Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Like Proust, only with chicken

Last night my brother, J, came over for dinner. He drove in from his hotel in Waltham and watched Arrested Development while I cooked dinner. I made one of our favorite dinners from when we were young: chicken cordon bleu. When we were little my brother was very very very picky about food (now he's just picky). He basically only liked chicken so my mom found lots of ways to make it. She also tended to slightly overcook chicken, fearing that we would all die hideous deaths of salmonella poisoning otherwise. Don't let this mislead you, however! My mother is a terrific, considerate, and accomplished cook. She always made delicious dinners for us, and I remember only a handful of times that we ate anything that started out frozen or from a can. Food was (and is!) always an important part of our lives, and a way for us all to spend time together.

In any case, I thought of all this as I was cutting the fat off of the chicken, pounding it flat, slicing the meat and opening the breasts like a book to stuff them with ham and cheese. I also thought of the ways that we make these traditional things our own. My mother almost exclusively used butter, and I use a lot of olive oil. She very rarely used garlic, whereas I put a heaping teaspoon of it on the boiled potatoes before serving them. It's wonderful how as an adult, you can take one of your favorite things from your chilhood, and bring it into your present. I also think that one day I'll be very lucky if I have a child that I can cook with, who can take the recipe I've provided and do something interesting with it.

As I put the chicken, potatoes and broccoli on the table, I thought how like, and unlike my current life is to the one I assumed/hoped I'd have. And then I devoured the golden brown hammy-cheesy deliciousness.

3 comments:

Sarah Berry said...

B and I frequently talk about how our mothers (both devout home cooks who almost never served out of the can or freezer, also) always overcooked the meat when we were growing up for the same disease-paranoia you're talking about. It was a HUGE revelation for both of us that pork and chicken aren't inherently dry :)

Grapeshot/Odette said...

Just found your blog. I have a (mostly) Proust blog, but am crazy about cooking, too, and my mom was an excellent, if limited, cook. Her mom was the best--never used a recipe but had a fabulous garden with tomatoes and strawberries that still send me into rhapsodies. Grandparents also raised chickens, and believe me, today's chickens can't hold a candle to those. Kansas fried chicken is better than anything found in the South.

Judy of Reading Proust in Foxborough

Leslie said...

Hi, Grapeshot! My mother never used a recipe either and we had a big garden that she tended all day long in the spring/summer. It had a huge impact on my ideas about food, and I try to limit what I eat to things that are as fresh as possible.
Scarlet - Moist chicken was also a complete surprise to me :)