The Innocence of Lamb's Lettuce & Parsley

It used be a well-known fact that herbs have "other" properties than just the ability to enhance and garnish food.

Much of this information is narrated in folk songs and folk tales and has made its way down to us in extraordinarily encoded form. Decoding this is, of course, the raison d'être of an academic.

Perhaps you have heard of a classic tale called Rapunzel?

The Brothers Grimm are responsible for its transmission to us. There are two version of their tales — one in 1814 and a revised and annotated version in 1857. As the brothers grew older, they systematically bowdlerized the tales they had collected themselves, stripping them of their sexual content and violence. The earlier versions are unambiguously more interesting.

Let's recap the tale of Rapunzel — a pregnant woman craves "rapunzel" and goes into the neighboring garden to get it. When caught, she agrees to give over the child to the witch. The witch imprisons the female child in a tower. One day, a prince hears her singing and climbs into the tower using her hair. The witch finds out, and she pushes the prince off the tower blinding him. Love prevails and the prince's vision is restored.

Rapunzel is a weed also known as lamb's lettuce. This is a total substitution on the part of the Brothers Grimm and the association with lamb and "innocence" should be noted. Even they weren't above keeping some of the resonance in the story even though it gives it a totally different feel.

The original story is called Persinette and "persil" is French for parsley. Persinette could loosely be translated as "Little Miss Parsley".

The pregnant woman was craving parsley. Most adult readers here would know that pregnant women don't really crave green herbs. Salt, sugar, sour stuff, sure but herbs?

The tale is coded.

She wanted the parsley to concoct a brew because parsley is an abortifacient. The child is not wanted. The "witch" is a woman with a garden who knows the properties of herbs and grows them. Her taking the child away could easily be seen as an act of generosity not of cruelty.

Additionally, the Grimm Brothers change another key component of the tale. In the classic tale, the witch finds out the existence of the prince because she is heavier than the prince. However, the original tale has Persinette ask the witch why her dress doesn't fit any more and feels tighter and tighter.

She's pregnant and Persinette and the Prince have been doing plenty of the ol' in-an'-out rumpy-pumpy.

Now the tale comes full circle. Like mother, like daughter.

Note that the girl is innocent before she is born and still innocent in the sense that she has no clue about sex. This only makes sense in a deeply Christian world of "original sin" as would be typical of an European folk tale.

Also note that the witch's motivations make more sense in the original version. You could easily write a version from her point of view making her the heroine not the villainess.

The tale has so much more resonance when seen in the correct light.

To bring a more modern feeling to the same idea, have you heard of the Simon & Garfunkel's classic "Scarborough Fair"? The song is an old English folk song and the lyrics are coded.

The opening lyrics go as:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.

What on earth are parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme doing there?

"Going to Scarborough Fair" refers to the act of "making the beast with two backs". Bumping uglies, hooking up, doing the dirty in modern parlance.

A concoction made of parsley, rosemary, sage and thyme was a well-known abortifacient. The parsley, in particular as pointed above, is an important component.

The song was written in 1966 when abortion was illegal in the US. It's not clear whether Simon & Garfunkel knew but it seems extraordinarily hard to believe that two talented intelligent men didn't know what they were singing even if their audience was clueless.

A cursory search on the web suggests these ideas are still well-known and prevalent in countries that ban abortion. Parsley is far more easily available that RU-486. Less effective perhaps but definitely easier to find.

The deeper one penetrates into the art of cooking, the more one is confronted with the more elemental and universal aspects of humanity.

Kabocha Risotto with Fried Sage and Pine nuts

This is just an epic recipe and exemplifies what is best about understanding the science of food. It combines Italian and Japanese elements in a transparent way so that what you get is much much greater than the sum of its parts.

You can make the broth and the risotto with minimal effort. (You may skip the instructions for making the "broth" if you already have some but this recipe shows you how to get away with making it "on the fly".)

But first, you must be aware of this particular culinary trick.

Secondly, you can streamline the ingredients and the pots so that there is very little wastage of either time or effort.

The important thing to note about kabocha is that unlike butternut squash, it doesn't need to be peeled. The skin is thin and edible and delicious. What you need to do is scrape it with a peeler to get the hard bits off. The Japanese adore this particular technique because it renders the squash with alternate dark and light green colors which is visually quite appealing.

Follow the instructions closely, and be amazed at what you can achieve on a weekday when you are "exhausted".

Ingredients

1/2 kabocha
1 large red onion (diced very fine)
4 cloves garlic (diced very fine)
1 cup arborio rice
16-18 sage leaves
4 tbsp pine nuts

4 cups dashi

1 cup parmigiano-reggiano
salt
pepper

Recipe

First, soak the konbu in 5 cups of cold water. Let it sit for 30 minutes or so while you do some prep and/or enjoy a nice glass of wine.

The onion and garlic can be pulsed in a food processor. Just make sure that you don't purée them.

Heat the oven to 350°F and roast the pine nuts for 7 minutes. Set aside.

Cut up the kabocha into large pieces. Don't get too technical. Rough shapes are fine. Also, cut up a little bit of the kabocha into neat little diced pieces. Set aside.

Bring the water to a boil. Pull the konbu off just before it boils otherwise it will taste bitter. Toss the large kabocha pieces in. Let it simmer for 10-12 minutes at high heat to get the squash to soften. When done, blend the mixture in the pot, and keep at a very low simmer.

Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a pot. When hot but not smoking, toss in 6-8 of the largest sage leaves. Let them fry for about a minute and fish them out and set aside on some paper towels to absorb the oil.

In the same oil, toss in the onions and the garlic. Fry for 6 minutes or so until they are colored but not caramelized. Toss in the rice and fry for a bit. Add the salt and black pepper. Just before the broth, toss in the neatly diced kabocha pieces and fry for a bit.

Now comes the standardized risotto procedure. Toss in the blended kabocha broth and stir. Toss and stir, toss and stir, toss and stir.

Finally, the mantecura. Put in the parmigiano-reggiano and stir well.

When done, garnish the risotto with the fried sage leaves and the roasted pine nuts.

Pasta with Butternut Squash, Sage and Pine Nuts

This utterly simple dish is dazzling array of textures and of tastes, and yet is so beguilingly easy that can easily be made at a moment's notice.

Interestingly, as my dinner companion pointed out the dish follows all the aesthetic and culinary rules of Japanese washoku inspite of the fact that the dish is Italian, of course. The rules of go shiki (five colors) and go mi (five tastes) and go ho (five ways = different methods) are effortlessly satisfied.

It's success is precisely that it's visually arresting (Toulouse-Lautrec might be jealous) and texturally and tastewise different with every bite.

Ingredients

1 large red onion
2-3 cloves garlic (chopped into thin segments)
4-5 dried red chillies
1 butternut squash (diced into large-ish cubes)
salt
black pepper
1/4 cup sage (chiffonaded)
1/2 cup pine nuts
olive oil

2 cups pasta
grated parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Toast the pine nuts in a skillet. Set aside.

In a pot, heat some olive oil at a medium-low heat. Fry the onion, garlic and red chillies. Do not hurry this process. When the onions are limp but not caramelized, they will rerelease the oil they have absorbed. Add the butternut squash and fry languidly. Add the salt, and liberal amounts of black pepper.

Add some water, and cover and let the squash soften. The mixture should be just slightly on the wet side.

Cook some pasta al dente in heavily-salted water.

When the pasta is done, add the sage to the squash mixture, and toss with the pasta.

Add the parmigiano-reggiano and the toasted pine nuts as toppings.

Practical Lessons for Urban Herbs

As the CC has mentioned, he acquired a ton of them.

At the end of this summer, more than half have died. The survivors are mint, rosemary, basil and sage.

Now, admittedly, this has been the worst summer on record in terms of sunlight but still...

Clearly, the CC's skills do not extend to plants and their maintenance!

We shall see how many make it through the winter. The CC is not optimistic.

Still, there are lessons to be learnt and there's always next year. Here's what the CC has learnt so far:

1. Replanting is a skill. You need to pack the dirt just tight enough to transmit water to the roots but not so tight as to inhibit them. (This was the CC's biggest mistake!)
   
   
2. Don't buy plants at the farmers' market early in the season. Yes, the CC knows you are chomping at the bit but what is good in an open field simply isn't good enough in an apartment or even a terrace. Wait. Get robust herbs and you will get robust urban herbs.
   
   
3. Houseplants in summer need a little more water than is expected. Whether it's the urban concrete jungle or what, the CC doesn't know but it's true. Conversely, they need a lot less water when it's cooler. So you need to turn into a lean, mean, weather machine.

More Herb Lore

Mediterranean herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, lavender, sage) really like slightly alkaline soil.

You can dry some egg shells, whiz them to a powder (= calcium carbonate) in your coffee grinder, and sprinkle the soil. They really love it.

CC, CC, Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?


L to R: mint, parsley, thyme, oregano, chives, sage, tarragon, rosemary

Pasta with Sage Butter

This is as simple as a pasta sauce gets. Ten minutes of attention, and you could be in culinary ecstacy so why not try it?

For the record, this marries best with fresh pasta but even if you go with dried linguini (or similar), you're likely to have a foodgasm.

If you find the stuff impossibly rich (which it is), squeeze half a lemon into the sauce, and whip it into a (O+S)/W emulsion. (Yeah, this is pretty traditional too.)

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter (yeah, it's gotta be unsalted)
sage (lots)

black pepper
parmigiano-reggiano (grated real fine)

Recipe

Heavily salt the pasta water. Yeah, heavy salt. Cook the linguini al dente.

Meanwhile, melt the butter on low heat, and fry the sage. (If you really like sage, cut it into ribbons, otherwise just as is.)

When the sage turns "stiff", fish it out and toss it. Yeah, you heard that right.

Keep the butter (like duh!)

Toss the linguini with the "sage butter", toss the parm and black pepper on top.

Slurp.

Farmers' Market Lunch

Inspired by the farmers' market, and a bit carried away while reading Julia Child's memoirs, the CC made probably the largest lunch he's had in a decade.

Fried zucchini blossoms
Panzanella
Linguini with sage butter