Food and Drink – Page 3

February 5, 2012March 6, 2014 by Dave Bonta

How to eat

This entry is part 2 of 39 in the series Manual

Cultivate an appetite through rigorous exercise of the organs of speech.

Grow root vegetables and, if possible, talons.

Salivation is important, but in most cases it will not be necessary to consume the saliva of other creatures, e.g. in the form of Aerodramus swiftlet nests.

Go to the ocean—primal eater—and watch how it wags its tongue.

Make sure the bread and the soup are singing in the same key.

Beware of the sea cucumber, which turns itself inside-out to avoid becoming a meal.

The best food is the most obvious: a fan never runs out of air to chew.

If the meat is rotten, eat the maggots.

Forks to the left, spoons to the right and a steak knife’s macron over the dish’s O.

Oxidation is too unpredictable. Use gastric acid and fermentation.

Set an extra place at your table for the anthropologist with the most delectable buttocks.

January 23, 2012March 6, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Organ Meats: A Primer

This entry is part 9 of 29 in the series Conversari

Pennsylvania Dutch used to celebrate Thanksgiving
not with a turkey but the stuffed
stomach of a hog.

When eating smalahove—Norwegian sheep’s head—
the ear & eye must be consumed while still piping hot,
before their abundant fat starts to congeal.

Belgians prefer their cow tongues warm
and their pig tongues cold
with a vinaigrette.

Testicles are among the most versatile of foods,
delicious sautéed & sauced,
fricasseed, battered & deep-fried, put in pies,
poached or roasted.
The penis, or pizzle, is mostly
just fed to dogs.

According to the Talmud, tractate Berachoth,
the spleen is the seat not of anger or melancholy
but laughter. The Greeks roast it
over an open fire: splinantero.

Eating humble pie originally meant
eating a meat pie made with umbles,
originally numbles: those glistening parts
in which no one takes much pride.

Sweetbreads, which are offal,
should not be confused
with sweetmeats, which are mere confections.

I hate your guts, we say
to someone so detested
even their innocent viscera seem repulsive.

The lungs when put
to culinary use
are called lights.

Updated 1/25/12 to add a new sixth stanza, prompted by a comment from rr, as well as a new eighth stanza.

Rachel’s photographic response: “Brain.”

January 10, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Prawns or shrimp? The cat likes them
either way. We find him on the counter
with a large piece of red onion
& a lettuce leaf in his mouth, a sudden
fan of salads. The cat is a true eccentric
& quite sure he is a dog, while
the dog of course thinks she is
a human. And we humans are the most
curious of all: we believe
we are what we eat, though it’s seldom
that we’re present for the eating.
If we eat a salad, we’re already looking
forward to the dessert. Omnivores,
dwellers in the benthic zone, we have
an unusual tolerance for toxins.
Our strongest muscles pull us rapidly
away from wherever we happen
to find ourselves, which we watch
recede into something no larger
than a shrimp.

December 25, 2011December 25, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Venison meatballs in coconut milk

I was looking for a holiday supper main course for just three people. Our neighbor had kindly gifted us with some extra pasta salad, which was delicious, and we also had a green salad and my mom’s crustless pumpkin maple cheesecake for desert. So here’s the recipe I came up with. I should mention that the venison was also a gift from the same neighbors, Troy and Paula Scott, from a deer they shot here on the mountain sometime within the past few weeks.

Ingredients

1 lb ground venison
1/4 cup minced onion
2 tsp minced garlic
1 12-oz can of coconut milk
3/4 cup whole-grain rye bread in large crumbs
1 egg
1/2 tsp ginger powder or 2 minced slices of fresh ginger root
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp five-spice powder
1 tblsp Hungarian paprika
lots of fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp salt

Directions

With a fork or some similar implement, stir and blend the coconut milk into something resembling a liquid, then pour a bit of it onto the bread crumbs in a mixing bowl to soften them up. Dump the rest into a large kettle on the stove and heat on medium low until it simmers. Beat the egg, add it to the breadcrumbs, then add all the rest of the ingredients and mix with a spoon or your fingers until you’ve produced a more or less uniform mass. Shape into eight to ten balls and place them in the simmering milk, which should submerge them about half-way. That’s O.K., because you’ll turn them over every ten minutes or so to prevent them from sticking. They should be done in 40-45 minutes, and you’ll be left with just enough sauce to spoon over top.

I was going to add dried currants, but forgot. Chopped almonds might’ve been a nice touch, too. As for the lack of a photo: they were meatballs. Presentation was not a central concern.

October 22, 2011January 9, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Turnips

This entry is part 31 of 37 in the series Bridge to Nowhere: poems at mid-life

I have three turnips:
sharpness gathered in softening rinds
like new wine in old wineskins,

pink & white carousels
from a run-down amusement park
graffitoed by nematodes.

They fit oddly in the palm
with their rats’ tails & severed tops.
What planet are they from?

They’re marooned—no eyes
to sprout grappling hooks,
no way to win back the sun.

But when I slice them open:
starch-white deserts
unriffled by any wind.

September 18, 2011May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Terra Incognita

watch on Vimeo – watch on YouTube

My first videopoem to use footage from another, equally fun hobby, homebrewing. The poem by D. H. Lawrence is now in the public domain, and I found it rather quickly because my copy of his complete poems is quite throughly annotated with marginalia by its previous owner — my poetry sensei, Jack McManis. Jack had put a big check-mark beside the title and underlined all the best parts, helping me see past its — to my mind — overly didactic framing.

Here’s the text.

Terra Incognita
by D. H. Lawrence

There are vast realms of consciousness still undreamed of
vast ranges of experience, like the humming of unseen harps,
we know nothing of, within us.
Oh when man has escaped from the barbed-wire entanglement
of his own ideas and his own mechanical devices
there is a marvellous rich world of contact and sheer fluid beauty
and fearless face-to-face awareness of now-naked life
and me, and you, and other men and women
and grapes, and ghouls, and ghosts and green moonlight
and ruddy-orange limbs stirring the limbo
of the unknown air, and eyes so soft
softer than the space between the stars,
and all things, and nothing, and being and not-being
alternately palpitant,
when at last we escape the barbed-wire enclosure
of Know Thyself, knowing we can never know,
we can but touch, and wonder, and ponder, and make our effort
and dangle in a last fastidious fine delight
as the fuchsia does, dangling her reckless drop
of purple after so much putting forth
and slow mounting marvel of a little tree.

July 28, 2011December 30, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Grief Bacon

This entry is part 14 of 20 in the series Highgate Cemetery Poems

Kummerspeck (German) Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.
—“15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent“

Strip of blubber
sputtering on
high heat,
red stripe
that whispers
to the whip,
curling like
a tongue
at touch of
something bitter,
shrinking
& shriveling like
a spent cock
or drought-
struck leaf,
turning brittle
as the cover
of an old pulp
magazine,
ah bacon—
if I were to
bring you home,
it would be
as a flag
draped over
a coffin,
red & white
& red,
or some
long rash
I’d feed with
nervous nails.

April 9, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Buying Meat from the Afghans

I am with two other tourists at a village market in Afghanistan, buying a slaughtered animal for a feast. I bring up the rear with my dad’s old deer rifle slung over my shoulder, imitating the other men. Everyone is twitchy about even the suggestion of an insult, but who knows what constitutes an insult? Fortunately, the sky doesn’t mind having guns pointed in its direction.

Our guide develops a sudden stammer. Oh great, I mutter. He leads us down alleys so narrow we each have to turn sideways — like cattle through a chute. The guy in front has the meat; we just need to get back to our vehicle. The vegetables that were thrown in for free as an incentive to buy mysteriously disappear, and I want to go find them, but the guide says no, forget it, keep moving. I meet each bearded glower with my own, trying to remember from high school how to say Don’t Fuck With Me in body language.

Night falls with appalling speed. We climb a steep bank to the road, and the guy with the meat trips and scatters it in the grass and dirt. We fumble for it in the dark, exclaiming over each little wet cube, ready for a gritty stew.

March 10, 2011 by Dave Bonta

What Soup Can Do

The soup I had for lunch
continues to bubble.
Outside there’s fog & rain,
I’m sitting straight in my chair
reading from a screen
& when I hear a gurgle
I look out at the drainpipe,
unsure for a moment
whether the soup is in me
or I am in the soup.

I would like a recipe
for disorientation,
a map for getting lost.
It might say, Dissolve
each point of reference.
Bring to a boil.
Take stock.

January 5, 2011 by Dave Bonta

Troubleshooting

After several years without a coffee grinder, I decided to spend some Christmas money and take a chance on another one, my third — the previous two were pieces of crap and broke after a few months. This one might well turn out to be just as bad, but I’m getting a kick out of the user manual. First of all, it’s a flip book, which is delightfully retro, with French on the other side. Then on page 10, I found these insanely awesome troubleshooting tips:

PROBLEM	POSSIBLE CAUSE	SOLUTION
UNIT DOES NOT GRIND	· Grinding chamber lid is open · Grinding chamber is not in position · Start Button has not been pressed · Unit is unplugged · There’s a power outage · If after trying all of the above the unit still does not grind, the motor has over- heated, thermal fuse is broken	· CLOSE GRINDING CHAMBER LID · PLACE CHAMBER IN PROPER POSITION · PRESS AND HOLD START BUTTON · PLUG UNIT IN · WAIT FOR POWER TO BE RESTORED · CALL AUTHORIZED SUNBEAM SERVICE CENTER
THE COFFEE GROUNDS PRODUCED ARE NOT PROPERLY GROUND	· Grind setting or cups setting is incorrect · Insufficient amount of whole beans used · Chamber lid opened during operation · Unit is not clean · Foreign object is obstructing the grinder blades	· SET GRIND SETTING or CUPS SETTING CORRECTLY · ADD BEANS TO GRINDING CHAMBER · CLOSE GRINDING CHAMBER LID · UNPLUG UNIT, CLEAN AS PER INSTRUCTIONS AND PLUG IT IN AGAIN · UNPLUG UNIT AND CAREFULLY DISLODGE FOREIGN OBJECT
UNIT STOPS GRINDING	· Grinding chamber lid has been opened · Unit has been unplugged · There’s a power outage	· CLOSE GRINDING CHAMBER LID · PLUG UNIT IN · WAIT FOR POWER TO BE RESTORED

Category: Food and Drink