HOMEMADE MOVIES, HOMEMADE COOKING: Dumplings, Aloo Paratha, Huevito con Cátsup, and Other Isolation Foods (Part III and last)
Coffee & Toast, Pan-Roasted Buttered Trout, Pineapple Vinegar, Tepache, and Aloo Parathas
If you like Atole, I invite you to join my Patreon membership here, so I can keep on sharing beautiful food and stories with you every week (plus some extras!).
*The following writings and recipes constitute the third installment of an article (divided into three parts [click here to go the first one]) that was inspired by Homemade, a series of shorts filmed by different directors during isolation that you can find on Netflix. You might want to watch it first, so I don’t spoil a few details for you. I highly recommend it :)
If you haven’t already…
PENÉLOPE
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Vermont.
¿What do you do when a fish unexpectedly crashes into your front door? You pick it up, cook it, and enjoy it, while you calmly observe how the world as you knew it fades before your eyes. And then you go into the wild again, like nothing happened, trying not to lose track of the script that you wrote to keep yourself alive, prepared for another unsettling thing to happen, so you can pick it up, and cyclically keep taking the de good out of the bad. It is the only natural way to seek compensation. Some call it “karma” and it is at the root of all transformation. To Ralph Waldo Emerson, life in this subject seemed to be “ahead of theology”[1], and “if its doctrine (that of compensation) could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey, that would not suffer us to lose our way”[2]. To him, an inevitable dualism (same that underlies the human condition) bisected nature “so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole”. This same idea is represented in the I-Ching or Book of Changes by the Hexagram (44) “Coming to meet”, in which two opposing forces (symbolized by the feminine and the masculine) are able to find each other halfway, and chaos turns to order.
That seems to be the logic by which the man in this Maggie Gyllenhall short film (who’s played by his husband, Paul Sarsgaard), tries to cope with what appear to be three layers of the same reality: one that is being narrated through the radio and sounds like the end of the world but remains distant, out of touch with the second, in which the daily life of the character takes place, and that usually starts with a coffee and a toast in the morning; and a third one that lies in the middle of both and keeps erasing the boundaries between them (same as the Wind between Earth and Heaven in the aforementioned hexagram), like if it wanted to slowly tie them together: first, with the image of the moon growing bigger and bigger; then with the incident of the “flying” fish, and later, with the appearance of intoxicating yellow butterflies. And still, the man keeps going, apparently undisturbed, until his toaster explodes one morning, and what may have seemed like the least bizarre of the events taking place around him, becomes the most unsettling, because apparently, it is what keeps him tied to his past-life and that of the absent person for whom he spares a cup coffee every day, probably the same one that predicted the death of the toaster and pre-ordered a package that the man receives with tears in his eyes, like if it had a second chance at life inside it.
[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson. On Compensation, Self-reliance: Essays and Essays: Second Series. The Portable Emerson, 2015. Penguin Books. P. 134-136. [2] Ibid.
Coffee & toast
(For one person)
Prepare some coffee with your method of choice, toast a couple of slices of your favorite bread and add butter, and honey or any fruit preserve to your liking.
Take a deep breath, let go of any feeling of uncertainty (at least for a few minutes), and enjoy.
Pan-roasted trout (or any fish with skin)
(For one person)
You’ll need:
1 skin-on trout filet
a big knob of butter
1 lemon
Ground pepper
Sea salt
Pre-heat the oven at 250*C (if it has a top grill, turn it on).
Heat a pan (preferably cast iron, or any oven-resistant) on the stove at high heat. Put the fish with the skin side down and let sear until it browns. Add the knob of butter on top along with some salt and pepper, and transfer the pan to the oven. Take out as soon as the butter melts and the surface turns golden. Cut the lemon in half and sear while the pan is still hot, and serve on the side.
FEROSA
David Mackenzie, Glasgow.
Preserving food like Ferosa (the teenage daughter of the Scottish Filmmaker, David Mackenzie, author of this short filmed in their home in Glasgow) does (by saving and reproducing vinegar mothers, and preserving the acidified liquid in recycled bottles that turn into varied shades of the same color depending on age) can give us the opportunity of turning decay back to life, of giving it a second chance to become something even better, more mature, complex, and interesting. Like the promise of better times ahead.
In food, it is what we call “acquired taste”, and it can be so amazingly unique that it can define complete cultures. Think of kimchi, or sauerkraut, or miso paste, or of chocolate; think of all possible kinds of wine, and spirits, and cheese; think of bread and tortillas, and then try to imagine our lives without them.
Fermenting food also teaches us to trust our gut in times of uncertainty. We wouldn’t have the most beautiful foods that define humanity if we hadn’t taken that chance so many times in the past. So, while a malignant microorganism seems to be abruptly transforming Ferosa’s external reality, she preserves “like vinegar in bottles”, all of the things she would have liked to do before she turned sixteen into the promise of even better life-experiences ahead.
Pineapple Vinegar & Tepache
(Makes 2 L)
*I selected pineapple vinegar because, since it doesn’t require vinegar mother, it’s one of the most accessible to make. An also, because you have the option of making a delicious and refreshing drink in the process.
You’ll need:
One medium-size pineapple.
1 big cone of piloncillo (or a cup of sugar)
2 L of water
A glass container that fits the 2 L
A piece of cheese-cloth and a rubber band.
Peel the pineapple and reserve the skin (you can eat the pineapple as you wish). Put the skin of the pineapple in the container, add the piloncillo and the water, cover with the cheese-cloth, and let rest a couple of weeks. Strain the liquid and discard the skin. *Tip: after the second day of rest, you can drink the liquid with some ice; in Mexico, we call that tepache and it’s a very popular drink.
Use it for everything you would use any other vinegar.
It is also very good for your health. You can drink it, every once in awhile, diluted in a glass of water: it cleans your blood and your intestines and regulates your circulatory and digestive systems, it reduces abdominal inflammation, accelerates your metabolism, and prevents osteoporosis, among other benefits.
UNEXPECTED GIFT
Gurinder Chadha, London.
“What do you think is going to happen with restaurants after this?” asked a friend during a zoom reunion that took place about three months ago, by the time I had a more active social life through the internet that I ever had in real life (which now seems like the stone-ages of the pandemic). “I have no idea” I answered, “but to tell you the truth, the only thing that I would kill for right now is for some tacos”; two other friends agreed that what they missed was the interaction with other people, another one said that she didn’t go to restaurants that much before anyway, and the last one confessed that she didn’t miss them at all: “Since I’ve been cooking every day at home,” she said, “I been having a lot of fun inventing many delicious things, and my kids are eating better than ever.”
Something similar happens to the son and daughter of British-Indian film director Gurinder Chadha, as they narrate how they discover an extraordinary cook in their mother while in isolation: “On day seven of lockdown, it was Mother’s Day, and we gave our mother a pedicure because she’s been cooking amazing food” says Kumi, “Like a professional cook” adds Ronak.
In the face of mandatory physical-alienation with the outside world, making parathas with her family and showering them with delicious food on a daily basis, is one of the ways in which Gurinder succeeds to reinforce the bonds with her loved ones and her culture, proving that, how the plastic-doll version of Queen Elizabeth II says in Paolo Sorrentino’s short, “Confinement is a condition of the spirit”, and that, paraphrasing the narration in Ana Lili Amirpour’s closing short: being able to “change our perspective” to afront tragedy and uncertainty, is what makes us all artists.
Aloo Paratha
(Makes 4 to 6 pieces)
For the filling:
1 medium potato, boiled peeled and mashed
1 to 2 teaspoons of seeded and chopped fresh green chiles
A pinch of garam masala
A small bunch of chopped cilantro *also optional
Salt to taste
There is mango powder named amchur that is used in this recipe (about half a tablespoon), it’s not completely indispensable if you can’t find it. I substituted it with a teaspoon of mango purée that I had in-hand and some drops of lemon since amchur it is an acid powder made with green unripe mangos.
Mix all of the ingredients and season.
For the dough:
1½ cups of all-purpose flour (the original recipe goes with whole-wheat flour but I didn’t have any on-hand)
A big pinch of salt
Around ¾ cup of water, or as much as it is required for kneading
Butter (just enough for the pan)
Mix the flour and salt, and add the water little by little until you get a soft and flexible dough. Let rest for 10 minutes.
Divide the dough in 6 to 8 pieces.
Roll out the circles, add flour if needed.
There are a couple of methods to form the parathas; one is like making a small rounded package (like the one on the image below), and another one is by making two circles, and sticking them together. I personally found the second one easier, but that was probably because my filling was a little wet. *Just remember to divide the dough into bigger pieces if you are making the first option.
Put some butter (or oil) in the pan and cook the parathas until the brown on both sides.
You can serve with ghee, butter, yogurt, and some kind of pickle. I used preserved lemons.
Make them as a hug to your loved ones (wherever they are) and enjoy ;)