Hubris

Tell Me What You Ate

Diana Farr Louis

“One day, though, I had an epiphany. I must have been about twelve or 13, and my classmate Doris had asked me over for Sunday lunch. They had no servants and her mother was the cook. I can’t remember whether we ate in the kitchen or not, but I do remember watching her take a roast pork out of the oven and I have never forgotten the sumptuous crunchiness of that first bite of crackling. It made me swoon.”—Diana Farr Louis

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

The whole Farr clan in 1962: we seven siblings (three with spouses) plus our Italian cousin Anna Paola with her husband Checco. We had gathered for Dad’s 70th birthday.
The whole Farr clan in 1962: we seven siblings (three with spouses) plus our Italian cousin Anna Paola with her husband Checco. We had gathered for Dad’s 70th birthday.

Diana Farr Louis

ATHENS Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—February 2018—This Epiphany, instead of watching young men all over Greece plunge into icy waters all over Greece to fetch the crosses thrown by priests, I found myself riveted by a paragraph from an article in The Guardian excerpted from the introduction to an intriguing book by Laura Shapiro: What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories. The questions Shaipiro poses challenged me and sent the memory wheels spinning in all directions.

Tell me what you ate when you were a child,” writes Shapiro, “and whether the memory cheers you up or not. Tell me if you cook, and who taught you, and why you don’t cook more often, or less often, or better. Please, keep talking. Show me a recipe you prepared once and will never make again. Tell me about the people you cook for, and the people you eat with, and what you think about them. And what you feel about them. And if you wish somebody else were there instead. Keep talking, and pretty soon, unlike Brillat-Savarin, I won’t have to tell you what you are. You’ll be telling me.”

But I’ll start here with the author’s first question, about food and childhood.

Picture this. It’s one o’clock on Sunday on Long Island in the 1950s and the large Farr family is gathered around the mahogany table, to which leaves have been added for this weekly meal. We have all been to St John’s Episcopal Church, either to Sunday school or the service, where my father was often one of the ushers passing the plate. With my parents at either end, the vicar, and five children (one in a highchair) plus the occasional guest, there were always at least eight of us.

It’s a ritual and Sunday is sacred. We may invite a friend, but we are only rarely allowed to go to someone else’s house. And we are never allowed to go to the movies on God’s day. Saturday is set aside for that. We plead, we whine, but the rule stands. And we actually manage to have fun because friends descend after lunch and we play frisbee or touch football and, in the evening, the older ones gather round the piano and sing old songs like “Aura Lee(made famous by Elvis as “Love Me Tender”). Both my father and my brother Tom have glorious tenor voices and Tom has musical friends. I am the only girl and loving it.

But back to lunch. The table is set with our best china, monogrammed silver cutlery, linen napkins, and cut-glass goblets for water. Wine is absent, though my parents probably had a martini before the meal. I usually sit on my father’s left, next to the minister, Herbert H. Hill, of Liverpool. Being rather high church, he likes to be called Father Hill but, in private, Tom calls him Old Heaven. His color is sepulchral, but he is kind and not dogmatic. He comes without either Boy, his terrier, or Walter, his faithful acolyte. After he’s left us, Tom is also fond of joking, “How do you put out an acolyte?”

Dad asks the reverend to say grace; he says it himself before every other meal. “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.” This can have variations, as per a New Yorker cartoon of the day, which concluded “with the possible exception of these instant mashed potatoes.” Just invented, they did leave something to be desired.

Or Dad could quote, as he often did, the official US Navy grace, which was short and to the point. He’d thump the end of his knife on the table and say, “Thank God.” On one occasion, he asked my mother’s brother-in-law, Uncle Giampi, visiting with her sister from Italy, whether he’d like to say grace. And Giampi, trying to replicate the Navy prayer, thumped his knife and exclaimed, “For God’s sake!” This became part of Dad’s repertoire, too.

By this time, the maid, Vivian, a sweet shy woman from Sweden, had brought in the roast. For it was always a roast, either beef or lamb; sometimes a capon, but never ever pork or veal. Dad had a disdain for veal, as namby-pamby with no taste, but I could never divine the source of his abhorrence of pork, unless it was the fear of trichinosis, which lingered back then.  

Then he would stand up and start to carve meticulous, expert, thin slices of rare meat, perfectly cooked to the taste of most of us, though my younger siblings, Woody and Nancy, would only eat well done and without much relish. During this performance, a guest would often say, “Shelton, are you sure you have enough?” And Dad would reply, “Never worry about the dealer or the carver,” a maxim that embedded itself in the memories of us all.

In fact, he made sure that he and I had the best tidbits, the crispy fat, the pope’s nose, slices well moistened by the bloody juices.

Meanwhile, Vivian would be passing the vegetables: roast potatoes or real mashed, Brussels sprouts, string beans, peas, broccoli—always boiled, and with butter on top.

I do not remember ever having anything different, sauced or spiced or stewed; of course there were no onions or garlic.

Dessert was either apple pie, ice-cream, or strawberries, in spring. And here I can still see my little sister Nancy, hamster cheeks swollen with chewed but not swallowed meat, trying to filter some ice-cream or fruit down her throat. She was not allowed to have dessert until she’d cleaned her plate, and she’d developed all sorts of subterfuges, like sticking unwanted bites in a hollow under the table.

A bowl of strawberries would inevitably elicit another maxim from Dad: “Doubtless, God could have made a better berry; doubtless, God never did.” We would groan every time, but now we find ourselves quoting him.

Shelton Farr, the autocrat of the dinner table, a portrait of my father.
Shelton Farr, the autocrat of the dinner table, a portrait of my father.

Our meat and two veg regime dominated every other meal as well as Sunday lunch. On school evenings, we four kids (Tom was either away at college or ate with the grown-ups) had supper at 5:30. The week’s menu was unvaried: lamb chops, roast chicken, hamburgers, steak, liver, and fish on Fridays.

At one of those meals, my younger brother Woody erupted: “Steak again!?” he moaned. Tom happened to be passing though the dining room. “What did I hear you say, you little pipsqueak? If I ever hear you say that again, I’ll beat the hell out of you! You have no idea how lucky you are. I grew up during the war and we never saw meat. Be grateful.”

No doubt we were spoiled and privileged. But, looking back, I’m surprised at my stepmother’s lack of cravings for the food of her youth, for she had grown up in Italy where her father was a consul in Turin and in Florence. Did she never long for eggplant parmigiana or pollo alla cacciatore? Something with a little sauce, infiltrated by an herb or spice? She had only to ask the cook, Helen, also from Sweden, who must have been bored turning out the same dishes week after week. (Though she consoled herself with making double orders over the phone to the butcher and grocer: one for us, one for her family, until my father wondered why the bills were so high.)

Or maybe it was Dad’s innate American resistance to things “foreign.” Mom wouldn’t have tried too hard to convert as she took little interest in food, whether cooking or eating. She also had only one dish to her name, spaghetti with meat sauce, which she made on Saturday nights, when Helen was off.

One day, though, I had an epiphany. I must have been about twelve or 13, and my classmate Doris had asked me over for Sunday lunch. They had no servants and her mother was the cook. I can’t remember whether we ate in the kitchen or not, but I do remember watching her take a roast pork out of the oven and I have never forgotten the sumptuous crunchiness of that first bite of crackling. It made me swoon. I also remember lapping up some sort of vegetable stew, something with tomatoes and onion.

It was my first glimpse into a beautiful, exotic world of more complex tastes. And, years later, after trips to Spain, Italy, France and, of course Greece, I came to view the protein-rich, sauce-less diet of my youth as monotonous and dull. In some ways, I think I grew up deprived.

But I’ve made up for it.

Of course, we never dreamed artichokes could look as forbidding as these spiny wild ones. Or taste as delicious.
Of course, we never dreamed artichokes could look as forbidding as these spiny wild ones. Or taste as delicious.

Recipe

Kid with Artichokes in Egg-Lemon Sauce

(Katsikaki avgolemono me anginares) 

Here is a dish I could never have conceived of until I moved to Greece. First of all, what American would consider eating baby goat even if she could find one, and how could we have dreamed of a dish that required six artichokes, when that vegetable was so expensive in New York that we only indulged a few times a year, taking one each and peeling off a leaf at a time before dipping it into a vinaigrette. Even today, I find it a sacrilege to throw away the outer leaves and cook only the heart and the most tender inner leaves, as Greek recipes prescribe. As for binding the veg and meat in a sauce made of eggs and lemon? What a preposterous notion!

1 kg (2 lbs) boneless kid (or baby lamb), cut in large cubes

120 ml (½ cup) olive oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

60 ml (¼ cup) lemon juice

6 artichokes, cleaned (and halved or quartered, depending on size and left to soak in acidulated water)

½ cup chopped fresh dill

1 bunch green onions, chopped

salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

For the Egg-Lemon Sauce:

60 ml (¼ cup) lemon juice to taste

2-3 eggs, at room temperature

Heat the oil in a large stew pot and brown the meat on all sides, a few pieces at a time. Remove it to a platter, lower the heat and sauté the onion gently until very soft, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon so it doesn’t burn. Add 240 ml (1 cup) water and the lemon juice, scraping up any bits stuck on the bottom, and return the meat to the pot. Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, until the meat is half-cooked, about 30 minutes. Add the artichokes, dill, spring onions, and seasonings, and simmer till tender. Pour in a little more water if necessary.

Make the Egg-Lemon Sauce at the last minute. Beat the eggs and lemon together until frothy. Slowly add several tablespoonfuls of broth from the stew to the mixture, whisking while you pour to prevent the eggs from curdling. Stir the contents back into the stew pot, off the heat. Mix thoroughly, reheat very gently to avoid scrambling, and serve at once. Serves 4-6.

This recipe is taken from my book, Feasting and Fasting in Crete, published in 2001 by Kedros (Athens) and is still available in Greek and English. Hint: The English edition is greatly discounted.

To order copies of Diana’s Farr Louis’ newest book, A Taste of Greece: Recipes, Cuisine & Culture, from Amazon, click on the book cover below.

A Taste of Greece: Recipes, Cuisine & Culture Hardcover – July 15, 2016 by Princess Tatiana and Diana Farr Louis (Author)

Diana Farr Louis was born in the Big Apple but has lived in the Big Olive (Athens, Greece) far longer than she ever lived in the US. She was a member of the first Radcliffe class to receive a degree (in English) from Harvard . . . and went to Greece right after graduation, where she lost her heart to the people and the landscape. She spent the next year in Paris, where she learned to eat and cook at Cordon Bleu and earned her first $15. for writing—a travel piece for The International Herald Tribune. Ever since, travel and food have been among her favorite occupations and preoccupations. She moved to Greece in 1972, found just the right man, and has since contributed to almost every English-language publication in Athens, particularly The Athens News. That ten-year collaboration resulted in two books, Athens and Beyond, 30 Day Trips and Weekends, and Travels in Northern Greece. Wearing her food hat, by no means a toque, she has written for Greek Gourmet Traveler, The Art of Eating, Sabor, Kathimerini’s Greece Is, and such websites as Elizabeth Boleman-Herring’s www.greecetraveler.com. A regular contributor to www.culinarybackstreets.com, she is the author of two cookbooks, Prospero’s Kitchen, Mediterranean Cooking of the Ionian Islands from Corfu to Kythera (with June Marinos), and Feasting and Fasting in Crete. Most recently she co-edited A Taste of Greece, a collection of recipes, memories, and photographs from well-known personalities united by their love of Greece, in aid of the anti-food waste charity, Boroume. Her latest book, co-authored with Alexia Amvrazi and Diane Shugart, is 111 Places in Athens that you shouldn’t miss. (See Louis’ amazon.com Author Page for links to her her titles.) (Author Photos: Petros Ladas. Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)

13 Comments

  • Will

    Such wonderful recollections, Diana – they made sharper my memory of family dinner here in the Lowcountry. But I especially cherish your loving descriptions of dear Tom, whose sharp wit and humor obviously stayed with him throughout his life. This is very touching…..

  • Jean

    Diana, this is grand. Now I am thinking about the dinners my father made – Mom worked, so he was the cook – and pining for his lima beans, made without tomato sauce but incredibly delicious anyway, particularly on a cold evening in Chicago. I have never been able to duplicate them, unlike his mashed potato corned beef hash, which is easy, and so good. Thanks for the memory jog.

  • Anita Sullivan

    Diana, this story coincides with my own in so many ways. I essentially grew up without any fresh vegetables, and my mother’s idea of “salad” was cottage cheese and sliced tomato on top of iceberg lettuce. It was my mother in law who finally introduced me to fresh vegetables of all kinds, and metaphorically, I believe this was a fundamental pathway for my mind as well — into an infinity of possibilities. Your descriptions are delightful!

  • diana

    Thank you both fellow columnists. Maybe we can have a special issue on family meals and what they bring back. My father’s sole contribution to a meal was as provider — of wild ducks, pheasants and the occasional bluefish — and cleaner of oysters, which only he would eat.
    Will, Tom was born funny and warm hearted. In this case our stepbrother’s remark really piqued his ire. I guess you could pick him out of the crowd on the left next to our father.

  • Alex Billinis

    Up to your usual standard, a snapshot of a time and culture over a dinner table. A cure for a rainy day at work. Thank you, Diana.

  • Di Drymoussis

    And there’s you dear Diana in the front row in white – it was the cheeky grin that gave you away as I struggled to identify you in the sea of faces…. :)
    Wonderful story. Now I’m thinking back to MY childhood meals.
    Mmmm – Sunday lunch (post war and still on rationing) was very English and traditional. Roast beef or lamb with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and one other veg (could be cabbage or peas or cauliflower) followed by a milk pudding – usually rice or semolina though at times we had apple or rhubarb pie with custard. Chicken was ‘special’ and expensive at that time. Mum wasn’t keen on pork and I don’t remember having it.
    Weekdays could include steamed fish (cod or smoked haddock usually) with potatoes and carrots or ox tail stew, or grilled liver or meat and potato pie. However, since we had school dinners we were virtually eating two meals a day! Portions were small I hasten to say. We were offered dishes like cottage pie; sliced lamb with mint sauce (ugh), fried cod in batter; sliced beef – all with potatoes and another veg and gravy (not the fish). This would be followed by puddings like stewed prunes; ‘spotted dick’, jam roly-poly, apple crumble – all served with custard; ‘ricebergs’ (lumpy rice pudding) and other such ‘delights’. Heavy stuff indeed – but very much the tradition in the north of England and we felt lucky to get it.
    Like you Diana, I look back on most of those meals with no particular longing. Since living in Greece I’ve acquired a totally different taste (garlic withstanding, to which I have intolerance).

  • diana

    Dearest Di, Your meals belie the bad reputation that English food had. It certainly sounds better than Long Island WASP! You make rationing sound fit for a king or at least a lord of the manor. I forgot to mention that we had Yorkshire pud too and wonder if I would like it now (loved it back then drenched in roast beef juices). Your desserts were certainly more imaginative than ours and the name ‘riceberg’ is a real hoot.
    Thanks so much for this description — let’s get together and talk some more over a nice Greek meal!

  • diana

    And thanks to Anita and Alex for leaving your kinds words, too. How I would love to have a WH dinner party.

  • Di Drymoussis

    Well most food UK rationing lasted until the early 1950s… I can still remember the coupons. We had a very good local authority and they made sure all the schools in the district fed the kids at lunchtime…. The portions weren’t huge but they were, for many families, most welcome. I remember it was only once I was at secondary school (mid-late 50s) that the school meals got better…..
    And Sunday lunch was always special…. the rest of the week we had leftover meat from the Sunday ‘joint’, and cheap stews mostly…. or even things like bacon and eggs…. money was extremely tight but we managed somehow.
    It’s a different world now.

  • diana

    let’s go down memory lane together, Di. Nothing wrong with bacon and eggs even now. As has been said before, it was ironic that all the post-war aid went to our enemies to make sure they recovered and wouldn’t put the world in danger again. Our friends the Brits suffered much longer than anywhere else in Europe (not talking about countries behind the Iron Curtain).

  • Helen Noakes

    What a wonderful piece, Diana. These memories are so vivid, aren’t they. I still recall my grandmother stretching filo dough on the dining table. Such a simple act, but, somehow, it connects me to that time, to her wonderful cooking and the love she put into it. Thank you for bringing back my memories, while enjoying yours.

  • Doris

    I loved reading your memories of dinnertime. I didn’t know your family well but I certainly remember all of them from my many visits, as I drifted through the large rooms in awe. My mother’s roast fresh pork (not ham) was a favorite meal in our family. I think my mother learned to cook from the Irish ladies who were live-in cooks and maids in my grandparent’s house in Far Rockaway. Crackling was the whole reason for cooking fresh ham, and mom served all meat with seared fat that no one cut off and discarded. We ate real butter and fried stuff in bacon grease. Stuff like fresh eel that my dad caught on the Woodmere dock, shad roe and calf’s liver (medium rare) with onions. Mom lived to be 93 and never had bad cholesterol.

  • Diana

    That crackling was the revelation, never mind the meat. Your mom had the right recipe for life. Enjoy good food in good company and don’t pass up delicious fat, especially when crisp. You should see us attack the skin of our Easter lamb each year, basted with olive oil and lemon using a brush made of thyme and oregano. My brother caught eel off the Cedarhurst dock and we feasted on liver and shad roe too. My favorite summer food though was soft shell crabs, fat free. Can’t get those here. We’ll have to explore more shared memories. Thanks for these.