Thank you! But I expect you to let me know when you've had enough of them and I should be carted off to mumble them to myself on a bench under a tree. What I find fascinating, though, is how far back history goes in everything, not just kings and queens and emperors and battles and empires, but food. Who could have imagined a 5th century BC cookbook?
Reading your delightful essay brought back memories of childhood mustard plasters, and being made to stay in bed with any minor ailment, inhaling from a small, boxy humidifier on the bedside table next to me, which exuded a small cloud of steam redolent of Vick's Vapo-Rub. Your mustard sauce recipe, with the addition of chopped cornichons to the capers, becomes my favorite Sauce Charcutiere for pork chops. And I add an additional fillip of copped fresh herbs--parsley, thyme, roasemary, and chives. I learned that wonderful amalgam of whole grain and Dijon mustards, pickles, and capers with pork from the Swiss chef at a French restaurant in Marlboro, VT, where I waited tables in the early 1970s.
Your additions much advance my recipe! And I loved the reminder of Vick's Vapo-Rub, a real childhood memory. My mother also had a weird china jug with a long spout which she would set before us then cover it and us in a big towel. In the china pot was a steaming brew of - would it have been eucalyptus? - whose steam we were supposed to inhale by sucking on the spout. In Moscow, when mustard powder had run out along with most everything else, goose fat was the substitute. Especially on the soles of the feet. The furthest away from the chest you could get.
I love you more than you can ever know. Last night I showed my husband how to make homemade salad dressing, the way I was taught in Caluire, France. Not sure the lesson stuck but it brought back memories of salade lyonaise, an old Swiss boyfriend that reignited my love for grilled sausages and French bread, memories of the same outside Bruins and Red Sox games in Boston, all the way to this morning at my local where I had my comme d'habitude green eggs and grass on toast with coffee and lemon water, I told my breakfast buddy about my friend Roland Mesnier, the White House pastry chef who was also from Caluire and our delightful conversations about food, politics and agriculture, followed by a conversation with my waitress about making homemade butter and the beauty of shoveling a horse stall to singing Popeye the sailor man with the kids at another table...and here you come talking about the history of food, Russia and mustard and I feel like my day is complete and it's only 9:00 am. Nothing beasts the warmth of homemade food made with love. Bon journee mon bijou!
What a marvellously colourful vignette you've written! So much in a small paragraph! I met Roland Mesnier once at some DC foodie event - very, very charming.
I got to drive him back and forth from the airport in Boston to Norwich, Vermont where he came to teach and charm students at the King Arthur Baking Achool
Oops .. school. I was public relations manager for a hot minute at King Arthur Baking back when it was King Arthur Flour. The serendipity of our lives was amazing; me having studied in Lyon, where I believe his two surviving sisters still live and he starting his young family life at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia where my brother was Superintendent of the golf course and where my brother met his wife and started his family. There are more funny vignettes but anything that revives the memory of Roland and France gives me joy❤️
100% agree! Mustard is a necessity, and whole grain mustard is also very easy to make. Just soak a variety of mustard seeds in white wine vinegar for a day. Then, blend to your desired consistency. After a couple more days it will be on the level of Babushka's Nuclear Gorchitsa -- my personal favorite!
wow...love the histories you bring us, Julia!
Thank you! But I expect you to let me know when you've had enough of them and I should be carted off to mumble them to myself on a bench under a tree. What I find fascinating, though, is how far back history goes in everything, not just kings and queens and emperors and battles and empires, but food. Who could have imagined a 5th century BC cookbook?
Reading your delightful essay brought back memories of childhood mustard plasters, and being made to stay in bed with any minor ailment, inhaling from a small, boxy humidifier on the bedside table next to me, which exuded a small cloud of steam redolent of Vick's Vapo-Rub. Your mustard sauce recipe, with the addition of chopped cornichons to the capers, becomes my favorite Sauce Charcutiere for pork chops. And I add an additional fillip of copped fresh herbs--parsley, thyme, roasemary, and chives. I learned that wonderful amalgam of whole grain and Dijon mustards, pickles, and capers with pork from the Swiss chef at a French restaurant in Marlboro, VT, where I waited tables in the early 1970s.
Your additions much advance my recipe! And I loved the reminder of Vick's Vapo-Rub, a real childhood memory. My mother also had a weird china jug with a long spout which she would set before us then cover it and us in a big towel. In the china pot was a steaming brew of - would it have been eucalyptus? - whose steam we were supposed to inhale by sucking on the spout. In Moscow, when mustard powder had run out along with most everything else, goose fat was the substitute. Especially on the soles of the feet. The furthest away from the chest you could get.
I love you more than you can ever know. Last night I showed my husband how to make homemade salad dressing, the way I was taught in Caluire, France. Not sure the lesson stuck but it brought back memories of salade lyonaise, an old Swiss boyfriend that reignited my love for grilled sausages and French bread, memories of the same outside Bruins and Red Sox games in Boston, all the way to this morning at my local where I had my comme d'habitude green eggs and grass on toast with coffee and lemon water, I told my breakfast buddy about my friend Roland Mesnier, the White House pastry chef who was also from Caluire and our delightful conversations about food, politics and agriculture, followed by a conversation with my waitress about making homemade butter and the beauty of shoveling a horse stall to singing Popeye the sailor man with the kids at another table...and here you come talking about the history of food, Russia and mustard and I feel like my day is complete and it's only 9:00 am. Nothing beasts the warmth of homemade food made with love. Bon journee mon bijou!
What a marvellously colourful vignette you've written! So much in a small paragraph! I met Roland Mesnier once at some DC foodie event - very, very charming.
I got to drive him back and forth from the airport in Boston to Norwich, Vermont where he came to teach and charm students at the King Arthur Baking Achool
Oops .. school. I was public relations manager for a hot minute at King Arthur Baking back when it was King Arthur Flour. The serendipity of our lives was amazing; me having studied in Lyon, where I believe his two surviving sisters still live and he starting his young family life at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia where my brother was Superintendent of the golf course and where my brother met his wife and started his family. There are more funny vignettes but anything that revives the memory of Roland and France gives me joy❤️
You've reminded me: The Homestead was where the event was at which I met him!
100% agree! Mustard is a necessity, and whole grain mustard is also very easy to make. Just soak a variety of mustard seeds in white wine vinegar for a day. Then, blend to your desired consistency. After a couple more days it will be on the level of Babushka's Nuclear Gorchitsa -- my personal favorite!
Ooh! Great to have a recipe for mustard itself!And one that has the potential to make you sweat, it seems. Thank you!
Well, I need to have some mustard now. Thank you for your newsletter. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for your support! And encouragement...
You're welcome! I'm new to your Substack and looking forward to your future writings.