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For Valentine’s Day, A Tender Tale Of Love And Meatballs

For Valentine’s Day, A Tender Tale Of Love And Meatballs

By Julia della Croce (Zester Daily)

It’s that time of year when a rash of stories appears to suggest, despite hard science to the contrary, that certain foods — oysters, chocolate or what have you — fire up the libido. A recipe, on the other hand, can have a different kind of romantic power. It might stir up memories or evoke our roots, allowing us to mingle, in a metaphorical way, with our ancestors. For some people, certain foods, whether pasta or potatoes, are imbued with symbolic meaning. The Umbrians, for example, link love and meatballs. Their region, coincidentally, is the birthplace of St. Valentine, the patron saint of lovers, affianced couples and happy marriages (not to mention beekeepers, plagues, epilepsy and fainting episodes).

THE LORE AND LURE OF THE MEATBALL

According to the late Umbrian cookbook writer Guglielma Corsi in her classic Un Secolo di Cucina Umbra (“A Century of Umbrian Cooking”), it was once a custom among country people for a prospective mother-in-law to invite her son’s bride-to-be for a home-cooked meal the day before their wedding and present her with a platter of meatballs. The future mother-in-law would offer her one, impaled on a fork, saying, “Daughter-in-law, may you be the joy of my home. Will you bring discord or union?” The bride was meant to answer, of course, “Union,” after which the mother-in-law would respond, “Then eat your polpettina.” A promise of domestic harmony, sealed with a meatball. It’s perhaps not a surprising custom considering Umbria’s Etruscan ancestors, those mysterious first settlers of Italy who, historians tell us, believed that every food harbored a spirit.

In the years since I first crisscrossed Umbria to study its traditions and foods, I, too, have come to believe that a good meatball is a talisman for domestic happiness. Thinking like an Etruscan, I can equate its plumpness as a symbol of abundance, its spherical form with wholeness, good health and the infinite potential of love. Who, in any case (vegetarians aside), doesn’t love a good meatball?

RECIPE VARIATIONS AROUDN THE WORLD

As with everything else Italian, there is controversy about what constitutes a meatball’s proper structure. For the tenderest meatballs, some say to add water to the ground meat mixture; others add ricotta. Still others swear by blending in sausage meat or pancetta — fat makes for both flavor and moistness. Signora Corsi’s polpettine, a complex blend of three different fresh-ground meats as well as prosciutto, two kinds of cheese, egg, garlic, lemon zest, bread and marjoram, are probably as close to perfection as a meatball can come. But the Bolognese, who consider their cuisine unparalleled, like theirs “straight up,” with no fillers added to the meat, egg, and herb mixture. The succulence of their polpette is because of the addition of a healthy dose of minced mortadella. The Neapolitans sometimes add sultanas and pine nuts to theirs, a Baroque touch befitting their city. The Sardinians may use rice instead of bread, especially for meatballs that will be served at wedding feasts.

The meatball universe extends well beyond Italy. The Greeks spice them with cumin and oregano. A Colombian chef I know grinds together lamb and chorizo, then coats the meatballs with romesco sauce after cooking. A Spanish friend who runs a superb little restaurant near my house adds ground anise seeds to a mixture of beef, pork and veal, which he roasts in his wood-fired clay oven before serving the meatballs with a dollop of burrata in a puddle of tomato sauce. Persian recipes may blend yellow split peas with ground meat, pine nuts or dried fruits. Turkish mixtures are perfumed with cinnamon or saffron. And so on around the world.

I love them all, but the most tender is the result of a recipe I came up with one summer when the eggplants in my garden dangled from their vines ready for the picking, and I had just brought home a couple of pounds of fresh-ground lamb from the market. I roasted the eggplants until they were entirely collapsed and smoky, scooped out their flesh and plied the pulp with the meat mixture gingerly (overworking it results in a rubbery texture). I added scarce other ingredients besides garlic, rosemary and plenty of parsley — as anyone who is as fond of lamb as I am knows, the meat alone packs a big flavor punch. The eggplant sweetens and foils its gaminess.

No matter which kind of meatballs you make, there are many ways to serve them. Sometimes I offer them as an appetizer, threaded onto rosemary skewers. I might whip together hummus, Greek yogurt and cumin for a dip. Probably everyone’s favorite is meatballs al pomodoro. The color red is a universal symbol of love, passion and happiness, so that’s how I suggest you serve them on Valentine’s Day, whether you are feeding kin, friends, or lovers.

LAMB AND EGGPLANT MEATBALLS IN SIMPLE TOMATO SAUCE

Prep time: 40 minutes

Cook time: About 40 minutes

Total time: About 1 hour 20 minutes

Yield: 20 meatballs

INGREDIENTS

1 medium eggplant

1 cup day-old sturdy bread such as sourdough or country loaf, crusts removed and cut into 1/4-inch cubes (2 ounces trimmed weight)

1 egg

Scant 1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black or white pepper

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 pound ground lamb leg or shoulder

3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

2 tablespoons fresh minced rosemary or 2 teaspoons dried crushed rosemary

Extra virgin or pure olive oil for frying

2 cups homemade meatless tomato sauce of your choice

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat an oven to 400 F.

2. Grease a baking sheet lightly with olive oil. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and place each half face down on it. Roast about 30 minutes, until it is entirely collapsed, soft and lightly charred on the cut side. Meanwhile, place the bread cubes in a shallow soup bowl and cover with water. Soak until moistened, several minutes. Drain and squeeze excess water from the bread.

3. When the eggplant is cool enough to handle, cut off the stem. Chop finely.

4. In an ample mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, sea salt, pepper and garlic. Stir in the prepared bread cubes. Use your hands to break them up until they are well blended with the egg mixture. Add the chopped eggplant, ground lamb, parsley and rosemary. Using your fingers, mix the ingredients together without overworking them. If you have time, chill the mixture before forming the meatballs; this step can help you shape it into perfectly round spheres, but it is not essential.

5. With wet hands, form the mixture into equally sized balls about 1 1/4 inches in diameter, no larger than golf balls.

6. Prepare a platter with two layers of paper towels next to the burner over which you will be cooking. In an ample skillet or frying pan, pour enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan and warm it over medium heat. Fry the meatballs in batches to avoid overcrowding; there should be plenty of room around each for proper searing. When they have developed a light crust and look golden brown, about 10 minutes, transfer them to the paper towels to drain. If necessary, drain off smoky oil and add fresh oil to the pan to prevent the bits that settle on the bottom from burning. Warm the oil once again and finish frying.

7. If you are serving the meatballs in tomato sauce, warm it in a saucepan over medium heat and slip the browned meatballs into them. Cook them through, about 20 minutes. Serve at once. If you plan to make the meatballs in advance, cool and store them, with or without the tomato sauce, in a covered storage container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Alternatively, freeze them for up to 3 months.

Copyright 2016 Julia della Croce via Zester Daily and Reuters Media Express

Photo: Lamb and eggplant meatballs in tomato sauce for Valentine’s Day. Credit: Copyright 2016 Nathan Hoyt/Forktales

Our Love-Hate Relationship With Valentine’s Day

Our Love-Hate Relationship With Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is upon us. And to think we are still recuperating from Groundhog Day. That’s February for you, a gray month of no big flashy celebrations, at least not until President’s Day.

The busier many of us get, the less our demand for outside stimuli. But for those needing to set chronological coordinates, Valentine’s Day delivers.

Valentine’s Day, the event, evokes responses ranging from love to hate. It is often held in contempt by the ultra-sophisticated and the partner-less, which are two groups that can overlap. They dismiss the day as a merchandising hook for purveyors of chocolate, flowers or heart-shaped anything — and a shot-in-the-arm for restaurateurs on a (preferably) non-weekend night. (Is that so bad?)

One reason to like Valentine’s Day is that it’s an occasion for which people get dressed up. One reason to dislike Valentine’s Day is that only the women get dressed up. This is a generalization, I know, but go to a nice restaurant and observe the ladies in sparkles and manicures and their male partners in un-pressed jeans, their shirts hanging out.

The men’s refusal to “make an effort” could be a power thing. But slob dressing may also reflect immaturity — or its mirror image, senility. A resident at an assisted living facility complained to me that she and the other women turn up for dinner carefully dressed and groomed, while many of the old men shuffle in looking like bums. (The home has a rule forbidding pajamas in the dining room.)

Some women may choose to forego the Valentine’s Day indignities this Sunday and instead escape into the mannerly sanctuary of “Downton Abbey.” It’s not that all those men behave well. Some are monsters in white ties, one having abandoned a bride at the altar. But they dress according to high standards. If they didn’t, they’d never have gotten far enough with a lady to play the cad.

And do note that the upper-class requirements for formal dress and exquisite tailoring aren’t all about putting on the dog. They are also about showing respect for those around them.
In 2016, let us salute men of all generations who still have the class to wear at least a jacket to a romantic dinner.

Those worried about not seeming hip, meanwhile, should be mindful of this: Dressing like a slob has become conformist, and he who resists may be in the vanguard of something beyond cool: “normcore.”

According to Urban Dictionary, normcore is “a post-ironic anti-fashion, ‘purposely uncool’ trend by hipsters in an attempt to pull away from the subculture (fashions) that were becoming commercialized and popular.” In sum, “normcore is quickly becoming a legitimate fashion trend.”

That brings up an intriguing aspect of the modern Valentine’s Day — that is, how many gay and lesbian couples faithfully observe the celebration and with great style. This may be an effort to feel part of a mainstream in which heterosexuality remains the norm. In any case, the gay community freshens up the tradition.

Speaking of which, Hallmark, the Kansas City-based arbiter of greeting card sentiments, has come up with a very diverse Valentine’s Day video. It tells the love stories of, among others, a lesbian couple and an interracial one, holding back none of the mush. A Hallmark spokeswoman said the company received a few gripes about the spot but most viewers reacted positively to it.

What one can love about Valentine’s Day is it can be as high- or low-impact as participants choose. It can be a night spent on the town or by candlelight at home, or it can be totally ignored. And by Feb. 15, it’s over.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Photo: A couple pauses to take a ‘selfie’ in the freshly fallen snow near the Washington Monument in Washington January 22, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Late Night Roundup: Valentine’s Day Blues

Late Night Roundup: Valentine’s Day Blues

David Letterman looked at the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday, with a special gift commercial for people who can’t quite afford a diamond.

Jimmy Fallon also took on the Valentine’s Day season, with a review of a special Twitter hashtag, “#WhyImSingle”:

Seth Meyers brought on the host of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, pitting a champion Italian Greyhound show dog in a talent competition against a special guest player: Seth’s own little Italian Greyhound, Frisbee.

Jimmy Kimmel gave a writing tryout for one of his great childhood heroes — but it just didn’t match up very well.

EXCERPT: ‘We Do! American Leaders Who Believe In Marriage Equality’

EXCERPT: ‘We Do! American Leaders Who Believe In Marriage Equality’

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, The National Memo brings you an excerpt from We Do! American Leaders Who Believe in Marriage Equality, edited by Jennifer Baumgardner and former governor of Vermont, Madeleine M. Kunin. From Harvey Milk to President Bill Clinton, Baumgardner and Kunin highlight political leaders — the historic speeches they have made and actions they have taken in the name of equality and of course, love. Baumgardner’s introduction, excerpted below, is her experience with marriage and love as not only the executive director and publisher at The Feminist Press at CUNY, but a wife and mother as well.

You can purchase the book here.

Three years into the institution, the contours of “marriage”—what it feels like for me to be connected legally to Michael—is both a site of struggle and a place of safety. When I’m anxious about a deadline, with kids who are both demanding I play UNO and deliver snacks, and Michael chooses that moment to ask me to scratch his back, my feminist beliefs (soul-saving though they are) don’t help me out very much. In fact, they lead me to rolling my eyes and mouthing, I’m going to kill you, when his back is turned. But when I think about our marriage vows and consider that I made a commitment to care for Michael and to receive care from him, I actually feel some inspiration to sit down and scratch for a minute. Being led by my vows creates a path to bring more love and consideration into our household—and into the world.

I’ve written in the past about my childhood being steeped in feminism, simply because “the movement” was changing the world without my doing anything. My childhood took place in a radically changed atmosphere from that of my mother, full of freedoms that I took for granted because they were, in fact, my birthright.

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As a forty-three-year-old woman, I live within a different (though related) active movement now. Nearly every day, hundreds of times each year, I march up and down Christopher Street, traversing Fifth Avenue (where I live) and Hudson Street (where my eight-year-old son attends school). Along the way, I intersect Gay Street and then peek longingly into Bien Cuit as I rush by. I pause for a second at the Stonewall Inn, just before Seventh Avenue, the site of the riots in 1969 that marked the debut of the gay protest movement. Of late, this historic gay bar displays a giant photo of President Obama in the window, along with a quote from his second inaugural address:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall . . .

I pass kids making out in front of the triangle-shaped Christopher Park that features life-size white-lacquered sculptures of two couples—the lesbians seated on a park bench; the gay male couple standing nearby, as if chatting amiably. Two blocks north is the old St. Vincent Hospital, ground zero during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

In other words, my every day begins simply and organically, surrounded by gay rights history and signs of its profound recent successes. After drop-off, I often linger in front of a poster for a weekly prayer vigil for marriage equality at St. John’s Lutheran Church. The following words are emblazoned on it: Our work is not done until all enjoy the freedom we now have. As a child in the 1970s and 1980s, I attended First Lutheran Church in Fargo, North Dakota. If prayers were offered for gay people, it was to help them live a straight life. Today, at least some Lutherans feel an urgent moral imperative to pray to extend marriage to gay couples.

We Do! tells a bit of the story of that sea change, largely from the perspective of political figures. Through these speeches, we glimpse the world politicians encountered in 1978 when AIDS was not yet part of our consciousness, nor was the idea of a diverse and out gay community of suburban dads alongside sex radicals (and all identities in between). We see how a few people speaking up, representing gay people in order to interrupt the stereotypes and hatred, begat an even more powerful movement. We see the slow evolution of power for gay people in the political sphere, as politicians sought their money and votes and eventually their counsel. Like many others, I rejoiced when Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 and was horrified when he signed on to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. For many years, only a few leaders dared to state that gay relationships deserved the same rights as straight relationships. President Obama (another for whom progressives rejoiced) only recently came around on this after being nudged by his louder vice president. We Do! illustrates how, in the course of a single decade, activism around the institution of marriage—using the vocabulary of love and family—has transformed gay rights from wedge issue to civil rights success story.

Why has marriage become the signature issue of gay rights? Perhaps because, as lawyer/activist Evan Wolfson wrote in 1983, marriage is “an occasion to express their sense of self and their commitment to another human; a chance to establish and plan a life together, partaking of the security, benefits, and reinforcement society provides; and an opportunity to deepen themselves and touch immortality through sexuality, transcendence, and love.”

Marriage, after all, is a way to protect a relationship enough so that you can bring all of the parts of yourself into the room. Ideally, you will be met and cared for by a person who is safe enough to do the same. This state of being gathers privileges from the government to support it: tax breaks, financial benefits starting with “two can live as cheaply as one,” and, most profoundly, respect and legitimacy for the endeavor of caring for one another.

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The institution of marriage is fraught. It has its archaic history as a way for a man to establish paternity of his children and manage property and inheritance. It contributes to the tyranny of coupledom. A marriage’s dissolution still hurts women more than men. It’s ironic that gay rights are gaining acceptance at the very same time women are losing some hard-fought victories, notably attacks on abortion and birth control. And yet . . .

The movement for marriage equality has helped this institution continue to evolve from a sexist, dynastic arrangement to a celebration of commitment between two equals. It takes seriously the radical words of the Declaration of Independence. Marriage equality demonstrates that our country is a living, always-growing entity of citizens still learning how to live up to the promise of “all [people] are created equal.”

As Evan Wolfson has written, proponents of gay rights have death on our side: the demise of previous generations who mistook bigotry for piety and the passing of a time when you couldn’t talk about gay love and relationships in polite company or with children. Walking along Christopher Street to school recently, past leather bars and St. John’s Church, Skuli, my eight-year-old, asked me whether boys could marry boys. I said that we lived in New York State so, yes, they can. He asked me whether girls could marry girls and I said, “Yes, we can.”

And if he asked me if I believe institutions can change for the better in a single generation, I’d look at the story of marriage and say, “I do.”

Jennifer Baumgardner
New York City
September 2013

If you enjoyed this excerpt, purchase the full book here.
Copyright Jennifer Baumgarder, from We Do! American Leaders Who Believe in Marriage Equality edited by Jennifer Baumgardner and Governor Madeleine M. Kunin. Published by Akashic Books, 2013.