In today’s Slate Regina Schrambling states “Peasant food has cachet only if you are not forced to live on it.” That comes in a wonderful treatise on lard that will get me looking for it and perhaps even trying pastry even though I’ve “hot hands.” Hot hands ruin pastry. http://www.slate.com/id/2219314/
Vitello Tonnato is a dish I never understood, veal with tuna sauce. I made it in cooking school and it was famous because both veal and tuna were expensive so it was dubbed a “rich man’s dish.” I knew a girl freshman year in college who ordered surf & turf on a first date so the guy would know she was important and worth keeping. Then she expected two dozen roses in a funereal display the next day. Just in a vase wasn’t enough. We haven’t spoken in many years but I heard she never married and became somewhat of a nun.
As far as I’m concerned, peasant ingredients are welcome at any time (as long as no serious butchering is required). Let’s just say that beans and rice have a place on my table, as do polenta or risotto al salciccia, white pizza. I’ve dined on cheese quesadillas or peanut butter sandwiches. But cooking for two can be simpler and less expensive than cooking for one.
If guests show up unexpectedly, I can toss two cans of white beans in a colander and drain them, dress them with salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, good olive oil and that’s a side dish. Add a little pepperoni and mozzarella cheese, then add a green salad, some tomatoes, and that’s lunch. Granted, I cheated with the prepared beans. But if one knew guests were coming, these things could be planned and thus less expensive.
Peasant food doesn’t mean last-minute food. A lot of dishes are braised take other longer methods and it takes work to make something that sounds simple from a menu. One makes and slaves over a sauce, makes pasta from scratch, perhaps even makes the mozzarella and ricotta cheeses. We have the luxury of buying a lot of this at a specialty grocery store.
Perhaps you can allow me to peruse the idea of the perfect guy’s first date with the gal. Oh, that’ll be fun. Authentic peasant food but he has to do something special, like take her out to see the full moon or go bowling or something. Just a thought.
While I kissed a couple of frogs along the way, my husband is the perfect definition of a peasant dish, in all good ways. It helps that he grew up on a farm with those principles. Now forget about him, as I’m about to talk about food and it’ll be weird.
I always thought of peasant food as few ingredients, best possible, a little salt and pepper and aromatics and you feel like you’re at your mother’s or grandmother’s table. That’s thanksgiving (smaller case on purpose, giving thanks to those you love) to me. Cheers! Dee
