Chicken Livery
When I was a kid, I remember watching Julia Child on black and white TV. I remember when her show changed to colour and her shirt was a robin's egg blue. Suddenly she became animated and became a person to me.I also watched The Galloping Gourmet - Graham Kerr. At the time, I really had no idea the Galloping Gourmet was flying all over the set because he was really 'flying' so to speak. When you're a kid, you don't catch on to those things unless you learn them from your environment. I was well looked-after as a child and I didn't learn that kind of stuff until my brother was in high school - he's 4 years older than I am.
Even though I was naive in many ways, there were some things that didn't get by me. Like when someone does something completely useless. I have always wondered why people do things that don't make any sense whatsoever.
I have always thought it best to spend the time on things that really matter - especially in cooking. If more effort will really make something taste better in a different way, if it won't ever happen unless you take the time, then it's worth it. Like slow-cooking onions until they are crispy, carmelised, golden brown - used to crumble on soups, stews etc. They won't get that way unless you take your time.
I remember one time when Julia Child spent the first half of her show skinning a chicken -with the intent of leaving the skin in tact and whole. This seemed to me a feat more difficult than passing a camel through the eye of a needle. But she obviously had some good reason for carrying out this horrendous operation with her lethal Sabatier boning knife. All you could see during this massacre was her hunched over, her elbows crashing about, the top of her head and knobbly fingers manipulating the chicken flesh and ripping the bone cartilage apart. When she stood up again, she triumphantly held up a chicken skin that looked like a chicken coat right on the hanger - just empty of it's flesh and bones.
I was in awe. Julia Child was going to do something so grand and amazing with this skin - all the effort would have been worth it - I just knew it. To this day, I am not sure what to think. What Julia did with that hard-earned, perfectly tailored chicken skin was this: She filled it with a basketball sized mound of freshly chopped chicken liver and steamed it. That's it. When she presented it, it looked like grey matter in a shriveled brain skin. Ok, basically she was making a type of pate. You could easily buy very similar pate just about anywhere - even back then. Was it worth the effort to stuff it in a chicken skin? I don't think so. I would just go to the French Market in Georgetown and ask for a couple slabs at the deli counter. Spend time on a nice sauce for the veal or something...
Many moons later, in Europe, I find myself watching cooking programmes of all sorts. I watch the British ones - of which there are many on regular TV. I watch a Belgian one where a famous Flemish actor travels the world and makes local specialties and shops in odd, interesting markets. I watch the Turkish cooking channel which is sponsored by a vegetable oil company and every two seconds, the chef flashes the bottle of oil with the label front and centre - he's actually slopping it on something every two seconds anyway. The Turkish meals are always interesting and the plates are artfully decorated with perfectly carved rose-shaped cherry tomatoes, heart-shaped red-pepper rings and cucumber half moons. There's a cooking contest show on the Italian channel that is so noisy and active it sort of makes me ill when I watch - the camera jostles around too much trying follow the slops of red wine and pasta being flung through the air.
My favourite cooking show of late is on the Spanish channel TVE. Jose Andres hosts a programme called Vamos a Cocinar. (He's a famous DC Chef) It's sort of like a Mr. Roger's neighborhood food show. He's in this house and he invites 'friends' to lunch. The 'friends' are always famous, writers, musicians, wine experts, etc. He's a perfectionist and explains everything as if he were speaking to a 4 year-old child. There's always a break in the show where he sits down to discuss ingredients. If he does a show using Chorizo sausages, he will sit down to a table laden with 30 types of sausages from each culinary region of Spain. Then he will painstakingly talk through how each one is produced and then how to cook them. I usually take a break during this segment, or walk the dog.
Jose Andres usually goes through a lot of steps to get his food out so I am used to it. However, last night he did one of those 'Chicken Liver-Ball' things.
I couldn't' believe the lengths he went to last night. In the end, he served filets of flounder with sauce on top to his guests. The sauce was made with a base of onions, balsamic vinegar, red wine and some weird fish part - the fish part had to be cooked in a separate stock for two hours, then rubbed with sea salt to remove something rubbery (I don't speak Spanish, so I have to do my best at guessing), rinsed several times in cold water, returned to the stock for another hour and then finally added to the sauce - a sauce overpowered with onions, balsamic and wine - hmm. Do you think the fishy things were strong enough to handle the sauce? Anyway -a lot of work.
The fish parts looked like halved starfish - I swear. And I am going to call my Spanish friend today to find out what this weird wobbly spiny thing was. All this for the sauce which was poured over nicely baked flounder filets with herbs. Should we be eating something that resembles a fishy chicken foot if it has to be sand blasted and practically sterilized to eat? It had better be a delicacy or a really good aphrodisiac.
Anyway - anything weird and interesting like that piques my interest and I will investigate. I will spend my time learning and trying new things. I just won't be stuffing a chicken skin with chopped liver anytime soon.
posted by Brussels Confidential @ 9:37 AM
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