The King of Cuisine at 306 Allie GreenWho was Oppenheim?” “Nothing is fair in this world. The first thing you would have noticed about Oppenheim was his appearance: Standing, the top of his very large, balding head came up to about the bottom of my nose. His eyes bulged behind his large, owlish lenses as he issued proclamations high and loud, as if he felt that, being short, his opinions didn’t carry. However, they did, because the object of admiration among our bunch, populated overwhelmingly with grad students, was intelligence. A PhD candidate in math, Joe was teaching on the staff. We all respected him, but we also took advantage of him, because Joe’s appearance could sometimes function as a commodity. He put up with it; he knew on which side the bread was buttered. “As you know, your father and I got Joe’s apartment which was situated across the hall from the notorious Marple. Before I moved into 306 Green with Joe (for a week) Joe had established a reputation among the young co-eds whom he taught. Since the university had four males to every female student, guys had to have a gimmick. Joe’s was food. Now, it is not easy to make such a claim while living on the university’s starvation salary, but by the time I met Joe, he had mastered the art of living as a campus pauper. He maintained health and sometimes even enjoyed luxury. “The University of Illinois was known for its agriculture department, for which most of us had a certain amount of disdain; being an ag major was reputed to be about as challenging as being a PE, home ec, or education major. After all, if you wanted to farm, you needed inherited land. If you were set to inherit, you had undoubtedly completed the obligatory but informal apprenticeship that farming demands…with your father. So what was the ag department for? My rural beginnings had provided me with the following maxim (my educated parents notwithstanding): To a farmer, a degree is worth no more than tits on a boar. On the plus side, however, the ag department provided a cheap store which sold the ag majors’ practice butcher-shop cuts. Joe nourished his conceit that he was a culinary wizard with some of the more exotic organ foods, like kidneys. He served me some the week we shared his apartment, and thus I discovered how much of Joe’s gourmet reputation was a result of his own loud immodesty. The kidneys tasted like piss, big surprise. “Kidneys, however, were not how Joe attained fame. If you asked them, the ag butcher shop would give some cuts away, like marrow bones and heads. It’s a fact that I learned important cooking facts from Joe. I learned to be even cheaper than I had been theretofore… and I discovered that animal heads are respectable objects as food, even if my children do not agree.” “And your children certainly do not!” “Poverty could pound the lesson home. Your father and I traded the gilding of wealth for education. Most of those baubles are unnecessary.” “What baubles?” “Maintaining certain beliefs about what is and is not necessary. Your body requires only nutrition and a certain amount of protection. I found I could get plenty of calcium and protein from simply boiling chicken necks, which at the time were five cents a pound.” “And you walked ten miles through the snow to get to your classes, I know!” “Sigh. Getting back to Joe, he had a penchant for pretty young ladies, about freshman level. His favorite thing was to dazzle them with exotic cuisine. There was a stream of them entering and leaving his apartment, but the one of whom I wish to speak was special. “She was more benighted than the others, and yet behind her wide eyes lurked idiosyncratic suspicions that even I had never entertained! Joe had flattered our under-aged princess by handing her a glass of wine and regaling her with his high-spirited erudition. Did she understand a word? “With elaborate gestures he proceeded to add herbs and vegetables as she watched the tiny man running brusquely back and forth from the small apartment’s kitchen to its living room. When he felt his Oppenheim-stamped bouillabaisse was near completion, he flamboyantly removed the lid from the pot, with all the aplomb of a French courtier doffing his hat. What did she see among the vegetables sitting like Easter eggs in a green nest? The sheep’s eyes had popped out of its skull, and jutting up out of the broth was its toothy lower jaw. One paralyzing second spent in contemplation of this horror was all she needed before she ran screaming from his apartment. “Later, the police explained to Joe that she thought he had boiled a baby.”
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 23:35:25 +0000