It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It

by Bill Heavey

  Dinner was a success. We started with a bruschetta. Michelle had made the topping using late-season tomatoes and basil from my garden. Paula and Gordon inhaled a bowlful of the stuff, which we ladled onto toasted bread drizzled with olive oil. They’d never had it before and were instant converts. While I wasn’t unfamiliar with bruschetta, I’d never had any that was even in the ballpark with this stuff. The homegrown tomatoes and basil made a difference, of course, but so did Michelle’s recipe. “You rough-chop the tomatoes,” she’d said while she worked the knife, “add about twice as much fresh garlic as you think looks right, and throw in a bunch of minced basil. Then I add salt and a splash of good olive oil.” You used a nonmetallic bowl so the acid in the tomatoes wouldn’t react with the metal and add its flavors. And, while you could certainly use the topping immediately, she was of the opinion that letting it sit for an hour or so improved the taste. By the next day, however, the tomatoes would have broken down and the whole thing would be watery, at which point it was really good only in salsa or gazpacho. Bruschetta had always tasted to me as though vinaigrette was part of the mix, but Michelle shot me a look when I asked about this. “With subpar tomatoes, you might use a bit to amp the acidity. But with tomatoes like these, it’s criminal.” From her tone, I could tell that this was not the sort of crime that could be plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor.

  Michelle’s cooking and attitudes toward food had been formed during two years she spent living in Naples, Italy, right after she’d graduated from college. Her Neapolitan landlady, who was only four years older than Michelle but already had an eight-year-old child, had taken the young ragazza under her wing. The first thing she had done was introduce Michelle to all the shopkeepers on the block, telling them not to overcharge her—since overcharging was customary in dealing not only with clueless Americans but even with any Neapolitan foolish enough to frequent shopkeepers not on one’s own block. Shocked that a twenty-two-year-old girl knew so little about cooking, she had begun Michelle’s culinary education. Rule one: you bought vegetables fresh and used them the day you bought them. As for buying only what was in season, not only was that simple common sense, but doing otherwise was a kind of foolishness that wasn’t even possible, since, with the exception of bananas and oranges, Neapolitan grocers sold only that which was ripe and regional. Another cardinal rule of cooking was that you interfered as little as possible between really good ingredients and the finished dish. You did not, for example, insert yourself between a good tomato and its natural acidity by adding vinegar.

  After we had served dinner and cleared the table, I went out to extinguish the coals, where Paula stood alone, enjoying her after-dinner smoke. I was about to ask how she and Michelle had gotten along, when she spoke first. “She could be good for you,” Paula said. I stopped for a moment, surprised, and was just starting to say something about how I agreed, when she held up her hand, silencing me. She took a drag and thought for a moment, as if weighing her words. This in and of itself was unusual. Paula generally shot from the hip. “She’s smarter than you are,” she continued, taking another drag.

  “What do you mean, she’s—” I sputtered, but she silenced me again, this time with the other hand, the one with the cigarette. I was, as usual, struck not only by her authority over me but also by her awareness of that authority.

  “She’s smarter than you,” she continued. “She’ll make you work, but you need that.”

  “Make me work how?” I asked. Paula again paused. Things were becoming stranger and more momentous with each pause. “Lemme put it this way: She’s the kind of woman who, if she wants to get something done, it gets done.”

  I didn’t know what to say to this. I must have stood there for fifteen seconds trying to take it all in. Finally, Michelle appeared at the screen door. “Who wants apple pie?” she asked.

  “I do!” Paula said. She clapped her hands gleefully, carefully stubbed out her cigarette, put the butt back into the pack to finish later, and headed into the house. Leaving me alone in the backyard, still speechless, wondering what the hell had just happened.

  In the days to come, the accuracy of all of Paula’s observations would be verified. There have been times when, like the rest of the world, I questioned the tightrope she walks between eccentric and crazy. But I had to give her this: very little escaped her notice.

  SAUTEED DANDELION GREENS

  Dandelions are Michelle’s favorite wild green, and this is her favorite way to enjoy them. The best time to collect is in the early spring, when the plants are the most tender and least bitter. But you can find dandelions almost year-round.

  Get a colander and go outside to your yard. If you don’t have a yard of your own, think of the laziest resident on your street and visit that guy’s yard. Or go to a public park. What you’re trying to do is to avoid herbicides. Generally speaking, healthy-looking dandelions are healthy dandelions. Avoid dead, brown, or suspiciously droopy ones.

  Larger outer leaves will become tough and bitter as the year progresses. These are not fun to eat. Aim instead for the small new leaves, which grow from the center. You won’t get as many per plant, but nature really doesn’t give a damn about inconveniencing you, so get used to it. The newest, most delectable dandelion leaves have a delicate, almost elastic, feel when compared with the doughtier exterior leaves. Even the tenderest and newest dandelion greens have a sharp, acerbic flavor—imagine a cross between the bite of arugula or watercress and the bitterness of brussels sprouts. The taste won’t appeal to all, but it does grow on you. While you grapple with the taste, bear in mind that dandelions are extremely nutritious, high in vitamins A, C, E, and K, as well as beta carotene, potassium, iron, and manganese.

  The other big pain-in-the-ass factor is how drastically dandelion greens shrink when cooked. A colander-full shrinks to just a few forkfuls in the skillet. Pick about half a ton. Back home, rinse them in the sink and remove any non-dandelion-green items like pine needles and blades of grass and insects. Heat a skillet over medium-high flame and melt a couple of tablespoons of butter or bacon fat; when this starts to sizzle, toss in the damp dandelion greens. Stir a couple of times, then put a lid on and cook for about two minutes. Remove the lid and stir them around for another minute or two, until completely wilted and vastly reduced in volume. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

  Chapter Seven:

  Of Closet Carnivores and the Gospel

  of Small Fish

  In falling in love with Michelle I’d unwittingly fallen for a foodie, although of a kind hitherto unknown to me. My experience with foodies had revealed people with more money than imagination who were nonetheless intensely competitive. Food, eating well—these were just the playing field, not the thing itself. The real game was status. You gained status among other foodies by identifying the hottest, most exclusive new eatery; dining there; and then recounting the experience. You might, for example, describe in rapturous tones the perfection of a simple beet, carved to resemble a flower, set in a cucumber granita with the whipped llama bone marrow “snow.” The most irritating thing about foodies was the self-congratulatory tone that invariably crept into their speech. The host of one food-oriented program on NPR was, to me, the embodiment of this. I’m sure the woman knows a great deal about food, but whenever I heard her gush about the pleasures of handpicked wild capers from the mountains of southern Tunisia packed in pink Himalayan sea salt, I was afraid she was headed for an on-air orgasm. This was not something I wanted to hear. But I made a point of tuning in whenever I felt the need to annoy myself.

  Getting to know Michelle forced me to do something I abhor, which was to reassess my assumptions. We had met through foraging. She was comfortable in hiking boots and overalls, moving through fields and forests, either gathering wild edibles for herself or teaching others how. For me, the problem was that she was equally at ease in the mainstream food world of hip restaurants and air kisses. She wrote abo
ut food and restaurants for several newspapers and magazines in Baltimore. She knew about different cuisines, was up on current food trends, and was friends with a number of prominent Baltimore chefs. These were hard things for me to square.

  Taking Michelle to a good restaurant for the first time was an eye-opener. The moment she walked in, her very aura shifted. She became more commanding, exuding a kind of authority I’d never seen. Maybe it was simply a gear she’d had all along but deployed only in certain situations. In any case, I watched, fascinated. She knew how to ask for—and get—a prime table. As we sat down, she was already scanning the floor and taking mental notes as to what the restaurant did well and what it didn’t. We ordered the rabbit terrine appetizer and she perused the wine list for something appropriate. (Okay, she’d ordered it. Actually, I’d had a panicked instant of thinking “terrine” was the French word for “terrarium,” but I knew that even Michelle wasn’t going to order a glass box with a bunny in it.) The sommelier materialized, genie-like, at her side. He knew immediately that the lady was calling the shots. Hearing of the terrine, he suggested a certain bottle. Michelle replied that she knew and liked that wine but wanted “something a bit more tannin-forward.” Tannin-forward? Was she serious? You could have knocked me over with a low-density polyethylene wine cork. “Tannin-forward” was the kind of thing I’d say if I were goofing with the guy. But she was quite serious. (I actually sometimes do goof with wine people in pretentious restaurants. It is my way of evening the playing field, and something everyone should try once. When the wine comes and the sommelier pours your trial sip, you take it in, swish for two seconds and then expel it—forcefully and without hesitation—back into the glass. In your best outraged voice, say “Do you honestly expect me to drink this swill?” The flustered attendant will wince and immediately offer to bring another bottle. At which point you smile and say, “No, this is fine. I was just hosing you.” The wine steward almost certainly won’t like this but will have to pretend that he appreciates your little joke. I guarantee that the waiters—who always resent wine stewards because they get paid so much more for doing so much less—will appreciate it. They will give excellent service for the rest of the meal.)

  For me, the sticking point was not only that Michelle knew what tannin-forward meant but could also taste and appreciate it. That someone could do this and not be a jerk was totally outside my experience and confirmed that I really did need to reexamine my prejudices. Evidently, there was more to the foodie world than I had thought.

  And yet Michelle was, at heart, anything but a conventional foodie. One of my nerdier foraging projects had been to create a “fruit and nut map” of twenty-three taped-together Google Maps pages noting the location and species of edible-yielding trees in my neighborhood. Upon seeing it, she had immediately insisted on a tour. There was the chestnut at the bottom of the street, which in some years produced wonderful nuts inside prickly husks like green sea urchins. If you waited until they fell by themselves you got empty husks, because the squirrels loved the nuts, too, and ate them while they were still on the tree. While I’d declared a moratorium on killing the rodents, my antipathy toward them was still very real. I cut myself a twenty-foot length of bamboo and knocked as many chestnuts off with that as possible. There were fig trees on a neighboring street, one of which I had permission to pick. (The only caveat here was that you had to move slowly and deliberately, because of the hornets. They were especially fond of the sweetest figs, which were the ones hidden and rotting in the tall grass. They buzzed around slowly, obviously drunk on fermenting sugars, but if you pissed one off it could still sting you good. You learned to test each step before committing weight to it.) But the thing that most impressed Michelle was the tall, spindly persimmon tree that stood, stranded and alone, in the asphalt sea of the United Methodist Church parking lot.

  How the tree came to grow there and why it had been left standing were mysteries. I’d seen a circle of fallen fruit one day from my bike and had stopped to investigate. It must have been a domesticated tree, because it fruited months before the wild ones and yielded larger, sweeter persimmons. I’d never seen anyone picking it. The fruit just ripened, fell, and got flattened by car tires. As far as I knew, the local birds and I were the only creatures that ate it. There were already a good number of persimmons down when I showed it to Michelle. She picked one up, blew off the asphalt crumbs and dirt, and tasted. “Oh my God!” she cried. “This is the best persimmon I’ve ever had!” She ate another. It was true. They had always been good, but this year’s were especially sweet. If you’ve ever eaten a wild persimmon, you know that it’s a roll of the dice. A good one is wonderful, while an unripe persimmon gives new meaning to the word “astringent.” Your mouth goes so dry and puckery that you want gallons of anything wet to allay the feeling, only to discover that liquids have no effect on this unpleasant sensation. The downside of wild persimmons can be enough to put you off the things entirely. But these were like little globules of persimmon jam, orange and wonderfully sweet and tasting faintly of apricots. We stood there eating fruit that had violated the five-second rule by a week or more, until a neighbor woman in a house dress started giving us the hairy eyeball from her front door. “Just as well,” Michelle said, wiping her hands on her jeans. “We’d probably get sick if we ate any more. What’s next?” And off we went.

  The moment when I realized just how deeply my girlfriend could be moved by wild tastes came the weekend we drove to West Virginia to go trout fishing. We weren’t having much luck, and eventually approached a guy who looked like local and, judging by the three trout hanging from the stringer tied to his waders, competent. We chatted with him, hoping to gain some trout intelligence. He kept fishing all the while, telling us that pretty much any eddy was likely to hold fish, although in water this high and fast such places weren’t easy to find. Suddenly his spinning rod bent under the weight of a good fish. A minute later he hoisted a fat rainbow from the water. As he did this, the fish began to expel roe—a mini cascade of large, translucent orbs. Instantly and wordlessly Michelle fell to her knees and cupped her hands to catch the eggs, which she lifted and sucked into her mouth, then immediately re-cupped her hands to receive more of the still-falling roe. I was surprised. But I had nothing on the angler, who looked like a man in fear for his life. It was an unlikely tableau: West Virginia trout fisherman in hip waders and, kneeling before him with her hands cupped at roughly crotch height and a look of bliss on her face, a very attractive woman. And standing three feet away, her boyfriend, trying desperately to look nonchalant. I felt for the guy. You could see the machinery turning in his head. But there was no way to connect these particular dots. He finally gave me a pleading “aren’t you gonna help me out?” look. But I was a little startled myself. Meanwhile, Michelle, totally absorbed in the moment, either didn’t notice us or didn’t care. Food could do that to her. “Wow,” she finally murmured under her breath, heedless of both of us.

  “How’s it taste?” I asked.

  “It’s so . . . clean,” she said, still not looking up. “It’s got a mineral taste, like spring water.” She ate some more. “And then it sort of slowly blooms into a hint of ocean and salt.” She poured some into my hand and I ate it. But she had already described the taste with such authority and specificity that my own taste buds sort of shut down. If asked my impression, I couldn’t have managed anything more detailed than, “Fishy, but, you know, in a good way.” By this point, the fisherman had decided to move upstream.

  As it turned out, while she cared nothing for trendiness, Michelle was near the forefront of a food trend herself. She had helped found Baltimore Food Makers, a distinctly non-elitist group whose members were interested in traditional methods of producing and preserving food. The group served a forum where like-minded food geeks could connect to share skills, knowledge, and food resources, and also get together at monthly potlucks, which usually featured somebody teaching a skill of interest. T
he group’s core principles included a commitment to sustainable, organic, local, and ethically produced food and the idea that, as Michelle put it, the “best distance between you and your food is no distance.” She had become interested in learning where her own food originated after an early experience in her career as a photographer. She and a writer had somehow gained full access to the workings of Valley Proteins, a rendering plant that processed restaurant grease and offal in Baltimore. The pair had followed a rendering truck on its pickup route to restaurants to collect fryer grease, to slaughterhouses to get the animal parts that even slaughterhouses had no use for, and finally to the city animal pound, where open steel bins heaped with the carcasses of euthanized dogs and cats were dumped into the truck. Everything was delivered to Valley Proteins, where it was processed into various by-products, many used to make soap, cosmetics, fertilizer, and even feed for pets and livestock. Michelle was a woman of strong constitution but told me that what she saw while taking pictures had nearly made her sick on the spot. She kept it together mostly because the reporter did, and her professional pride wouldn’t allow her to be the weak link in a team effort. But the experience had turned her against what she termed “the industrial food system,” which turned out to include pretty much any meat most of us don’t think twice about buying and eating everywhere. It also led her to grow or forage as much of her own food as she could. Anything else she tried to buy directly from whoever produced it.

  Baltimore Food Makers was a big-tent bunch, ranging from orthodox Jewish earth mamas trying to feed a family of nine as cheaply and sustainably as possible to cheese geeks bent on inoculating and aging their own Camembert. Michelle dragged me along to a few of the monthly potlucks. One member demonstrated canning. Another described laying out an urban garden using vegetables I’d never even heard of. Food Makers was definitely tapping into some unfulfilled zeitgeist. There turned out to be quite a few Baltimore twenty- and thirtysomethings who, having been brought up in the age of supermarkets, knew almost nothing about what have come to be known as “homesteading” skills like growing and preserving food, keeping backyard chickens, and making soap. But they were eager to learn them. The group grew to 500 members in less than four years. It was as if these people were nostalgic for a past they’d never had. Their idea of a good weekend was packing a fermenting crock with vegetables they’d grown themselves from heirloom seeds, which, ideally, they had bartered some homemade kefir to obtain. I wondered if this was just some quirky Baltimore thing, but then I did some research. It wasn’t. An intensively hands-on food revolution seemed to be sprouting all over the country.