When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time pondering hypotheticals that would never, ever come to pass. How would I survive if I were trapped in an avalanche? What would I do if (and WHEN, darn it, WHEN) a magical time-stopping amulet came into my possession? And given the choice to eat only one color of food for the rest of my life, what color would I choose? This last one was a real conundrum, even though of the three I've just mentioned it's certainly the least likely to come to fruition. Nonetheless, it's been good for a fair number of amusing dinner-table conversations over the years. What would you choose?
Red is usually high on the list for me. Cherries, berries, strawberry ice cream and shakes on the sweet side; tomato anything on the savory side (including, I think, pizza), spicy soups and curries swimming in rich, spicy sauce. Red foods are full of zest and life. Apples are red, but only some and only with skins on. Which brings one to white foods: bread, all dairy, mashed potatoes (a HUGE plus in the white column), bananas, pizza bianca, fettucine alfredo. Do apples count as red or white? What about a sandwich on white bread without any visible filling? And with visible filling, which color rules? Is all varicolored food off the table in my hypothetical, or is the dominant color dispositive? And did law school truly and permanently alter my brain chemistry? (the answer to this last one is a likely "yes")
Brown food wins. I heard on a food podcast recently that to the American palate, "caramelized" is the most-favored flavor of anything and everything. And caramelized food is brown. Almost anything worth eating can be made brown and, in the process, delicious. Apple pie? Brown. Lamb rogan josh? Brown. Chocolate ice cream, beef stroganoff, baked potatoes, roast chicken? All brown. Beer! Mexican coca-cola! Sole meuniere! The list goes on and on. Maybe if I lived in a warmer climate with better year-round access to the full Roy G. Biv of fresh produce I'd feel differently, but when the temperature drops below, say, 50 degrees and stays there for eight months of the year, you want food that is warm and tastes warm. Creme brulee is totally brown, if you do it properly.
The above poorly-lit photos represent an entirely brown meal I served my family this week. The overall brownness was a combination of serendipity, seasonality, and sales (on chuck roast, which I use to make beef stew). Beef stew was my number-one favorite meal as a kid. When I asked my mother later in life for her recipe, she simply said, "I just use beef Soup Starter [pictured above]." That doesn't help me. They no longer make Soup Starter, for one, and I'm not a "starter" type of gal. My beef stew takes about four hours to make and tastes pretty darned good. As does my pumpkin pie, with crust made from scratch. Canned pumpkin, though. There is a quorum among experts that canned is in fact superior to fresh pumpkin where pies are concerned, and having done it the hard way once I'm inclined to agree. My pie above is cracked. You wanna make something of it? It tasted AWESOME and, like the rest of the meal, was well camouflaged on my brown tabletop; we had to just grope around for it.
Next post: some VERY red food.
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