by Ruth Reichl
“We have no garlic-free salami,” I replied. As if such a thing even exists.
She glanced up at Mr. Complainer. “Boyd can’t stand garlic, you know that.”
Mr. Complainer looked pained.
“Bologna?” she suggested, pointing at the mortadella.
“We’ll take half a pound.” He gave me one of his nicest smiles, saying, “And maybe you could give Amy a taste of the fontina? That should be safe.”
I handed a slice of our blandest cheese across the counter, and the blonde nibbled at a corner. “Oh,” she purred, “that’s so good.”
I bet she was a cheerleader in high school.
“I told you that man was single,” Rosalie whispered fiercely in my ear. “You should have listened to me.” Her unspoken words—and now it’s too late—lingered in the air.
“Some prosciutto?” Mr. Complainer was unaware of the drama taking place behind the counter. “Would you let her taste it?”
I took down the San Daniele, sheared off a paper-thin slice, and handed it across the counter. Amy gave it a dubious sniff. “It smells funny,” she said. “What is it?”
“Italian ham,” said Mr. Complainer. “Taste it.”
She examined the meat as if it might be dangerous, carefully removed the strip of fat, and took the tiniest possible bite. “I prefer good old American ham,” she pronounced.
He looked mortified, but he obediently followed her directions; the guests at this party would not be disturbed by unfamiliar flavors. “We do have to get some mozzarella,” he said. “Betty loves it.”
“You sure?” Amy sounded doubtful.
He was.
“Do you want the cow’s milk mozzarella or the buffalo milk?” It was mean of me. I couldn’t help myself.
Amy reacted exactly as I’d hoped. “Buffalo milk? Are you serious? Cheese made from buffalo milk?”
Mr. Complainer looked down at her, and I thought he seemed slightly impatient. “Real mozzarella, the kind in that caprese salad you’re so fond of, is made from water-buffalo milk.”
She shuddered visibly. “Water buffalo? Guess I won’t be eating that again.”
Across the room, Sal raised his eyebrows; Mr. Complainer had gone down a notch in his estimation. Rosalie was even more distressed. When they’d gone, she let out a little wail. “Did you hear what she said about the prosciutto?”
“I told you he wasn’t interested in me.” I gave her my best told-you-so look, but I did think it was strange. What was a guy who took cooking classes in Italy doing with a woman like her? She wasn’t that pretty.
ON MONDAY I ARRIVED at the mansion in a better mood than usual and scrambled up the stairs, ignoring the dark hallway, trying to ignore the stench. Was it possible it had gotten even worse? I fled to my cubbyhole, determined to get my work out of the way as quickly as I could. I had decided to look for more letters from Lulu.
My first caller had attempted caramelizing sugar for the first time, with disastrous results. “Caramel always hisses, bubbles, and seizes before it settles down,” I told her.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” she said irritably.
The second caller had tried to make a complicated rabbit-liver terrine into a vegetarian dish, and the third had sliced off the tip of her index finger on a mandoline. It went on like that, one time-consuming disaster after another, and it was hours before I could move on to recipe requests.
There were two for the Coffee Crunch Cake they used to make at Blum’s in San Francisco, a recipe so popular I kept it on my desktop. Someone else wanted a fresh coconut cake she remembered from the fifties, and that was easy too. I forwarded the request for a reproduction of the 1965 Christmas cover to rights and permissions in the main office. But Julie Marr, in Rio Vista, California, had me stumped.
“My dad’s ninetieth birthday is coming up,” she wrote, “and he keeps talking about these great cookies he ate in the war. I wanted to surprise him with Anzac biscuits, but there are so many different recipes I don’t know which to trust. Help!”
Anzac biscuits?
Google offered some assistance, informing me that the name was an acronym for “Australian and New Zealand Army Corps,” but after that the online history grew cloudy. One source traced them back to the Scottish Highlands, another to the aborigines. I wondered if the library could help. I’d look up the biscuits, and then I’d look for Lulu.
As I climbed the stairs to the third floor, the stench grew steadily worse; this couldn’t be normal. I’d have to call someone over at the main office. It had gotten so bad that I ran up the last few steps to the fourth floor and sprinted toward the library, yearning for the cool apple scent. The room seemed to reach out and pull me in, and the soft chairs invited me to sit. As I moved deeper into the room, the quiet grew more profound. It was so peaceful that I could feel my heartbeat slow, as if I were breathing with the room, honoring its age.
The card catalogs, three huge old wooden files, stood near the fantastic desk. The first one wheezed as I pulled on the top handle, emitting a little puff of dust. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a dim memory of the card catalog at the Santa Barbara Public Library, the drawers filled with prim index cards of neatly typed Dewey decimal numbers. This was different; I looked down, startled, at a sea of colored ink. Flipping to “Anzac,” I pulled up the first card and found myself staring down at angular writing scrawled with a red pen. “The first recipe for Anzac biscuits appeared in the War Chest Cookery Book (Sydney, 1917). That recipe, however, is for an entirely different biscuit than the one we know today. The first recipe for what we now consider an Anzac biscuit was the ‘Anzac Crispie,’ in the 9th edition of St. Andrew’s Cookery Book (Dunedin, 1921).”
The card behind it had obviously been written by someone else. The black ballpoint writing was clear and rounded, each “t” neatly crossed, each dot centered just above the “i.” “Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance commemorating the battle of Gallipoli. Anzac biscuits contain rolled oats, flour, desiccated coconut, sugar, butter, golden syrup, baking soda, and boiling water.”
There was a third card, the elegant calligraphic script written in turquoise ink of such startling brightness that it seemed like a shout from the past. “Anzac biscuits are chameleons, coming in all shapes and sizes. There are no standard recipes, but during World War II, readers submitted dozens of variations. You’ll find them in the letter files for 1943. And the excellent Australian Commonsense Cookery Book is always reliable.”
What army of eccentric librarians had created these color-coded cards? I began to pull open drawers, looking for other colors and different handwriting, trying to determine how many there had been. But I found no green, no purple, no yellow. These strange cards came in only red, black, and blue. Who were these library ladies? When had they created this strange catalog?
The library shelves contained only books or magazines, so the recipes mentioned on the turquoise card must be among the letters in the secret room. I walked to the back of the library and slid the bookcase aside, half expecting to find the funny little doorway gone. But it was still there, and I squeezed through the narrow opening, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness before reaching for the light switch.
The letters were arranged chronologically by year; 1943 took up an entire shelf, which was so high up I had to stand on tiptoe to read the labels. There were hundreds of folders, but I could see nothing labeled either “Anzac” or “Biscuit.” Where were those reader recipes? I reached for the first folder on the shelf, which was strangely labeled “Aardvarks of America.” Aardvarks? Are there aardvarks in America? I opened the file and removed the first letter.
Dear Delicious!,
I am responding to your latest contest: Here is my recipe for a wartime eggless mayonnaise. Peel and mash one small baked potato. Stir in a teaspoon of mustard, a pinch of salt, and a tablespoon of vinegar. Finally, slowly beat in 2 tablespoons of salad oil. Food will win the war!
Sincerely yours,
/> Julia J. Applebee
The next letter was also a response to the contest. This hopeful cook had submitted a recipe for a carrot roll with toasted oatmeal and cold mashed potatoes. The third submission was for sardine fritters … and so on. There were no aardvarks in the folder, just recipes for extremely peculiar wartime dishes. Perplexed, I put the folder back and reached for the next one.
This one was slimmer, but its name was as incomprehensible as the first. “Abracadabra” was typed neatly on its little plastic tab, and when I opened it I found that the letters were entries in another contest. The magazine had requested that readers submit their “magical substitutions” for ingredients that had become difficult to obtain. My favorite was from a woman suggesting twenty ways to serve sweet potatoes in place of pie.
Pulling down the next folder, and the next, I began trying to decipher the labels. “Big Cheese” contained letters to the editor in chief, and “Bitter” held nothing but complaints. Whoever had created these files had a wicked sense of humor, but she had organized them according to some mysterious system known only to herself. I felt she was daring me to figure it out.
I looked up at the shelves, studying the labels. The letters from the prewar years were sparse, taking up only a few slim shelves, and there were no files after 1972. But between 1942 and 1946 there were dozens of shelves, containing what must have been tens of thousands of letters. I would never have time to read them all. I pulled down the “Aardvarks of America” file, riffling through the letters again, thinking that if I could figure out what aardvarks had to do with the contest, I might understand the system.
But what was an aardvark, anyway? I wasn’t sure. I went out to the giant dictionary and learned that aardvarks are prehistoric creatures that live on termites and ought to be extinct. “In African folklore,” the dictionary said, “the aardvark is admired because of its diligent quest for food.” The contest in the “Aardvarks” folder had also been characterized by a diligent quest for food; was there something there?
I went back to the card file and studied the Anzac cards. Was Gallipoli a clue? Then my eye caught the name of the Australian cookbook: The Commonsense Cookery Book. This seemed promising, and I went back to the secret room and flipped through the “C” folders. “Cackle.” “Char.” “Colossus.” “Comfort.” And there it was: “Commonsense.” I was so startled by the discovery that I dropped the file as I pulled it from the shelf, and it spilled its letters at my feet.
As I bent to scoop them up, my eye caught a sheaf of translucent papers in the middle of the pile, held together with a rusting paper clip. Turning the top one over, I saw that it was densely covered in a careful schoolgirl script. The Anzac biscuits went straight out of my head.
FEBRUARY 15, 1943
Dear Mr. Beard,
Mother calls it “magical thinking” when I say that Father will come back, but what I say is that hope can’t hurt. She could use a little magic. She sits in Plant A all day long, drawing the schematics onto starched linen. She has to bend over the drafting table, and at night she’s always pressing a hand to the place where her back hurts. She says it’s hard work, but I think it’s very romantic; a copy of her drawing goes onto every Corsair. I know it must have been a comfort to Father to have her drawing on his plane.
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and I wanted to make something special to cheer Mother up. I found a recipe for cheese soufflé in the Beacon Journal, and I knew Mother would like that—especially because it didn’t use a single rationed ingredient.
I’ve always heard that soufflés are hard, but then I remembered what you said: “The only thing that will make a soufflé fall is if it knows you’re afraid of it.” I was determined not to let it get the best of me, and it worked! It came out all fat and puffy, and even though the recipe says it serves four, Mother and I ate the entire thing!
I’ve been trying to keep our spirits up, but it is very hard. May I tell you a secret? My homeroom teacher, Miss Dickson, is a horrid witch! I know it’s not right to speak ill of adults, but everybody hates her. The awful thing, since Mr. Shoemaker went off to the war, is that I’ll probably get her again next year. I’m not sure I can bear it.
Now, about you. In my opinion it’s a very good thing that you’re leaving the army. I’m sure cryptography is important, but I’m happy that Uncle Sam has come to his senses and sent you back to us. Maybe now you’ll have time to write that book for new cooks.
Will you be very busy, now that you’re a civilian? I hope I’ll still be able to write. I think of you as my secret friend, and you cannot imagine what a comfort that is.
Your friend,
Lulu
Hope can’t hurt. I turned the phrase over and over in my mind, wondering at what age optimism ends. Lulu’s mother was right: Her daughter was a master of magical thinking. And not just because she had convinced herself—against all odds—that her father was still alive. She’d also turned a famous stranger into a magical friend. I tried to picture James Beard’s enormous bulk, sitting at a desk, writing the letters. I so wished I could see what he had written back.
MARCH 1, 1943
Dear Mr. Beard,
Yesterday felt like spring. Father used to call those days “a gift,” and whenever one came along we’d start planning our garden. Even though he’s not here, I got out the Burgess seed catalog, because I like reading the lovely names like Hearts of Gold carrots and Early Fortune cucumbers. But who would want to raise mangel-wurzels, kudzu, or kohl-rabi? They sound terrible!
Tommy came to walk me to school, and I showed him the picture of the Climbing Trip-L-Crop tomatoes; the catalog says they grow sixteen feet tall and give three bushels of fruit! Tommy said that was more than I could possibly use, and I got so mad I decided to skip school and go to that little Italian grocery store in North Hill and ask for advice.
In the end Tommy came with me. Cappuzzelli’s was filled with people drinking tiny cups of coffee, waving their hands, and speaking Italian, which moves twice as fast as English. The owner said his wife would be glad to give me some recipes, so we went upstairs to their apartment.
Mrs. Cappuzzelli is so tiny she looks like an elf, and when she opened the door we could barely see her in the whoosh of steam that came rushing out, smelling of tomatoes and garlic. She has long silvery hair tied up in a bun and smiling black eyes, and her apron wraps three times around her, like a little girl’s.
She sat us down at a wooden table, sliced off slabs of bread from a big loaf, and rubbed them with olive oil and garlic. When I asked about recipes, she said that if I come back in September she’ll show me how to make her tomato sauce (she called it “gravy”).
It was a lovely day—at least until Mother came home. She sniffed around—she despises the smell of garlic—and wanted to know where I’d been. I could hardly tell her I’d skipped school, so I said there must have been garlic in the spaghetti at lunch. It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment, but if she finds out that they stopped serving spaghetti when the war started, I’ll be in triple trouble.
I’m sending in my seed order soon. Do you have any suggestions for Victory Garden crops?
Your friend,
Lulu
No wonder the librarian had put this in a folder called “Commonsense.” I looked down at the letter, reading the names of the vegetables. What on earth was a mangel-wurzel?
I stopped at the card file on my way out. And there it was, a card written in turquoise ink. “Mangel-wurzels, or sugar beets, did not become an important American crop until the Civil War. The Caribbean cane-sugar industry relied on slave labor, and abolitionists looking for an alternative began to grow beets instead. With the coming of the war, the industry accelerated to provide sugar for the northern states.”
What an interesting piece of information, and how strange that the card was just sitting here, with no apparent connection to a book. I turned the card over, and on the back was another note: “There are some interesting letters
on sugar substitutes in the reader-letter files from World War II. Look under ‘Civil War.’ ”
I wondered if this had anything to do with Lulu. Probably not, but I wrote down “Civil War,” thinking that tomorrow I’d look for the file. I flipped off the lights, went into the hall—and forgot all about sugar beets and Civil Wars. Something was terribly, horribly wrong.
In the Nightmare Kitchen
THE SMELL. WHEN I EMERGED FROM THE FRESH APPLE SCENT OF THE library, the odor of decay had become too powerful to ignore. Somewhere in the mansion, something much larger than a mouse was rotting. The stench grew more intense as I approached the staircase, and by the time I reached the third floor, the smell was so strong that I gagged and buried my nose in the crook of my elbow.
The dreadful odor was clearly coming from the kitchen; how had I not realized this before? I began making my way toward the door; the nearer I got, the stronger the smell grew, until it stopped me in my tracks. I held my breath, pinched my nose, turned back toward the stairs, and raced down to my office. I needed something to cover my nose and mouth.
Wrapping my scarf three times around my head, I climbed back to the kitchen and pushed the door tentatively open. “What sprang out could not be called an odor; it was a living thing with tentacles that twined around me, wrapping me in a foul fog and spreading tendrils into my hair, around my neck, up into the delicate flesh of my nostrils. It was something evil, attacking and overwhelming me. I staggered back, coughing.
I bent over, hands cupped over my mouth and nose, and staggered into the miasma, groping for the lights. When the fluorescents crackled on, I straightened up and stood there, stunned and sickened by the sight.
No meat or produce belonging to Pickwick Publications had been allowed to leave the premises with the cooks. The goons had zealously done their job. They had protected the equipment. Then they had taken the furniture, turned out the lights, locked the door, and walked away from the rest of it. Left alone for five weeks, the kitchen had moldered into an enormous chemistry experiment. Rotten pork shoulders oozed across the kitchen counter, and crabs lay in stinking piles buzzing with flies. What had been heaps of organic greens had dissolved into slimy scum, leaking loathsome juices. It was a vision from hell.