Combinations

Number One Son had an attack of adolescent angst the other night (conveniently right in the middle of cello practice), so, after a good talk and listen, I introduced him to one of the joys in life: A bit of Green & Black 70% chocolate, and a lovely ripe Anjou pear. Take a bite of chocolate, and when it’s nearly melted in your mouth, take a bite of the juicy pear. Lovely. What is it, he asks. Belle Hélène, I respond, beautiful Helen. We silently bless the French woman who clearly knew her chocolate and knew what to do with it. It got us chatting about some other famous food combinations, which got me thinking about the Rotkohl I’d prepared for supper that evening.

I’m always perplexed by the ingredients list for this German-style red cabbage. You’d think I’d remember the recipe, since I’ve made it so many times, but I always end up pulling Dr. Oetker off the shelf to remind me what the forgotten ingredient is. This time I’d forgotten the currant jelly. It makes me shake my head and wonder just how this list of seemingly disparate elements came to reside in the same pot.

I have an image of a desperate eighteenth century German Hausfrau, being told oh by the way honey, the boss is coming for dinner as her husband trots off to the office on their one and only horse. Here she is, stuck at home to conjure up a meal from what’s in the freezer, but it hasn’t been invented yet. As she walks past the juniper bush into her house, she absently pockets a few berries from the bush. She sighs when she sees the breakfast dishes (right where he left them…) and starts clearing the leftover bacon and jar of red currant jelly off the table (she made it last July from the bush down the lane). The larder is next to bare, just a single bay leaf, a few cloves and a half bottle of apple cider that has turned. Her market basket holds half an onion, a shriveled green apple, seven potatoes, and three-quarters of a head of purple cabbage. Things do not look good, but our heroine is a creative woman, and has a vested interest in her husband’s career (this is another time, so neither divorce nor career is not an option). She renders the bacon in a big pot and sautés the onion in it (always a good start), then chops up the apple and the cabbage and throws them in. She considers her options, and chucks in the cloves and bay leaf, and then tosses in the leftover jam and a glug of the vinegar for good measure. She gives it a good stir, and sighs, gazing out the window at the fields below. And then she sees it: movement in the grass. She deftly takes the shotgun from the corner, and slips out the door. It takes her a good hour and a half to finally bag her main course, but she is whistling brightly on her way in, with a hare dangling by its ears. Delighted that the extended simmering has actually made her kitchen smell good, she takes the juniper berries from her apron pocket, sniffs them, and throws them into the simmering pot while she prepares her quarry for the roasting pan. The potatoes get a good scrub and join the hare, and she sets the table with a sprig of pale blue rosemary blooms plucked from the kitchen garden.

Needless to say, a dinner like this clinches her husband’s promotion, and the boss sends a messenger to fetch the recipe for his housekeeper (in my mind, she’s an extraordinary woman, and is fully literate among her clearly many talents). I simply can’t imagine any other plausible story as to how all these odds and ends wound up in the same pot.