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kaberettWhat I cook for other people, and what I cook for myself, are generally two very different beasts: a lot of "my" food is recipes I feel gently embarrassed about offering up to guests, because it's too stodgy, or it's not showy enough, or it's too much like comfort food.
Or because it's too Austrian. Too much like peasant food; not something Brits will like; not something I can explain in English when I'm asked what I'm making.
(I say I'm third-gen, and that this is a part of my identity that matters to me for all I'm a Lib-Dem-voting Guardianista, and this is what I mean: that Peterselie is a more familiar word than "parsley"; that it's Erdapfel not Kartoffel, Palatschinken not Pfannkuchen; that I make Knoedelteig by touch rather than by recipe, and my Strudelteig is always a disaster, and I still clean my shoes for Heiliger Nikolaus even though I'm atheist, and I tease Austrian children about der Grampus; that Sprichwoerter are easier to come by auf Deutsch than auf Englisch; that being in Kaernten stills me and grounds me, that there is nothing better than Tiroler Grauvieh and Haflinger and the church bells ringing you down from the alms and the swallows migrating over the passes and all around you the mountains. And that it hurts that my mother tongue (the tongue of all my mothers) and first language was ground out of me and that I had to relearn it and I falter and stumble and I always will.)
All of which is an extremely roundabout way of saying that I am always very, very surprised when I realise that mushroom stroganoff is something that's "allowed" to be on my "to cook for guests" list, because it's Austrian, obviously it's Austrian, and the fact that you can buy imitation ready-meals from M&S doesn't even begin to change the fact that it is unshakably and unmistakably from home.
Recipe
Slice one medium onion (ask me, sometime, and I'll show you the way I prefer to do it for this dish, which is not how I do it for anything else) finely.
Slice two double handfuls (about 250g) of mushrooms, medium-thick.
Slice a pepper (or two, depending on how you're feeling), red or orange, very finely, into strips.
Heat oil and butter in a large, shallow pan on high: half and half, butter for flavour, oil to keep it from burning.
Add the onion and cook it rapidly, until it is just beginning to brown along its edges.
Before it begins to soften significantly, reduce the heat and add the mushrooms. When they begin to take on colour, add paprika, black pepper (and lots of it), thyme, and the juice of half a lemon.
Add the pepper.
As the pepper is just beginning to soften, remove the pan from the heat and add about four tablespoons of yoghurt (or, if you feel like it, you can use soured cream). Add more black pepper.
Serve over rice: if white long-grain, add a pair of cloves to the cooking water.
These approximate quantities served three people, and took me half an hour from getting in the door.
Or because it's too Austrian. Too much like peasant food; not something Brits will like; not something I can explain in English when I'm asked what I'm making.
(I say I'm third-gen, and that this is a part of my identity that matters to me for all I'm a Lib-Dem-voting Guardianista, and this is what I mean: that Peterselie is a more familiar word than "parsley"; that it's Erdapfel not Kartoffel, Palatschinken not Pfannkuchen; that I make Knoedelteig by touch rather than by recipe, and my Strudelteig is always a disaster, and I still clean my shoes for Heiliger Nikolaus even though I'm atheist, and I tease Austrian children about der Grampus; that Sprichwoerter are easier to come by auf Deutsch than auf Englisch; that being in Kaernten stills me and grounds me, that there is nothing better than Tiroler Grauvieh and Haflinger and the church bells ringing you down from the alms and the swallows migrating over the passes and all around you the mountains. And that it hurts that my mother tongue (the tongue of all my mothers) and first language was ground out of me and that I had to relearn it and I falter and stumble and I always will.)
All of which is an extremely roundabout way of saying that I am always very, very surprised when I realise that mushroom stroganoff is something that's "allowed" to be on my "to cook for guests" list, because it's Austrian, obviously it's Austrian, and the fact that you can buy imitation ready-meals from M&S doesn't even begin to change the fact that it is unshakably and unmistakably from home.
Recipe
Slice one medium onion (ask me, sometime, and I'll show you the way I prefer to do it for this dish, which is not how I do it for anything else) finely.
Slice two double handfuls (about 250g) of mushrooms, medium-thick.
Slice a pepper (or two, depending on how you're feeling), red or orange, very finely, into strips.
Heat oil and butter in a large, shallow pan on high: half and half, butter for flavour, oil to keep it from burning.
Add the onion and cook it rapidly, until it is just beginning to brown along its edges.
Before it begins to soften significantly, reduce the heat and add the mushrooms. When they begin to take on colour, add paprika, black pepper (and lots of it), thyme, and the juice of half a lemon.
Add the pepper.
As the pepper is just beginning to soften, remove the pan from the heat and add about four tablespoons of yoghurt (or, if you feel like it, you can use soured cream). Add more black pepper.
Serve over rice: if white long-grain, add a pair of cloves to the cooking water.
These approximate quantities served three people, and took me half an hour from getting in the door.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-30 11:10 pm (UTC)I feel like there is so much that falls into this category. ^^;;; Once I got mocked by a coworker for having beans & rice for lunch. Not like LARGE CHUNKS OF THE WORLD don't eat that sort of thing, OMG.
BTW mailed yr zine off today! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-30 11:28 pm (UTC)-- which is a very different thing to UGH YES PEOPLE ARE AWFUL. AWFUL.
ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine
btw do you know about the london queer zinefest thingy that's happening in early December? would you like deets?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-30 11:31 pm (UTC)I do know about the queer zinefest! I was going to table, in fact, but I felt awkward wanting to table w/only one zine -- in the past I have had... feelings... about what goes well & what doesn't at zinefests, & felt irritated by being overlooked b/c my zines have never had flashy handstenciled covers or whatever. But I do hope to go, in any case! Are you going???
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-30 11:34 pm (UTC)Actually I need to look into accessibility of venue - but um what the hell I'll pencil it in :-)
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Date: 2012-10-31 08:40 am (UTC)(re: zines, I don't even have enough hard copies of the zine on this side of the pond to table w/, in absentia or not, anyway, & IDEK if I would get them in time, sob. But thank you for checking!)
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Date: 2012-11-01 01:42 pm (UTC)&& the other thing: I have ~Feelz~ about post-feminism vs post-gender, and political lesbianism vs making the political choice to request gender-neutral pronouns; at some point I'm going to ~essay~ on it for the LashBlog, & as and when that time comes I would be FASCINATED to know your thoughts, and so on.
Right okay gonna dive back in now ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-01 02:25 pm (UTC)I think for some ppl it feels v. liberating & fun to be unsettled & fluid & whatever, but to me it more often just feels kind of, well... unsettling. :/
Ooooh I'd be v. interested to read your blog post when it comes up. *___*
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Date: 2012-11-01 12:18 pm (UTC)Erdapfel & Kartoffel are both words for potato, but Erdapfel is pomme-de-terre is earth-apple - it's one of many direct translations of French into Austrian, a legacy of the time that French spent being super-fashionable in Vienna.
Palatschinken & Pfannkuchen mean pancakes - the link between the German & the English is fairly obvious (hurrah Germanic languages) but Palatschinken? That's the word that's used in Slovenian and parts east: it's of Slavic origin, and very indicative of the Slavic influence on the language from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
"Teig" means pastry or dough. Knoedel translates as "dumplings", but that doesn't give a totally accurate impression - my Knoedelteig is mostly for Marillenknoedel, and is a potato-wheat dough. Strudelteig is kind of like filo but really, really not, and is for Strudel. :-)
Heiliger Nikolaus is indeed St Nicholas' Day; in Austrian tradition, if you've been bad rather than good then your shoes don't get filled with treats, but instead you get beaten with a switch by der Grampus.
Sprichwoerter are proverbs.
Kaernten is the province of Austria that in English is called I think Carinthia?
Tiroler Grauvieh are literally "Tyrolean grey-beasties": they're a lovely, lovely bred of cattle. Haflinger are an Austrian breed of horse.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-01 06:23 pm (UTC)And your knoedel turn into my kneidl (kneidlach) aka matzo balls, and teig becomes teiglach (dough balls drenched in honey).
<3
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Date: 2012-10-31 09:47 am (UTC)Me, I eat almost anything. You Strogannof sounds lovely, for some reason I had assumed it was Russian, I guess that's just me being super stupid.
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