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Cassoulet

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A Good Appetite

  • A Good Appetite

    Excerpted from JUST ENOUGH LIEBLING by A. J. LIEBLING

    The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down. Each day brings only two opportunities for field work, and they are not to be wasted minimizing the intake of cholesterol. They are indispensable, like a prizefighter's hours on the road. (I have read that the late French professional gourmand Maurice Curnonsky ate but one meal a day-dinner. But that was late in his life, and I have always suspected his attainments anyway; so many mediocre witticisms are attributed to him that he could not have had much time for eating.) A good appetite gives an eater room to turn around in. For example, a nonprofessional eater I know went to the Restaurant Pierre, in the Place Gaillon, a couple of years ago, his mind set on a sensibly light meal: a dozen, or possibly eighteen, oysters, and a thick chunk of steak topped with beef marrow, which M. Pierre calls a Délice de la Villette-the equivalent of a "Stockyards" Delight." But as he arrived, he heard M. Pierre say to his headwaiter, "Here comes Monsieur L. Those two portions of cassoulet that are left-put them aside for him." A cassoulet is a substantial dish, of a complexity precluding its discussion here. (Mr. Root devotes three pages to the great controversy over what it should contain.) M. Pierre is the most amiable of restaurateurs, who prides himself on knowing in advance what his friends will like. A client of limited appetite would be obliged either to forgo his steak or to hurt M. Pierre's feelings. Monsieur L., however, was in no difficulty. He ate the two cassoulets, as was his normal practice; if he had consumed only one, his host would have feared that it wasn't up to standard. He then enjoyed his steak. The oysters offered no problem, since they present no bulk.

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Togetherness - Food Complements

Brats, Sauerkraut, Cole Slaw, Mustard, Buns

We just spent Sunday afternoon smothered with brats, sauerkraut, cole slaw, mustard ( 4 different kinds ) wrapped, of course, in a good bun.  Tom McKenna invited us over for the afternoon to test Tom Pollock's recipe featured in Beer, Brats and a Tailgate. The results were so predictable that we just had to post.

The easiest way to make good food better is in the right combination and there are few better, more reliable combinations than brats, sauerkraut, cole slaw, and mustard. In truth, the bun is just an accessory and may even be an impediment, delaying, as Tom Pollock, puts it, the 'after brat' - the tasty leftover when you're brat is done - lots of kraut and brat juice.


Bon Apetite

Of limited but curious related interest is
The Incompatible Food Triad:

  • The problem is this: Find three foods, such that any two of them go together, but all three do not. We understand "go together" in any reasonable sense of the expression, as it is ordinarily applied to foods.

  • The problem can also be formulated thus: Find a counter example to either of the following (equivalent) alleged theorems (where R(x,y,...) means "x, y, ... all go together") :

  • Given any three foods A, B, and C, if [R(A,B), R(A,C) and R(B,C)] then R(A,B,C)
  • Given any three foods A, B, and C, if ~R(A,B,C) then [~R(A,B) or ~R(A,C) or ~R(B,C)].

Go Figure