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| Ferial Feasting By Emily Kaiser It was the end of a long Sunday. The morning had gone to housecleaning, the afternoon to laundry. I was dogtired and shiftless about cooking dinner. It was nearing six, and all we had in the fridge were two bits of cooked chicken breast. And I was in no mood for cold chicken. The pieces did not even match. One was from some barbecue take-out, while the other remained from chicken baked with 40 cloves of garlic (a tasty recipe surprisingly common in cookbooks, given its funny name). Luckily for my tummy, I had just finished reading Robert Farrar Capon’s The Supper of the Lamb (Modern Library, 2002). The book has recently been reissued as part of the Modern Library’s new Food series, edited by Ruth Reichl. The author, an Episcopalian priest, preaches on the holiness of recycling leftovers. He distinguishes between festal cuisine, his term for fancy first-run cooking, and ferial: the everyday. (Webster’s defines feria as the weekdays in the church calendar on which no feasts fall.) In the chapter called "The Burnt Offering," Capon writes: "The rich man dines festally, but unless he is an exceptional lover of being – unless he has the soul of a poet and a saint – his feasts are too often only single: They delight the palate, but not the intellect. They are greeted with a deluxe but mindless attention: “What was it, dear, sirloin or porterhouse?” Every dish in the ferial cuisine, however, provides a double or treble delight: Not only is the body nourished and the palate pleased, the mind is intrigued by the triumph of ingenuity over scarcity – by the making of slight materials into a considerable matter. A man can do worse than be poor. He can miss altogether the sight of the greatness of small things.” Through the clouds of billowy language, Capon’s good sense shines. Show-off cooking, elaborate meals made completely from scratch, tire out the feet as well as the palate. It’s more fun to make much out of little, instead of the other way around. Leftovers are where the real fun lies. With Capon in mind, I figured I had the energy to make a chicken stew: the laziest stew possible. I’d chop some vegetables, chop up the meat, add some stock, simmer everything for an hour or so, and see what came out. If it was awful, I’d make spaghetti. Our pantry was in better shape than the fridge. We had potatoes, apples, celery, carrots, onions, even cranberries leftover from Thanksgiving. The potatoes, in nice thick slices, I layered first, sprinkled with a little salt, pepper, and dried thyme, then covered with the carrots, sprinkled a little more, then the celery, then the apples, and so forth. It was so much fun to layer the different colors, I forgot I was sleepy and started to play around. I was reminded of a scene in Tracy Chevalier's The Girl With The Pearl Earring, in which the painter Vermeer hires a maid, impressed by the way she arranges her stew vegetables in a sort of pie, each in different wedges according to color. Any chicken would be proud to lie on such a pretty bed of white, orange, red and green. Its own featherbeds, just like the Princess and the Pea. I topped off my casserole with the stock I’d made for the earlier garlic-cloves recipe. I covered everything up to the rim of the top layer of potatoes. I covered it up and put it on a medium flame on the burner. Then I lay down on the couch and watched the end of the afternoon football games. I remembered reading of an Alsatian dish called a baeckoffe, which I always translated as “bake-off,” a stew made from layers of raw meat, potato, celery, carrot and onion, moistened with stock and cooked in the oven a few hours unattended until soft and mushy. We had all those ingredients, just our meat was already cooked. According to Mark Bittman in Jean-Georges: At Home With A Four-Star Chef (Broadway Books: 1998), baeckoffe means baker’s oven. In Alsace, the home region of Jean-Georges Vongerichten -- the four-star chef we’re meant to be at home with – village housewives would drop off these stews at the baker’s on Sunday mornings before church. Since the baker had no bread-baking to do, his oven was relatively cool, enough for the stews to simmer gently until service was over. Then the wives would return and bring their pots home to enjoy a comforting late lunch with their families. When the football was over, I took this more modern baeckoffe off the flame and let it sit to give it time to rest. With its own special blend of thyme, garlic and barbecue seasoning, the laziest possible stew was surprisingly comforting and delicious. Winter Chicken Stew 6-16 ounces cooked chicken, roughly diced and skin removed Combine all ingredients in a 2 or 2 1/2-quart covered casserole. Layer the vegetables with the seasonings, ending with a layer of potatoes. Fill with the stock, leaving the potatoes uncovered. Cover with a lid and set over medium-high heat until the stock starts to simmer. Then reduce heat to low and continue to cook, approximately one hour, until a knife run through meets no resistance. Serve in bowls with crusty bread or salad.
1 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and sliced thin 1. Rinse the potatoes in several changes of water to remove all traces of starch. Remove the excess fat from the meat and cut it into 1- to 1 1/2-inch chunks. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. 2. In a 1 1/2 to 2-quart covered casserole (no larger!) layer about one-third of the potatoes, followed by a bit less than half the carrot, leek, onion, garlic, parsley, salt, and plenty of pepper. Add half the meat and some more salt and pepper. Repeat, finishing with a top layer of potato and a sprinkling of the remaining vegetables. Top with the tomato and pour in the wine. 3. Cover and bake for 2 to 3 hours, or until the top is crusted. Let rest for a few minutes, then serve, passing the mustard and coarse salt at the table. |
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© 2001 - 2008 Emily Kaiser |
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