Wednesday, March 07, 2012

worry creating pipérade

There are always reasons to be worried, not always the apparent ones.

 "We need three things: a strong sense of our own identity; the ability to form new meanings - to see the world in new ways; and a sense of usefulness that what we do contributes to a bigger context than ourselves." Susan Greenfield, the neurologist,  at the Bath Literature Festival on how creativity could prevent us from being dehumanised by the onrush of new technologies. A good slogan, it strikes me, for those who are afraid of losing their way.

This evening pipérade.  Peppers, tomatoes, onions chopped and cooked in goose fat or olive oil with a little garlic, to which are added at the last moment beaten eggs gently and quickly scrambled with the vegetable.  It is served with Bayonne ham. A local dish I think in the Basque region  of France and Spain. "One of the most widely travelled of all French regional dishes wrote Elizabeth David back in 1960. It seems to taken a rest from travelling recently which is a shame because it deserves to spread its wings.

3 comments:

Tom said...

This is not directly concerned with your latest post, although it does have a food connection. When I used to grow carrots, I planted a few seed at intervals of about 3ins. (7-8cms.) and let them grow together as groups. Later than I would have done if I had sown them in a row or drill, I thinned out all except the strongest carrots, and saved the carrotlings for salads. This caused a minimum of upset to the bed, and perhaps more importantly, left it quite late for the dreaded carrot fly to notice.
Hope this is of use.

Roderick Robinson said...

A much altered version of piperade regularly appears on the da Ponte table although - come to think of it - not for at least a year. I scoop blobs of it on to a gradually diminishing slice of white supermarket bread and would defend this background material as entirely fit for purpose. Chewing crusty bread would slow down ingestion and my aim is to get this bubbling lava-temperature material down my guzzard while it is still unbearably hot. Why? Because our "piperade" (it is Mrs LdP who insists on the quotes as she is well aware of its inauthenticity) comes straight out of the oven in a shallow fire-proof dish and its menacing heat is as much a part of the recipe as the egg.

Chunks of chorizo dot the magma, adding yet more distance between Hereford and the Basque region, but raising the piquancy to unbearable limits. I must have a word with Chef...

Unknown said...

Thank you, Tom. I do the same thing with lettuces. I use the baby leaves for salad and when the seedlings get bigger I transplant them usually succesfully. Carrots have always been a problem for me, and I have used the carrotlings as you have. But carrot fly or something else have recently ruined my carrots. This year I intend to sow carrots in bags or tubs to see if I cannot be more successful. Carrotlings (I do like that word) usually taste sweet and are invariably worth picking out.

L d P I guess Piperade is a open to a number of variations. Yours sounds interesting and resourceful.