Ham

Good freezer management makes it so much easier to get away with two-timing. When the freezer door won’t close, we know it’s time for a couple bags of sauerkraut for an Alsatian choucroute (pronounced shoo-KROOT) garni. A French peasant dish from the Alsace region, choucroute garni means sauerkraut “garnished” with an abundance of pork products, or occasionally goose or duck. It’s the perfect freezer purge for using up all manner of cheater pork plus any sausages, bacon, or ham bones. Whatever you find in there will pretty much work with this dish. Choucroute (the sauerkraut) is traditionally slow-baked in a heavy casserole with slab bacon or a ham hock, carrots, onion, garlic, apple, and wine or beer. The seasoning mix depends on the cook (or the pantry), but usually includes juniper berries, bay leaves, cloves, black or white pepper, even cumin and coriander seeds. The sausages, ham, and other meats are added near the end of cooking. Get the bagged or jarred sauerkraut for the freshest taste. While the sauerkraut turns French in the oven, thaw the trove of frozen meats. A fruity, dry Alsatian Riesling is traditional for both cooking and drinking. French and German beers are also a good match. To complete the meal, add boiled potatoes and a green salad.

Part of the fun of Nashville is the occasional encounter with the music community—Martina at the supermarket, Keith at the sushi bar, Kenny at the gym, Wynonna doing lunch, or Mr. Prine waiting in the school car line. Nashville is good about giving Grammy winners, hit songwriters, and all who keep the music playing plenty of space for living their regular lives. Over at Min’s, we enjoy the occasional drop-in visit by the Malo posse, the charming sons of velvet-voiced Raul Malo. We shoot the breeze about Dad’s latest album, fast cars, and food. No luck getting any Cuban secret family recipes, but the boys have kindly offered Dad’s autograph on our Mavericks and Raul Malo CDs. Listening to Raul gets us hungry for Cuban Fingers, Miami’s favorite crusty pressed sandwiches. We fill them with Ultimate Cheater Pork Loin, or sometimes leftover cheater brisket or beef round roast. Cuban bread is extra crisp on the outside and very tender on the inside, so it’s easy to flatten. Cut the sandwiches into neat fingers for parties.

After moving to Tennessee, R. B. discovered that his favorite baked bean cooked without molasses was actually white. Simple white beans flavored with salty local country ham are a favorite at Nashville’s famous “meat and three” restaurants and at catfish joints all over Tennessee. A big slice of white onion on the side is a must. The other popular white bean garnish is a spoonful of sweet-savory chow-chow (cabbage relish). Chow-chow is available in the pickle section of Southern supermarkets.

Traditionally, the gatekeep of an apartment building in Napoli is a widow or a widower of a certain age, one of whose missions, as spiritual guardian of the palazzo, is to slot the mail—after fastidious palpating of its contents, lifting it to the light of the sun, trawling it for heretical intelligence, and generally shadowing the recipient’s movements by it, to diligently rouse, invent, and unbosom internal gossip. The good gatekeep only breaks from these industries to stir at or baste some one of his legendary little potions, all of which signal to the tenants as they cross the threshold what will be the old watchdog’s supper.

It seems unclear why a dish characteristic of Napoli should be called after a Ligurian port. Some say it’s because a Genovese sailor cooked it for some locals and the goodness of it was hailed throughout the hungry city. Others will tell you that Genovese is nothing more than a torturing of Ginevrina—of Geneva—hence giving a Swiss chef, one from the tribe of the Bourbons’ monzù, no doubt, credit for the sauce (page 84). The truth of its origins, adrift forever, holds less fascination, I think, than the patently simple recipe and the lovely, lush sort of texture the meat takes on from its long, slow dance in the pot.

The Abruzzesi have long feasted on wild rabbit and hare. The formula for their preparation traditionally employed some version of al coccio—the braising of the rabbit in a terra-cotta pot. They might first brown it in olive oil with garlic, then cook it quietly with rosemary in white wine, perhaps enriching the dish with a dose of tomato conserve and finishing it with a handful of stoned olives. The peasants typically cooked rabbit in this mode, as it was a carne secca—a dry flesh— and hence deemed inappropriate for roasting. But in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the brigade of serfs who cooked in the castles and villas of the nobility in the province of Pescara soon learned from their masters that all it took was a blanket of some sort—a quilt of buttery crust, a rasher or two of fat prosciutto or pancetta, even a few leaves of cabbage would do—to keep the scant juices of the little beast from becoming vapors in the heat of a wood oven.

Perhaps until the beginning of this century, there came always, in the severe mountains of the Abruzzo, a haunting desperation with the first days of May. Bankrupt of the thin stores conserved to abide the incompassionate winter—their handkerchief-sized patches of earth sown a few weeks before—the contadini (farmers) waited then for the land to give up its first nourishment. Often it came too late and many died. And even as time brought more mercy, these terrible days were remembered, the pain of them soothed by a simple ritual. The story says that on the first of May, sette fanciulle virtuose—seven young virgins— went from house to house in a village in the Marsica, the area that suffered most in the past, and begged whatever handful of the winter food that might remain in the larders. And, then, in the town’s square over a great fire in a cauldron, the fanciulle prepared a beautiful pottage to share with all the villagers, to bring them together, to warm them, to keep them safe. The potion was known as la virtù—the virtue. The soup is still made, ritualistically, faithfully, each first of May in many parts of the Abruzzo—most especially in the environs of Teramo, as well as in the Marsica—now more extravagantly, brightening the humble dried beans with spring’s new harvests. Employing even a handful or so of all the ingredients results in a great potful of the soup, assigning it thus as a festival dish. On some sweet day in May, invite twenty-nine or so good people and make the soup for them. The tail of a pig and one of his ears, though they are traditional to the soup, seem optional to me.

Here is a simple presentation of the components of Rome’s saltimbocca embroidered with spring peas and tomatoes.

When I was growing up, my dad and I had an ongoing asparagus arrangement: I would cut off the tips of my asparagus spears and trade them for his ends. While most asparagus eaters like the tender tips best, to this day I still prefer the fibrous-textured stalk and would happily swap tips for ends if anyone offered. In this simple first course, asparagus is grilled, then layered with prosciutto and dressed with mustard cream. I hope it’s delicious enough to disappear before your guests have a chance to debate which end is better.

This early fall medley was made famous by the legendary Richard Olney, whose books brought the south of France to kitchens all over the globe. In his recipe, the prosciutto is julienned, scattered over figs, and drizzled with a crushed-mint cream. In this version, I add melon, and instead of thin strands of prosciutto, I drape whole slices around the fruit to create a layered antipasto. There’s no right or wrong type of fig for this dish; as long as they’re super-ripe, luscious, and oozing, they’ll work beautifully. If you have the luxury of choosing more than one variety of fig, such as Genoa, Adriatic, or Honey, this is a spectacular way to show them off. The same rules apply for the melon: just pick the sweetest, most perfumed one you can find.

When I first moved to America I had never tasted eggs Benedict before and was shocked by its popularity. Over the years, I’ve made this dish my own. Most hollandaise recipes call for clarified butter, but I prefer using fresh butter to capture the rich milk flavor.

My grandmother passed this recipe down to my mom and she then passed it on to me. It’s a casserole of pure comfort. First, bitter endive is simmered until sweet, then wrapped in savory ham and smothered with a creamy nutmeg béchamel. Gruyère tops it off before it’s baked until bubbly and golden.

As quick as a stir-fry, this is my go-to fast food. My take on veal scaloppine uses ham, Riesling, and, best of all, lavender. The floral herb is similar to sage and works beautifully here. I prefer the aroma of the tiny purple buds on the flowers, but if you can’t find those, the leaves work well, too.

There are countless versions of croque monsieurs and croque madames all over France. My mom cooks the sandwiches in a cast-iron press on the stovetop so that the bread becomes a crisp casing for the filling. I prefer a sandwich that’s hot and moist all the way through, so I bake the cheese on top of the bread and spread béchamel throughout. That’s the key to my version: The bread must completely absorb the sauce. The effort is well worth it.