Carrot Top

Facts? You want facts from me, Genny? I have to face sober reality?! Okay. . .a bit later, though. This Little Red Hen has to clean the house and go grocery shopping before sitting down to write anything that is longer than a sentence or two.

In thinking of this forgotten food, I'm reminded of a saying from my youth, rarely heard anymore: "Make yourself useful!"

Goodness. I'll have to hunt up that recipe. Those were the olden days, when women were allowed to leach tannin and even sharpen the very atmosphere with their tongues. It's likely that I used that method. Thank goodness for St. John's, though I detest galantines of any form or flavor after having made too many. Making too many galantines can become like a science-fiction movie at best, a horror movie at worst. All that meat. Brandy. Meat. Brandy. A pistachio or two. Your fishy duck comment reminded me of "Bombay Duck", though. Haven't heard of that lately, but then of course there's not a lot of ancient colonels sitting before the fire in ratty leather armchairs at the club telling old tales here in Virginia.

Ah. . .don't worry about that bubble, Zoe. I have plenty more where that came from. Nice recipes, there. I would try the pine-needle thing, maybe. First I'd have to catch my woodsman. I don't *do* pine-needle collection. (Too messy on the fingernails, you know. )

Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah.

Crying shame, too. My acorn hoe-cakes used to go so well with the pemmican I used to pick up at the corner deli, which to my great disgust, they do not carry anymore.

And it has definitely been more than a couple hundred years since I had a delightful dish of roast swan brought to the table, re-decorated in its own feathers. Though that might have been a good solution to this modern-day occurence that I just read of. . .

In ancient times, when nomads crossed the deserts on camels (before there were tourists or cameras following them ) they used to carry dried-milk cubes. You know, like. . you milk your camel, then allow the milk to curdle in the sun, then press it somehow into dried little hard things that you could pop in your mouth like just so many Raisinets when you might need sustenance on a long journey. There's a reference in Reay Tannahill's "Food in History". Lots of good forgotten Ancient Roman foods, too. Probably for good reason.

You have become my romantic heroine in one fell swoop, Carolyn. Meatballs roasted on the open carburetor and all. Keep up the good work.

Yeah. I didn't see that movie, but just looked it up on the "official site". Six hunky hovering guys and one sultry Charlize Theron, huh? Who needs meatballs, I ask you.

I love the idea of Mini Coopers barreling through a desert, with meatballs as the meal! Great visual image for a movie script. . .

Your description of the cooking method reminded me very much of Maine lobster bakes - a pit is dug near the border of the beach. You then line it with large flat rocks, build a fire on top of the rocks with lots of driftwood (or wood brought, or charcoal, but naturally driftwood gives the best romantic feel), let it burn down to redhot coals, throw some seaweed from the beach on top of that, then add lobsters, corn on the cob, little potatoes, and maybe some clams. Cover with more seaweed and/or the soil you'd dug out before (sometimes with a tarp underneath) and bake till done. The recipe you mention also reminds me of the French way of cooking bass with fennel leaves, outdoors. The pine needle element is surprising in the recipe. . .I'm wondering if it is a *real* recipe or if the author was using the metaphor of the slightly-angry, disconcerting pine-needle feel and taste on the otherwise-delicious food to add to the mood of her story. . .(people who like "facts" often think these conjunctions completely nuts, but people who use intuition as a path through life can see the relationship ) P.S. Was it actually pine needles that was in Paula Wolfert's recipe? It would be sad to have to disprove my romantic, metaphoric point with mere facts. . . but if so, I wonder where the recipe came from, geographically, and the "why" of pine needles as opposed to any other thing that could be used. . .flavor-wise, pine would not be my choice if there were anything else at all growing around the area that could be used. . .pine has that scent to me of clean linoleum floors. . .

I admit to being disappointed that there are only two guys left. (If there were even *one* place like that in most other places, there would be a sign on all approaching highways offering "Tours! Come Have a Real Pickle!" perhaps with a picture of a grinning man edging a pickle towards your face as it drove by in the car. . .so that says something, anyway. . .the pickle places quietly (heh) survive. ) Now if someone took the pickle-making idea, expanded it into including all the varieties of ethnic pickles in one place (the kimchee of one neighborhood, the peppers and onions of another, etc etc) added a counter where you could have a good coffee or tea or maybe a glass of "vin ordinaire" with maybe some good breads ordered in from nearby for sale, or at least a selection of good crackers of every variety, that could really be fun. But not the same, I guess - not the same flavor of the old pickle places. Forgive me, I am just waking up and dreaming of new pickles to get into without having had enough coffee yet. P.S. I can't tell you how much I miss this, not living there anymore. It's like a longing for the sound or smell of the ocean would be to someone that grew up near that. . .

A bread without a crust! A crust with no crumb?! Is like. . . A bird without a wing A bee without a sting A song that can not sing A diamond without a ring A flung without a fling!

I think it is the seedpods. Somehow somewhere I heard or read the word pickled nasturtium "buds", though, that I'm sure of. . .and it has stuck forevermore. I'll keep my eyes out for where I found the term. (Must be a book. )

I love pickled herring, actually. Yum. But aren't pike related to sturgeon? Might get some decent caviar to pickle from those babes. Pickled herring goes very well with pickled beets.

Let's see if I can fix that up. Preachers like flowers, don't they? We'll think of him and send along in mind some pickled nasturtium buds for his pleasure. I think we'll be right with whomever it is he talks to, now.

If you are a green tomato, you do not need to worry about your bee-hind. It is all part of your charm. Have you ever pickled meat, Rachel? I would guess you've done beet-juice pickled eggs. . .pickled meats are so very very old-fashioned, aren't they? I've always had in mind to pickle a pig's foot or two.

Eh. I was merely being romantic in an off moment.

I was reminded while reading racheld's story in the Daily Gullet that I have not been to the Lower East side to wander through pickle barrels for a very very long time. I'm assuming some places have closed, though I'm also assuming that some places will never ever close their doors, that their existence is as rooted to those streets as a huge rock would be to some other landscapes. And rightly so. What shops are open? Which ones are good? Have any new pickles hit the scene?

I've used both, but don't insult easily. A plastic wrap just literally won't be able to insult me. It may elicit feelings of pity, but really not that to any great extent either.

Compared to some of the other things I think when I first meet people, that thought is rather tame. The only recipe I ever remember being used in my family for pickles was Maine Mustard Pickles. Whew. An acquired taste, perhaps. But good. Quick little fridge pickles that get eaten right up are mostly what I like to make. Though if I had an old-fashioned pantry with a Dutch door I'd just have to make pickles in the summertime, lots of them. Pickle-making, to me, is an architecturally-driven process.

I really like that you've chosen to write about pickles, Rachel, for they really are an endlessly fascinating subject. Like. . .sometimes when I meet someone for the first time I say to myself "Hmmm. If you were a pickle, I wonder what sort of pickle you would be." Myself, often I feel like that little piece of cauliflower that somehow got stuck in with the sliced cucumbers by mistake. But I'd secretly like to be a pickled green tomato - so earthy, exotic, mysterious you know. I think you can tell a lot about a person by not only the sorts of pickles they eat, but also the sort of pickle they would be if they were a pickle.

Who does the cooking in your home? Do you eat foods from take-out or restaurants or buy ready-made foods often? Do you cook absolutely "from-scratch" using unprocessed ingredients often? Are you single, married or living with other(s)? Do you have children? What sort of work do you do? Do you feel you have enough time to cook the sorts of foods you like to eat? I'm interested in the questions of time, culture, society, money and class. As they relate to food and how it fits into our lives, of course. As a question for "extra credit" , is the form of your daily cooking/eating/dining different than it was in your family when you were growing up, and if so, how is it different?

I'll bet there's even a Pickle Fairy in your kitchen, isn't there, Rachel. Shhhh. . . don't say her name out loud - she might become startled, and fall right into the very pickling juices and vittles that she's protecting! I'm sure she has lovely long green-and-gold hair, and that her perfume wafts the incense of spices and mustard. She's hiding right there, behind your sentences, with a tiny knowing twinkling smile.