Thursday, March 28, 2013

Hunkering Down...


If any of you watch the weather channel much as we do (a sign of advancing age, I am told), you may know that they have decided to “name” winter storms.   Just like NOAA bestows monikers to hurricanes, the weather channel, (the self proclaimed “Winter Weather Authority”) came out with names for the major storms which have occurred this year.  I don’t keep track but I think they are well into the lower third of the alphabet.  Storm? Name.  Storm? Name.  Storm? Name.  Not sure of the criteria but there you have it.

Which, believe it or not, is not the point of this little post.  But, like it or not, I think I may take a page from their almanac and give names to the colds I have endured this year.  Hopefully currently  on the down/up? side of the annual Maryland day one, I will in fact name it.  But before revealing the name, I have a little question for you..  In similar circumstances where you feel like crap, do you ever find a little escape place where you can kind of hunker down, try to ignore how awful you feel and maybe get a little solace from crossword puzzles, a magazine article, or maybe a book?  I do.  So I am going to name this cold “Oyster”!.  No, it is not alphabetical, it is in honor of the little place I retreated to while awaiting for the amazing human body to expel the bugs or whatever.   I alluded to it the other day, it is a book in which I immersed myself.  I have become enamored of it, which may or may not have something to do with the subject matter!!




I actually read all of the recipes (which I didn’t count) in the 248 pages, each of which of course called for the little bivalves.  But while they were interesting and creative, what made it so nice was the information about each recipe, giving provenance where appropriate and the inclusion of all those little notes and historical recipes.  Because I don’t have much else to talk about (cough, cough, hack, hack, sneeze, sneeze) I’ll pass along a few.

From John Farley, 19th Century England on how to make fish stock:

Take a pound of skate, four or five flounders, and two big eels. Cut them into pieces and put to them as much water as will cover them.  Season with mace, and onion stuck with cloves, a head of celery, two parsley roots sliced, some pepper and salt, and a bunch of sweet herbs.Cover them down close and let them simmer an hour and a half, and then strain off the liquor of use.  Being thus provided with your fish-stock, take what quantity of it you want.

Easy, eh?

Or this tip from Sir Hugh Plat, in Delightes for Ladies, 1609 on how to:

Barrell up Oysters, So As they Shall Last for Sixe Moneths Sweet and Good, and in Their Naturall Taste

Open your oisters, take the liquor of them, and mixe a reasonable proportion of the best white wine vinegar you can get, a little salt and some pepper, barrel the fish up in a small caske, covering all the oysters in this pickle

Six Moneths??  whew!! There was another from Robert May, from “The Accomplisht Cook or the Art and Mastery of Cooking”, 1660 on Oyster Pottage which called for using “boild pease” and “great oysters fryed with sweet herbs and grosly chopped” and so on.  What sort of struck me about them was that at the same time the colonists were running around in St. Mary’s City and Jamestown trying to stay alive, there was some genuine “gourmet” cooking going on.  It is easy to assume that “old” is synonymous with crude or rudimentary cooking.   Anyway, I came across another which immediately caught my eye:




Hey!   That sent me to Google to search on Mary Ann Chase, and I found that the recipe was included in a book called “Maryland’s Way, The Hammond-Harwood House Cookbook” which contains a number of historical Southern recipes including some Oyster entries.  The referenced recipe for “pye” was fully called: “Sotterley Oyster Pye, Mrs. Plater’s Way.”  Savvy local history buffs will immediately recognize Plater as a key name in Sotterley Plantation history. 

So far, I have been unable to trace down exactly who Mary Ann Chase was or what she did, but I remain on the trail.. I have some feelers out.

At the time of this writing, I feel better than I did yesterday at this time.. maybe the Oysters had some literary effect.  I will definitely keep the book, so don’t look for it in the book sale next year.

 
Quick Sporting Note

Tonight marks the beginning of the “Sweet Sixteen” in NCAA men’s basketball.  There are still four Big Ten teams alive, including my Spartans which encounter Duke tomorrow night.  My (for recreational purposes only) bracket presented me with a conundrum.  I had both those teams advancing to this show down, but I couldn’t find it in my head (regardless of my heart) to go against Duke and Coach K.  So on paper I’m rooting for them, but wouldn’t mind to see the men of Izzo win.  We’ll see…either way I sort of win.

And once again I will comment as I do every year and then I will shut up.  Since the men were on hiatus, Tuesday night we watched the women’s NCAA, particularly the Michigan (8)/Stanford (1) game.  How in the world can a number eight seed lose to (yes) a number one seed by 33 points!!  What’s wrong here?  And that is not an isolated case (Michigan State/Maryland).  Huge disparities in scores!!   It may have something to do with letting higher seeds play at home?  Who knows.. anyway, the finals will be worth watching..
 
and given our current state it is out of the question that we will
 
DFD

No comments: