The Poor Mouth

Gaze Upon Death

O THE OTHER DAY I was making fun of late-night potluck, also known as fourthmeal, and what do you think I did one night later that same week? I sat down, or should I say slumped down, to this shameful 3 a.m. repast: an entire box of Mrs. T’s® potato & cheddar pierogies drenched in Kikkoman® soy sauce. It’s a miracle, I know, that I’ve lived as long as I have. By now my arteries probably look like the rain gutters in some long-abandoned Victorian manse.

Speaking of which, folks in the United Kingdom routinely eat something so caloric and so preposterous that it should have come from the imagination of Michael Phelps after an eighth of Tom Cruise Purple. I’m speaking of the Scotch Egg, which I first encountered during last year’s Paul Newman tribute. This is sort of like the meatball to end all meatballs. The traditional version is delicious but a little elementary, flavor-wise, so here’s how to make the curried one.

The Scotch Egg fits into the impromptu fourthmeal category because chances are you’ve already got the stuff you need to make it—assuming, and I hope I’m not going out on a limb, that you keep a loaf of sausage on hand at all times. Beyond that, it’s just eggs, pepper, bread crumbs—or stale bread, and the kitchen that doesn’t stock the former is likely to have the latter—curry powder, and vegetable or other oil for frying. Preferably deep frying.

Can you guess how to do this? For each Scotch Egg you wish to make, boil an egg. Take a quantity of sausage. Add to it a little curry powder, maybe a teaspoon and a half, or two, and some pepper. Flatten you mixture on a lightly floured surface, and then roll it around your egg. Dip your egg in beaten egg. Roll it in bread crumbs. Then fry, the deeper the better, for seven or eight minutes. You want the crust of your egg to be dark brown but not black. Remove it from the oil, swaddle it in paper towels, and then cut it in half and eat it. Repeat as necessary.

Gravy Training

N NOVEMBER 25, 2009, I became a cook for real. I say so because on the aforementioned historic day I made something (a) off the top of my head (b) using only ingredients that were already to hand that was (c) unutterably delicious and (d) not, contrary to what (a), (b), and (c) might suggest, an example of ill-advised 2 a.m. fare like Crouton Lover’s Pizza or ramen avec government salmon or an unwrapped Werther’s Original® you found stuck inside the cup holder in your car. No, all ye haters, I whipped up some sausage gravy and biscuits.

Okay, so the biscuits were Pillsbury. And the gravy is, yes, remarkably similar to the gravy depicted over CFS in this post. The important thing is that this time, instead of following a recipe, I went into a shaman-like trance and visualized my associate Stanton, an esteemed burgher of Knoxville, Tennessee, preparing his trademark gravy, and mimicked his technique. (Notice to concerned parties: It’s the trance’s fault that I ruined the table with my meat mallet.)

It all started when I noticed a tube of Jimmy Dean® Premium Pork Sausage (HOT) in the refrigerator. First I fried some of that in my cast-iron skillet with a bit of vegetable oil. Then I added a little flour, a little milk, a little flour, a little milk—something tells me I’ll roux the day I figured out how to make this stuff! Ha ha . . . ha? No, I guess not. Um . . . salt and pepper to taste.

I decided I needed a secret ingredient, or at least a non-standard one, so I added a quantity of crushed red pepper, to amplify the spiciness of the sausage. It did not disappoint. I downed a solid cup of this stuff over about 500 calories of instant buttermilk biscuit, and then I put in a hard day’s work down at the plant. Just kidding. I lit a bunch of aromatherapy candles and sat in the bath all afternoon reading the new Zane novel. And then I ate the rest of the cold, gelatinous gravy with my fingers.

Party Marty

OW’S THIS FOR a weird-ass thing to celebrate? “St. Martin’s Day (or Martinstag or Martinmas) is November 11, the feast day of Martin of Tours, who started out as a Roman soldier. He was baptized as an adult and became a monk.” That tidbit comes from Wikipedia, but since it’s a Catholic saint we’re trying to learn about, we must dip into a much older source of widely accepted half-truths: the Legenda Aurea or Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. Here’s what this collection of medieval hagiographies has to say about our man Marty: “Martin is as much to say as holding Mars, that is the God of battle, against vices and sins. Or Martin is said as one of the martyrs, for he was a martyr by his will, and by mortifying of his flesh. Or Martin is expounded thus: As despising, provoking, or seignioring. He despised the devil his enemy, he provoked the name of our Lord to mercy, and he seigniored over his flesh by continual abstinence in making it lean. . . .”

Sorry, what? I must have dozed off. At any rate, speaking of “flesh,” St. Martin’s Day happens to be celebrated by feasting upon a delicious goose. Often there’s also a parade of children carrying lanterns (see above, from some creepy country like Germany). Over the weekend I was invited to both a lantern walk and a goose carving. Since I’m not a Krampus, I decided to pass on the former—but who could say no to this?

I have no idea how the hostess prepared that thing. I’ll try to find out. It all happened before I arrived, and besides, I was too shellacked (hi, Mom) on French 75s (hi, St. Martin of Tours) to have the faintest clue what was going on. Here’s my associate Max Watman—the author of this forthcoming masterpiece—on the French 75, the queen of cocktails.

Isn’t she beautiful? Sketchy dudes take note—the womenfolk were practically unintelligible after like two sips of this thing.

It’s lucky there was some stick-to-your-ribs carbohydrate to soak this up. The following picture puts me in mind of a probably apocryphal story about Diogenes of Sinope. A well-meaning friend told Diogenes something like, “If you would only learn to flatter the tyrant, you wouldn’t have to eat lentils.” To which Diogenes said, “If you would only learn to eat lentils, you wouldn’t have to flatter the tyrant.” To which I said, “If you would only learn to make lentils this tasty, we wouldn’t be standing around in togas having this dumb conversation.” (The finished dish included candy-like chunks of sugar pumpkin.)

So I don’t know how to roast a goose or cook lentils—what am I good for, except, as one friend put it, “eating-related self-calls”? I can tell you how to mix up something that will blow the effin’ doilies off your Thanksgiving appeteaser table this year: cranberry salsa dip with cream cheese. First, you click this. Then you do what it says. Then you get a big mouthful of cranberry, capsaicin, cream cheese, cilantro, ginger, and the elegant cracker of your choice.

Just look at that. Festive enough for ya?

Taters O’Penury

VEN THOUGH I live a bit like a crackhead—sleeping fully clothed for warmth, showering in a sink, and spending my days roaming “the streets”—I haven’t, I’m pleased to report, been eating like one. True, I am occasionally forced to eat scraps barely fit for a dog. And said scraps are occasionally, truth be told, my dad’s day-old leftovers. (Dude, ever heard of a fatted calf?) Well, you know what they always say: When life hands you lemons, make a rudimentary battery.

The other day I stopped by my parents’ house for a quick full-body shower and was offered this to eat, in all apparent seriousness.

“If you please, sir or madam,” I whimpered, wiping a slurry of coal dust and tears from my eye, “can I have some starch?” I could see that they were enjoying this. They’d always expected me to come slithering back to their door; they just hadn’t expected it to take this long, and were giddy with relief. At length a gnarled, miserable potato-like object was produced. Now, I thought, I’m getting somewhere: A few more ingredients and I’ll see a way to turn the tables on my tormentors, foiling their attempt to teach me the error of my feckless ways. I waited until they had wandered off, sharing a good belly laugh over my imminent starvation, and snatched up the following simple items, plus two or three eggs. It was poor form, I guess, to take what hadn’t been offered to me, but on the streets you do what you gots to to survive, son. Plus, what could this possibly come out to? Seventy-five cents? A dollar?

The last time I’d eaten such a delicious breakfast for free was on February 3, when I waited in line with several hundred homeless people outside the Denny’s in Redwood City, California, for a free Grand Slam. That meal is lost to the sands of time—pulling out so hockable a camera in that company would have been like throwing a chunky kid to a herd of zombies—but this one I’ll cherish forever.