French Cuisine
By Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male
I have always wondered why women, including Ann my wife, are so fond of cooking Lasagna. I finally decided that it is because Lasagna (or Lasagne as it can also be spelled) is an easily made Italian dish with a name that sounds decidedly French if pronounced quickly with a stuffy nose and puckered lips. French cooking is important to women because in the world of culinary bragging, “Italian” brings up visions of blue-collar dishes like pizza and spaghetti, while “French” brings up visions of blue-nose dishes like vichyssoise and escargot. Cold soup and snails, by the way, are the reason all French words tend to be spoken with a nasal sound. It is hard to sound any other way when one is trying to speak and eat while holding one’s nose.
While escargot is claimed to be a delicacy, I am guessing that the real reason for escargot is that someone was having trouble keeping the snails out of his or her vegetable garden and decided to feed them to house guests as a slick way of getting rid of a pest. My suspicions were confirmed by a 1993 article I was reading from the Mother Earth News written by Gail Damerow (gender unknown). The article was titled Escargot From Your Own Backyard and includes this statement:
"After years of battling snails in my garden while cooking up escargots purchased at a premium from a local import shop, I finally got wise. As long as I was gathering garden snails, why not harvest them for dinner? … When I served garden snails to my friends their invariable reaction was “yuk!” But when those same friends thought they were eating escargots from France, I got rave reviews."
Unlike French Cuisine, however, Lasagna is an easy dish to “jazz up.” Adding the pièce de résistance” as we say in French. Jazzing up Lasagna, by the way, means different things to different genders. In our family the difference exists because Ann, my wife, and I are at war over my stomach. Not the size, mind you, but the contents. The fighting line has been drawn directly in front of my mouth which is, of course, the entrance to the curvy trail that leads to the real battleground, my stomach. That is "Stomaque" to you French speakers. Ann prefers to add blue-nose things like spinach, or mushrooms, or broccoli. She says it is because those are healthy for me. I think it is to force me to keep my portion size down by ruining the taste. My choices would tend toward Italian sausage, or pepperoni, or even old hot dogs, if that is the only thing available.
Now if none of those sound appetizing to you, I did find additional recipes in the Mother Earth News article I was reading. After several paragraphs to explain the types of snails available from the garden, how to lure them, how to de-slime them, and how to cook them, there was a couple of paragraphs on Insect Cuisine and a recipe for Earthworm Patties. If you are really interested, you can find the article at:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/escargot-zmaz93jjztak.aspx?PageId=1
And if you need any help with the preparation I suspect that you can get some guidance from my two mountain men friends Bryce and Scott who are experienced at living off the land. As for me I plan to just continue chug-a-lugging TruMooTM strawberry flavored milk from the bottle I keep in the fridge. If it would impress you more, I could occasionally drink it from a demitasse.
I have always wondered why women, including Ann my wife, are so fond of cooking Lasagna. I finally decided that it is because Lasagna (or Lasagne as it can also be spelled) is an easily made Italian dish with a name that sounds decidedly French if pronounced quickly with a stuffy nose and puckered lips. French cooking is important to women because in the world of culinary bragging, “Italian” brings up visions of blue-collar dishes like pizza and spaghetti, while “French” brings up visions of blue-nose dishes like vichyssoise and escargot. Cold soup and snails, by the way, are the reason all French words tend to be spoken with a nasal sound. It is hard to sound any other way when one is trying to speak and eat while holding one’s nose.
While escargot is claimed to be a delicacy, I am guessing that the real reason for escargot is that someone was having trouble keeping the snails out of his or her vegetable garden and decided to feed them to house guests as a slick way of getting rid of a pest. My suspicions were confirmed by a 1993 article I was reading from the Mother Earth News written by Gail Damerow (gender unknown). The article was titled Escargot From Your Own Backyard and includes this statement:
"After years of battling snails in my garden while cooking up escargots purchased at a premium from a local import shop, I finally got wise. As long as I was gathering garden snails, why not harvest them for dinner? … When I served garden snails to my friends their invariable reaction was “yuk!” But when those same friends thought they were eating escargots from France, I got rave reviews."
Unlike French Cuisine, however, Lasagna is an easy dish to “jazz up.” Adding the pièce de résistance” as we say in French. Jazzing up Lasagna, by the way, means different things to different genders. In our family the difference exists because Ann, my wife, and I are at war over my stomach. Not the size, mind you, but the contents. The fighting line has been drawn directly in front of my mouth which is, of course, the entrance to the curvy trail that leads to the real battleground, my stomach. That is "Stomaque" to you French speakers. Ann prefers to add blue-nose things like spinach, or mushrooms, or broccoli. She says it is because those are healthy for me. I think it is to force me to keep my portion size down by ruining the taste. My choices would tend toward Italian sausage, or pepperoni, or even old hot dogs, if that is the only thing available.
Now if none of those sound appetizing to you, I did find additional recipes in the Mother Earth News article I was reading. After several paragraphs to explain the types of snails available from the garden, how to lure them, how to de-slime them, and how to cook them, there was a couple of paragraphs on Insect Cuisine and a recipe for Earthworm Patties. If you are really interested, you can find the article at:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/escargot-zmaz93jjztak.aspx?PageId=1
And if you need any help with the preparation I suspect that you can get some guidance from my two mountain men friends Bryce and Scott who are experienced at living off the land. As for me I plan to just continue chug-a-lugging TruMooTM strawberry flavored milk from the bottle I keep in the fridge. If it would impress you more, I could occasionally drink it from a demitasse.
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