Food

There are lots of party foods that can be made in advance at no great expense. The money saved can be used to hire the bartenders and waiters that are essential if the hosts are to have any fun at all and remain on speaking terms with each other.

Florence Fabricant decided to take advantage of the lush peaches and excellent blueberries that will be at their zenith in flavor during late July. There are already fine peaches and berries in the market so you can make this right away.

Mary Emmerling has elected to serve a menu from her newly pub­lished book, “American Country Cooking.” This hors d’oeuvre will lead things off at her dress-in-white summer dinner for ten.

I don't know if herbs have ever before crossed national boundaries in such a massive immigration as they are invading American cookery of the ’80s. Dill used to be Scandinavian; oregano Italian, and the less common anise-flavored tarragon, strictly French. The English were sage; Mexican, coriander, and I don’t know what we were — parsley, maybe. Now they’ve come to an enthusiastic melting pot and American cookery really sings with all these different accents.

All this lamb talk is because we are smack-dab in the middle of “spring lamb season,” which is largely myth nowadays because lambs are born all year round in different parts of the country.

Except for Easter basket bunnies, white chocolate used to be relatively difficult to find, but the Nestle Com­pany produces a “baking bar” carried in most supermarkets.

“True genius always looks simple, and the best of creations are 'obvious.'" — Rudolph Chelminski, “The French at Table.”

Although it’s always been my credo to try to live by the seasons in the Long Island Larder, there are times when the seasons need a little forcing — like dreary February.

Souffles have magic and mystery — they’re always box office even though their simple trickery has long been familiar. This is great for the January blahs when we all need some different, innovative, out-of-the-rut food.

This is a thick version of summer’s soupe au pistou, changed to make use of vegetables available locally in winter. Fresh basil grows in my greenhouse, but as it isn’t usually buyable in winter, use bottled pesto sauce, which can be bought in specialty food shops to provide the finishing earthy flavor of this soul and belly-warming stew.

Sherbet can be frozen in a bowl in the freezer of your refrigerator, then aerated with a food processor or electric mixer when it is semi-frozen, then refrozen.

Although this recipe appeared in a Larder column several years ago, I heard that several people had loved it but lost it, so here it is again. Choose a plain or fancy fluted mold of two-quart capacity (or a bundt cake pan). Oil it lightly and chill it before you start. Another advantage of this dessert is that it can, and should be, made at least 24 hours in advance — even two days is fine. The flavor and firmness develop and the mousse is easier to unmold after this time. Unmolded before dinner, covered with plastic wrap, and replaced in the refrigerator, this is a fairly carefree finale to dinner. Serve with clouds of real whipped cream only barely sweetened.

“All that glitters is not gold” . . . and all that is gold does not glitter. The pig, that estimable creature, while no thing of beauty and generally not highly regarded as to character, nevertheless supplies some of the world’s best fare. The porker, from snout to tail, is perhaps the most utilitarian of all our domestic animals and yet is perhaps the least treasured of meats.

Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables were common on Colonial tables, but somehow got lost by their descendants. Although such truck, as broccoli, kale, chard, and a green known confusingly to Italians and precious few others as broccoli rabe and broccoli rapa, have been around for centuries, many cooks still have no idea of what to do with them.

Homing in on which crop is fleeing fastest, I've had lush, fragile, irrevocable peaches on my mind. But then I often do. Native South Carolinians and Georgians, of course, have a near obsession with this fruit: Peach ice cream is the only flavor, peach cobbler the only pie, peach butter and never apple on biscuits and toast. Peaches in winter were the prerogative of royalty until recent times. . . . Now we can freeze up a big batch fairly effortlessly and decide in the calm of late autumn just what to do with them – jam, chutney, ice cream, pie, or simply a luxurious dish of peaches and heavy cream.

A “chicken in every pot” is one political promise that has come all too true, at least in the United States, where chicken is about the cheapest protein going except for eggs. Chicken, achingly available in every place and season, is no longer universally regarded as a treat. To many, it’s more of a duty — either to waistline or bottom line.

Mussels are another local glory found on local menus. At Bobby Van’s, they are served “mariniere” (simply steamed in wine and herbs) year-round. But there are so many ways to serve these cheap, easily cooked shellfish: cold as a first course with various sauces or in soups or hot entrees.

The Neapolitan pie, hardly known in this country before the 1930s, must certainly have overtaken the hot dog as the nation’s number one favorite snack food. According to scholarly research conducted in the ’50s by the lat Richard Gehman, one Frank Mastro from Bari (not Naples) is credited with popularizing pizza outside the Italian neighborhoods in New York.

This recipe is for fresh, and only fresh, pasta. All herbs used must be fresh as well or this dish is hardly worth making. It is so very simple, you can’t cheat.

Either cod or flounder are good local choices for the fish mousse — almost any firm, fresh white fish will do. Naturally one would not choose expensive striped bass; that would be like making hamburgers out of ground filet mignon.

When the first gas ranges were introduced in France about the middle of the 19th century, they were greatly distrusted. Meat baked in an oven was despised by Alexandre Dumas, who decreed that all food in his household be prepared on wood or charcoal fires. Grill cooks (rotisseurs) feared to lose their livelihood.

"Garlic's taste is briefest pleasure—
Eat in haste, repent at leisure.
Garlic's like the poor, like sorrow—
Here today and here tomorrow."
-Justin Richardson, from an anthology by William Cole, "...And Be Merry"

Maida Heatter’s career certainly makes a bum out of Fitzgerald’s more clever than profound words: “There are no second acts in American lives." Miss Heatter’s lifelong pastime has turned into a wildly successful career as the books and cookies, pies and cakes come tumbling out of her Florida kitchen.

Dried black mushrooms from Japan and spicy, pungent French chanterelles make this a meatloaf for royals. As well it might, since the imported dried mushrooms cost a king’s ransom.

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.” — “Hamlet,” W. Shakespeare. It’s also for pork and lamb, and according to medieval herbalists, a surefire complexion aid when infused in white wine.

Luscious, ripe strawberries may herald summer but, somehow, they can’t match the raspberries that follow for sybaritic luxury. This dessert is a heavenly confection that will transport dinner guests to a state of utterly dazed wonderment.

Eaten plain or with yogurt for breakfast or lunch and involved in more elaborate desserts for dinner, strawberries are hardly tiring, even on a daily basis. The season is too short for that. Here is a strawberry shortcake that can be prepared in a trice.

As soon as the weather warms (and the rains cease — a dove with a sprig of impatiens landed on my windowsill, indicating the waters are about to subside), thoughts turn to the pleasures of outdoor dining The barbecue season, perfuming the air with the aroma of charbroil and keeping the heat out of the kitchen, has arrived.

Pizza may be a year-round staple, but in the summer season it can take on a special bright freshness. Now is the time. Herbs, fresh tomatoes or even a little ratatouille discovered while rummaging in the refrigerator are wonderful additions, providing you make the pizza yourself, an activity that allows for creative innovations and saves on gasoline. 

Mussels, readily available now that the weather and water are beginning to warm, are yet to find as popular a place on menus here as clams. Perhaps if the Indians had started the colonists off with a mussels bake, the history of seafood consumption would have been totally different.