COOKING
I come from a family of cooks, the kind that don’t need or use cookbooks. My Grandma used a chipped tea cup for all her standard measurements. I know how a dish should be prepared because I know how it tastes. And I’ve tasted the best. Getting it right is just a matter of observation and practice.
Well, that’s how it should work and probably did. But who has time for that these days? In the Old Country, circa 1900, a newlywed bride would spend her honeymoon with her in-laws. She’d learn how to prepare the foods her husband ate. Her job was to yield to her in-laws’ wishes, cook, and be a brood mare. I wouldn’t have lasted.
Of course, in America things were different. When Americans got married they honeymooned at Niagara Falls. However, women were still married off when they were very young. This was a carry-over from the Old Country where women wore out easily. The average guy could expect to have two or three replacements throughout his life. So it was natural to start early.
My maternal Grandmother married my Grandfather (age 35) when she was just 17. That was barely old enough to know how to cook rice pilaf. But I suspect, given how cute my Grandma was, my Grandpa wasn’t hung up on how well she cooked.
Recently, I tackled some dishes I never made before. Difficult dishes without measurements for the spices. I just had to guess based on taste. Luckily, my guesses weren’t too far off or anything that couldn’t be undone by adding more chicken broth.
There’s a lot of ritual around tasks like cooking for large groups. And I have to say that after doing this on my own, I wouldn’t mind a gang of like-minded women helping out next time. Especially with the stuffed grape leaves, in soaking, preparing and rolling the 60 or so leaves. Stuffed grape leaves (or dolma) are a Mediterranean appetizer. The Greeks and Lebanese have their version, but the Armenian one is the most delicious. Trust me.
I’m not the best at dealing with onions. The recipe called for four cups, minced. And since I wanted the dish to be authentic, I purchased whole onions to chop. And boy, what a mistake that was.
I tried wearing sunglasses to ward off the onion fumes. But my eyes teared up anyway. Between my runny nose and eyes, and the gloom from the sunglasses, I couldn’t see what I was doing. The onions looked hacked. Next time, I won’t be a martyr. I’ll just purchase the pre-minced onions.
There are some Armenian dishes I had that I’ve never known the “authentic” version. In this category is a meatball and pasta dish known as “Monti.” I found the “authentic” recipe recently.
The “real” Monti calls for rolling chopped meat and spices into hundreds of tiny, pea-sized spheres. (In contrast, my meatballs are the size of golf balls.) The pasta dough is made by hand, rolled out into vast sheets, and cut into tiny rectangles.
A meatball in placed in the center of each rectangle. The dough is then pinched around the meatball until it resembles a canoe. (I use sea-shell pasta out of a box and avoid this crap altogether.)
The assembled monti are toasted in the oven and then dumped into a tomato broth until tender. This whole process took the better part of a day.
It was more time and toil than I’m willing to undertake, especially for a meal that will be devoured in less than five minutes. In my brother Mark’s case, less than two.
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