Uncle's great eaters, it's hard for me to choose something suitable to the title I myself have given! It's because, on the one hand, I want to confine myself to mamaliga, small fry sour soup, mushrooms baked in ashes or meat rolled in fenugreek and fried on hot embers. On the other hand, it's because the recipe must be carefully chosen to disarm those who think that one can't cook rustic dishes anymore these days, the peasant lacking the force and the peace needed for cooking. But, because I have quoted one of our spiritual patrons (Păstorel), let me offer, in the beginning of the present column, a dish that he so much liked (and will certainly soften both your papillae and your pupils): STUFFED CHICKEN. You "groom" one fat chicken. Separately you make a pilaf with butter and mushrooms. Be careful! In order for the pilaf to be tasty you must temper the rice in butter first, not boil it in water, like the rushed housewives do. Then you add every ten minutes, a cup of chicken soup. In the middle of this you put the little mushrooms, finely sliced, the fine pepper, the cut dill and the diced onion. With this pilaf (which must be neither watery not crunchy) you stuff the bird, but only after you have mixed the entrails in it. You sew the chicken well with thick thread and a big needle. You put it in the hell of the oven (it's best if you have in the yard a peasant oven). Periodically you lacquer the bird with the sauce it leaves in the tray. When it acquires a golden crust it's ready. Match a red wine to it and you'll see that life is worth living, in spite of the daily stress and of the summary of the news broadcasts… But because the bird wasn't enough for you (for, when you find something good you dig in!), I will offer you something else, prepared in Moldavia as well and spied upon by uncle Mihai (Sadoveanu) himself: THE GIBLET. It is made from a sister of the chicken that ended its career in the oven (still a fat yellow one). The giblet is good in the morning to chase away the effects of the wine; but you can sip it at lunch, at noon as well, because nobody forces us to be early birds… The giblet has three secrets, uncle's hard working girls: you don't boil it in water (because water isn't good in the boots either, the funny colt says), but in a fermented mixture of wheat and millet. Add when you boil it a little cherry tree branch. And when the fat meat boils, detached in strips, plus the entrails of the hen, the householder must finish a mug of rose wine, thin and vaguely acidulated, looking at the oil: and the housewife must nag him with a high pitched voice and an overwhelming rhythm. "Only this way the fermentation acquires the necessary acidity!" the Ceahlău [mountain] of Romanian literature warned us. And he knew what he knew, for he never let a good feast pass by… Well, this giblet, patiently boiled, like the elder do, doctored with yolk, covered with minutely cut herbs and spiced with a savory branch, what effect will it have on the poor consumer? It is still uncle Mihai who tells us, exemplifying with the abbot de Marenne, a foreigner that discovers the sweetness of the food in the good Moldavian country. "…The abbot tasted and felt the crown of hair stand up around the monastic haircut. He closed his eyes and his mouth. Then he waited to see what will happen to him. The sour and hot sip cooled all of a sudden his inner heat. And then he felt the need to have another spoonful…" Well, why waste time talking? A peasant menu to which both Păstorel and Sadoveanu contributed is something! Even if their humble servant, Savarin the second, also worked to see it through, among pots and pans. Excerpted from Gastronomic Show and Cheap Cuisine, Casa cărţii de ştiinţă, Cluj, 2000
by Bogdan Ulmu
