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Food and drink

In with the old and in with the new - Happy New Year with a pinch of nostalgia

The turn of the New Year is marked by media outlets doing the usual “Best of…” or “Top Stories of…” (fill in the previous year). They’re not so much to remind us of the year that is drawing to a close, but more to fill news holes during a quiet week when staffers are on holidays and the world, with the notable exceptions of tsunamis and assassinations, usually co-operates and stays relatively quiet and un-newsworthy.

In the food department, by contrast, we seldom remark on the details of last year’s comestibles, usually for good reason.

Ah, remember that fine platter of chicken thighs we grilled up on Uncle Chuck’s birthday June 11? Or the minestrone soup and Goldfish crackers we had for lunch March 4? No, the finer details of meals once enjoyed are like leftovers, best ruminated over soon after the original event, then left alone.

Other than the sharing of special treats or family traditions that we deem auspicious or at least fun at the turn of the New Year — a glass of bubbly, perhaps a taste of food that connotes good luck — the culturally-collective we seem to prefer looking ahead in the food department this time of year.

For one, we’re obsessed with the well-intended but usually hollow New Year’s resolutions to divest ourselves of extra poundage accumulated over the holidays and to lay the foundations for a new leaf turning over, under which we’ll presumably find healthier, much-improved selves: I resolve to eat no more carbs, no more second helpings, lots more organic, or whatever.

The other food-oriented topic that lingers over the start of the New Year like the smell of scented candles is how to gracefully use up holiday leftovers. There are the Christmas cake orphans, the baking still haunting the deep freeze, the dozens of garlic wings and mini-quiches nobody ate New Year’s Eve, the bits of ham and roast turkey still clinging to the bones that we swear we’ll make soup out of this year before they turn green.

Gone for the most part are the small, shared customs that arose from the kitchen, or at least from the housewives who once held court there. Like the small New Year’s hostess gifts — a new set of dishrags, a new pot scrubber — to kick-start a clean house. And the banging of pots and pans on the front steps New Year’s Eve to scare away bad luck and wake up the neighbours humbuggish enough to fall asleep before midnight. And the calendars that butchers and small corner store owners once gave to loyal customers that boasted 12 months of recipes and photos promising glamorous dishes any hostess could serve.

So out of nostalgia for such New Year’s kitchen traditions, here’s a celebration of what was once old that could be — or is —new again:

 

Cast-away, ho!

I didn’t realize how cutting edge I was with my collection of blackened, crusty cast-iron frying pans until I saw an article from last October’s Wish magazine. Apparently cast-iron pots and pans (albeit now in celebrity colours) are all the rage, given that most people have sold theirs in garage sales. (But not me, being the good, practical prairie girl I am.)

When I left home the first thing I bought was a cast-iron frying pan just like my mom’s. The collection has now grown to four of different sizes, all second-hand.

Cast-iron is the best thing for frying just about anything, plus it’s perfect for an open fire or the oven. The trick is to keep it seasoned, which means don’t soak it in water. But do heat it on the stove-top to dry it, with a thin slick of oil smeared on the cooking surface with a bit of paper towel, heating it till it’s shiny and absorbed.

 

Souvenir tea towels to make Aunt Gloria proud

Another retro kitchen concept making a comeback are printed tea towels much like those everyone used to haul back from London (Ontario) or Ireland imprinted with corny but irresistible images from every tourist stop. So forget your beautiful linen tea towels in decorator colours and stand by for the souvenir revivalist die-hards. The only thing they’re still working on is the wonky colour registration that makes every image look as though you’ve got somebody else’s glasses on.

 

Wishing you a simple French meal

I was packing up my 2006 calendar that features huge black and white photos by French photographer Robert Doisneau when one caught my eye.

His most famous image, and one reproduced in the calendar, is from his series of “Kisses”, this one taken in front of the l’Hôtel de Ville in Paris of a good-looking fella’ with his arm wrapped ’round his girl, her face turned up to his for “the kiss”. I’ve heard two stories about this image and the others in the “Kiss” series that have forever seared our sense of Paris as the city of love.

One goes that the French government commissioned the series of romantic shots to boost the declining birth rate after World War II and Life magazine bought the rights thereafter; the other goes that Life magazine commissioned them in the first place. Either way, the images are all staged, implying that much of our romantic notion of Paris is too.

But that’s not the photo that grabbed me; it’s just a story I wanted to share.

The real culprit is an image of a gathering of four people, young and old, seated around a lunch table in Montrose, while mama serves them a plate of apples. The shot was taken in 1945, presumably after the Germans surrendered, for it’s a touchingly happy group enjoying this simple meal of bread, boiled potatoes, two herring, pepper, what appears to be a half-finished bottle of white wine, or maybe simply water, and the aforementioned five apples.

Oh, that every meal could be as simple and as appreciated and shared with such gusto. I wish you same.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who resolves to make no New Year’s resolutions this year.