Ah, I love that term. Comfort food. Just thinking about it makes me drool like a Basset Hound. Yeah, I know, not pretty sight. Me or the Basset hound. Those of you who are close to me and the Bassets I have owned know all too well what "stealth drool" is. Nasty shit...
My heritage is southern. Or as I like to say "suth-ahn". And yes, with a drawl. Until I was in college I used to have a really thick one. Really thick. It actually took me FOUR very distinct syllables just to say "ice tea". I used to say strange shit like "what all y'all doin' ". I was a displaced southerner going to college in the north. I was ridiculed down to a nub. And yes, that is a southern term...
Anyway, back to comfort food. From where I come from it comes in an infinite variety of forms that will boggle the imagination. And it all depended upon the situation. Why did you need to be comforted? Were you sick? Did you just get a whoopin'? Dog dead? Daddy just back over your little sister? Still blow up and take out half the house? Just find out that your mom and dad are brother and sister? OK, that one is not such a shocker in the south...
One of my grandmothers made the most amazing comfort food imaginable. She turned me on to strange shit like mashed potato sandwiches on white bread. Cold meat loaf sandwiches on white bread with ketchup as a "dipping sauce'. Leftover cold, greasy bacon. Torn up pieces of white bread (seeing a pattern here? It was usually Butter-Nut brand bread because it was way cheaper than Wonder Bread) that you then drowned in left over gravy. There was always left over gravy at her house. She made the shit in stock pots!!! Lard and radish sandwiches on white bread. Yes, I actually said that. Again, on white bread. As well as the famous toasted butter and brown sugar sandwiches. Why don't I weigh 400 pounds and why am I still alive??? But her most famous treat was mac and cheese. OMG!!! Grandma Flossie did mac and cheese proud. And she took it to a level that was unbelievable. I'm convinced this is what killed two of my uncles early on...
She taught me how to make this stuff when I was still young enough that I had to stand on a kitchen chair next to her so I could help her. It was an OSHA and Family Services nightmare in the making. I've tweaked her recipe over the years but I still hold true to her wonderous over indulgence. She used a full box of regular macaroni shells, I use the jumbo size ones. She used two full bricks of Velveeta, me too. She saved left over ham for two weeks, I go buy two pounds of Canadian bacon ends. She used heavy whipping cream, me too. She tossed in two sticks of butter, ditto me. She'd mix it all up after the macaroni was cooked in a pan big enough to boil a tire in and threw it in the biggest lasagna pan I have ever seen (ditto here, I actually have a restaurant sized one that I bought just for this recipe) and then put a pound of asiago cheese and bread crumbs on the top and bake it on low for HOURS. My god, this stuff came out like mortar. It was beyond a building block, it was a true building material!!! It was like cheese and pasta adobe. It would stop your heart, bring you to your knees, summon the paramedics and had enough fat in it to grease a pig through a BIC pen!!!
Between me and my grandma this recipe has been banned by the AMA in just about everyplace except my kitchen and Sierra Leone. But there they do it with a version of native wild boar that they hunt down and dart. Wrapped in banana leaves and buried in a pit of hot coals for several days. Yes, Velveeta is available in Sierra Leon... Only in much bigger blocks. About the size of a camel from what I've heard. Which I can only think needs a LOT more breadcrumbs and a pan about the size of a Cadillac... Wow, lucky people...
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