There. Commence throwing your fancy, heirloom, organic tomatoes and rotten free-range, humane eggs. I think her cookbooks are irritating and the recipes are ridiculous.
I say this, however, after making all of one of her recipes. And that only to please the MiL.
See, the MiL bought a bunch of eggplants at the farmers market awhile ago. And she mentioned that before I froze them or whatever, she wanted to try making a recipe in Elizabeth David's French Country Cooking book. But the MiL hasn't had a chance to make it, since it requires an hour in the oven, so I decided to make it for her. I mean, this is the woman who will make any ridiculous cake I request and has regularly baked things for me that she won't even eat, so I figured the least I could do was make her some eggplant.
Eggplant for cake. Fair trade, right?
ANYWAY.
Here's the exact recipe for Aubergines en Gigot:
In each whole, unpeeled aubergine, make two rows of small incisions; into these put alternatively small pieces of bacon and cloves of garlic which have been rolled in salt, pepper and herbs, either marjoram or basil.
Put the aubergines in a roasting dish with a little oil poured over them, cover the dish and roast them in a slow oven for about 1 hour.
That's it. I mean, how easy is that, right? Except for the fact that . . . wait. A WHOLE eggplant? Whatever, I cut the stem off at least, because that's not even edible, okay, Ms. David?
Also, two rows? What's a row? Long ways? Around the whole thing? I did two rows around the circumference of eggplant.
Next, whole garlic cloves? How small were your cloves, Ms. David? Because short of hacking a fairly large hole in the side of each eggplant, there is no way a whole clove is going to be inserted in a "small incision."
I sliced the garlic cloves into smaller pieces. Then I rolled them in the salt, pepper, and basil, as instructed, all of which came right off as I attempted to force the pieces into those small incisions.
The pieces of bacon wouldn't even go into the small incisions, so I ended up hacking pretty big holes in the eggplant anyway.
There was cussing, I will admit.
Last, what the hell is a "slow oven"? At this point, sick of Elizabeth David and her stupid recipe, I just set the oven at 300 degrees and trusted to luck.
It tasted like . . . eggplant. But the MiL pronounced it delicious, so that's all that matters.
Next! The rabbit! Nothing to do with Elizabeth David. Though come to think of it, she might have some recipes for rabbit in that handy cookbook of hers, but I'm not going to bother looking.
ANYWAY AGAIN.
Last night as Cubby was splashing around in his bath and I was reading an old National Geographic Magazine article about Sherpas in Nepal (so sue me for being a negligent parent for not kneeling next to the tub and making boat noises for twenty minutes), A. burst into the bathroom waving a dead rabbit by the feet.
"Look, Cubby!" he said. "Look what Daddy shot!"
Cubby looked up, grinned, correctly announced, "Ra,"and then went back to drinking his bath water from his plastic alligator mug.
Not even two years old and already unimpressed by dead wildlife. A child of Blackrock, without doubt.
16 comments:
Lol, I hate vague recipes like that. I probably would have gone with lengthwise slits and left the top on so that the eggplant didn't fall apart. Still given the size of modern eggplants that is not a lot of flavor. Like everything old school French it probably had much smaller sized eggplant, garlic, etc. than modern varieties. Hooray for hassenfeffer! That sounds delicious.
There are recipes that are just a waste of space in a cook book...that was one of them. No pictures even? Yikes!!
I hope this helps...I don't know who Elizabeth David is !
I wonder if people like that actually cook or someone else does all the grunt work for them.
Such a true ,gut feeling , tell it like it is , post. Thanks for being real. Beth
I like reading her stories much more than trying her recipes, which are usually vague. I like her Christmas book in particular, with stories of Christmas in Egypt while she was working for the war office.
P.S. Can I just say how weird it is the two most beloved women of the culinary world (Julia Child and Elizabeth David) worked for the CIA and War Office, respectively? Maybe if I want to be a food writer, I should get a job at the MI-6 or something.
I've never heard of her either.
As for the recipe, I believe it said "slow" oven, not "low" oven, right? Yeah, I see that a lot in the books I like to get recipes from.
That's also where I see things like, "Bank the coals and move the pot to the back." I'm all like, "WTF?! Do you mean bank the coals to the front or the back. When I move the pot is it so that it cooks hotter or cooler?"
And I suspect Phoo-D is completely right about older vegetables being smaller.
Don't have the cookbook so not a problem in my world, and will never have a just killed rabbit to cook so that's also not a starter. However, I can just see the elation on A's face as he proudly displayed dinner. What a unique environment you've become a part of, but we all knew that from the start, didn't we.
The eggplant was gorgeous! In fact the whole dinner was sublime. That I skipped lunch has nothing whatsoever to do with my judgment on the matter.
The eggplants, by the way, were more elegant than bulbous. And, when you are using good homegrown garlic, what can possibly go wrong? And bacon. So good.
Your home life, as you describe it, is delightful!!! I laughed out loud as you told of A. bursting into the bathroom to showcase a dead rabbit.
I mean, how many people do you suppose had that experience yesterday? I mean, really...
Drew: Yes, it said "slow." Though Elizabeth David wasn't cooking on a woodstove--she wrote most of her stuff in the mid-twentieth century.
Moving a pot to the back means to the cooler part of the stove. I don't know how I know that, but I do.
Anonymous: I think it's hilarious that you think a dead rabbit show-and-tell during a child's bathtime is delightful. Maybe you should live here.
I would be trying to figure out how to make small incisions inside a whole eggplant.
And then I'd decide it's a story problem, like "if a whole eggplant and 12 cloves of garlic were traveling in a slow oven in opposite directions...."
And then I'd order pizza.
I hate Rachael Ray, so we are all in this together.
And I totally sit by the bathtub when the tot is splashing around and give myself a pedicure. As long as they don't drown, it's all good.
I hadn't even heard of Ms David, so pffffffft!
And, really, vague directions make me totally mental.
You KNOW how I like specificity. Hello vague-ass lip balm recipes!
Ridiculous.
Though you're a total champ for getting the recipe to come out edible - delicious even :)
Good on ya.
I don't know which I enjoyed more, the post or the comments but I'm among those who've never heard of her. And I would have just cut up everything and tossed it together 'cause I would have closed the book at "small incisions". Good on ya for giving it a go.
You're a nice daughter in law.
The discussion about "slow" oven made me do a bit of research and found a helpful resources on temperatures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oven_temperatures
I too have big garlic cloves that will need to be slit before slipping into the incisions.
Looking forward to the results. And am encouraged by Going Country.
Post a Comment