Food - September 5, 2013

Food: As published in the White River Current - Thursday September 5, 2013 I enjoy eating. I didn’t have to tell you that. It is quite evident by the shape of my body that I like food, and plenty of it. Of course, same as you, there are some things that I like better than others, but there are very few things that I absolutely do not like. I like most vegetables such as celery, Brussels sprouts and eggplant. Now, I have never been on a cruise and you may think that is unusual. The real reason is that I have a tendency to overeat and when I do I often come down with an attack of gastritis which could last for several days. Everyone that I have heard comment on a cruise vacation always raves about the amount and variety of foods that are available for consumption at their will and pleasure. For example, Robert and Sharon went on a Scandinavian trip a few months ago. He told me that he ate three lobsters every night they were aboard the ship. Now I enjoy seafood but I can tell you for sure that if I had made it through three lobsters I would spend the rest of the cruise in sickbay. Anyway, this idea about food came across my brain when I was writing the last column which was about the “last days” if you remember. A crazy thought came to me. If I had the opportunity to choose my last meal, what would it consist of? After much consideration, here it is: For an appetizer, a half dozen oysters on the half shell; for the salad, lime Jello with pear halves; for soup, a cup of homemade vegetarian vegetable. You might be with me up to now but let’s go to the main course: a slice of fried salt pork with stewed potatoes, whippoorwill peas, turnip greens, a few whole pickled beets, a thick slice of a white onion and a large slab of yellow cornbread (you could add or substitute for the salt pork a big dish of kraut and wieners). The dessert choice is easy: Apple pie with a huge dip of butter pecan ice cream and drizzled with warm caramel syrup. No doubt about it, if I ate all that it would be my last meal. Now I feel pretty confident in saying not many of you would make the same choices that I did. I guess my desires are influenced a lot by the meals I had when I was growing up. Well, you can delete the oysters from that list because I don’t believe they ever appeared on our dining table. Lately there have been a lot of recipes that show up on Facebook that look interesting and I have been thinking about trying some of them. I’m not much of a cook but I scramble the eggs at the men’s breakfasts at church sometime if that counts as cooking. Now my neighbor, Tom*, is a gourmet cook in addition to his many other talents. In one of his recent emails he detailed a recent kitchen episode. (I must have deleted his email by mistake so I will have to pass it on as I remember it, so here it is). “My wife was out of town so I decided to make a run up to Harp’s to get something for lunch. I was delighted to see that they had just received a shipment of Ruby-throated hummingbird tongues and, since they are the best, I bought two packages. I sautéed both packages in a half cup of extra virgin olive oil that I had pressed from fruit that I had harvested the day before. When the tongues began to curl, I removed the pan and drained most of the oil. Returning the pan to medium heat, I stirred in a cup of heavy cream. When the mixture began to thicken, I added a half teaspoon of sea salt and a few turns of freshly ground black pepper and spooned the entire dish onto a thick slice of wheat toast. Yummie!!” Well, as you can see, our tastes differ somewhat. I prefer the Rufous hummingbird species. Their tongues are a little longer.. (Permission is granted to call this a “tongue-in-cheek” article). Welcome back, Tom* and Fredericka. We have missed you. Tom* will be here with his column for the next two weeks. I’ll see you in three weeks. Bye for now.