If you’ve read my previous post, this (the above photo) is what I ended up making with the squash/pumpkin I had bought at the market. I made soup. The soup is utterly vegetarian and, if you eschew the grated parmigiano at the end, it is most definitely vegan too. If you are interested in the recipe and want to skip my meanderings, please scroll straight down to where it says “Ingredients”.
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I defy anyone to have not reacted even in some minimal way to Megan and Harry’s bolt from the blue statement a few days ago. I don’t usually watch the news much but even I found myself glued to various TV programmes prying into the story and trying to navigate what ‘really’ is going with the couple and the British monarchy. I did find it terribly rude of them to make the announcement without forewarning granny Elisabeth beforehand. Then it turns out they actually did but only minutes before they went media public? What is at the bottom of wanting to dash off and do their own thing, with their own website ?(Sussexroyal.com doesn’t sound very royal at all to me, but it is catchy I suppose.)
Anyway, discussing the events with friends and family, what stood out for me in the end is that … the world is changing. Has changed. Will change.
If the only constant is indeed change, as hindu/buddhist traditions have been banging on about for centuries, with modern physics following in hot pursuit, how are we to accommodate constance and continuity, instead, without turning into paper cut-out doll versions of ourselves, stiff pinocchio-like wooden puppets, as opposed to heart-and-guts living, thinking, loving bodies and people/souls? Let’s face it, not many people embrace change lock, stock and barrel and most of us rather fear it when it’s thrown in our face, even more so when it’s not our choice number one. Very often because it means we have to reinvent ourselves, and that can be somewhat tedious when there are so many other important matters to be dealt with on a daily basis. Like waking up in the morning, brushing our teeth, looking after people, remembering to throw the rubbish/recycling out, dealing with a boring job, dealing with having to find a job, dealing with a difficult partner, dealing with living solo after a broken relationship, dealing with people who have not had the benefit of good manners incorporated in their upbringing. All that and more.
One of the reasons I love cooking and eating so much, I believe, is not just animal appetite and greediness or sensual satisfaction. I think it is a quasi therapeutic exercise for me – my byline for this blog is “good food to put you in the mood”, remember? In the mood for what? Well, that depends. Sometimes we are upbeat, sometimes melancholy, sometimes melodramatic, sometimes quiet, sometimes musical, sometimes sexy, sometimes gossipy, on occasion silly billy full of love – it’s easy to run the whole gamut and range of human moods via food and eating. For food is indeed life. There are no two ways about it. No-food equals starvation equals diseased bodies equals death.
And food can also equal fads. Is it just me who sees the irony in how we all seem to be so preoccupied with our health in an era when the human lifespan is getting longer and longer thanks to better living conditions, access to food and improved medical health care. It is sometimes nose-scrunchingly puzzling to understand just why, why?, these food fads continue to burst forth. Fashion I suppose, maybe. Refreshment? Seasons are the refreshments of the world we live in, of our days, a reminder of change being unrelenting but reassuring too. So it may well be that the same old food recipes can strike people as stagnant and very boring, same ol’, same ol’, same ol’.
My sister and I were talking along these lines a few days ago, nice glasses of Frascati wine to keep us going, as we took some of our reveries to task. And since we both love cooking, and easy recipes in particular, the subject touched upon vegan recipes. Neither of us is a vegan. And I would be the world’s biggest fibber if I said that vegans hadn’t irritated me in the beginning. Whilst the ethos of not hurting animals is obviously laudable, there was a lot of holier-than-thou preaching and even religious-like intensity in conversion that I found distasteful. Dietary rectitude. One of the more tiresome (for me) offshoots of veganism was the rebranding of recipes and dishes that had been around for ever as being ‘vegan’. “Vegan lentils”, for instance. Since when had lentils not been vegan? Don’t get me started on gluten- free commercial homogenising, either, with labels that are utter nonsense, such as “gluten free rice”. Seriously? “Vegan burgers” was another one. A burger is supposed to be made with meat otherwise it is a patty. Why desire to keep the name of a food that you vociferously want to eschew from your diet on the grounds of ethics?
I continue to think that it is not a healthy way to eat (Vitamin B12, for instance, is hard enough for vegetarians to assimilate let alone vegans). Veganism is so often presented as a dietary nostrum. Not convinced. I also believe that one cannot disregard biology and evolutionary history (https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/debunking-a-few-myths-about-meat-eating-and-vegetarianism).
I do think that we should all be more mindful of how animals are treated from start to finish, from how they are raised to when and how they are slaughtered. And if there are countless articles on how modern cattle rearing is cause for much of the world’s travails, it is also true that farm animals raised ‘properly’ really do contibute to the health of the soil which will then be able to produce lots of nice veggies and cereals for us. Read the following The Guardian article: “Intensively farmed meat and dairy are a blight, but so are fields of soya and maize. ” Also: unless you’re sourcing your vegan products specifically from organic, “no-dig” systems, you are actively participating in the destruction of soil biota, promoting a system that deprives other species, including small mammals, birds and reptiles, of the conditions for life, and significantly contributing to climate change.” (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/veganism-intensively-farmed-meat-dairy-soya-maize)
This is, as we all know, a contentious subject and one that I don’t have time for within the context of this blog post, not in the detail it deserves. Why? Because it’s bloody complicated, that’s why. There are too many considerations to take into account. The bottom line, however, as far as I am concerned is the following one. Would I be able to slaughter a cow, say, or a pig or a lamb? And the answer is no. So there you go … I have to admit that there is some kind of double-standard to my reasoning on food choices. I have gone fishing and done that. I come from a family that went hunting/shooting for little birds and remember my grandmother plucking their feathers, and their little dangling heads. Still, even if I knew how to shoot, I don’t think I would enjoy killing lots of birds. I am able to eat snails, and have bought them live. I saw my grandmother kill a chicken when I was little. It didn’t seem to bother me then. But I don’t think I would be able to. And yet I continue to eat chicken, and duck, and lamb, and pork, and beef. All of which leads me to think that who knows? in the future? Change, as I wrote at the beginning of this post, is inexorably on its way. I might indeed end up being vegetarian. But not vegan. I have no qualms over good quality milk, cheese, eggs and honey.
All this to say that … despite not being vegetarian or vegan … I am absolutely obsessed with vegetables. It is the reason why I define myself as a vegetarian who eats a lot of meat. I can easily skip meat or fish at a meal but I definitely cannot …. will not … skip vegetables. “And by the way, I do think veganism is here to stay, ” my sister said the other night as we delved into some vegan recipes she was looking into.
Bring it on say I. I live in a country where so many people, in the not so distant past, had to be vegans pretty much because there was little else for them to eat. Meat was out of the question, only for the very rich. Some fish maybe. A little cheese too. But for the rest, only vegetables and cereals. The cuisines of the Middle East, Persia, the Indian Subcontinent and the Far East are chock-a-block full of vegan recipes. I think that veganism, or at least a version of veganism, has been around for a long time only perhaps we weren’t aware of this.
So … Happy New Year everyone. Enjoy your vegetables and cereals! And, say I, also your milk, cream, butter, cheeses and eggs. Try and help the cause for the better treatment of animals.
Last, please remember that some animals are human animals. There is a lot of human trafficking where vegetables are concerned. Immigrant workers in Sicily, is just an example, bringing us the joy of delicious tomato varieties at a terrible cost to them. K
Kindness for all. The little we can do, let us do.
INGREDIENTS: squash, onion, garlic, olive oil, salt, peppercorns, nutmeg, parsely, freseh sage leaves, parmigiano/parmesan
Squash or pumpkin. Cut it up and remove the skin.
Drizzle plenty of olive oil into the pot and brown a roughly chopped onion for a few minutes. This happens to be a small pressure-cooker. I think they are brilliant when it comes to soups. I also included a few peppercorns and plenty of salt when I later added the cut up squash.
Next it was time for parsely and sage leaves.
A little bit of garlic, too, why not and a good twist of nutmeg.
Pour in the amount of water that’s required.
Pressure cook the soup for … oh gosh, sorry, I can’t remember. I was busy with other stuff. Ahem, er … let’s say twenty minutes?
Once it’s safe for you to open the lid of the pressure cooker, do so and then blend all the ingredients. It was a bit too thick at this stage, so I added a little more water. I tasted it, and had to add a bit more salt too.
A snowstorm of freshly grated parmesan/parmigiano and Bob’s your uncle. No cheese and you are veganic.
Silver spoon optional.
Radishes … mmm. My sister made a herring based paté to serve with them (it included yogurt, thick Italian spreadable cheese, freshly grated horse radish, lemon juice and zest, parsely and olive oil. We tweaked the recipe from one of Jamie Oliver’s TV ones that was made using smoked mackerel instead.
Artichokes are coming into their own season-wise just now. We had these three beauties for dinner last night, cooked the classic Roman way. See link below.
Spuds. We got these for our mother.
Thinly cut, lots of olive oil, dried chilli flakes, and salt and pepper. This is how we cooked them that evening.
The garlic bulbs (Italian, from the Abbruzzo region) were for my sister to take back to Blighty. It’s hard to find good garlic in the UK. The fennel is still in the fridge, as is the bunch of spring onions. That yellow thing is a bergamot. I’d never seen one before. Smells heavenly. Tasted the zest and it was overpowering, fwah. The apple I ate after lunch. The red pepper: we griddled it and had it for dinner with olive oil, parsely and thin slices of garlic. Up top in the photo and hard to make out, is some lamb’s lettuce and a small bunch of rocket/arugula.
These are what we call ‘broccoletti’ in and around Rome. Broccoli Rabe or Rapini elsewhere. I’d trimmed them of the bits that are not nice to eat and left them to soak in this cheerful yellow tub. Later I boiled them in salted water until tender. Once drained and cooled, they need to be pressed to remove the excess moisture. They can be served either plain, with just a squirt of lemon juice and olive oil (which is how we enjoyed them). Or else, they can be cooked a second time in a frying pan, tossed about and coated in olive oil, garlic and chilli flakes. Here’s a link to a quick pasta recipe using broccoletti:
This is what we call cicoria – pronounced chee-corr-eee-ah in English.
It’s a bit of a labour of love trimming cicoria. It too needs soaking in plenty of water before cooking. There is always some soil attached to it that needs removing.
This broccolo romano is still in the fridge.
Ditto this cabbage.
Add the salt only NOW. If you add the salt too soon, it will hinder the raising agent work of the yeast. Again, cover with a tea towel and let it rest for one hour, better two.
And here it is now … all light and fluffy and waiting to be cooked.
Melt a small amount of butter in a frying pan, maybe a non-stick one would be a good idea. When the blini start to ‘bubble’ on the surface, turn them over. It doesn’t take long to gook the blini. They’re just lke pancakes after all.
They are very nice served with sour cream and smoked salmon.
Shame I can’t get fresh dill around here. Aw well, never mind. I used a bit of dried dill instead.
I decided to use only the strong gorgonzola, instead of a mixture of the two.
Chop the apricots and toast the hazelnuts.
Place the mascarpone in a mixing bowl and whip it up with a fork. Then add: apricots, hazelnuts, honey and black pepper.
Done.
Slice the gorgonzola and line the ceramic tureen with one layer.
Then add one layer of the mascarpone mix.
A second layer of gorgonzola. And then a second layer of mascarpone on top of that.
Final touch: a good scattering of pistachio. Cover and place in the fridge for about an hour or so before serving.
You can make this dish a few days in advance, why not?
Okay, gotta go now …. oh I forgot, great for parties, thumbs up.
A snowstorm of parmigiano and pecorino with the herbs playing peekaboo.
And now it’s time for the bechamel.
Here is Rossella lovingly spreading the bechamel. She has the patience of a saint.
Last-minute addition: red peppercorns. Not too many of course, but enough to get noticed. I love red peppercorns – they make me feel happy.
Butter, dollops of butter.
And this is the only measely photo I have of the completed dish. I know, I know. What one does manage to discern doesn’t look very enticing, more like a dog’s dinner. But I promise you it was very very good and all my guests complimented me. You’ll just have to trust me. (You’d think at least one of the guests, or my husband, would have taken a nice photo, no? Too busy eating?)
