Appearance Matters

[poliphilo]

I cooked pork chops, mushrooms, applesauce , mashed potato.  Ailz thought it was nice, so it wasn't entirely a mistake, but it looked quite awful- like an undifferentiated greyish gloop,  like porridge.  I ate it (I'm almost religious these days about not wasting food) but I didn't enjoy eating it- even though it tasted fine.  I don't normally think about the way food looks, but obviously I should.  A small pile of bright green peas would have made all the difference.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

One of the things we used to do when we ran the youth hostel and had to cater for lots of people was to invent monochrome menus. (Having a similar texture gained extra points.)

I must hasten to say that we never actually cooked any of them, but we amused each other by suggesting meals like: chicken soup for starter with white bread then steamed cod with white sauce, cauliflower and mashed potatoes followed by rice pudding.

It seems like you inadvertently produced one of our flights of fancy. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

An all black menu would be a test of ingenuity....

[serennos.livejournal.com]

Easily done by accident - especially by me (I refer you to my pork suggestion below)...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should have added "edible" to the proposal. :)

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

blood sausage and black jellybeans?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

i think the jelly beans might be a little sickly. How about a blackcurrant compote?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

mmm. And Black plum pudding.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That'll do nicely!

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I LOVE blood sausage! I know, most Americans are totally grossed out.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We Brits call it black pudding. It's a big speciality up here in the North West.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Yes! I learned about it the last time I was there, and there is an Irish Pub in Syracuse that serves it. I have it whenever I can afford to have breakfast there.

I don't care for your normal, everyday sausage there. It is too bland. But I could have black pudding every day.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Apparently the finest black puddings in the world are to be purchased at the open air market just up the road from here in Bury. To my shame I've never been to find out.

[serennos.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could have burnt the pork for a little variety? ::grin::

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That would definitely have been an improvement.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Studies have been done about how attractive food actually makes a meal more enjoyable. Even though yours tasted fine, your sight was telling you something wasn't right about it. That's where being blind might come in handy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced after last night- and I'll never laugh at one of those nouveau cuisine platters with their artistic squiggles of pesto ever again.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

You didn't chop it all up and mix it together did you? *hee*
Perhaps a bright garnish might have helped...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I didn't intend to, but that was was the general effect after I'd plated up.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I, too, use the "bright green peas" trick a lot -- also the "wilted green spinach" trick, sometimes, as in pasta dishes. At any rate the combination sounds delicious and I intend to try it with a nice pork chop that was in my freezer, but is now thawing for tonight's supper.
Also, I have been known to mash applesauce in with the potatoes - it gives them added "zing".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it tasted OK. Taken individually those were all excellent ingredients.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

well, porkchops and applesauce taste FABULOUS cooked together. Maybe even the mushrooms and potato as well. But yeah, you're right. I'd probably not think so much of the 'grey glop', either.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Applesauce is the "only" thing to have with pork.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Onions. One of my favorite things to cook is apples and pork and sliced onions. Put 'em all in a casserole dish and bake them.

MMMM.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, onions are fine- just as long as there's applesauce as well.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Apples and pork with sliced onions, browned on the stove top, then baked in casserole. Like halfmoon_mollie, I do that!

[clindau.livejournal.com]

So *that's* why parsley is sprinkled all over the food sometimes!

At our house, we call this a beige dinner.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Beige- exactly.

I'm very fond of parsley.

[oakmouse]

Put peas with the mushrooms, and Bob's your uncle. *g*

120 years ago, would-be graduates of Fanny Farmer's Boston Coooking School had to prepare an entirely white meal for their final exam. Chicken or fish, white starches, white sauces, any vegetables had to be completely bathed in white sauce (the usual choice was apparently either mashed parsnip or boiled-to-death cabbage or creamed onions), the dessert had to be white. When I read about that in a history of cooking, I thought, "Who would want to eat an all-white meal?!?!" It was, would you believe it, supposed to be elegant and upper-class (n a school that catered to working class girls).

:-p

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well I never.

Looked at another way an all white meal might be considered quite decadent- against nature, even.

It's amazing what people will do to be thought chic.

[oakmouse]

The cookbook for her school is full of things like a recipe to make your middle class husband think that cabbage is good instead of thinking cabbage is a stinky lower-class vegetable that should never enter a respectable household. (You boil it for an absolutely ungodly amount of time, chop it fine, and serve it smothered in white sauce.)

Now I have an image in my mind of Oscar Wilde, Algernon Swinburne, and their ilk sitting down to an all-white dinner and feeling proud of themselves for their wicked decadence. *g*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Now that's the very last thing you want to do with cabbage.

I don't eat cabbage much- probably because it reminds me of my childhood- and not in a good way, but whenever I do I'm surprised by just how tasty it can be.

[oakmouse]

I love cabbage --- but not boiled! I usually eat it raw as coleslaw, or pickled as sauerkraut, or stirfried/pan-fried. Generally I only eat boiled cabbage in the form of barefit broo.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I used to hate coleslaw, but I've come round to it in my old age.

[oakmouse]

Coleslaw is a food group as far as I'm concerned. *g* But then I grew up in a family where it was made in many different ways, and was a major source of fresh greenstuff in the winter, so I've pretty much always loved it.

[(Anonymous)]

Yesterday, 9/25, I made this food for self and a friend. However, I did not mix it all together. I let the chops make their own gravy and poured the gravy over the potatoes. Made the applesauce from apples and cinnamon and a little water, microwaved for three minutes. Added mushrooms to the chops for the last few minutes, just long enough to cook them. Yep, I also had green peas on the plates. Both of us enjoyed it immensely.
It is a great combination! Keep them coming, please?

Sorry

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

It was me again. Forgot to sign in. Sorry!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How about steak and kidney- stewed in the slow cooker, with brussels sprouts and roast potatoes? That's what we had yesterday.