Swedish Meatballs, Ikea, Mom and Amazing Smoked Pasta

Swedish meatballs with smoked pasta

I have a real love/hate relationship with IKEA.

The first big commercials I landed as a designer were for IKEA.  It was a mad whirlwind of a week doing 10 commercials in 2 days.  I basically had 1 day to plan and one day to shop before the shoot ––and shop I did.

I had multiple carts and a crew of Ikea personnel to help me pull hundreds of items for the shoot while my art director was in Manhattan shopping for everything else we needed.  I spent hours going over every square inch of the Elizabeth NJ store.

It was madness for so many reasons –– one of which was that my cell phone didn’t work inside the store so I had to run outside all the time to check on my art director’s progress or answer his questions or tell him what I found.  Lord knows but it all worked splendidly and the campaign was so successful that we were asked to do another series a few months later.  Although the next round of commercials was equally successful, they moved on to a new (less successful) campaign so I was done with IKEA ––  so much for nothing succeeds like success.

I swore I’d never set foot in IKEA again and didn’t for ages. It was sort of like what happens when you eat too much of something and can’t think of it without turning green –– IKEA overload.  Because of that, I always had my decorator take care of shopping there ––you can’t do a contemporary movie in NYC without using IKEA.

Eventually, I relented and have walked many miles in their stores in the last few years.  

Life Magazine, Nina Leen photograph

One thing I can never get enough of at IKEA is their Swedish Meatballs.  They were the fuel that got me through many a shopping frenzy.  It probably didn’t hurt that they reminded me of the meatballs that my mother often served at bridge club –– sweet and savory and so darn good I would often snag some from the pan as she made them.  IKEA, mom and bridge, who knew?

My new blog-friend, Maggy Simony of The Bridge Player Chronicles got me thinking about my mother’s bridge club menus a few months ago as we talked about bridge party food. Talking to Maggy brought back a lot of mom memories, including those wild Jello salads that my mother was soooo fond of for her bridge get-togethers as well as cheesy casseroles, snazzy shrimp dishes and these meatballs.

I have to admit it, I have IKEA to thank for the final push I needed to get a good Swedish meatball recipe. Last time I was in IKEA in April, I bought some of their lingonberry preserves after downing a plate of their meatballs to restore me after a few hours of shopping. After chatting with Maggy and running into the jar on the pantry shelf a few times, it seemed the Swedish meatball spirits were aligning to get me to make them (and they keep working their magic–– I've made them 3 times in 2 months!).

Sadly my mom’s recipe is lost, but doing some research I found one that sounded just about right at Cooks Illustrated, full of very wise tricks that turned out perfect, juicy meatballs positively bursting with flavor that had the best of both mom’s version and IKEA’s.  It differs from my memories of my mother's version in that the preserves aren't in the sauce as my mother's was, rather served on the side. I think both styles are delicious.

Although they are served with potatoes at IKEA, for some reason I always thought of them with noodles.  So I decided to try them with a smoked noodle recipe I made during the cooking marathon at my friend’s place in Vermont over Memorial Day weekend.  

They have a giant smoker and I got it in my head to smoke flour.  We put about an inch of it on a giant sheet pan and let it smoke for an hour or so, stirring every once and a while.  I used my favorite Thomas Keller-based noodle recipe and was crazy about the results.  I thought the meatballs would be excellent with my noodles and they were. 2 months later, the flour still smelled of smoke. You can try my noodle recipe or use dried fettucini (Maggy suggested you could put a little liquid smoke in the water with dried pasta with some of the same effect –– great idea).

Although I didn’t show them in the picture, they are served with crisp little vinegared cucumber slices –– a perfect foil to the rich meatballs and sweet preserves.

All I can say is no wonder mom’s bridge club parties were so popular with food like this fueling the card playing. 

Swedish Meatballs based on a Cook’s Illustrated recipe, serves 4

Meatballs

1 large egg, beaten

¼ c heavy cream

1 large slice bread, crust removed and cubed

4 oz ground pork (the original calls for 8oz)

1 small onion, grated

¼  t allspice

¼  t nutmeg

½ t ground black pepper

1 t packed brown sugar

1 t baking powder

1 t salt

8 oz ground beef

¼ oil

Sauce

1 T butter

1 T flour

1 ½ c unsalted chicken stock

1 T packed brown sugar

½ c heavy cream (I often use ¼ c)

2 t lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup frozen peas (optional)

Lingonberry preserves for serving

Combine the egg, cream and bread and let them soak for an hour.  Put in a standing mixer with the paddle attachment and add the port, onion, spices and rest except the beef.  Whip it till it becomes a homogenized paste.  Add the beef and combine just until mixed, don’t over mix.

With wet hands, make about 20 meatballs and refrigerate till ready to use, they will be very soft so refrigerating is a good idea.

Heat the oil in a large skillet and sauté the meatballs till browned.  Remove from the pan and pour off the fat, leaving the brown bits. Place the meatballs on paper towels

Add the butter and when it foams, add flour to the pan and cook over low heat for 30 seconds or so. Add the broth slowly and cook till reduced to 1 cup and then add the cream.   Return the meatballs to the skillet, add the lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste and peas if you are using them and reheat  the meatballs and serve with lingonberry preserves, cucumbers and noodles.

Swedish Pickled Cucumbers

1 ½ c white vinegar

1 ½ c sugar

1 t salt

12 whole allspice berries or ½ t ground

1 pound cucumbers

Boil everything but the cucumbers till the sugar is dissolved.  Pour over the cucumbers and let cool.  Put in the fridge to chill.

Smoked Pasta

1 c smoked flour

2 large egg yolks

1 large egg

1 t olive oil

½ T milk

Mound the flour and put the rest of the ingredients in the middle.  Slowly bring the flour into the mix and combine to a dough.  It will be sticky but a good deal of kneading will make the dough quite silky.  Let is rest for about an hour and then put through your pasta machine.

Thanks to Gollum for hosting Foodie Friday

Piper's Alley Memories, Meatball Pizza, Chicago Style

Old Town Gate

My first trip to the big city of Chicago sans parental units occurred when I was 15 (I lived in the burbs about 45 minutes outside of the city).  My slightly older beau (with a car and license) took me to a favorite haunt of the counter culture in the 60’s and 70’s—Old Town.  Old Town was Chicago’s answer to NYC’s Greenwich Village.

The original Old Town was completely destroyed by the Chicago Fire in 1871 (you know, the Mrs. O'Leary's cow fire).  Old Town was quickly rebuilt by its industrious, mostly German-immigrant occupants who had originally settled there in the 1840’s (after white settlers nabbed it from the Indians in the 1830’s).  It continued to quietly hum along even after having artists take up residence in the 1930’s.  All that changed in the 1960’s when it experienced a cultural transformation and a rush of long-haired youth who came to live and visit and play.

Second City

It was the home of great music venues (The Old Town School of Folk Music), quirky shops and of course, the famous Second City theater that was based at Piper’s Alley.

Old postcard with the famous giant lamp

Piper’s Alley was quite a place back then (I haven’t been back in a zillion years so have no idea what it looks like now–– so it is stuck in the amber of my memory as it was when I was a kid).  In 1967 the Chicago Tribune wrote of it saying, “Visitors enter under a gigantic lamp suspended over the sidewalk, walk east along a brick alley lined with carriage lamps …”

Piper’s Alley, 1960’s postcard 

A March 2, 1971 edition Trib said:

“Piper’s Alley was opened in Nov. 1965 by Rudolph Schwartz and Jack Solomon, owners of the five buildings that once made up Piper’s Bakery and stables. The 15 shops in the development include men’s and women’s apparel specialty stores, candy, candle, book, trinket, record, glass and wig shops, the Second City theater, Aardvark Cinematique, and an art gallery.”

1971 Fire in Piper’s Alley

With that giant lantern and the carriage lights, it had a magical Diagon Alley kind of atmosphere when I went there long ago.  Patchouli wafted around the cobbled street (as a personal statement and in incense form in the shops) but was a sensory distraction from the insanely delicious smell of pizza that issued from a place at the end of the alley –– a place that served the best pizza I had ever had.  I still remember it as one of the best.

It was called La Piazza Pizza from what I was able to dig up (the name had drained out of my brain years ago, to be honest, I’m not sure I ever knew it as anything other than the ‘pizza place in Piper’s Alley’ … even though everything about the pizza itself was lovingly locked in the old memory box). 

The space was funky.  A lot of brick, cheap faux-Tiffany lights and not very clean as I recall.  The pizzas that arrived in pitch black, heavily crusted pans were thick and doughy but with a great depth of flavor in the crust, quite a departure from the cotton-wool bland crusts I was used to.  This crust was strong and positively bathed in olive oil –– that’s what made it so damn good –– that and the rich sauce and thick, browned molten cheese.  It was a grand, heroic pizza.

I found a thread on a website that had many old fans sharing great memories of that pizza so I was not alone in my love of the place –– sadly no pictures of the premises could be found to share with you.  I know there are many who praise Pizza Uno or Due or Lou Malnati's, but for me, the best Chicago pizza will always live in that alley.

The crust recipe is one I’ve been making since college and is simple as could be.  The only change I’ve made is resting it overnight because I think it helps the flavor.

I give you a regular size and a mini meatball version as my homage to my favorite pizza. You can make my favorite meatballs or use your own favorite recipe. Also, I like whole wheat in my crust and think it adds character. I doubled down on flavor by using Red Fyfe wheat which is amazing stuff (I got the wheat from Sarah  of All Our Fingers in the Pie).  If you don't like whole wheat, just use white bread flour.

FYI –– traditionally, Chicago pizza is constructed a little differently than most.  The mozzarella cheese gets laid down first, then the ingredients, then the sauce is added with Parmesan sprinkled on top and sometimes a drizzling of olive oil. When making the individual pizzas you have to do the mozzarella the old fashioned way, it tops the little pizzas.

The extra olive oil is really a triumphant addition if I may say–– related to the Italian fashion of offering herbed olive oil with bread but much better for being baked into the crust.  You will fall in love with the technique.

One more note, these reheat beautifully and the olive oil keeps them very moist.  I also found it was a great idea to dunk them in left-over tomato sauce!!

Individual Meatball Pizzas Makes 8-9

1 recipe dough
1 recipe meatballs
1 recipe sauce
1 recipe herb/garlic oil
8-9 slices mozzarella
3 T parmesan cheese
3 T olive oil

Take the dough out of the fridge and make into rounds,  lay in the cupcake molds oiled with the 3 T olive oil –– about a teaspoon per mold.  Press the dough to the sides so they are hollowed out. Spread some of the oil over the top of the dough.  Let sit for 1 hour. I put oiled 1/2 egg shells in the centers to hold the shape.

Preheat oven to 425º  for 1/2 an hour with pizza tiles or stones.  Bake dough for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and take out the egg shell if you used it, if you didn't pull out enough dough for the meatball to have a seat in the dough.  Spoon a bit of herb oil and place a sprinkling of parmesan  on the dough.  Place a meatball on top with a spoon of tomato sauce (don't use too much sauce, it will sog out the dough) and cover with mozzarella cheese.  Ladle a spoon of herb/garlic oil over the top and bake until golden, about 10 -15 minutes more.

Chicago Pizza Crust (makes 9 individual pizzas)

1 3/4 c flour (plus a little extra for working the dough into the molds)
3/4 c whole wheat flour
1 t salt
1 t sugar
1/4 t yeast
1 c water
2 T olive oil plus more to oil the bowl

Combine all the ingredients and knead in a standing mixer or by hand for for 8 minutes.
Put in an oiled bowl and cover.  Let rise till  double in size.  Put in the fridge overnight.

Take the dough out of the fridge and put in the cupcake molds, oiled with 1 t olive oil. Spread some of the oil over the top of the dough.  Let sit for 1 hour. I put 1/2 egg shells in the centers to hold the shape.

Preheat oven to 425º  for 1/2 an hour with pizza tiles or stones.  Bake dough for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and place a sprinkling of parmesan  on the dough.  Place a meatball on top with a spoon of tomato sauce and cover with mozzarella cheese.  Ladle a spoon of herb/garlic oil over the top and bake until golden, about 15 minutes more.

Sicilian Meatballs based on Comforting Foods recipe  enough for 20 meatballs)

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 


1 finely minced onion 


1/2 cup dry white wine 


¼ c sweet Marsala wine 


1 small bay leaf 


1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 


1 teaspoon salt 


1 ½ pound ground beef (I use Grazin Angus Acres grass fed and delicious!) 


4 pieces of smoky bacon chopped

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten 


1 cup bread crumbs,

¼ pound grated Romano cheese 


1 c  chopped fresh parsley 


½ c chopped fresh basil 

1 T oil

Heat 4 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat. When hot, add onions and cook until translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add wine, Marsala, bay leaf, 1 teaspoon pepper and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Heat to a boil, then simmer until most of liquid evaporates, 9 to 10 minutes. Discard bay leaf. Transfer to a plate and refrigerate until cold. Gently but thoroughly combine ground beef, chilled onion mixture, egg, bread crumbs, cheese, parsley and chopped basil.  Form into meatballs.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to several hours.  Sauté chopped bacon until fat is rendered and bacon crisp and remove. Saute meatballs in the bacon fat and oil until cooked through and remove.

Tomato Sauce

1 can diced tomatoes

pinch of salt and pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

2 T onion

1 t olive oil

1/2 t oregano

1 T marsala wine

Saute the garlic, onion in the oil. Add the tomatoes and oregano and marsala wine and reduce till thick.

You can use left-over sauce to dunk the meatball pizzas –– a very tasty treat.

Herb Oil

1/4 c olive oil

1 clove garlic, pressed or minced

pinch salt and pepper

1/2 t oregano

1 T fresh basil, minced

1/4 t pepper flakes

Combine all.

Deep Dish Pizza

1 Recipe dough

2 T olive oil

6 slices mozzarella

1/2 c tomato sauce

8 slices pepperoni or hard sausage

1/4 c parmesan

herb oil

Put tiles or stones in the oven and preheat 1/2 an hour to 425º.  Swirl olive oil in 9" cake pan.  Place the dough inside, working it up the sides. If the dough has been refrigerated, let it warm up in the pan, covered for 1/2 an hour.  Bake for 15 minutes and remove.  Lay the mozzarella on the pie.  Lay on the sausage and then the tomato sauce.  Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.  Drizzle the herb oil over the top of the pie and brush on the crust.  Bake for another 15 minutes or until bubbly.

Tree Houses, Picnics and Deviled Legs

Pitchford Tree House

The World of Interiors is probably my favorite publication. It takes you everywhere there is wonder to be found –– from a student’s studio furnished with street finds to a  Rococco palace furnished with museum pieces –– DaVinci drawings to dented coffee pots.  The magazine holds true to one of my personal precepts, “to the artist, all materials have equal value” –– it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to be glorious or to be included on the pages of World of Interiors. 

Pitchford tree house, photographed by Henry Bourne  –– the picture that I fell in love with

20 years ago in World of Interiors I found a fairytale vision on-the-hoof –– a half-timbered wonder in an article on Pitchford Hall and its matching tree house set in the rolling hills and dales of Shropshire England (and beautifully photographed by Henry Bourne).  Yes, you read that right –– tree house –– but not any tree house, an honest to god, 17^th century tree house cradled in a 900 year old Lime (Linden) tree.  It’s the oldest tree house in the world. Once seen, it’s never been far from my daydreaming mind.

You know, before we fantasize about dream houses,  a dream playhouse is on many a youngster’s wish list, like some kids have dream cars on theirs (the Hamptons is full of now-wealthy middle-aged men driving around in the muscle cars they coveted in their penurious youth).  I guess when I saw this house I saw the playhouse of my youthful “get-me-out-of-the-midwest” dreams made manifest (the Barbie playhouse was not my style).  I mean, for me, it hit the trifecta –– adorable, teetering in an ancient tree and in the style of Shakespeare’s England (the manor house would suit the adult me just fine as well).

The house itself is pretty spectacular both inside and out as these photos attest. Queen Victoria described it as,  “ a very comfortable yet curious looking house, striped black and white in the shape of a cottage.” This is only a cottage to someone who lives at Windsor Castle and needs a map to find their bedroom .

The Great Hall, Henry Bourne 

The drawing room, Henry Bourne 

Pitchford Hall was built by wool merchant Adam Ottley in 1540 (although there had been a house there from at least the time of the Domesday Book ––1081-86).  The superb carpenter that built it was named John Sanford “whose exuberant style is the hallmark of Shrewsbury’s best Elizabethan buildings…”, said the piece in WOI. 

Sir Francis Ottley and his family, 1636, by Petrus Trouell

The house was owned by Ottleys till they died out at the end of the 19^th century.  Relatives kept it in the family till 1992,  when it had to be sold after devastating losses from the infamous Lloyds “Names scandal”  (a cute fraud operation with painted-over losses much like our USA banking scandal in the ‘aughts’ save for the fact it was centralized in one place, Lloyds of London –– many old families lost everything).  

Photograph from Adventures around Priest Weston 

The early Ottleys were Royalist with Catholic sympathies —the now-ancient stand of Scot’s pines near the entrance was a sign that Catholics would find shelter there –– in Pitchford’s case, in a well-hidden priest’s hole. 

Prince Rupert

A bedroom cupboard hid a trap door that led a stairway to the priest hole where the swashbuckling Prince Rupert of the Rhine spent the night in 1644 (son of Elizabeth, the Winter Queen, who I wrote about HERE).  The Pitchford website said there is also a 200 yard subterranean tunnel –– a watery access for guests avoiding the law that was built in the 16^th and 17^th centuries terminating in settling room with stone seats that could hold quite a few souls evading capture (Rupert's men hid there during his stay).  All of this makes for magical child’s play.  Can you imagine the fun you could have there?

Queen Victoria as a child

Since the tree house was built in the late 17^th century, many famous people have stepped up for a visit,  no less than young Queen Victoria  played there, remarking dispassionately in her diary  “I went up a staircase to a little house in a tree”,  as well as two Prime Ministers, Lord Liverpool and Lord Rosebery. 

Pitchford Hall is known for having a whole retinue of ghosts from servants to ladies and lords (including a recent arrival who smokes a cigar that one can smell).  So many ghosts haunt the place that a lady of the house in the 1920’s moved into the tree house to get away from them (I would probably invite them to join me). She even had the butler bring her meals to her there!

You can stay on the estate if you would like and get a close-up view of the treehouse by clicking HERE although the hall is no longer open to the public.

Inside the tree house, Henry Bourne, 1992

I could  just imagine tea parties and picnics with iced tea made from lime flowers plucked from the tree that embraces the house.  Yes, a picnic is just what I see. With a house that has a history as long as this, I  don’t think I’m cheating by having a favorite picnic snack in my tree house. It doesn't have to be an Elizabethan treat, now does it?  How do deviled chicken legs and potato salad sound?

It's not as if my picnic ingredients come from a molecular gastronomy lab. The recipe for the deviled legs is as old as the hills. I know I have been making it for decades as did my gram before me. Deviled things were terribly popular by the 19th century as the spices of  India gently infiltrated English cuisine (the word 'devilled' used in connection with food was first seen in 1786 but had been around much longer).  Chicken legs are slathered with a sweet spicy sauce and broiled till brown and bubbly (you can use any other cooked chicken parts or boneless chicken breast strips you may have on hand for this technique).  Then they are rolled in toasted bread crumbs –– or not –– they are killer good both ways.  I always wish I'd made more when I make them.  Beware, they are addictive.  I never thought I would say this but after years of using olive oil,  browning the crumbs in good lard makes them even better (thanks Ken for the inspiration). The potato salad is a hybrid of an old Martha Stewart recipe that I’ve been making for years.  It changes with what I have around when I make it but always has mayo and buttermilk and pickles.  You can change the buttermilk/mayo ratio to make it leaner if you would like.

My suggestion? Go to a favorite place, put your imagination hat on and enjoy your picnic.

Deviled Legs for 3-4 (2-3 per person)

8-9 chicken legs, cooked (oiled, salt and peppered and baked at 425º for 50 minutes then cooled)

2 T Dijon style mustard

2 T mango Chutney

2 T Worcestershire sauce

1/8 to ¼ t cayenne

salt to taste

3 T oil

1 c bread crumbs

salt and pepper

1 t thyme

2 T oil, butter or lard 

Blend all ingredients.  Slash the legs if you would like and slather on the mixture (I didn't this time).  Broil on high for 5-10 minutes.  All broilers are different so keep an eye on them lest they burn.

Sauté the crumbs in the fat till browned.  Roll the chicken legs in the crumbs and serve.

Kitchen Sink Potato Salad for 6-8

2 pounds thin skinned potatoes (red, white or Yukon gold) chopped into bite size pieces

¾ c mayonnaise

¼ c buttermilk

2 T German or Dijon mustard

¼ c sweet dill pickles, chopped + 2 T juice

2 T capers

1 T green peppercorns

½ c chopped celery

¼ c chopped onion (sweet or red)

¼ c chopped scallions

1/3 c chopped parsley

pinch of mace or nutmeg

pinch of celery seed

pinch of cayenne

dash of Worcestershire sauce

juice of ½ lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes in salted water till tender but firm.  Drain and cool.

Stir together the wet ingredients.  Add the rest to combine then gently toss in the potatoes and blend so as not to break them.

Gorgeous Greeks and their Honey Glazed Shrimp

530 BCE black figure Panathenaic amphora, MMA

The 5 Star Makeover group is convening once more and the topic is Greek Meze.

Since my game is history and food, I went to ancient Greece by way of a favorite cookbook,  The Classical Cookbookby Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger to find my contribution to the makeover. With so much to choose from, deciding on what to pick is not easy.  Mediterranean cuisine began in Greece after all, but so did Western Civilization ––hard to believe but there is more to Greek culture than just the food.  For example, when I think Greece I think pottery.

I have had a serious crush on Greek pottery for as long as I can remember (that and the Klismos, but that's another story). 

     

There is something strangely compelling about their red and black pottery, often populated by comely men and women  up to their Attic antics –– eating, drinking and frolicking. Mr Keats was certainly captivated by their frozen beauty in his Ode to a Grecian Urn. Greek pottery decorations of this period did seem to capture life of the times more often than not, sort of proto-life-style reporting and their revelries were embellished with magnificent Greek key and palmette patterns meandering elegantly around the clay surfaces (more heroic subjects seemed to end up in marble).

Terracotta Larnax from Pachyammos (or lustral basin)

One of my favorite jobs as a production designer was working on a PBS program that went from Archimedes' ancient Greece to Thomas Edison's 19th c New Jersey.  For the Greek section I got to make great furniture and pottery and it was an incredible thrill.  Since the “Eureka”  moment happened in a bathtub, we got a metal horse trough and a great fabricator made it into a credible “terracotta” tub that looked like the real deal (it was based on the tub above) complete with carousing porpoises that my art director and I painted (as well as the oil lamps, a giant ewer for pouring bath water –– all made by a wonderful potter in Tribeca) and a gorgeous 3 legged wooden table (all of which went to the lucky director, drat).

Black figure Vase (510-500BCE), MMA

Originally, the pottery was made using a "black figure" technique that involved a black slip background from which the red color patterns were incised after a first firing (this is a little like the scratchboard technique I remember from art class as a kid). Then the clay was fired again to lock the design.

Kylix 350 BCE

Kylix 450-350 BCE

520-510 BCE, MMA

Around 530BCE, this evolved into the "red figure" technique that allowed the potters to paint the design on the pot instead of scratching the design into the black surface.  That gave the craftsmen the ability to create more intricate designs.  Interestingly enough, much of what we know about Greek lifestyle come from the designs on these magnificent pots –– the aforementioned proto-life-style reporting,–– fleshed out by great contemporary accounts that have been saved through all these thousands of years.  We can see the way they ate, what they sat on, ate from and what they were wearing (or in the case of the servants, NOT wearing).
 

Kylix 500 BCE, MMA

Footed Epiktetos, MMA

Kottabos-playing Greeks were a frequent subject for pottery designs. Kottabos was a game that involved accurately tossing the dregs of your wine cup (usually a low kylix form as seen above) at a target (really hard to wrap your head around Socrates playing this undignified game but it was a sure fire way to lighten up a party). 

Kottabos

In The History and Manners of Customs in Ancient Greece, James St. John described the device:

 “ The most usual form of the game was this, –a piece of wood like the upright of a balance having been fixed in the floor or upon a stable basis, a small cross-beam was placed on the top of it [a wooded base] with a shallow vessel like the basin of a pair of scales, at either end. Under each of these vessels stood a broad-mouthed vase, filled with water, with a gilt bronze statue called a Manes, fixed upright in its centre.” When done properly, one thing would hit another making a sound “by an onomatopoæ called latax” (the act of tossing was called ankula after the turn of the wrist involved in the toss).  The victor was the one who spilled the least wine and made the most noise. It was also thought that the greater the success at the toss, the higher the “place occupied by the player in his mistresses affection”.

Symposium Getty Museum

Kottabos shenanigans aside, I can just imagine the simple Greek room, with diners leaning on silk-cushioned couches set about the spare elegant space, discoursing brilliantly whilst eating from gorgeous low tables laden with lovely, clean-flavored food that is as good today as it was 2500 years ago.

The Classical Cookbook said the recipe for the sweet and sour glazed shrimp I made was suggested by a few words in a remarkable document called The Banquet of Philoxenus from around 400 BC,  "Honey-glazed shrimps besides, my love" is all there was to work with. Grainger, with her encyclopedic knowledge of the cuisine of the period, put together the recipe using appropriate ingredients and techniques from those few words –– a well-educated guess. 

Grainger described The Banquet of Philoxenus as “a poetic celebration of obsessive culinary pleasures, a literary dinner-party” (available online HERE and a lot of fun to read). It is full of lush descriptions of topics discussed and food eaten but also does things like calculating the size of the party by the number of couches in the room. What a world it was.

There is talk of a man who:

“…out of his prodigious luxury used to syringe the lettuces which grew in his garden with mead in the evening, and then, when he picked them in the morning, he would say that he was eating green cheesecakes, which were sent up to him by the Earth.”

Kylix, 480-470, 

One banquet was described:

“There were rivers

With tender pulse and blackest soup o'erflowing,

Which ran clown brawling through the narrow dishes,

Bearing the crusts and spoons away in the flood.

Then there were dainty closely kneaded cakes;

So that the food, both luscious and abundant,

Descended to the gullets of the dead.

There were black-puddings and large boiling slices

Of well-mix' d sausages, which hiss'd within

The smoking streamlet in the stead of oysters.

There too were cutlets of broil'd fish well season'd

With sauce of every kind, and cook, and country.

There were huge legs of pork, most tender meat,

Loading enormous platters ; and boil'd pettitoes

Sending a savoury steam ; and paunch of ox ;

And well-cured chine of porker, red with salt,

A dainty dish, on fried meat balls upraised.

There too were cakes of groats well steep'd in milk,

In large flat dishes, and rich plates of beestings.”

What will you say then when you hear the rest?

For roasted thrushes nicely brown'd and hot

Flew to the mouths o' the guests, entreating them

To deign to swallow them, besprinkled o'er

With myrtle leaves and flowers of anemone,

And plates of loveliest apples hung around

Above our heads, hanging in air as it seem'd.

And maidens in the most transparent robes,

Just come to womanhood, and crowned with roses,

Did through a strainer pour red mantling cups

Of fragrant wine for all who wish'd to drink.

And whatsoe'er each guest did eat or drink

Straight reappear'd in twofold quantity."

Not bad, right?  Contrary to what you might infer after reading the above, the Greeks ate lots of fruits and vegetables at these wine soaked, flower scented bashes. 

Black figure amphora, 520 BCE, Gathering olives

I thought for my offering I would include a vegetable recipe from a different source, “Cabbage in the Athenian Way” that came from Mnesitheus, a Greek medical writer from the 4^th c BC who said that this mixture cured headaches (also in The Classical Cookbook). It is a delicious refreshing salad and the honey vinegar (known as Oxymeli) is divine –– the cabbage is a great companion to the shrimp. The dishes are beautifully conceived; sweet and sour with a great deal of interesting but subtle flavors from the herbs and that dusky asafetida.  You will be shocked at how modern it tastes.  

I leave you with this lovely thought. Within the text of The Banquet comes the quote from the Sirens of Nicophon:

 “Let it now snow white cakes of pulse;

Let loaves arise like dew; let it rain soup;

Let gravy roll down lumps of meat i' the roads,

And cheese-cakes beg the wayfarer to eat them.”

So may it be for you.

Honey Glazed Shrimp

8 oz shrimp

1 T olive oil

2 T fish sauce

1 T honey

2 t chopped fresh oregano

black pepper

Cook the shrimp in the oil with the fish sauce and honey.  Remove the shrimp and reduce the sauce by 1/2. Add the oregano and pepper and pour over the shrimp.

Cabbage the Athenian Way

1 small white cabbage

2 heaping teaspoons chopped coriander

2 t chopped rue*

2 pinches asafetida

salt

4 oz (1/2 c) honey

2 T red wine vinegar.

Heat the honey and add the vinegar and reduce a little.  Chop up the cabbage and toss with the herbs, 
vinegar, salt and asafetida powder.

*Rue can be purchases at some well-stocked herb plant stores or you can buy it online HERE.  Although it is available dried at some spice stores,  I do recommend using fresh.  If you can't get it best to skip it... nothing else quite like it..

hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!