A little about Cooking Wild and Wonderful... Cooking Wild and Wonderful By L. J. Martin Somewhere close behind air and water is the need for food. It’s a basic requirement of life, and when that requirement is met, then and only then, does art enter the equation. A gruel of oats can satiate hunger, while a delicately wrought oatmeal cookie laced with walnuts and elusive chocolate chips can not only accomplish the same but also please the palate, the eye, the nose, the finger tips...and human curiosity. Sometimes, even an emotional need. So great cooking, unlike all other art forms, fulfills not only the most basic needs and requirements, but also becomes art when it tantalizes and teases with smell, sight, taste, touch, and yes, sound that entices, entertains, even exhilarates. And unlike all other art forms, it accomplishes all those things—but unlike most other arts, it’s transitory, and needs to be repeated over and over, in short order. Consequently the very repetition of the effort lends itself to becoming mundane. A menu repeating itself over and over, no matter how delightful at first, is soon boring. The trick is to tease and titillate and entice with new and exciting combinations and discoveries. There’s no need to bore yourself or friends and family...after all, there are hundreds if not thousands of ways to prepare even the humble potato. There are many masters of the art of fine cooking all over the world, from every culture and country, from every race and religion, from every economic level. Great cooking is not a result of exotic and expensive ingredients, but more of sometimes delicate, sometimes rough, sometimes intricate, sometimes simple, combinations of flavors, textures, colors, and bouquets. The French have become internationally renowned for their cuisine, and it’s not because of expensive ingredients or elaborate preparation. It’s because of a respect for some basics. There’s a time for all things, and all things in their time is probably the number one basic of good cooking. Spring is the time of awakening, the time for fresh asparagus, for fish fresh from streams and lakes newly reborn from winters ice, of lamb so tender it makes you want to weep and shout for joy simultaneously; Summer is rich, ripe tomato time, it’s earthy mushrooms from meadows recently kissed by warm rain, of seeds and nuts of hundreds of varieties; Fall is a celebration of stone fruit, of grapes, and sweet corn on the cob, and game from the hills and high mountains; and Winter is the time of the root and other late developing healthy, hardy vegetables—cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower—of meat from the smoker, and of warming stews and pot roasts. Yes, even here in Montana we can get a tomato in January, probably with a sticker extolling its birth in Peru or Mexico, but its been picked green as the proverbial gourd and will never develop that wonderful mesmerizing flavor of the vine ripened fruit. The fruit from Peru, like you after a many thousand mile journey, will be tired. Not like the one you’ve watched mature on a vine in your garden while guarding against horn worms which value it almost as much as you, or even one from your local farmers market picked ripe that morning. Thoughtful and respectful menu planning is probably number two in the roster of basics of good cooking. A meal composed of sharp tastes from beginning to end is not particularly pleasing to the palate. A spicy soup, salad, entré, and desert does not give the palate time to recover, to relax, to prepare for the next gastronomic pleasure. Rather a mild soup, a sharp flavored Caesar salad tickled by crushed anchovy, a slice of medium rare roast beef smothered in brown gravy accompanied by asparagus lightly poached in butter and wine and a crusty bread lathered with creamery butter on the side, all followed by a rich cream brulee with a beautifully browned, tenderly torched, cinnamon kissed top, is the pace of a great yet relatively simple menu—and a pace respected by the wonderful cooks of Provence, of much of Italy, and of many other places across this fascinating world of ours. Cooking is more than a necessity, it’s an art, and a ritual. It should not be a chore, but a joy, embracing all the senses and more, sometimes the warm and fulfilling feeling you get is emotional as well as physical. How so? Is a recipe always just a recipe? Or sometimes so much more.... Kat, my wonderful wife, and I travel quite a bit and have a lot of time to talk in the car as we trade off driving. Usually it’s a hundred miles each, and when the passenger is not involved in reading a book, or when the driver might be getting a little tired and need the distraction, we’re discussing our current book in progress, the TV show, family and friends, or the topical news of the day. Just after Christmas on our way to California for a respite from Montana’s winter—a stressful drive with the first 900 miles ice and snow—we were talking about this book, the cookbook, and she made an interesting observation and one that certainly deserves mention. We got on the subject of recipes, and where all the hundreds—maybe thousands—of recipes we’ve collected originated. She made a poignant and touching point, and that was when she refers to an old recipe in her well worn, patina stained, now nearly antique 3 ring binder Betty Crocker Cookbook laced with many personal inserts,...it almost always brings back a flood of warm and pleasant memories and reminiscences. Many of those jottings are in her mothers and grandmothers’ handwriting, all of whom are gone now. Some are in the handwriting of her college roommates—she graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara—one of whom was a Latina who jotted down many scrumptious, sometimes fiery, concoctions that originated with her grandmother who was born in Mexico. Many are from friends who are now out of Kat’s life because she or they moved away and lost touch. And interestingly enough, a good many are from fans who have read and appreciated her work, or mine. Among the more than a hundred cooking tomes, I have a half dozen or more cookbooks on my shelves that have come from folks we’ve met while doing booksignings all over the country. And many of those small very personal books are “one of a kind” made originally only for family as they are mimeographed or Xeroxed, although a couple are family recipe collections actually printed and bound by professional printers. And I value them all and enjoy not only the tasty tidbits that tease the pallet, but maybe more so the memories they conjure. We have been blessed and privileged to eat in many of the world’s great restaurants, and blessed more-so to have enjoyed many out-of-the-way inns and private kitchens, and I’ve capitalized upon it as I also have a growing collection of awe inspiring menus. They were easily obtained with a smile and word of appreciation, particularly since many are “menus of the day” printed via computer by the restaurateur. At times I’ve been able to talk a chef or cook out of his or her recipe, and if not, I’ve done my best to replicate the flavors and presentation of a dish I admired. Most often, the menu has notes of the spices and herbs I detected in the dish I enjoyed, or pried out of a friendly waiter. Now that I have a wonderful pocket digital camera, I’m not beyond whipping it out and photographing a particularly striking presentation...hard to do when you’re dying to dig mess up an exquisite plate. And those recipes and menus also are déjà vu for many happy times and fascinating places, most of which I enjoyed with the woman I love, which made them even better. So let’s celebrate the history of our families, of recipes handed down, and of what we have at hand, while bringing together some of the great styles and techniques of the rest of the world to compliment and enhance what’s fresh and in season. And let’s, above all, have some fun doing it. For if we’re not having fun we’re doing the wrong thing. I hope you enjoy what we’ve brought together here, a small part of what we enjoy from The Kitchen at Wolfpack Ranch. amazon/Cooking-Wild-Wonderful-L-Martin/dp/188533933X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375620582&sr=8-1&keywords=cooking+wild+and+wonderful+l.+j.+martin
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 12:50:05 +0000