more than a feeling
unorthodox tacos, meat v. mock meat, and more pasta
It’s felt like Friday at least three times already this week, but here we are finally. It’s been cold here because the weather’s been clear, and it’s amazing the way you can see it visibly improving people’s moods even though everyone also seems to really be struggling. January is a hard month, and it’s even harder during a pandemic, and then on top of that it’s rained for three weeks solid… it’s no wonder that a little sunlight has people practically leaping for joy.
I wouldn’t say it’s had quite that effect on me, but I have had a little more motivation these past few days: I cleaned my desk which I have been meaning to do since early December, and moved my yarn into a more permanent home (instead of a paper bag on the floor). Another effect is that I’ve been planning more things I want to cook than there actually are meals in a day, so my fridge is really full of ingredients and leftovers right now. I’ll have to get cracking on making and freezing some future meals if I want to rescue them.
I know I’ve mentioned before how we don’t really cook or eat a lot of meat, but I do feel like it’s been making a lot of appearances in this newsletter lately, so I wanted to talk about it in a bit more detail. Part of that is because it’s winter and meat has its place in comforting, hearty food, but another part of it is that I tend to treat meat as something special to look forward to, not just a way to get calories onto the plate, so the dishes I make that feature meat are often ones that feel worthy of sharing and writing about.
When I went vegetarian in my late teens, I did it because I was disgusted by the idea of meat, not because I thought it was necessarily wrong to eat animals— but I do think the way our society consumes them, in general, is wrong. Part of the problem with our consumption of meat is that we are so far removed from the processes involved in getting it from its animal source to our plates. The way we treat meat in a capitalist society is not sustainable or ethical, so it’s good to see a growing movement towards smaller-scale farms, eating less meat, buying locally, and more natural, free-range farming. Places like Two Rivers Meats proudly provide information on all the farms they work with, giving any customer the ability to research for themselves if they so choose. I don’t think there’s one “correct” answer for individual meat consumption, but I do know that changes need to be made. The earth cannot handle the level of animal agriculture we currently have. Human beings should not be slaughtering animals every single day as their job. We should not look at a pound of chicken that costs $4 without wondering what makes it so cheap.
In my mid-twenties I started having dreams about eating meat again, too powerful to ignore (I probably wasn’t a good enough cook at that time to give my body the nutrients it needed as a vegetarian), but I knew something had to be different. I was pescetarian for a time and eventually found I was ready to try other meats again. Before becoming vegetarian, I hated touching or even looking at raw meat, but I reasoned that if I couldn’t handle the idea of meat, why should I be okay with eating it? Reading and learning more about what’s involved in terms of agriculture, slaughter, and processing made a big difference for me (I specifically got a lot out of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Ruth L. Ozeki’s documentarian novel My Year Of Meats, and Samin Nosrat’s masterpiece Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat). I’m in a place now where I feel fairly good about how often and from where I choose to buy meat, and that I no longer put the package of chicken legs on the counter and make Jeff come in and deal with it.
This was a really big preamble to tell you about our Sunday night dinner: linguine with meatballs and spicy marinara. After reading the above paragraphs, it may not surprise you that I’ve never made actual meat meatballs before in my life. Eaten them? Sure. Made vegan ones? Plenty of times. So I was a little unsure of how best to process the pound of ground pork, but after looking at a handful of different recipes, it seemed like the ratios can vary but all you really need is the meat, some breadcrumbs, herbs and other seasonings, and a little liquid to hold everything together. So I didn’t use a recipe and just threw semi-random amounts of garlic, fresh parsley, salt & pepper, and parmesan into a bowl with the meat and egg and breadcrumbs, mashing it up with my hands until it looked right. I chose to cook them in the oven (roughly 20 min at 400°) instead of in a frying pan to leave my attention free for making the sauce.
It feels a little odd, when talking about a dinner of meatballs, to tell you that my favourite basic marinara comes from Isa Does It, a decidedly vegan cookbook (the tempeh meatballs she created to go with it are also incredible). But it is basically perfect herby, spicy tomatoey goodness, delicious on its own or with meat or meat alternatives. A bit of brown sugar is used as a cheat to quickly caramelize the onions and garlic, providing a nice base for fresh basil, chilies, and acidic tomato purée. We grated lots of fresh parmesan on top of our bowls of noodles, meatballs, and sauce, and I am not too proud to say that I absolutely loved this Old Spaghetti Factory-ass dinner.
Usually I gravitate towards more straightforward, traditional taco fillings like at La Taqueria, but every once in awhile an impressive combo comes along to shake things up in a way that doesn’t feel too forced. Some time ago, maybe fall of 2019, I stopped into Tacofino for lunch and had a taco so special I felt compelled to make a version of it at home not even a week later: roasted brussels sprout & sweet potato with jalapeño, smoked aïoli, cotija cheese, and cilantro-lime slaw. I remembered said taco this week so of course I had to make it again.
The cool thing about roasting stuff is of course that a) it makes it taste amazing, but also b) it takes a little while, leaving you free to do other stuff without having to pay too much attention to it. So while the vegetables were in the oven I could warm the tortillas and make the slaw and the smoked mayo (I am not making aïoli from scratch on a weeknight). I used smoked salt and smoked paprika— the first time I made it I used liquid smoke and it just didn’t feel quite right, so I tried something else this time and it worked out. I never remember to look for cotija cheese when I’m in the deli section at the grocery store, so I can’t be sure if they sell it or not, but I had some manchego in the fridge that went well in its place. The spicy jalapeño slices and bright, crisp slaw balanced the other ingredients, and while this would have been better on flour tortillas instead of corn, it still made for a sufficiently tasty taco night.
Another pasta, because noodles are my lifeblood: I made a version of the Roman broccoli pasta from the book Milk Street: Tuesday Nights (incidentally, on a Tuesday). This weeknight cookbook has a lot of nice food you can make in 45 minutes or less, or else simmering in a pot on the stove or roasting in the oven while you do other things, so I’m often flipping through it for ideas when I want something that won’t require a lot of forethought. The recipe notes that in Rome, this pasta sauce is traditionally made using blended broccoli leaves, but since these are usually removed from broccoli we buy in North America, this version uses the stalks for flavour and spinach for colour.
I didn’t have any spinach, but I did have basil that was starting to wilt, so I used those (without blanching them) for a sort of pesto hybrid instead. I also used just one tablespoon of lemon zest— I think with the basil it might have been too intensely fragrant with two. The trick for this sauce is getting the stalks soft enough to blend fully; actually boiling vegetables is a dangerous game in most instances as they can end up disappointingly bland and mushy, but stalks are hardy and using well-salted water helps them hold their flavour. Instead of blanching the broccoli florets to add to the pasta, I roasted them, but the sauce had flavour complexity enough from garlic, parmesan, capers, and lemon that if you’re in a rush I’m sure blanching would be fine too. This was really nice, satisfying and surprisingly creamy, and I was happy to have something to make with broccoli that isn’t soup again or the same handful of rice bowls I always make.
The book Indian-ish has also made a few appearances this week: I made an abomination saag paneer using red kale and leftover cheese curds which wasn’t amazing to look at but tasted great, and the shortcut chhole (aka chana masala), always a star. I also tried the cheese and tomato toast with chaat masala, which I’ve now been eating for breakfast basically every day I’m home in the morning. I didn’t bake anything this week because we’re still working our way through the apple pie bread from last week, plus one of my coworkers brought in donuts from Cartems, and cut them up so we could taste as many as possible— I had apple fritter, earl grey, and citrus glaze.
Media:
Since I talked so much about meat at the beginning of this newsletter, I thought I would counter that with this piece from awhile back: The Origins of Fake Meat Are Rooted in Chinese Cooking. With the rising popularity and prevalence of “tech” meats like Gardein, Beyond, and Impossible, their creators are being hailed as innovators, paragons of sustainability and ethical eating. Not to discount the impact of these meats (I personally love Beyond burgers even more than “real” ones), but much of the writing on these types of fake meats ignores the history, simply because it is not part of western culture, and therefore not as important— this kind of attitude shows up in all kinds of journalism, not just food writing. But anyone who’s ever eaten at Po Kong or purchased a can of mock duck at a Chinese grocery store knows how similar to the real thing the artificial can be, and we have the Buddhist monks and lower-income Chinese people who have been making and serving this food for hundreds of years to thank for that.
You’re subscribed to this newsletter, which means you too enjoy the voyeurism of other people’s food habits and cooking, so you might also like this How I Eat interview with Alicia Kennedy, a writer whose work I’ve definitely shared here before. I find this sort of look into the lives of people who love food fascinating, and it feels nice knowing that someone with firm opinions, many fans, and enviable talents still buys plenty of things at Costco like the rest of us.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. Finally, I hope you love angry potato chip cat as much as I do.