34. Perishable

Eric throws away nearly all food items that exceed their “sell by” or “use by” date. I, on the other hand, believe that those dates are merely recommendations that identify when the products are no longer at their absolute best. They serve to protect the producers from liability. What it comes down to is that Eric has an irrational fear that someone might get sick or die from something he has cooked. I don’t suffer from that fear, and so I test foods by smell, sight, and taste. If it seems okay, then down the hatch. On a basic level Eric knows that this fear is a bit daft, but to be honest you would be far safer eating a meal prepared by Eric rather than one by me. Eric also diligently checks the expiration dates of food in his parents’ and uncle’s kitchens and frequently finds items that dramatically fail the expiration test. Those always go straight into the garbage. Eric is the expiration police for those he worries about most.

At home Eric has implemented a Four Day Rule. Any prepared food that is not consumed or frozen is tossed out after four days. Apparently, it is lethal, or at least a threat to your health. Consequently, there is a race to eat all of the leftover dishes within the time limit, or they’re destined to the compost bin. I have been known to polish off leftovers even when I’m not hungry, just to save them from an untimely death. We have come to an agreement however that desserts are generally exempt from the Four Day Rule if they are stored in air-tight containers. But even then, Eric has been known to forcibly pull away a last piece of triple berry pie he has discovered me relishing in secret (well into a week after its preparation) with the admonishing phrase, “I think you are done with that”.

But there is something larger at play here. Food is indeed perishable. No matter how one determines its expiration date, at some point it is no longer edible. That’s what makes food so precious by nature. Fresh is generally better, unless you’re enjoying cheese or wine, but I suppose even then some may argue that there is little more enjoyable than eating fresh cheese served on the day it was made accompanied by a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau wine, released just a few weeks after its creation. I do think that we in America throw away much too much food. We need to become smarter with our produce and more creative with our leftovers.

I often reflect upon the privilege of growing up as I did, with food that was harvested in our backyard and eaten within minutes of being picked. In the 1950s and 60s America’s food companies were promoting frozen and canned foods as part of what it meant to be “modern”. Convenience foods were marketed as to be aspirational. They were appealing to households where both mothers and fathers increasingly worked outside the home. This is the same time that baby formula was actively promoted as a better alternative to breastfeeding, which was increasingly considered old fashioned and animalistic. But in the midst of this cultural shift, my family continued with breast feeding, gardening, canning, and home cooking. The burden of all this fell on my mother who continued to work outside of the home, except after the birth of each of her four children (which was not a break from work at all). She was not alone. This was the story of many women during that time. We look back nostalgically at that period but beneath the aura of prosperity there were a lot of women, as well as men and children, who were pressured to live according to Norman Rockwell’s version of the American family, as depicted on the cover of Life Magazine. It was impossible for most people.

My family doesn’t look like a Norman Rockwell painting. We’re black and white and native American, we’re also gay and straight, and it’s even possible that there’s a Republican among us. It’s not the family that my grandparents or my parents imagined, and yet, here we are. We’re a lot like the salad section of the garden that we grew up tending. Some of us didn’t turn out exactly like the pictures on the seed packets that were staked at the end of each row. I suspect it was hard for my parents, who were expecting vegetables but got fruit instead. But we all stayed at it and survived, and we turned out better and more compassionate because of it.

Eric has remarked to me that he comes from a “healthy, dysfunctional family”. I’m not still sure what that means, but I’ve gardened long enough to see plants defiantly hang on despite facing droughts and downpours, complete shade and scorching heat, constant care and intermittent neglect. While all plants have their limits, there is nothing so spectacular as seeing a plant flourish under less than ideal conditions. Both people and plants want to survive. We’re built for it. We are incredibly resilient, and yet also vulnerable and perishable.

There are lots of recipes designed to use ingredients that are less than perfect. Resourceful cooks can take wilted greens, bruised fruit and sometimes even questionable meat and create something spectacular. The French take hard-as-rock stale bread, soak it in milk and eggs, fry it in butter and then sprinkle it with powdered sugar to make what we call French Toast. The French term for this dish is Pain Perdu, which literally means “lost bread”, a poetic expression for a recipe that takes what could be discarded and transforms it into a much-loved breakfast dish. I love both the idea and taste of Pain Perdu. I suppose some might consider me to be like that stale bread and past my prime, but I like to think that I am on the verge of my next repurposing.

I’m just glad that I have the right cook with me to help make it happen.

Pain Perdu

From Commander’s Kitchen by Ti Adelaide Martin & Jamie Shannon

Growing up, my mother would periodically make us Lost Bread (as she always called it), but only as a special treat, and never on a weekday. My father always seemed to be as excited as we kids were, and he would fidget around the house in anticipation, playfully mispronouncing the French “pain perdu” as “panpidoo”, which never failed to make us smile. My mother only made it with good French bread, and she had a special market in Los Angeles where she thought the best French bread could be sourced. The bread was usually purchased for a specific dinner, but she would always buy an extra loaf, saying “two for the table and one to eat on the way home.” If we were lucky, she wouldn’t eat much more than the heels of the third one, and then we could hope for Lost Bread in our future. The bread had to be good and stale, so my mother would let the bread age above the fridge for several days, snug in its white paper sleeve, and my siblings and I would eye it expectantly, hoping it would quickly get satisfactorily hard and stale for Mom to deem ready for use.

To the disappointment of my Father, Mom stopped making Lost Bread when we got older, and it seemed we would only get to enjoy it when we were in New Orleans visiting family. My Grandmother’s version was heavenly, but I have stronger memories of one of us ordering Pain Perdu at the inevitable brunch we would go to at Commander’s Palace. We always had to dress up to go to that establishment as it was (and still is) a special occasion restaurant. One of the breakfast highlights was always this dish from otherwise unusable bread. I still have a soft spot for Pain Perdu, and I cannot pass up stealing a taste when Chris orders it. The Commander’s Palace recipe found below is a true winner, not perishable at all. ~Eric

12 medium eggs
1 cup milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
Kosher salt and ground pepper
16 slices stale French bread, 3/4 inches thick, cut on bias
4 tbsps butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cane syrup, molasses or honey butter

1. Crack eggs into a large bowl and whisk with the milk and vanilla until well incorporated.

2. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper, then slowly add to egg mixture, and whisk until well-blended.

3. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter over high heat in a nonstick skillet, and let it start to brown.

4. Place 4 pieces of the bread into the egg mixture, soak for 5 seconds on each side, and allow any excess to drain back into the bowl.

5. When the butter is starting to turn brown, place the soaked bread slices into the pan and reduce the heat to medium-high. Cook for 1 to 1/2 minutes on each side or until done. Both sides should be brown and the egg should be cooked and hot all through the bread.

6. Remove the slices from the pan and keep warm.

7. Wipe the pan with a paper towel, melt another tablespoon of butter and repeat until all the bread has been cooked.

8. Dust the finished slices with powdered sugar and serve with cane syrup, molasses or honey butter.

Serves 8