcorn with minimal husk, and it actually tastes like corn. Pop it on the stovetop in a little neutral oil, drizzle with real melted butter, and finish with smoked paprika and salt. Or grate some parmesan or cheddar cheese over the top (it clings). Refreshingly straightforward. Totally addictive. 

From the Forties: A Way with Green Tomatoes

Among the recipes I considered putting into my novel, Delicious!, this was one of my favorites. 

After Lulu harvested the last ripe Climbing Trip-L-Crop Tomatoes there were a lot of green ones left sitting on the vine.  In the cool of the Ohio Autumn, some simply never ripened.  But the war was on, everyone was using every edible bit, and Lulu didn't want to waste them. She went to her Department of Agriculture pamphlets and found they suggested this recipe for green tomatoes left on the vine.

What I love about this recipe is that it's a perfect example of what novice cooks had to contend with. This is exactly as printed in a pamphlet for wartime ration cooking. The recipe works.... but only if you fiddle with it. As a beginning cook, Lulu would have ended up with a liquid mess.  

Green Tomato Mincemeat

4 quarts finely chopped green tomatoes (about 30 tomatoes )

2 quarts peeled and finely chopped tart apples (about 8-10 apples)

1 pound raisins

4 tablespoons minced lemon or orange peel

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

2 ½ cups brown sugar

2 ½ cups sugar

¾ cup vinegar

½ cup lemon juice

Combine the tomatoes, apples, raisins, lemon or orange peel, cinnamon, salt, allspice, cloves, brown sugar, sugar, vinegar, and lemon juice in a large pot.

Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until thickened, about 2 hours.

If the mixture is still not sufficiently thickened, raise the heat and allow it to boil gently, stirring constantly until ready.

Notes: 

I tested the recipe as written and ended up with something sadly soupy. It certainly did not need those 2 cups of water. The apples, tomatoes, vinegar and lemon juice provide plenty of  liquid. I simmered it for a good two hours, which should have been enough.  Then, disgusted, I strained the liquid off, reduced it separately, poured it back into the pot and gently boiled the mixture, stirring constantly so it didn't burn.  

Would Lulu have known to do this?  Probably not. I think she would have simply sat there, staring at that sorry mess. 

The Weekend that Was

James Beard Award weekend in New York is always exhilarating and exhausting. Endless parties lasting late into the night.  Chefs filling up every restaurant.  Too much food. Too much wine.  I love it.

But the highlight of my weekend was a stroll around the lower east side, visiting my favorite food places with a group of new friends.  We began at Katz's - of course - and some of their tender, spicy, irresistible pastrami.  Just walking into that enormous room packed with raucous people makes me insanely happy.  The walls throb with that intense scent of smoke, salt, pepper, garlic, spices and then, somewhere, like a reverberating backnote, the richness of beef.

Afterward we went down the street to Russ and Daughters, where we ate - what else? - some herring,  while Niki Russ Federman told great stories about growing up in the shop she now runs.

Then it was on to Deluxe Foods, a fantastic Chinese market where we feasted on 

roast duck and the most delicious roasted pork belly.  Not to mention tendon, with its wonderful texture, and scallion chicken so soft and silky it literally melted in our mouths.  We ended with their spectacular just-made char shiu.

Then it was on to Di Palo's,

where we drank wine and ate spectacular cheeses for a very long time.  A new discovery for me: Camembert di Bufala - a rich, runny cheese that seemed less like its namesake and much more like the infinitely more delicious Epoisses.

By then it was late, and dark, and I said good-bye to the group and walked up the street to Estella, where almost every table was occupied by someone who'd come to town for the Beard awards. (Restaurant people included Nick Kokonas (Alinea), Daniel Patterson (Coi), and Sean Brock (Husk, etc). 

We were all there because the food is so impressive. Fascinating flavor combinations and very precise and careful cooking.  My pictures, I'm sorry to say, are terrible: this mussel escabeche is the best of the lot, which tells you something.  This seemed more like a panzanella made with mussels than a true escabeche, but it was wonderful. 

So was beef tartare, studded with crisp little bits of pungent sunchoke,  and kampachi tartare popping with tart tiny squares of apple and singing with yuzu.  There was a wonderfully musky aroz negro, dense with squid ink, and this celery salad, dotted with mint and cave-aged cheese:

 

and these lamb ribs scented with charmoula:

Lovely food. Lovely evening.

On Sunday, more food people gathered for a friends and family brunch at the new Russ and Daughters Cafe. It's a lovely place, respectful of its origins, lovingly put together (note the marble floors, the poppyseed wallpaper in the bathroom, the comfortable stools). The counter in front looks a innocent as an old-fashioned soda fountain, but it actually functions more like a bar where elaborate drinks are carefully concocted. This cherry shrub was shot through with hints of pepper:

The food is also very respectful of history. Lots of smoked salmon and herring. Some chopped liver. Matzo brei. Eggs. And also this rich, smoky, delicous whitefish chowder:

Leaving, we walked across the island in sunshine. Then, in the middle of Chinatown, sun still shining bright in the sky, it suddenly started to rain. Everyone looked up, startled, and laughed. We were wet by the time we arrived at Barbuto, where chefs drank endless glasses of rose, ate lovely little tidbits - and talked about where they were going to eat dinner.

Me?  I ended up at The Breslin with these people - and 20 or so other friends - eating this crisp little roast piglet. 

And just because I like this picture, here I am a week ago at the Time 100 Gala, toasting honoree Alice Waters.

 

 

Where I Write

Been doing a lot of interviews lately, and one of the questions that keeps coming up is this: "Where do you write?"

This is the answer: a little cabin in the woods in the foothills of the Berkshires. From my window I can look down at the pond below and the catskills off in the distance.  Deer come crashing through the trees. Birds perch on the roof. Occasionally a chipmunk hops up the steps and peers inside.

There's no internet, and the only heat is a wood-burning stove.  My daily ritual begins with building a fire, coaxing the flames to catch the logs, then making sure it doesn't die.  Amazing how much heat you can get from one small stove; on even the snowiest days, by the time dark falls it's so warm I have to open up the windows. 

It's peaceful in here.  I sit in this quiet place, waiting for the characters to come and talk to me, tell me what they're thinking. There is no place I would rather be. 

 

A WWII Recipe Classic

Woolton pie was THE dish that every British person thought of when remembering what they'd eaten during the war. Named after the Minister of Food, Frederick Marquis, 1st Lord Woolton, it was that beloved British savory, the meatpie - with no meat and no pie. What it had was lots of vegetables.

Lord Woolton was a great showman. He was often photographed eating his namesak dish with great apparent pleasure. 

Woolton Pie

The Official Recipe, as published in the Times of London, April 26, 1941 

Take 1 Ib each of diced potatoes, cauliflower, swedes (ie. turnips), and carrots; 

Three or Four spring onions;

One teaspoonful of vegetable extract and

One teaspoonful of oatmeal.

 

Cook all together for ten minutes with just enough water to cover.

Stir occasionally to prevent the mixture from sticking.

Allow to cool; put into a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley and cover with a crust of potatoes or wholemeal pastry.

Bake in a moderate oven until the pastry is nicely brown and serve hot with brown gravy.

  

The American translation, as printed in many wartime cookbooks. This is the version Lulu would most likely have made.

Woolton Pie

1 lb potatoes

2 lb carrots

1 lb mushrooms

1 small leek

2oz margarine or chicken fat

2 spring onions

Salt, pepper, nutmeg, chopped parsley

Bunch of herbs made of 1 small bay leaf, 1 small spring of thyme, parsley and celery.

 

Peel the potatoes and carrots, and cut them into slices the thickness of an old penny. Wash them well and dry in a tea-cloth. Fry them separately in a frying pan with a little chicken fat.

Do the same for the mushrooms, adding the finely chopped onions and leeks.

Mix them together and season with salt, pepper, a little nutmeg and roughly chopped parsley.

Fill a pie dish with this mixture, placing the bundle of herbs in the middle. Moisten with a little giblet stock or water. Allow to cool. Cover with a pastry crust made from half beef suet or chicken fat and half margarine.

Bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introducing Lulu

 

 

 

 

I had never heard of the Women's Land Army, the U.S. Crop Corps or Victory Farm Volunteers. But one day, rummaging through a used book store, I came upon a huge stash of Department of Agriculture pamphlets from World War II. Unable to resist, I snatched it up and took it home, reading with fascination. 

As one pamphlet began: "The farmer has one of the Nation's most important jobs. Uncle Sam has called on him to raise food for our fighting men, our war workers and our allies. His sons and hired man may be in the armed forces or working in war plants. More food than ever must be produced with fewer people to do it.  Everybody who can must help!"

I began doing research, collecting everything I could on the subject. It was an intriguing moment in American history, a time when everyone became a farmer. For me it was even more than that; it was the beginning of a novel.  Through the research I began to imagine a spirited little girl in Akron Ohio who yearns to get into the fields and do her bit for her country.  Through the pamphlets and ration cookbooks  (I'll be posting a few really hilarious recipes), antique seed catalogs and first-person accounts of women on the homefront during the war, I slowly began learning what Lulu's life was like. As the character became more real to me, she started writing letters to James Beard, asking for his help. When my heroine, Billie Breslin, discovered the letters almost 70 years later, she found them so compelling that she began a kind of scavenger hunt, trying to find them all. 

World War II was an amazing time for the women on the homefront. The men went off to war for years. There was no internet, no Skype, and very few letters.  Left at home, the women went to work in war plants, counted ration points, saved their fat to make ammunition. And the children?  Like Lulu, they learned to raise Victory Gardens. And they learned to cook. 

I had a great time researching Delicious!, and over the next few weeks I'll be posting more of my discoveries. 

Related articles

Womens Land Army Tribute
Fact File : Women's Land Army
Pitch in and Help! Learn about the Women's Land Army

Things I Love

They're smaller. They're tanner. They're tastier.  Turkish pistachios pack a punch the California kind lack.  I buy mine at Russ and Daughters, but they're available in many other places.  

One warning: don't even begin to buy them unless you're willing to become completely addicted.They're that good.