"when I looked at my soybeans, something clicked"

August 18, 2020 11:54 AM

Pandemic Cooking Isn’t About Hope. It’s About Practical Magic

Some days I have the privilege of fresh produce, other days I have the privilege of time, and other days I have neither. If it means that my ingredient base has become less local, and that I’m relying on more canned or frozen items from far away—even as I’m also making more things from scratch—I’m okay with that. The circumstances demand flexibility. It turns out that growing up in a household of displaced people has made me surprisingly comfortable with cooking this way.

By Zoe Yang.
posted by Lexica (13 comments total)

Fun article!

I won’t bore you all with my philosophical and scientific ruminations on the first time I made my own sourdough starter. The amazement as I realized how the eons had led to a bread yeast that was able to outcompete all the other flora that set up shop in a starter throughout the seven days of its preparation. How every sourdough starter is an experiment in, and evidence of, natural selection and a dozen other biochemical theories.

Like the author of this article, I felt somewhat like a sorcerer’s apprentice. It was like I had just uncovered some deeply interconnected, powerful, arcanum that, oh, 70% of the world already knew about and which had been around me all the time.

Being able to take grain and water and nothing else (maybe a little salt) and turning it into actual leavened bread a week later, was like I’d just been initiated into a ritual of wizardry. Like I’d just learned my first actual magic spell.
posted by darkstar at 12:09 PM on August 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

My diet was mostly Chinese failures and American shortcuts.

This describes my current diet perfectly
posted by airmail at 12:33 PM on August 18, 2020 [5 favorites]

The last paragraph fills me with hope and happiness. What more can I ask for?

Last week, my mom called to tell me what happened when she tried out my tofu method. She didn’t quite think through how to strain the curds, so all the tofu slipped out of the cheesecloth and down the sink. As she told me, she started giggling over the silliness of her mistake, until she was laughing so hard that I could practically hear the tears eking out. It was the best sound I’d heard in weeks. Compared to everything else, what a gentle way to fail.

I think that one of the most important revelations in this whole pandemic is that we're all human. Somehow that never seemed true to me. We all make mistakes. We all live in an imperfect home. We all are still making it up as we go along. Even Zoe Yang's mom, who, presumably, has mastered so many other dishes. Even she, still accidentally drops the tofu into the sink. I love the humanity of it all.
posted by hydra77 at 12:45 PM on August 18, 2020 [9 favorites]

As it happens, I have gobs of knotweed, a new crop at the moment because I cut down a huge patch, and mugwort, a variety of artemisia, which has taken root in a pot of flowers and is quite pretty. I love her take on cooking with what's available; it takes real skill to understand the way things taste and combine foraged foods with traditional recipe. I followed the link to her blog, really enjoyable and informative, looks like a terrific blog to follow. Thanks for posting this.
posted by theora55 at 12:47 PM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Mod note: One comment removed for violating the Guidelines. Particularly: "Be sensitive to context"
posted by loup (staff) at 1:35 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Last night's dinner seemed a little bit like magic. Over the weekend I started to clean out the pantry cabinet and came across some old soba noodles. Trying to come up with dinner , I opened my fridge of requirement , pulled out some chicken picked from weekend grilled chicken wings, leftover fried rice, and some sauteed summer squash and carrots. I defrosted some frozen tofu for extra protein, heated water for instant miso soup and we had a nice summer japanese meal. I still have some leftover beans from tacos earlier that I may try to make into a mild curry on wed.

In the fall I'm looking forward to our weeks of roast chicken-chicken broth-chicken pot pie dinners, or pork shoulder-carnitas-lard biscuits. My enthusiasm for chained/found meals waxes and wanes, but being able to put together a new and satisfying meal from leftovers definitely feels like magic. I'm hoping that pulling out all the grains and noodles we have will lead to more inspiration. The weekly CSA veggie box also adds to the uncertainty, where last week it was overflowing with summer squash, but now has eggplant and tomatoes (not enough for ratatouille!)
But I do not fault anyone who doesn't have enough spoons for this style of cooking. It takes up mental energy that can so easily be sapped.
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 1:47 PM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

...and the story of Jingwei is a metaphor for cooking while we're all cooped up at home. like clockwork, it's time to make a meal- breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, snacks, endless snacks. Providing food to a growing kid like Little Purr is definitely like dropping pebbles in the ocean.
posted by Hermeowne Grangepurr at 1:56 PM on August 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

and mugwort

Please make sure that it stays in the pots. We intentionally planted some in a garden bed because we wanted to use it for some cooking and it just took over the whole thing. We ended up digging it all up but some plants still pop up.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:51 PM on August 18, 2020

The piece that spoke to me was about how precise ingredients have always been precious - that substitution according to what is available is actually far more real than the idea that you can always get everything. I’ve been noticing that in my own pandemic cooking and finding that actually it explains a lot of the variance I remember growing up.
posted by corb at 5:47 PM on August 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Recently I looked in my skillet and thought to myself "This is it, I've reached my healthy cooking objective." The pandemic has made me think both more (because I've got nothing else to think about) and less (because I've got no routine that I need to cook around) than before.
posted by rebent at 6:30 PM on August 18, 2020

Last night I chopped about 3/4 of my CSA veggies and stuck them in the oven in a roasting pan with oil and salt. I overcrowded them and the result was a mass of soft, mushy potatoes, squash, peppers and leeks. I ate it with yogurt. It was strangely comforting and right for the moment, but not the sort of thing I'd ever serve to a guest or "write up" to share with other foodies.
posted by bunderful at 7:15 AM on August 19, 2020

I cried hard from the first sentence. Grew up food insecure. Still "punish" myself with cheap food that I don't even enjoy. Gonna get the pasta machine out and try a little self love today.
posted by lextex at 9:11 AM on August 19, 2020 [6 favorites]

Such a lovely article, thank you for sharing!
posted by ellieBOA at 3:48 AM on August 23, 2020