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Grumble, grumble

Started by Tom, April 12, 2009, 04:56:05 PM

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Tom

Oh, I yearn for a simply prepared and simply cooked fancy meal.  One where the food has a lot of love involved and served with no pretensions.

When I was little, the Church had a covered dish supper on Wednesday evenings, followed by a prayer meeting.  You wouldn't believe the wonderful concoctions prepared by the ladies of the house. That was back when houses had ladies who's job it was to take care of the house and family.  Some people minimized that job and caused its demise by uttering things like "is that all you do?"  But, I know better. My Grandmother was one of those Homemakers.  No!, not a housekeeper.  A Housekeeper is a commercial job that has one person taking care of another's house.  It's how corporate America and Industry looks upon a family.  In reality a Homemaker is as much a CEO as the head of Ford, and as much an organizer as the head of a Union.   But, I digress.

Eating then was a  social thing. Whether it was Breakfast, Dinner or Supper, you stopped what you were doing, surrounded yourself with friends and family and "broke bread".  The food was prepared to taste like it was what it was.  I mean by that, that the flavors imparted to a dish didn't disguise the flavor of the dish to the point that you had to guess what it was.  Ham tasted like ham.  Beef roast tasted like beef roast.  Beans were beans and squash was squash, coffee was coffee and tea was tea.  Why, I've had coffee recently at a house that prides itself in keeping up with the Joneses and it doesn't taste like coffee.  It taste like vanilla or chocolate or mango or orange juice or some fancy, made-up name like "Almond Toffee Crunch, Angel Face, Banana Hazelnut or Black Forest Cake.   

There I go again.  I really don't mean to get side-tracked like that, but my mind wanders.  Honestly, I do try to at least get back on target.   Just bear with me and give me minute.

My Aunt was one of the first that I remember changing the way food looked.  She had us over for a supper one night and the table was all set with fancy plates, silver and crystal.  It scared me to death.  There, in the middle of the table, was this big ham.  It was reddish and yellowish colored, had been drenched in brown sugar, honey, orange juice, and God only knows what else, scored into little diamonds and triangles and plastered with slices of pineapple, skewered to the ham with cloves.  She really seemed proud of it.  I hated to see it cut. A masterpiece like that should be dried and mounted for posterity.

I'll have to admit that it wasn't too bad.  It wasn't ham, but kids like sweet stuff, and this was definitely sweet.  It tasted of oranges, cloves and pineapple but the heavy glaze of sugars had me thinking I was eating a preserve.

A real Ham, like Grandmomma made, was cooked in the oven until it began to draw from the bone.  There was no doubt in your mind, when you sliced into it that it had been cooked.  There was no talk at the table about how juicy it was, we only commented on how good it was.  The skin was still on it and had turned to cracklin's.  The fat was devoid of most of its lard and some of it had even begun to get a little crisp.  The thing sat on a platter, in a puddle of reddish-brown drippings that were ultimately destined to be ladled up with your spoon and applied liberally to your baked sweet potato, grits, or broken open biscuit.   

There was no doubt what it was.  The kitchen preparation didn't take away or hide the culinary efforts imparted by the person who had "cured" the ham.  There was a-plenty of that flavor remaining so that even he could be awarded compliments.   While I'm partial to salt-cured country hams, I know that salt-cured hams also have some sugar on them.   It forms a crust that insects can't penetrate while the ham cures.   I also know that sugar-cured hams weren't injected. It's just that their base of protection came from sugar, not salt.  All country hams derived a particular flavor from their smoking.   The person who did this had to know what he was doing to have his hams spoken of with affection.  He not only had to know how to smoke hams, but had to be familiar with the flavors imparted by the various woods of the region.

Of course, there were fresh hams.  Those hadn't been cured and were many times boiled to be served.

Yellow squash were mostly served stewed.  I love them that way, sliced into a pot with onions, salt and pepper, a little white bacon or drippings,  a little water and boiled until they are no longer crisp.  They are even good as they approach the "Mush" stage.   

There is an adamant refusal for it to be cooked that way now.  To start with, I saw the price on the package of yellow crook-necked squash purchased from the store.  My goodness!  You would think that they were some rare fruit from a foreign country. Squash, I used to always grow too many, shouldn't cost a dollar and eighteen cents a pound.  What has made them so expensive?  That alone takes a lot of the eating pleasure from them.

Anyway, squash are now prepared in a frying pan with onions and butter and unknown spices.   I don't like them  They are greasy.

I like my green beans boiled, but now, they have to be fried too. I think the term is sauteed, but they don't have me fooled.  Those are fried beans.   I like them cooked too.  Why is it that today's cooks are so afraid to apply some heat to the food?  A popular term is al dente.  Another, applied to meats, is Rare.  You can't fool me!  That just means that it's under cooked.  The meat is so raw that you can't get it off of the bone. The vegetables are so hard that they break your teeth and have that alum taste to them, drying your tongue.  All of that could be resolved by the application of a lengthier period of heat.

My ham, this Easter, doesn't taste like ham.  I was given a taste a few minutes ago by a very proud cook chef.  It is a fibrous material containing an almost ham looking gelatinous  material (indication that it needs to stay in the oven) and it is candied.  Having tasted an outside piece, I can denote no flavor of ham.   I guess it might have to do with the fact that you can't buy a ham in the grocery store anymore.  It is  Ham and water product.  There is so  much water and "stuff" injected that the Government has just given up on making them identify everything.  Still, the stuff that was applied in our kitchen has thoroughly overcome any tendency the ham might have had to reveal it's true flavor.

I remember dessert being a sweet potato with a little cane syrup and butter on it.  Man!  That's good.   Also a biscuit, opened magazine-like, on the plate and sprinkled with sugar and black coffee dipped over it with a spoon is might good too.  There were always some peaches or sliced up oranges on the table, and sometimes, there was a prepared dessert.   

Grandmom called her sliced oranges, ambrosia.  It was nothing special, but it sure was good.  It was even better that she had made it especially for us.   She peeled oranges, taking most of the white stuff off and having the knife cut into the outside of the sections, leaving flat spots.  She saved the juice, if any, that got out of there.  then she cut the oranges up into slices no bigger than a poker chip and about as thick as a green bean.  They were very irregularly shaped.  These, and the juice she had caught, were put in a bowl, sprinkled over with a little sugar, had some grated (stringy looking) coconut put into it, and then placed into the refrigerator for a day or two.  The fruit sweetened and juice thickened.  A couple of serving spoonfuls was about all you could eat.  It was a dish that she usually made when she made pound cake. 

Pound cake wasn't one of those yellow cakes that you buy in the store that has the thick application of white icing, or, God Forbid, Chocolate, spread all over it.  It was a loaf cake, or cooked in one of those pans that makes a round cake with a hole in it.   It is rich, moist, sturdy and sweet.  It doesn't need icing.  It's best by itself, but also good with strawberries or ambrosia or other sliced fruits like mango or peach, or really ripe pears.

Then, to be sent away from the table with a couple of big sugar cookies or syrup cookies, the size of the palm of your hand, made you glad that you were alive and lived in a home, not a house.

Chef's keep tampering with food and tampering with food, trying to change its taste from the natural product it was, to the taste of a product that bears no resemblance to it.  Pound Cake, good in its own right, tastes like lemons, ...or orange, ... or yech! cinnamon.  Apple pie taste like cinnamon.  Mango is eaten green.  Green beans taste like they need cooking.  Collard, mustard and turnip greens taste and crunch like a salad.  Man!  That stuff isn't salad material.  You're supposed to cook'em down.  Let'em make some "Pot Likker".  You got to cook them for hours, not sweat them in the bottom of a sauce pan.

The most educational thing for a fellow to learn is that he can't say "I don't like that".  It's even worse to say, "I think I would like it better if...".    And, you best never ever, ever never, ever say, "Grandmomma's was.....".

See, you aren't going to change the way it gets cooked.  "Chefs", we don't have many cooks anymore, aren't interested in whether you like it or not,  they are only interested in their ability to make it taste like something else.  You can cry all you want, but this is how it's fixed and this is how it's going to be fixed next time... maybe.

I know of a little restaurant where they have a cook.  Sure, they get their vegetables from cans, like most restaurants, but there is some love mixed into what comes out of the kitchen.  You can tell as soon as you put a bite in your mouth that it was cooked for you.

If there is one thing I hope never happens, it is that the  cook never learns to read.   If he or she does, someone is going to convince them that they are not sophisticated enough to cook meals unless they cover everything up with flavorings, under cook it and serve it in little portions that would starve a "finishing school girl".

I'm going to politely sit and eat my supper.  I might even brag on it some.  But in the back of my mind is the knowledge that I know of this little place that makes a delicious hamburger.  :)




WH_Conley

Just got back from Easter dinner at the in-laws. We are still country enough that dinner is at or around noon. If Tom got a bite of that ham we would never get him back to Florida. :D Ham fell apart, no pineapple, far as I could tell nothing but ham, green beans (home canned) boiled til they were falling apart. All the family brings a covered dish or two, the master of the ham taught all the other cooks how to cook.

I gotta set back and let things settle for a while, got left overs to take care of. ;D
Bill

thecfarm

We had a ham boiled dinner today.I have no idea how far south that goes.You would of liked it Tom.Nothing fancy,just good eats.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Mooseherder

Tom, I really wish you could have been here!
The Green Beans were a 2 day project but oh so good.  You're welcome to eat here anytime. :)
The ham and Turkey were pretty good also. ;)




SwampDonkey

My uncle is a ham cooker upper. I'm not myself. But, he says at least in northern Maine, he can't get a good ham. He shops in Aroostook county. He buys his here in NB. Now I'm not knocking any source of food in Maine. He buys all his poultry over in Maine. But, he says the ham doesn't have the taste of ham he prefers from NB. ;) Me, I like NB poultry better, but it's a lot more expensive here in NB.  ::) Many things on the grocery shelf are no difference in price in Maine or NB. Anything dairy is high priced in NB.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SwampDonkey

Mooseherder, looks like you didn't do too bad. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Mooseherder

Cause practice makes perfect. ;D
My asst. is cleaning right now. :) :D

woodbowl

Oh Tom, we're getting bord with our eating too. The wife is trying to make sure that the freezer is empty by the time the garden gets ready. We're having to eat peas and okra, creamed field corn, collards, turnips, squash and some other things. We scratched around and found a bag of boiled peanuts that I put up. We've had to make do and eat other things like fried chicken, sweet taters, tomatos, cornbread, butterbeans, blackeyed peas, lima beans, chicken and dumplings. I'll be glad when the freezer is empty. I'm ready for some fresh peas and okra, corn, tomatos and squash and ........    8)
Full time custom sawing at the customers site since 1995.  WoodMizer LT40 Super Hyd.

DanG

Tom, I detect a hint of dissatisfaction in your soliloquy.  As a friend, comrade in arms, and fellow curmudgeon, I will offer you a solution.  What you should do, IMHO, is just stand up at the table, toss your fork onto the plate and say, "I'm not eating this crap anymore!"  I am quite confident that you will not have to worry about being presented with any of the substandard fare that you have been beset with, ever again.  I did something similar to this, albeit in a bit milder form, and it has worked to perfection.  I am rarely put upon to eat anyone's cooking but my own. ;D 8) 8) 8)
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

WH_Conley

Hey Dang, does that that potted meat and vienna sausage has become a staple? :D :D
Bill

DanG

No Bill, I read the labels on those.  Won't be going that route! :o :o :D
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

Radar67

Olen, it looked to me like that food you are having to eat has been agreeable to all your family members. I enjoyed meeting them all. Y'all come back when you can and spend some more time. We'll feed you some of the same fare you are accustomed to eating.  ;) :)
"A man's time is the most valuable gift he can give another." TOM

If he can cling to his Blackberry, I can cling to my guns... Me

This will kill you, that will kill you, heck...life will kill you, but you got to live it!

"The man who can comprehend the why, can create the how." SFC J

CHARLIE

I've never had a bad ham in Minnesota or Wisconsin.  We had ham today.  Nothing fancy just a good well cooked ham.  My wife is a #1 cook.

Tom, I think the pound cake was the only cake I remember Grandmama baking. The recipe is in the Family Cookbook and I'm sure it is her mother's, though Grandmama didn't really use a recipe. Sometimes she would bake it in the "tube" pan that caused a hole to be in the middle and then she would apply boiled icing that was white and very smooth.... It was good.
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

fishpharmer

Quote from: DanG on April 12, 2009, 10:25:55 PM
Tom, I detect a hint of dissatisfaction in your soliloquy.  As a friend, comrade in arms, and fellow curmudgeon, I will offer you a solution.  What you should do, IMHO, is just stand up at the table, toss your fork onto the plate and say, "I'm not eating this crap anymore!"  I am quite confident that you will not have to worry about being presented with any of the substandard fare that you have been beset with, ever again.  I did something similar to this, albeit in a bit milder form, and it has worked to perfection.  I am rarely put upon to eat anyone's cooking but my own. ;D 8) 8) 8)

DanG, you never cease to humor me. ;D  And you, having seen me in person, can appreciate that I am quite satisfied with the vittles placed upon my table.  I partake too much and too often.  I wish I could share in you and Tom's misery but have  not yet reached that level of dissatisfaction.  My wife is a great cook (when she has time) she learned from her mama, that learned from her mama (if that makes sense).  But, I am proud to say she CAN read ;D.

Anyway,  not to add insult to injury Tom, but I thought you might at least have the pleasure of seeing the ham I ate for Easter.  The ham which I will enjoy for the next several days.  I leave out the picture of the turkey, collard greens (cooked right with pot lickker and fatback), homegrown creamed corn and one of my favorites, cornbread turkey dressing (no Stovetop instant in my house).  Topped off with homemade apple salad and butter pecan cake.   Another, delicacy of good ole southern redneck cooking is stuffed eggs.  If you hadn't had em you should tryem.   I include a shot of those as well.  All washed down with some good homebrewed sweet tea.

Okay, now if you meet me in person, you will understand why am a bit oversized. Its not the fast food, its the good ole soul food. :D ;D  So if you are passing through and wanna try some well cooked food, or is it cooked well food?  Give me a few days advance and I will try to arrange for my better half to whip something up.  If she's not available,  we'll just have to suffer through some of my fried catfish ;D

Since I always think folks should try to stay healthy, it might not be a bad idea to schedule an appointment with your cardiologist upon returning home :D ;D

I should have taken pictures of the whole spread but my family still hasn't come to appreciate my FF addiction.

Picture doesn't do the ham justice. No glaze here, just ham flavor.

The gut busters for sure:


hope you enjoyed it almost as much as I did ;)








Built my own band mill with the help of Forestry Forum. 
Lucas 618 with 50" slabber
WoodmizerLT-40 Super Hydraulic
Deere 5065E mfwd w/553 loader

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work. --Tom A. Edison

Ironmower

Quote from: DanG on April 12, 2009, 10:53:48 PM
No Bill, I read the labels on those.  Won't be going that route! :o :o :D
Me either! sumthin' about spreadin' "meat" with a knife :-\ ;D
WM lt35 hd 950 JD

Norm

Quote from: Mooseherder on April 12, 2009, 06:34:09 PM
The Green Beans were a 2 day project but oh so good. The ham and Turkey were pretty good also. ;)



MH please forgive me for coveting your meal.  digin1

Patty and I spent Sunday putting in field tile and our "dinner" was 2 hard boiled eggs for me and a slice of cheese for Patty. By the time we got in for supper it was late and after showers it was some crappy pizza.

Can you at least feel a little sorry for me.... :D

woodbowl

Charlie, you just messed up the thread. Now I've got to talk my wife into making a pound cake with lots of icing.  8) Thanks Radar, I can eat just about anything. Southern food is what I was raised on, but I can eat  ( Proud and intelligent gentlemanses from a nawth'n state food too.  ) One of these days I want to try one of those mine shaft pies, I fergit what they're called, they kinda look like a big hot pocket.

Modified >>>  Hey ..... who messed up my post? I was sure I didn't make a typo. Ahhh, Jeff and his fun again.  Can't even type Y a n k e e anymore.  ;D
Full time custom sawing at the customers site since 1995.  WoodMizer LT40 Super Hyd.

beenthere

Norm
Ya got a pic of that field tiling machine? 
I recall the day of digging the ditches with a tile spade and laying in clay tiles about 3-4' deep. And the clever long-handled tools used to scoop out the bottom of the ditch and the one used to nestle the tile next in line. Some tile ditches ran for a 1/4 to half mile.
That is a tough weight-loss program Patty has you on.  ;D ;D
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Mooseherder

No problem Norm.  I wish I could have fixed you and Patty a plate. :)
We had a lot of left overs and was looking forward to eating them tonight but I was informed we are going out for Pizza.  The place we are going to has a Brick Oven Pizza that is great so it was an easy decision . :D

Norm

Kent we are using my backhoe to dig in the trench and then laying in the tile off of a gigantic reel. This field was clay tiled in it's day and we are hooking them into the new stuff. Even as hard as it was Sunday I have tons of respect for the guys that used to dig these in by hand.



MH I love brick oven pizza, suppose they have delivery. ;)

SwampDonkey

Dad and grandfather did lots of clay tiling. Dad also had lots of plastic pipe tiling down to. Some fields on the farm though, never needed any tile. They tiled with a dozer and those new reeled plastic hose more recently on new cleared land. They have a special attachment that goes on behind the dozer.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Tom

I almost missed eating today.  It was noon and I had been watching Obama on the news.  When he went* finished, I changed the channel and, there, standing in a large pile of incomplete sentences, was Emerald.  Dang!  I forgot to eat!

So I went to the kitchen, with nothing in mind, to fix something to hold me and the Mother in Law over till supper. 

I got the Ham from the refrigerator and sliced a pile of it real thin.  then I diced it up and put it in a large frying pan in some hot olive oil.  Once it was fried (starting to turn toasty brown on the outside, I salted it and dumped in a large tea-glass of water.  then I passed the container of cayenne over it just so that some dust fell into the pan, and then put in a small pinch of black pepper.   Then I sprinkled two tablespoons of flour in there and, using a metal whisk, kept stirring it until the flour began to brown.  Then I put a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream in there and stirred some more.

I applied this concoction on top of a piece of dark crispy toast (each of us) and we ate it while drinking a hot cup of coffee.

I don't know what Emerald did.  I turned the TV off.  But, I'll bet it wasn't any better than mine.  ;D

It took about one minute to clean up.  :)

*That's the english form of saying  "finished".  I have always been amused at the American Public's efforts to "better" American English by imposing some UK sayings.  I guess it sounds more sophisticated than the way we normally talk.

Remember when the police department had to look for someone that was missing?   Now they aren't missing, they have gone missing...  or, went missing.  Funny, huh?

It's also funny that I've "footnoted" a word in a post.  :D

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