Doris Day – Que Sera Sera

Food is a formal experience.

This statement might make people bristle; some might want food to be a sensual experience, not cut-off and cold-minded.

But this is one of the things I’ve learned from poetry – form is not separate from anything, not from the senses, not from meaning. And so, for me, food is a formal experience – a way of looking at the world through measurements and co-minglings.

When Brian and I first became friends it was over a series of dinners. There was the remarkable tomato tarte tatin with goat cheese and pesto (of which Brian is a master), which I think I would like to be my last meal if I have any say in the matter. There was his grandmother’s grilled cheese and bologna. There were soups and salads and I can’t even remember whatall.

And the whole time we were also going through the formal process of becoming friends. We had done projects before as friends, but this one, involving design and food seemed more categorically appropriate. We met up at an antique store and we got to hunting for the most absurd, most dated recipes we could find – recipes that only a ‘50s housewife could love, recipes that we weren’t sure we’d be able to actually eat.

It was in the resulting stack of books and magazines (including such hits as The Mayonnaise Cookbook, Cooking is Bananas, The Authentic Smorgasbord, and The Housewife’s Party Planner) that we found the recipe for the ‘Kraut Ring.

I was dubious. Brian was giddy.

For a while I delayed the process by trying to procure the appropriate ring mold (only available at restaurant supply stores). But then we figured that a bunt pan (while not historically precise) would probably do the trick.

The only substitution we made to the original recipe was butternut squash for apple. It was an accident of poor reading skills on my part (graduate degree in literature notwithstanding!). But the substitution worked well.

The result was phenomenal. The meat was warm and soothing, like eating a snow day. It was complimented well by the salty tang of the sauerkraut and the muskiness of the caraway.

And so it starts. We experiment with meals and design that are a bit foreign to our contemporary palates. Next up – something French.

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1957 – KRAUT ‘N SAUSAGE RING

2 pounds bulk pork sausage
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 2/3 cups finely chopped apple
2/3 cup minced onion
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 can (28.5 oz) sauerkraut
1 teaspoon caraway seed

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix sausage, bread crumbs, eggs, apple, onion, cinnamon and cloves. Press lightly into ungreased 6-cup ring mold. Unmold sausage mixture onto rack in shallow baking pan; cover loosely with aluminum foil. Bake 30 minutes. Remove foil; bake 30 minutes longer.

While ring is baking, heat sauerkraut (with liquid) and caraway seed, stirring occasionally; drain. Using wide spatula, remove sausage ring to warm serving platter; spoon sauerkraut into center.

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SCURVY

There’s something of the caged tiger to a woman like that. As a girl she read voraciously, she climbed trees, she learned to throw punches. You could see it on her body, if you looked: slightly misshapen knuckles, gestures that suggested strength gone to seed. You could watch it in her face: the way she clamped down on a thousandsome comments unuttered.

She could stand with any man.

Marriage was a state of suppressed magnificence for her, a deliberate encapsulation of self in self.

You can’t trust a woman like that. Nor can you stop looking.

She married Bill in 1954 and in 1956, by the time the Interstate Highway System had begun to cut through cities and make all of us in the suburbs approachable, she had commenced her “dalliances.” She really talked like that.

I like to stand justified with good men. Bill was a good man, but he was able to look away. I am not a good man and I had to look. You could compare the feeling of being near her with other things, poetic things, but why would you? That would be suppressed magnificence. That would be false. That would mean looking away.

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