Grasshoppers Grilled in the Fashion of Saint John the Baptist

It is not very well known that the artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was a terrific cook. We have descriptions of his endlessly inventive cooking and drink recipes during the belle epoque.

He clearly thought that food and art were collinear. He is once said to have ended a meal by unveiling a masterpiece of Degas, "Gentlemen, here's your dessert."

Just the name of the recipe is so suggestive.

As everyone knows St. John the Baptist was beheaded at the request of Salomé in Herod's court. The Biblical themes of locusts and beheadings resonate as does the exquisite detail to color (yellow, pink, red) characteristic of Toulouse-Lautrec's work.

From a large swarm of grasshoppers, choose the most beautiful, the pink rather than the brown or the yellow.

Put them on a screen and let them grill lightly over a charcoal fire while at the same time sprinking them with a few pinches of coarse salt.

Tear off the the head by turning them so that they whole digestive tract will come out intact.

Lay the grasshoppers on a dish garnished with rounds of lemon; season to taste with salt and ordinary red pepper.

Shell and eat the desert grasshoppers (locusts) in the same way as "grasshoppers" of the English Channel, that is to say shrimps, which have the same savor.

Bellini-ssimo

Named to honor the famous opera by Bellini, Pasta alla Norma is a cult Sicilian dish.

Chances are that the dish was already a Sicilian staple but it took the eyes of the theater director, Nino Martoglio, to declare the dish "una vera Norma". In his eyes, the dish and the opera matched each other's perfection.

What eggplants and tomatoes and ricotta salata have to do with an aging druidess whose lover runs out on her with a younger woman, and who declares this all her fault, and decides to immolate herself with him is best left to the imagination.

And the pleasures of the dish are definitely far from the "Casta Diva" of the opera.

Food is anything but chaste; food is pure unashamed unabashed sensuality. The idea of food being "chaste" is as ludicrous as ludicrous can be.

Not to mention that the pairing of food and tragedy is a bit of a travesty too. Try telling your dinner guests next time that the food portion of the dinner will end in a tragedy next time. Drop the CC a line if that works out for you.

Pairing of dinner and tragedy? Probably takes a particularly Teutonic mind to do so. Definitely un-Sicilian.

However, if we can accept the metaphor that there is something quite lovely about both this dish and the opera, then in the spirit of that mindset, the CC can begin to show you how to make the dish.

Just like a dramatic coloratura soprano is non-negotiable in the opera's title role, you must use ricotta salata. It's a salted cheese made from sheep's milk but pressed (sort of like a very dry feta but less crumbly.)

If you don't use it, the CC will find out about it, and come by and immolate you.

Ingredients

2 large eggplants (sliced vertically; see here)

1 large onion
4 cloves garlic (finely diced)
8-10 tomatoes (or use canned "San Marzano" peeled tomatoes)
3 dried red peppers

basil (snipped)
sea salt
black pepper

ricotta salata (grated or just chopped)

Recipe

The recipe proceeds in three separate parts all of which you will "assemble" at the end. They are respectively: eggplants (two different sizes, fried), tomato sauce, and the pasta.

If you use fresh tomatoes, they must be peeled.

Y'all already know how to make a tomato sauce but the pictures are repeated for emphasis.

Heavily salt the eggplants, and let them sit for at least an hour. They will let out copious moisture which you must discard.

Then you must wash each slice individually to remove all the salt.

Half the eggplants must be cut into "small" pieces, and the rest into "large" pieces. See below for a picture.

Fry the garlic.

And the onions, and the dried red chilli peppers. Fish the chilli peppers out at the end of the frying.

Add the tomatoes.

Let the tomatoes reduce at a very low heat. Yeah, this takes time. Go drink a martini or something.

Add the snipped basil leaves towards the end.

Fry the smaller pieces of the eggplants.

Push them to a side, and fry the larger pieces too.

The dish is a straightforward assembly of the al dente pasta, the two kinds of eggplants, the tomato sauce, and the ricotta salata on top, garnished with basil leaves.

Part of the pleasure of this dish is that you leave the different components separate; a sort of "mix 'n match" of different textures and tastes. Exactly the same thing that Norma's ex-lover, Pollione, was attempting with his chippy on the side except things didn't quite go his way, and he got scorched.

Pasta alla Norma

Coffee Addiction?

Somewhere roughly between 1732 and 1734, Bach wrote, essentially, a miniature comic opera, popularly known as the Coffee Cantata (BWV 211.)

Featuring such lovely lyrics as "Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht" ("Be still, stop chattering"), it's basically an ode to the trials and tribulations of coffee addiction.

The mini-cantata ends with the trio which exults in the fact that "drinking coffee is natural".

And never a truer word was said.

Food and Celebrities

"The rich are different from you and me."
Celebrities of all ages have always had food made in their honor. After all, they were the ones who could always afford it, and blew inordinate amounts on it.

More interesting are the cases when chefs were so moved so as to name dishes after their supposed inspirers.

Opera singers used to be the Hollywood celebrities of their day and age. Escoffier goes crazy over a soprano, and we are lucky to have two dishes -- "Melba Toast", and "Peach Melba". Next century, a San Francisco restauranteur goes ga-ga, and thus was born "Turkey Tetrazzini", and more recently, "Lamb Kallas".

Movie stars are the next order of business, and hence the "Shirley Temple".

Financiers, in their own way, were celebrities of their time. Hence, "Oysters Rockefeller", and "Eggs Benedict" (the latter a hangover cure after the kind of drunken debauchery that only Wall Streeters are capable of.)

Kings and their mistresses have been naturals for scandal long before the current pileup at Windsor Castle. Thank them for the existence of "Crêpes Suzette".

And every once in a while, an artist makes his way into the culinary vocabulary -- "Beef Carpaccio". The conversion of the latter word into an adjective borders on the absurd, as it specifically refers to the pale pinks in his paintings.

The Rossini roster ("Tournedos Rossini", "Maccheroni Rossini") seems to have waned from the culinary catalog just as his music seems to have waned from the standard operatic repertoire. Perhaps shift of contemporary tastes away from foie gras also had something to do with it.

"They just don't make them like they used to."
Somehow, a "Hilton Hoagie" or a "Anna's Banana" doesn't quite cut it.

They may have the scandal but they lack the sizzle and the sex appeal. Why bother to symbolically consume something when you can get it on YouTube?

And now that chefs are celebrities in their own right, a few narcissistic names may come along. Maybe, "Puck Pockets" or "Natto à la Nobu".

The CC doubts it'll catch on though.