At Home on the Range

Four years of country living have taught me many things, among them the certainty that the gold brick was sold by, and not to, the farmer. Our rustic landlady guilelessly accepted a high city rent for a rundown farm, but mild requests for a whole roof or plumbing repairs were pigeonholed with her sharecroppers’ pleas for safely covered wells and weatherproof barns. We did, however, get treated to some porch shingles after we sat her under the worst leak during a summer thunderstorm. The need of a new, important bathroom fixture was harder to demonstrate so she merely continued to point out that, functioning or not, it was at least porcelain and inside the house, frequently following this happy thought by the remark that the floors certainly looked dreadful (all too true!) and why didn’t we do them over!

What our neighbors thought of us we never discovered and perhaps it was just as well, for while all proper grandmothers rocked on their porches in starched house dresses, spring found me clad in earth-covered slacks getting rid of a waistline by helping plow. Summer not only saw us drinking iced white wine instead of beer, but dining at the unchristian hour of eight; and in fall and winter I took long walks when, of course, I should have been frantically fighting the black dust with which our four coal stoves so generously coated the furniture and woodwork.

Most memories are happier for we soon discovered friends who agreed that seven in the evening was the time to be sharing a congenial cocktail rather than drying the dinner dishes. The crossroad store suffered few wartime shortages, and even though its kindly proprietor had never heard of “fancy French things like lentils” he was almost the only tradesperson who didn’t regard us suspiciously as “new people,” and he played no favorites.

A surly steer fattened in the meadow, facing a patriotic though unmourned death to provide us with meat, and our small plot bore lavishly in spite of its scornful neighborhood title of “the book garden.” Best of all, in May and June, the edges of the fields were thick with spears of wild asparagus. For weeks we ate our fill, gladly suffering the loss of local prestige that followed its picking. Our favorite was simple BUTTERED ASPARAGUS. Scrape the asparagus, remove the tough ends, and tie the stalks into easily handled small bunches, with 2-inch wide strips of cloth. Cover with boiling salted water and cook until just tender. Drain, remove the strips of cloth, and serve the asparagus on triangles of crisp buttered toast with a little more melted butter over the tips.

Sometimes the butter has a bruised garlic clove added to it as it melts. The garlic is removed and 1 tablespoon of bread crumbs browned in each ½ cup of the butter for ITALIAN ASPARAGUS, and 1 teaspoon of grated Parmesan cheese on each serving doesn’t seem to change the name but gives a very different delicious flavor. Hollandaise sauce (page 97) can have its day, too, as a cover; white sauce (page 94) and cheese sauce (page 95) each come in for a welcome and when a filling course for lunch seems indicated we have COUNTRY ASPARAGUS. Prepare the asparagus as in the first recipe, serve it on toast with butter, and accompany each helping with a freshly boiled, shelled 10-minute egg. This gets mashed into the hot green tips as they are eaten and it’s a dish for the gods.

ASPARAGUS SOUFFLÉ. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs until light, add to 1 cup of white sauce (page 94), and beat until well mixed. Add 1 cup of chopped cooked asparagus tips, a scrape of onion or 1 teaspoon of minced chives. Add salt and pepper if necessary and fold in the stiffly beaten whites of 4 eggs. Pour into a buttered baking dish. Place the dish in a shallow pan of water and bake at 350° for 45 minutes. This is a most delicate and delicious main course for luncheon. If desired, the egg yolks, asparagus, and white sauce can be mixed ahead and the beaten egg whites added just before baking.

Have you ever tried FRESH TOMATO JUICE for breakfast? Simmer 1 quart of ripe quartered tomatoes with 1 teaspoon of chopped onion and an optional tiny bit of garlic and a leaf or so of basil, until the juice just starts to flow. Press gently through a sieve, add salt and a grind of black pepper, and chill overnight. Next morning stir, before serving in glasses floating a slight dust of celery salt and a thin slice of lemon. Worcestershire sauce and tabasco can be on the table, too, but why ruin the lovely garden flavor?

STEWED TOMATOES should never be thickened with bread crumbs, flour, or, perish the thought, cornstarch, but simmered uncovered until just the right consistency. This may take from 1 to 3 hours, depending on the juiciness of the vegetable. Peel 3 times the quantity of tomatoes you will finally need and cut in quarters, so to serve four to six people start with 12 or 14 cups of tomatoes. Add 2 teaspoons of chopped onion and 1 tablespoon of salt, and ⅛ teaspoon of black pepper and let simmer as directed. Half an hour before serving add a leaf of sweet basil or a pinch of the same herb if you have it. Accompany the tomatoes with big baked sweet potatoes, and fresh corn on the cob and who cares whether meat is on the menu!

STUFFED TOMATOES. Remove 1½ or 2 tablespoons of the flesh from the tops of medium-sized ripe tomatoes. Do not hollow them completely as advised in so many recipes. After all you’re going to eat tomatoes, not bread crumbs. Salt the insides slightly and place in a greased shallow baking dish. For each 4 tomatoes, soften 1 teaspoon of chopped onion in 2 tablespoons of cooking oil or butter. Remove from the fire, add 1 cup of coarse dry bread crumbs, ½ teaspoon of salt, a dash of pepper, and a pinch of thyme. Perhaps a bit of dried or fresh sweet basil can go in, too. Moisten with the juice from the removed portions of tomatoes squeezed through a sieve or your fingers. The mixture should be barely damp and never doughy. Pack the stuffing lightly into the tomatoes, heap what is left on top, and cover each one with a 1-inch square of bacon. Bake in a 375° oven for 30 minutes or until the tomatoes are just soft and the bacon crisp and brown.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES for four or six. Peel 6 or 8 tomatoes, place them loosely in a deep, greased baking dish, and surround and cover with 2 cups of the stuffing in the recipe for stuffed tomatoes (above), to which has been added ½ teaspoon of sugar. Dot the crumbs with butter and bake 45 minutes at 375°.

FRIED TOMATOES WITH CREAM GRAVY contradict the tradition of never serving two dishes cooked alike at one meal, for they are perfect with fried fish. Remove the stem and blossom from firm tomatoes and cut in thick—about ¾ inch-slices. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of black pepper to 1 cup of flour, place on a paper plate or waxed paper, and coat the cut slices of the tomatoes thoroughly. Heat ½ inch of grease—bacon fat is far and away the best—until just smoking, using an iron skillet that will not crowd the tomatoes. Gently slide in the slices and cook over a medium hot fire until each side is deep brown, turning the tomato only once. This should take some 10 minutes for each side. Place the tomatoes on a platter and keep hot. For the 10 or 12 slices that will serve four or six add 1½ tablespoons of the seasoned flour to the juices remaining in the pan, blend, scraping up all the delicate essence from the bottom, then slowly add 2 cups of rich milk. Cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then pour over the tomatoes. A pinch of sweet basil may be added to the gravy and a garnish of crisp bacon to the finished dish. Big baked potatoes again, and a green salad with this make a most satisfying lunch.

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES are so good that we for one family often sacrificed the unripened vegetables. Cook them just as in the above recipe and make their gravy in the same pan too, with thick sour cream and 2 teaspoons of flour. A gourmet’s dream.

In the summers when Diamond Jim Brady drove a spanking pair around New Jersey’s Atlantic Highlands, with Lillian Russell lolling in full-blown beauty beside him, he was the constant patron of a small inn hidden away in a nearby deserted village. Although his business ethics may have been open to question, Diamond Jim admittedly knew his vittles, and he spread the fame of the inn’s boiled corn on the cob so widely that ere long the once rustic bungalow became a large restaurant, flourishing until Prohibition forced its closing. But before the French proprietor died—of a broken heart they said—he told me the simple way he prepared the dish that had brought him fame and fortune.

BOILED CORN À LA DELISLE. Carefully remove the silk from fresh corn but leave on enough of the green husk to cover each ear. Have ready a large kettle of boiling milk and water, half-and-half. Cook the corn in this—keeping it well covered with the liquid—for 5 or 10 minutes depending on its age, then drain it thoroughly and serve it wrapped in a napkin. Allow each diner to husk his own and you’re in for a happy surprise with the first delicious bite. Not to mention that corn cooked in this fashion seems to need a surprisingly small amount of butter.

Tender corn on the cob admittedly can never be improved upon but when the kernels toughen or grandfather and his sore teeth come for a meal, serve CREAMED CORN. Score the raw kernels and scrape from the cob. Add to each cup 2 tablespoons of cream, ½ teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of pepper, and 1 teaspoon of butter. Place in a double boiler, cover, and cook over boiling water for 15 minutes. 1 tablespoon of chopped sautéed green or red pepper added to this makes CORN MEXICAINE.

Grandfather, or anyone else for that matter, will love CORN OYSTERS. Prepare the corn as above, add ½ cup of rich milk, 2 tablespoons of flour, a shake of salt, pepper, 1 teaspoon of melted butter, and 1 beaten egg to each cupful. Cook the batter by the teaspoonful on a lightly greased hot griddle. They should be thin and delicate.

CORN FRITTERS are heartier and can make use of leftovers. For four or six, cut 2 cups of cooked corn from the cob, add ½ cup of sifted flour, ½ teaspoon of salt, a shake of pepper, and the yolks of 3 eggs. Beat well, then fold in 3 stiffly beaten egg whites. Fry in 1-inch deep, hot cooking fat. Brown both sides and serve immediately. These are the thing to go with stewed chicken.

CORN LOUISIANA for four or six. Pare and quarter lengthwise 3 big sweet potatoes. Boil in salted water until just tender, which takes between 10 and 15 minutes. Drain. Dip one end of each piece in sherry and then in brown sugar. Place around the edge of a greased baking dish, sugared ends up. Pour in the center 2 cups of corn Mexicaine (page 88). Dot the corn with 1 teaspoon of butter and dust lightly with fine bread crumbs. Bake in a 400° oven for 15 or 20 minutes until the potatoes just start to brown. This is the perfect partner for baked ham.

BAKED SQUASH. Wash and remove the stem ends from tender young yellow squash. Cut in small dice, not removing the seeds unless they are very coarse. For four or six, put 3 cups of the diced vegetable in a greased baking dish, add ½ cup of water, ½ teaspoon of salt, ⅛ teaspoon of pepper, 2 tablespoons of butter, and 1 teaspoon of scraped onion. Cover closely and bake at 375° for 20 minutes or until the squash is tender.

Everyone knows that cucumbers are the correct accompaniment for fish but most cooks are content to serve thin slivers in French dressing, forgetting that the grown pickle was once considered a vegetable as well as a salad. Few today know that it combines beautifully with the lowly spinach. Both the following recipes call for cooked spinach, chopped or put through the meat grinder. Again let your motto be “Do it ahead,” or use leftovers. STUFFED CUCUMBERS for four or six. Scrub 4 medium-sized cucumbers, trim the stem ends, cut in half lengthwise and remove the seeds. Boil the boat-shaped pieces for 5 minutes in salted water. Drain thoroughly. Add ½ cup of white sauce (page 94) to 2 cups of chopped spinach. Season with salt, pepper, and a tiny scrape of onion, heap it in the cucumber boats, dust the top with bread crumbs, a few bits of butter and just the ghost of grated Parmesan cheese. Place in a greased shallow dish and bake for 10 or 15 minutes in a 400° oven until the crumbs are brown. Serve immediately.

SPINACH RING WITH CUCUMBERS. Pack a greased ring mould with 4 cups of chopped spinach that has been seasoned with salt, pepper, a few grains of cayenne, and a bit of onion. Set the mould in a shallow pan of water and place in a 325° oven about 25 minutes to become thoroughly heated. Peel and slice thinly 3 cups of cucumbers. Boil for 5 minutes in salted water and drain thoroughly. Turn the spinach from the mould on to a hot platter, fill the center with the cucumbers, and cover with hollandaise sauce (page 97). This is delicious, looks elaborate, and is really easy, for the spinach and the cucumbers can be kept hot and the sauce doesn’t mind a little delay either.

This recipe for BAKED EGGPLANT was a lifesaver in the days of meat rationing. Cut 1 medium-sized eggplant in half, cover with salted water, and boil 5 minutes. Drain, peel, and cut into 1-inch dice. Boil 1 cup of rice 5 minutes in salted water, drain, and add to the eggplant. Soften 1 cup of sliced onions and 1 minced clove of garlic in 2 tablespoons of butter or cooking oil. Add 2½ cups of canned or fresh peeled chopped tomatoes to the eggplant and rice, mix lightly, add 1 teaspoon of salt, and ⅛ teaspoon of pepper, and put in a greased baking dish. Dust the top with ½ cup of bread crumbs and an optional teaspoon of Parmesan cheese, add a few bits of butter, and bake for 45 minutes at 350°. If it seems dry when not quite done, gently add a little tomato juice or diluted consommé so as not to disturb the top. The finished dish should not be runny, and the tomatoes, eggplant and rice each distinct and separate.

Our first country winter shut down on two city-slickers, ignorant till then that a dearth of fresh vegetables must come with the frost. I had done no canning and the distance of forty miles to the nearest big city market might as well have been four hundred to the possessors of an “A” gas ticket. Both vitamins and variety had to be supplied by the local store’s constant but uninspiring cabbage, celery, and carrots. The only remaining question was how to prepare that ever-present trio appetizingly.

Turning away from the usual long cooking, and accompanying smell, I found CABBAGE delectable if first thinly sliced as for cole slaw, crisped for ½ hour in ice water, and then plunged into rapidly boiling salted water for 5 or not more than 10 minutes. Drain it well—2½ cups will serve four or six—and cover, not mix, the hot slivers with white sauce (page 94) or cheese sauce (page 95) for a surprisingly good everyday green. For special occasions blanket it with hollandaise sauce (page 97) and you’ll find it’s a dish fit to grace a banquet.

Not at all delicate and only to be attempted in a well-ventilated kitchen is SMOTHERED CABBAGE. Chop, wash, and drain 10 cups of cabbage. Melt ½ cup of bacon, ham or pork fat in a skillet, add the cabbage, cover, and cook over a medium fire for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is soft and reduced to half its original bulk. Remove the cover, increase the heat, and continue cooking and stirring until the cabbage starts to brown—15 minutes or a little longer. This is a good lusty Negro dish and undoubtedly the one on which Topsy “just growed,” for its odor alone ought to increase a midget’s height. But try it with broiled ham and see if it doesn’t stick to the ribs.

CELERY, too, turned out surprisingly delicious, and glamorous to boot, when I ceased cutting the stalks in dice but instead left each bunch whole, trimmed the root, sheared off the tops well down (save them for soups and garnishes) and then split each bunch lengthwise, root and all, into quarters or sixths, depending on its size. Scrape the outside of the stalks if necessary and cook in as little water as possible. Save the water to add to the morning tomato juice.

BRAISED CELERY. Boil the celery about 5 or 8 minutes in salted water until not quite tender. Drain, return to the stove, and add ½ cup of canned consommé or stock and 1 tablespoon of butter. Cover and let steam about 5 minutes longer, until the celery is done, then remove the lid and cook over a hot fire until the juice is reduced one half. Serve immediately. Drained, chilled and covered with French dressing this is CELERY EN BRANCHE and guess what vinaigrette dressing makes it—CELERY VINAIGRETTE.

For CELERYAU GRATIN we’ll have to go back to first principles and slice the stalks crosswise in 1-inch lengths. 2 cupfuls will serve four or six. Boil the celery in salted water until tender, drain, and mix with 2½ cups of white sauce (page 94) and ½ cup of grated cheese. Cover with bread crumbs, dot with butter, and bake in a greased dish at 400° for 20 minutes or until the crumbs are brown.

Four months of constant struggle with carrots still left me cold to their possibilities except for roasting them whole around lamb or beef, although my BRAISED WHOLE CARROTS, first scraped and then cooked like braised celery, have been pronounced delicious, as have MINTED CARROTS. For four or six, scrape and cut 2 cups of carrots into eighths—about the size of big matches. Boil 5 minutes in salted water. Drain. Return to the fire and add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of mint jelly. Stir over a medium hot fire until the jelly melts, and serve.

Even the thought of these last two recipes is followed by none of the pangs of hunger or mouthwatering anticipation that has come with writing the directions for cooking the other vegetables, so just let’s say, “carrots can be cooked and eaten, but why?” and leave them to those nursery pals and garden scourges, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.