brain food
I just looked at the time. How can it be midnight already? And how can I not have posted? It’s because it was market day, of course, and general shopping day, and there has been progress on the Prohibition banquet front (our first good soup – thanks to Dawn, who made the recipe twice to iron out problems of interpretation) and I have made a very little progress on another culinary history project of mine (of which more, someday, perhaps).
I’m eating a late night Egremont Russet. It’s a good apple for late night munchies: sweet and soft, but not too sweet and just enough crisp and crunch through the softness. I’ve always had a fondness for russets, but right now, this is my favourite. Mind you, I’ve only tasted four. It’s all a matter of being in the right place at the right time, for seasonal and unusual produce. If I were in the UK then thing would be different, of course. More access to interesting apples, and less to saltbush.
I nearly bought saltbush lamb today, but my friend reminded me I had saltbush and I had just ordered lamb, so I was really tangling myself if I bought lamb fed on saltbush then three weeks later bought lamb and covered it in saltbush. Besides, I had just bought Belted Galloway beef and really, truly, I am not a vast meat-eater. My eyes just got too big for a moment. I wanted to find out both sets of flavour, instantly.
What ought to be obvious at this moment is that this autumn I’m taking advantage of the season to advance my understanding of any older varieties of foodstuff I can get hold of. This is partly because the recipe testing enthused me, and partly because I’m increasingly getting to talk to producers and actually understand how fruit falls in and out of fashion. I knew the theory before, but I’m trying to nuance it and to sort out other ways of interpreting primary sources by getting a better understanding of food itself. Historian cannot think using paper alone. She needs Egremont Russets to help the thinking along, perhaps.
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