A Country Rag Larder Arts

Video below, Kentucky bluegrass cellist Ben Sollee
(Click here for more Sollee music and info)

"Cooks of any region are bearers of a culture and a tradition; they are oral historians, not to mention sustainers of humanity." -- Novelist Michael Lee West, ETSU 81, Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life
Cookbooks are traditional fund-raisers collected, collated and published regularly by volunteers for beneficial community organizations. Recipes, including some from A Country Rag and its contributors, by alumni of ETSU, Johnson City TN, have been published in the illustrated and voluminous, 758-page reference Home and Away: A University Brings Food to the Table, as a fundraiser for the local public radio station. For more details contact East Tennessee State University.

(Midi right: Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie)

(Video below: Hungry Like The Wolf by Duran Duran)

Herbs and Sauces

Recipes handed down through generations are frequently learned by sight and doing rather than in discretely measured portions and instructions. Part of the fun of cooking is enjoying that freedom and creativity in experimenting with ingredients and processes -- following, of course, some standard experience in the basics involved. There aren't really many hard and fast rules for every day succulence, so go ahead and use the spices that are your favorites and/or are on hand and similar to ones called for in any particular recipe, e.g. basil or dill for parsley, ginger and/or cloves for allspice, seasalt for salt (or none at all, as foods have naturally-occurring salts in them), fresh-ground mixed peppers for black pepper. Personally, I'm sure that any Italian dish is improved by extra oregano. Fresh spices are fun and beautiful to grow and can also be purchased reasonably in some groceries and fresh-air farmers markets. Add a special sauce that seems compatible. Use brown or natural (unprocessed) or even confectioner's sugars. Various kinds of honey can work well also as a substitute sweetener in some cases and is a traditional healer for sore throats and other discomfitures. Different types of flour do bring different results, so check on packaging for equivalencies before using kinds more esoteric than standard white.

Asparagus and Hollandaise

from Wikipedia:
"Asparagus is a useful companion plant for tomatoes. The tomato plant repels the asparagus beetle, as do several other common companion plants of tomatoes, meanwhile asparagus may repel some harmful root nematodes that affect tomato plants"
"There is a recipe for cooking asparagus in the oldest surviving book of recipes, Apicius’s third century AD De re coquinaria, Book III. It was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, who ate it fresh when in season and dried the vegetable for use in winter. Asparagus is pictured on an Egyptian frieze dating to 3000 B.C."
"Asparagus is low in calories and is very low in sodium. It is also a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc, and a very good source of dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, rutin, niacin, folic acid, iron, phosphorus, potassium, copper, manganese and selenium. The amino acid asparagine gets its name from asparagus, the asparagus plant being rich in this compound."
"The second century physician Galen described asparagus as 'cleansing and healing.' Nutrition studies have shown that asparagus is a low-calorie source of folate and potassium. Its stalks are high in antioxidants. 'Asparagus provides essential nutrients: six spears contain some 135 micrograms (ìg) of folate, almost half the adult RDI (recommended daily intake), 20 milligrams of potassium,' notes an article in Reader's Digest. Research suggests folate is key in taming homocysteine, a substance implicated in heart disease. Folate is also critical for pregnant mothers, since it protects against neural tube defects in babies. Several studies indicate that getting plenty of potassium may reduce the loss of calcium from the body. Particularly green asparagus is a good source of vitamin C. Vitamin C helps the body produce and maintain collagen, the major structural protein component of the body's connective tissues."

Asparagus officinalis is very surprising. Slow-growing, it looks when mature like a fern-- a mystically romantic greenery, wild and domestic. Some varieties are hardily woody, but most are fragile to their environment and nurturance. Asparagus is wispy and delicate-looking, tall as it waves with the warm weather winds and breeze. Stalks taste best with melted butter and lemon or hollandaise sauce, which is a bit tricky to fix but tastes by far best from scratch rather than packaged dry mix. Bernaise sauce is similar and excellent but is usually served on steak instead. Hollandaise is a major component of eggs benedict , a delicious gourmet treasure worth learning to fix, especially for company and special occasions. I started a good-sized patch of asparagus in the perennial garden of my country home from dry roots purchased by mail-order catalogue. The new owners mowed it down, perhaps mistaking it for wilderness weed. The succulent veggie, however, prized by epicureans needs at least three years in the ground to mature and produce well. It's the young early tender spring stalks, of course, that we await through winter freeze in sensory anticipation and later devour in mouth-watering delight.
Like other specialties and favorites now, asparagus has its own website and advocacy group. The Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board offers a plethora of growing and cooking tips for the curious and the connoisseur.

Video above: Hollandaise Sauce preparation from the Culinary Institute of America

Recipe Rehash (pages from the recent past)

first
second
third
fourth

Older Larder (1996 through 2007)
Recipes for Main Courses

Recipes for Side Dishes
Share your favorite country recipe

Funeral Notes (1946)

We’re burying part of him today In Hickory-Grove Church Yard. We can’t put him all here, For his grave Spreads over a few rocky acres That he loved — Where peach blossoms bloom, and Cotton stalks speckle the ground On a Georgia hill. Forty years he’s been digging And plowing himself under Along these cotton rows. Most of my Dad is there Where the grass grows And cockle-burrs bristle Now that he’s gone... We’re covering him in March days When seeds sprout. And I think next Autumn At picking time The white-speckled stalks Will be my old Dad Bursting out...
-- Rev. Dr. Don West

Graphic above: "Summer," quilted wallhanging by Margaret Gregg, Abingdon VA

"Last fall, Adbusters and six design magazines printed First Things First 2000. An updated version of a 1964 declaration, FTF 2000 states that too much design energy is being spent to promote pointless consumerism, and too little to helping people understand an increasingly complex and fragile world. It was signed by 33 high-profile designers, and has since been signed by hundreds more." -- Adbusters

"In New Jersey, elementary school kids filled out a 27-page booklet called "my all about me journal," basically a marketing survey for a television channel. Students in Massachusetts spent two days tasting cereal and answering an opinion poll. ZapMe! corporation puts "free" computers and internet hookups in schools. Then they monitor your web browsing habits and sell the information, neatly broken down by age, gender and postal code, to their customers." -- Adbusters

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