Eating and cooking, by instinct, by genetic memory or by the power of suggestion, are valid reasons to get excited about food. We all do sometimes.
Just thinking about a favorite food can make you run for the fridge, the store or home to Mama.
I’ve been yearning for lobster since someone mentioned it off-hand the other day. If I don’t have some soon, I will survive, though. It’s still pretty pricey everywhere; but aside from that, it is at moderate risk of being overfished and/or decimated if steps are not taken to avoid this calamity for lobster and other shellfish and seafood.
So, I’m going to tone down my cravings for things like cod, tuna, herring, flounder, some shrimp and other goodness and attempt to explore possibilities not endangered. It will be fun, like a hunt for forgotten delicacies yet to be discovered again.
We need to give the ”popular” kids a break; let them rest a bit so they can become sustainable for the future.
”Back in the day” when my mom was young, she ate a lot of tripe, head cheese, salt cod, mussels and monkfish, as well as other odd delights. She found ways to prepare these foods that made many seem like special scrumptious things that other people could only dream about.
She did the same thing with the least-expensive cuts of meat as well: oxtail, liver, flank steak, kidney – that sort of thing. The time has come again to learn how to stretch a dollar, a meal and a tank of gas. But haven’t we been doing this all along?
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Walnut Drop Meringues
1 cup rough-chopped walnut meats
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 egg whites, beaten stiff
2 to 3 tablespoons flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a large cookie sheet. Fold the nuts, sugar and baking powder into the beaten egg whites. Add a pinch or two of flour to create a stiff batter. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake in center of oven for 5 minutes or until golden. Remove to racks to cool.
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Broiled Shad with Butter
Shad is a larger member of the herring family and can be bony, but boneless fillets are available. It’s a very delicious fish that resembles salmon or trout. The meat is white, sweet, tender and a tad fatty.
8 shad fillets
1/4 cup corn oil
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
8 pats butter, 1 for each fillet
Salt and pepper to taste
Put the fillets in a shallow baking dish. Pour a little of the oil and lemon juice over them. Add the thyme and bay leaves. Sprinkle with parsley and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour to marinate.
Fry the fillets in a little oil for 2 minutes per side. Put the fish on a foil-lined broiler pan. Place a pat of butter on each fillet and sprinkle with more lemon juice, salt and pepper. Broil for 2 minutes and serve immediately.
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Dried Namaus-Suck (fish)
Fish can be dried today much as it was in times gone by. Modern preserving methods call for soaking cleaned fish or fillets for 8 to 10 hours before smoking in saltwater brine seasoned with black pepper, brown sugar and herbs such as dill, thyme and savory. An old Woodland recipe calls for flavoring partially dried fillets with maple sugar, then completing the drying process.
Oily fish is best, such as herring, bluefish, whitefish and mackerel. It should be cleaned, but not boned.
1. Split the fish lengthwise. Flange it open and hang or spread it across green wood racks set in a sunny location for 8 to 9 hours, or set racks under a slow fire for about 3 hours.
2. Remove fish from racks. Bone and set on a clean work surface. Rub maple sugar into the flesh.
3. Return fish to drying racks and cure to desired doneness.
4. Store indefinitely in birch bark containers or in a conventional storage container in the refrigerator or freezer.
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Notes and Tips
* Nuts are so good for you. If you try to eat at least a handful five or six times a week, that’s a good thing. We especially love walnuts. I buy them in bulk because they are cheaper that way. Then I package them in thick 1-quart freezer bags with about 2 cups per bag. We usually keep a bag in the fridge for everyday use on cereal, salads, for a snack or on desserts, and they
disappear.
* Walnuts are one of the best sources of plant-derived omega-3 fatty acids. Others are canola oil, ground flaxseed, soybeans, wheat germ, spinach and purslane. Walnuts, however, have the highest overall antioxidant activity, which is a very good thing, indeed.
