Recipes Of The Damned–August 7, 2000: Drumsticks and Chili Rice
From “Luscious Low Cost Lunches,” in Twelve Dream Dishes, Frances Barton, General Foods Corporation, 1952.
All hail Lori Smith of Yankee Antiques Trading Co. in Michigan! Not only is she a fine upstanding citizen with a heart of gold and a soul that shines as an example to all around her, but she has sent me three delightful pamphlets with truly appalling recipes, and it’s all I can do not to excerpt all three at once.
So I thought I’d start with the one that was most visually arresting, “Twelve Dream Dishes,” a 1952 booklet apparently aimed at selling Minute Rice to high-school home economics students. “These are the very best of our tested rice recipes,” the booklet’s introduction promises, making the reader wonder what on earth the rest must be like. The text adds, “each has some special feature to intrigue you.” I must agree there. I am intrigued by the photos, whose color quality is such that nearly every dish looks as if someone has vomited upon it. I am intrigued by the little cartoon drawings of happy cooks, offering pearls of wisdom and encouragement. The cook on today’s recipe notes, “Here’s a new and novel way to serve hamburgers!” and thus makes a statement both repetitive and redundant. I’m even fonder of another who appears to be whacking herself in the head with a wooden spoon. Having read these recipes, I fully sympathize with that impulse.
Today’s recipe is “damned” partly because of the ground beef “drumsticks,” which, as Lori noted in a note enclosed with the booklets, “they look like. . . well, something my dog leaves in the yard.” I’m afraid she’s right, and can only marvel at this as a standard for clever presentation. Heaven only knows what they might do with hot dogs. But I’m also drawn to this recipe, and indeed to the whole booklet, because of the use of Minute Rice. I’ve never really understood Minute Rice. I realize that, while I find rice quite easy to prepare myself (as long as I am attentive to the time and refrain from peeking) a substantial number of people are incapable of preparing rice correctly without the aid of electric rice cookers or preparations like Minute Rice. I think I’ve met at least half of them. My father’s unsuccessful attempts to make rice some years ago will only be outlived in family lore by my sister’s subsequent effort to make brown rice, which produced a very sad and tremendously charred concoction. I think the pan was ruined. Now they needn’t worry because they have an electric rice cooker, but before those were widely available, I suppose one needed recourse to Minute Rice. But unfortunately, cooked Minute Rice has a really weird texture. I’ve tried it a few times and I’ve never had it turn out with a satisfactory mouth-feel. (Perhaps other cooks have produced better results, but I gave up on it before reaching that point and went back to the real thing.) I don’t have a big problem with making time-saving substitutions if you are able to produce something that is substantially the same as the original, but I do disapprove of settling for less—and Minute Rice, in my humble and not in any way binding or authoritative opinion, requires you to settle for less while paying more. Let us give thanks that today the rice-impaired among us can buy electronic gadgetry and not the little boxes of pre-treated grains.
Drumsticks and Chili Rice
1 1/3 cups (5-oz. package) Minute Rice
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 pound ground beef
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 cup bread crumbs (optional)
2 or 3 tablespoons fat
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup milk
Step 1. Combine Minute Rice, water, and salt in saucepan. Mix just until all rice is moistened. Bring quickly to a boil over high heat, uncovered, fluffing rice gently once or twice with a fork. (Do not stir.) Cover and remove from heat. Let stand 10 minutes. Add chili powder, mixing lightly to blend.
Step 2. Combine beef, onion, salt, pepper, and sage. Mix well. Shape into 8 drumsticks. Roll in bread crumbs. Saute in fat 10 minutes, or until browned. Place toothpick with sprig of parsley in small end of each of the drumsticks.
Step 3. Combine mushroom soup and milk in saucepan. Heat. Arrange rice on platter. Place drumsticks on rice. Serve with the mushroom sauce. Makes 4 servings.
From “Luscious Low Cost Lunches,” in Twelve Dream Dishes, Frances Barton, General Foods Corporation, 1952.
Side Dishing
A couple of readers noted that the New Yorker followed its July 17 story on Kentucky squirrel-brain fanciers with a July 24 article on eating rat in Luogang, China. Author Peter Hessler describes visits to two restaurants, the splendidly named Highest Ranking Wild Flavor Restaurant and the New Eight Sceneries Wild Flavor Food City. He paints a careful picture of the value of rat in the Guangdong Province diet, and describes his efforts to approach the dining experience with an open mind and eager palate. Well worth reading. As one correspondent notes, “. . . very creepy it is. Now I know why my Grandmother (whom I thought was simply naive) would never go to Chinese restaurants for fear of being served cat. . .” Indeed, according to Hessler, cat is available at Highest Ranking Wild Flavor, as are turtledove, fox, and python. Yum.
Another reader describes a cookbook find titled “The Decadent Cookbook,” which includes a recipe for cooking a peacock and then trussing the meat up to a frame to resemble a living bird and then filling the interior with live birds so they could come flying out and amaze the guests. Hmm, I think I’ll have my slice from the outside, please, not from where the live birds have been fussing about. Our correspondent adds, “This recipe was taken from a cookbook published in 1570 by Bartelomeo Scappi who was a cook for a judge who apparently took all the fun out of life by outlawing everything and burning intellectuals at the stake.” Doesn’t look like he quite outlawed everything!
