Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

Making gumbo is a ritual in my family. We make it when the New Orleans Saints play their first game of the season. We make it after Thanksgiving. We make it Super Bowl Sunday. We make it for just about any occasion that falls between Friday and Sunday, since it gets better every time we heat it up and we want those three days to enjoy it.

Gumbo is the reason for the big variety of hot sauces in my fridge. It's also one of the reasons I work out at least an hour every day. And it reminds me of when my family lived in Shreveport, Louisiana.

It's no accident that all of the food I'm passionate about leads back to family. It was Faith Ford, a born-and-raised Louisianan, though, who first introduced me to the food from the Creole State. She made an amazing gumbo, along with mind-blowing black-eyed peas that are a Southern tradition on New Year's Day. They're thought to bring good luck and wealth.

But it wasn't until my youngest brother, Pat, married his wife, Stacy, who is also from Louisiana, that we all became gumbo zealots. You get a good sense of the two of them as soon as you find out their recipe begins with a six-pack of beer---and those are for the cooks (they assume at least two cooks) to consume as they make the gumbo.

When my friend Sara from Culinerapy visited Concord, Mass. last year, she made a reader’s pilgrimage to Orchard House, the historic home of Louisa May Alcott. Since Sara and I (and half the women we know) share an abiding love for Alcott’s 1868 novel Little Women, she sent me a thoughtful souvenir: the author’s recipe for Apple Slump. It’s a homey, deliberately simple dessert, comfort cousin to fruit buckles, bettys, cobblers, grunts and pandowdys. Still, reading the calligraphy-script recipe, I could see where I might tweak it. And I thought, who am I to edit Louisa May Alcott?

Not editing, really. Finessing. Alcott may have mastered prose at the desk, but in the kitchen she was likely closer to Jo March, for whom the “bread burned black” and the “cream turned sour.” Making Apple Slump would be like cooking with Ms. Alcott’s domestically-challenged ghost, and while I cored and sliced I considered my years reading and rereading the March girls, picturing Amy’s limes, Meg’s vain high heels and lonely Jo in the attic with apples, writing and cursing scarlet fever, the villain that stole Beth. I regretted that my little tweaks – dash of vanilla, an extra apple – could not make Laurie come to his senses and dump Amy. Pecans would add crunch but they would never make Jo marry Laurie, nor bring Beth back. They’re a matter of personal taste, like my feelings about Meg wedding that dull John Brooke, and while they won’t change the story they can at least enhance Ms. Alcott’s kitchen legacy, and certainly perk up the Slump.

My son, Eli, and his friends took up fishing a few years back. He has an awesome fishing rod, but he has since retired it. He has replaced fishing for varsity football, work (yes, he works – in a restaurant), and girls. He is 16 1/2 after all! Although he has given up the sport, his friends haven’t. And every time his friend Owen catches something wonderful, he calls me up and asks if he and I can cook together.

This past summer he caught massive amounts of blue fin tuna. I became the lucky recipient of pounds of tuna and when he called, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. Tuna Tartare! Most of the ingredients can be found in the pantry, all that was missing was the fish. I made the ginger oil before he arrived, but waited to chop, cut, and assemble the rest of the ingredients until he arrived.

Upon assembly, I realized that I didn’t have any won ton skins on hand (not really one of my pantry staples), so I sent the teenagers to the market. They couldn’t find the won ton skins(never thought to call and ask…boys), but they managed to bring home 2 pints of ice cream and some other crap, that I NEVER buy and is way too disgusting to mention. I improvised with some tortilla chips. I ate it sans the chips and when the tartare disappeared, they asked for more. With a fridge full of freshly caught blue fin tuna, I couldn’t refuse.

The day after Easter I always find myself with a huge pot of leftover ham stock. In my family we traditionally eat boiled ham and eggs for the holiday. It's a very simple meal that I look forward to every year. I love hard-boiled eggs, so Easter has always been a favorite time of year, because I get to eat all the foods I love, including chocolate. But what to do with all the leftover ham stock? My mom typically makes ham and bean soup, but in the past few years I've started my own tradition of making ham and split pea soup.

Since we're already enjoying spring with the suddenly warm weather, it might seem out of place to be making soup. But actually this in-between brisk weather has me craving a soup like this. Fresh peas will be in season soon, but until then split peas are a wonderful substitute. The ham stock is immensely flavorful and works well in this soup. You could also use chicken or vegetable stock. If you have leftover ham, cube it and add it to the soup near the end of cooking time.

Enjoy this Easter leftover soup!