Early on I learned that food was coupled with good discussions, friends and family. For my family, breaking bread together was a social event and probably the only one that my grandparents could afford. Because they grew their own vegetables and raised chickens, they were always wealthy in the food area. Sunday dinner was the best of course and usually consisted of fried chicken and many side dishes. Today I would like to talk about spinach - for a couple of reasons.
1 - It was like a staple at grams as was kale and turnip greens. The latter two are a more pungent and as a child I found them bitter, no matter what gram did to them. Today, as I often tell Nico, my taste buds are changed, and yes yours will too Nico, and I love all greens.
2 - Because my Italian pen-pal loves food and we have many discussions about our mutual love of food. That coupled with politics would make for some lively dinner conversations if he, Tommy and I could break bread together. Oh Giovanni I wish for that day my young friend!
Gram cooked simply and used yes...bacon, bacon, bacon to flavor everything. My mother often used vinegar to season her greens, it is also good to season brussel sprouts. With all the choices in vinegar today you can really add flavor to these delightful greens. My favorite green is spinach and because my wonderful pen-pal from Italy, whose email address has spinach in it, I thought I would tell you how I cook spinach.
I hate to try and write down recipes because as Jules and Gurly Girl know I don't use recipes. I devour them and then change them and measure nothing, well I guess that is not true because I do it with my hands and eyes. My grandmother used her hands for measuring instruments and I suspect if she were to have poured what she thought was a cup of flour into a measuring cup...it would be dead on. I am not quite that precise, which is why I am not a baker. I suppose I could use measuring devices and bake - but creativity is hard for me when it is placed into a device. So cooking where I can add a dash of something and not worry if it will rise properly is my thing! Having said this here is my spinach dish and I will try and tell you how much of anything I use.
IGREDIENTS
Bacon - bacon - bacon!!! (3 slices)
Spinach
Mushrooms
Garlic (2 cloves)
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil
Garlic Salt
Pepper
Cook bacon, reserve grease and drain in between paper towels, pressing out oil. Don't worry if you break the bacon. When you are satisfied that you have removed most of the lingering, lovely grease from the bacon put your cooked bacon inside a piece of wax paper that you have folded over on top of the bacon and run a rolling pin to crush the bacon. I prefer it really crushed, but you can also just break into bits. Preference here!!! Set this aside.
NOTE:
Olive culture has ancient roots. Fossilized remains of the olive tree's ancestor were found near Livorno, in Italy, dating from twenty million years ago, although actual cultivation probably did not occur in that area until the fifth century B.C. Olives were first cultivated in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean, in the region known as the "fertile crescent," and moved westwards over the millennia.
The belief that olive oil conferred strength and youth was widespread. In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, it was infused with flowers and with grasses to produce both medicine and cosmetics; a list was excavated in Mycenae enumerating the aromatics (fennel, sesame, celery, watercress, mint, sage, rose, and juniper among others) added to olive oil in the preparation of ointments.
The beneficial health effects of olive oil are due to both its high content of monounsaturated fatty acids and its high content of ant oxidative substances. Studies have shown that olive oil offers protection against heart disease by controlling LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels while raising HDL (the "good" cholesterol) levels. (1-3) No other naturally produced oil has as large an amount of monounsaturated as olive oil -mainly oleic acid.
Olive oil is very well tolerated by the stomach. In fact, olive oil's protective function has a beneficial effect on ulcers and gastritis. Olive oil activates the secretion of bile and pancreatic hormones much more naturally than prescribed drugs. Consequently, it lowers the incidence of gallstone formation.
Olive oil and heart disease
Studies have shown that people who consumed 25 milliliters (mL) - about 2 tablespoons - of virgin olive oil daily for 1 week showed less oxidation of LDL cholesterol and higher levels of antioxidant compounds, particularly phenols, in the blood.(4)
But while all types of olive oil are sources of monounsaturated fat, EXTRA VIRGIN olive oil, from the first pressing of the olives, contains higher levels of antioxidants, particularly vitamin E and phenols, because it is less processed.
Olive oil is clearly one of the good oils, one of the healing fats. Most people do quite well with it since it does not upset the critical omega 6 to omega 3 ratio and most of the fatty acids in olive oil are actually an omega-9 oil which is monounsaturated.
END OF COMMERCIAL ANNOUCMENT!!!
Meanwhile, in a hot skillet pour about 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil and sauté mushrooms until nicely brown on each side, sprinkle lightly with garlic salt and pepper. Add your finely chopped garlic cloves and turn frequently to avoid burning the garlic. It is really nasty when burned. When the aroma has you feeling like you want to spread it on your own arm to eat, you are ready to add the spinach. Please turn spinach constantly, I use tongues for this. I do this dish several ways. Lightly heated where there is still a bit of crunch or thoroughly done so it is more than wilted. Sprinkle (to taste) vinegar, and season with more garlic salt and pepper if needed. Sprinkle crumbled bacon on top and OMG serve it warm!
Another thing I do on occasion is add diced hardboiled egg to it and serve it like a salad instead of a side dish. It is also good with candied walnuts broken onto the top.
Grams added bacon grease to her water as she cooked her greens and please remember her greens were fresh from her garden and had to be washed thoroughly. I am so happy today that you can get baby spinach leaves in a bag that are clean and don't require the delicate job of washing off all the dirt from under, around and over each leaf...man our cooking life is so much easier than hers. She planted it, grew it, harvested it, washed it, cooked it, seasoned it and then finally got to eat it.
PLEASE FRIENDS, the few that are following post your recipes here for spinach...I would love to see how your family cooked it - especially you Giovanni as I suspect in Italy you do it well!!!
Lets Cook with Viola Brown
I had taken my dauthers 10 year old son Nico to see "Julie and Julia" last summer and she recently rented the movie. Nico told his mom that Lala would love that cook book, and I am now the proud owner.
Nico loved the movie, which surprised me. We had spent the summer going to all the movies he wanted to see and I told him finally after about ten kids movies it was my turn to choose. So reluctantly, very reluctantly he went with me to see Julie and Julia. He laughed out loud several times at Meryl Streep's authentic portrayal of Julia Child. She totally caputed the comedy of Julia. He liked the movie, but was disinclined to start a blog himself. I suggested he write about 365 days of Pizza. Not just your ordinary pepperoni, the only kind he will eat, but Egg Benedict pizza grilled, or Chicken Alfredo Pizza (yummy white sauce), or dessert pizza with an Oreo cookie crust. All the idea made him want to do was order Domino's...
I decided yesterday (Christmas Day 2009) when I opened this gift, that I too would cook my way through Julia's book. As I began reading it this morning I realized there was something missing from today's cook and even perhaps from Julia's. Now I am not criticizing her book or her value and example. She brought French and Gourmet cooking to us, both of which appeal to my culinary sense and taste buds. But now with Pacific Rim, Fusion and the Food Channel we are all into food presentation as well as taste, and freshness. All good but shouldn't we be able to enjoy, in moderation and on occasion, some of the good old country cooking I grew up on. You know chicken and dumplings, where the chicken is browned in bacon grease. I know, I know, hearts are palpitating at the thought of heart attack on a plate supers, but my grandmother lived to be 96 years old and never owned a range where there wasn't a can of bacon grease decorating it's stove top.
Viola Brown or Grammy to me was a dirt poor chicken farmers wife. She had five children to feed as well and nothing...I mean NOTHING was ever wasted. She had recipes and used them but she knew her recipes so well that she didn't have to use them to fix a meal. And just because something called for carrots didn't mean she couldn't add broccoli too if she was so inclined or had it left over from Sunday super.
She was so known for her cooking that my mother often joked that my father married my mother for her mothers chicken and dumplings. The truth is Grammy drove him nuts, but he did love those chicken and dumplings.
As a child and a young woman I was exposed to the never waste a thing cooking mentality of the lower income families of the 1950's. It is not to say that julia or anyone who ate prime rib or porterhouse steaks for Sunday super would waste food. I am sure they didn't either, most had lived through the depression and knew better. But, as I continue to read Julia's book I realize just how poor my grandparents were. Aspic salads would be something the man my grandfather worked for family would serve. Grammy did not have luncheons, or even attend one unless it was a church social but, she knew how to feed her family and then eventually their families.
Calories were never lacking and every meal included home made bread or biscuits and butter. And bones were cooked down until every single spot of meat had escaped.
Julie talked in her blog about how long it took Julia to fix meals. This Christmas I did what every good cook that is not a baker should do at least once. I made cookies and candy. My grandmother was both a cook and a baker and if baking weren't so tedious I might be more inclined to whip up some sugary delights or high carb breads more often. As I was making pinwheel cookies and chopping (finely chopping) 3 cups of pecans I realized I could put them in one of my handy machines and do them in a heart beat. My tireless brain reflected on the fact that Grammy not only chopped her nuts by hand, she had to shell them, discard the shells and most likely picked them off the tree.
Even the landscape had a food value no Feng shui clipped decorative trees could be found in the front of their farm house. She had walnut, pecan, pomegranate, apple and apricot tree's, a full vegetable garden and even grape and berry vines.
So yesterday when my daughter was saying how GREAT her Christmas Eve dinner came out, I realized something. She has become a fantastic cook but, today's young woman knows nothing of two generations back, where recipes were just the beginning of a good dish. Where imagination, ingenuity and left overs were the heart of the meal.
Julia Child opened doors to my mothers generation about French and Gourmet cooking, but how will my daughter and her children ever know about grammy's cooking if I don't share what I learned. And learn I did, although it took sometime for this girl who was known to burn water.
So I decided to add a twist to my exploration of Julia's book. Not a "Betty Crocker", or a Julia Childs French cooking" blog, but more like a "Viola on the Prairie", recipe blog that will have some things in common with Julia's recipes.
This blog will tell you Grammy's answer to each of Julia's recipes - a poor man's style of food serving from the farms around the 1950's Food I grew up eating. At least as I would interpret them based on the experience I gained from the best cook I ever knew, Viola Brown. Lets see how far I get!
Nico loved the movie, which surprised me. We had spent the summer going to all the movies he wanted to see and I told him finally after about ten kids movies it was my turn to choose. So reluctantly, very reluctantly he went with me to see Julie and Julia. He laughed out loud several times at Meryl Streep's authentic portrayal of Julia Child. She totally caputed the comedy of Julia. He liked the movie, but was disinclined to start a blog himself. I suggested he write about 365 days of Pizza. Not just your ordinary pepperoni, the only kind he will eat, but Egg Benedict pizza grilled, or Chicken Alfredo Pizza (yummy white sauce), or dessert pizza with an Oreo cookie crust. All the idea made him want to do was order Domino's...
I decided yesterday (Christmas Day 2009) when I opened this gift, that I too would cook my way through Julia's book. As I began reading it this morning I realized there was something missing from today's cook and even perhaps from Julia's. Now I am not criticizing her book or her value and example. She brought French and Gourmet cooking to us, both of which appeal to my culinary sense and taste buds. But now with Pacific Rim, Fusion and the Food Channel we are all into food presentation as well as taste, and freshness. All good but shouldn't we be able to enjoy, in moderation and on occasion, some of the good old country cooking I grew up on. You know chicken and dumplings, where the chicken is browned in bacon grease. I know, I know, hearts are palpitating at the thought of heart attack on a plate supers, but my grandmother lived to be 96 years old and never owned a range where there wasn't a can of bacon grease decorating it's stove top.
Viola Brown or Grammy to me was a dirt poor chicken farmers wife. She had five children to feed as well and nothing...I mean NOTHING was ever wasted. She had recipes and used them but she knew her recipes so well that she didn't have to use them to fix a meal. And just because something called for carrots didn't mean she couldn't add broccoli too if she was so inclined or had it left over from Sunday super.
She was so known for her cooking that my mother often joked that my father married my mother for her mothers chicken and dumplings. The truth is Grammy drove him nuts, but he did love those chicken and dumplings.
As a child and a young woman I was exposed to the never waste a thing cooking mentality of the lower income families of the 1950's. It is not to say that julia or anyone who ate prime rib or porterhouse steaks for Sunday super would waste food. I am sure they didn't either, most had lived through the depression and knew better. But, as I continue to read Julia's book I realize just how poor my grandparents were. Aspic salads would be something the man my grandfather worked for family would serve. Grammy did not have luncheons, or even attend one unless it was a church social but, she knew how to feed her family and then eventually their families.
Calories were never lacking and every meal included home made bread or biscuits and butter. And bones were cooked down until every single spot of meat had escaped.
Julie talked in her blog about how long it took Julia to fix meals. This Christmas I did what every good cook that is not a baker should do at least once. I made cookies and candy. My grandmother was both a cook and a baker and if baking weren't so tedious I might be more inclined to whip up some sugary delights or high carb breads more often. As I was making pinwheel cookies and chopping (finely chopping) 3 cups of pecans I realized I could put them in one of my handy machines and do them in a heart beat. My tireless brain reflected on the fact that Grammy not only chopped her nuts by hand, she had to shell them, discard the shells and most likely picked them off the tree.
Even the landscape had a food value no Feng shui clipped decorative trees could be found in the front of their farm house. She had walnut, pecan, pomegranate, apple and apricot tree's, a full vegetable garden and even grape and berry vines.
So yesterday when my daughter was saying how GREAT her Christmas Eve dinner came out, I realized something. She has become a fantastic cook but, today's young woman knows nothing of two generations back, where recipes were just the beginning of a good dish. Where imagination, ingenuity and left overs were the heart of the meal.
Julia Child opened doors to my mothers generation about French and Gourmet cooking, but how will my daughter and her children ever know about grammy's cooking if I don't share what I learned. And learn I did, although it took sometime for this girl who was known to burn water.
So I decided to add a twist to my exploration of Julia's book. Not a "Betty Crocker", or a Julia Childs French cooking" blog, but more like a "Viola on the Prairie", recipe blog that will have some things in common with Julia's recipes.
This blog will tell you Grammy's answer to each of Julia's recipes - a poor man's style of food serving from the farms around the 1950's Food I grew up eating. At least as I would interpret them based on the experience I gained from the best cook I ever knew, Viola Brown. Lets see how far I get!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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