We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I finished off the peaches with something like this tonight - my own recipe:
I had only around 20 peaches from my tree left after my previous chutney cooking last weekend. Skinned and roughly chopped them. There were plenty of bad spots. 1 giant white onion chopped roughly and 12 cloves of roughly-chopped garlic, lightly sauteed in canola oil. 6 of those diabolical long skinny red peppers with the seeds, chopped (guess you could use those dried chinese ones) 2 cups of roughly chopped fresh ginger - that's a lot Simmered those things in a cup or two of cider vinegar for a while, maybe 20 mins, then added two cups or so of light brown sugar, a teaspoon of curry powder and a teaspoon of chili powder, a good sprinkle of Kosher salt, and stirred that up. Had to add more vinegar. I let that simmer and blend for around 20 minutes.
Then threw in the pile of chopped peaches to brew on a high simmer for around 40 or more minutes to simmer some of the juice off and to blend the flavors.
Wish I could tell you how this smells, and how that sauce tastes. Spicy indeed. I'll call this one Ginger-Pepper-Peach-Garlic Chutney. It will cure cancer and chase away the Devil - and Mrs. BD loves it on grilled or broiled salmon. The modern wife likes to be well-taken care of by a farmer spouse while she tends to the young'uns.
I'll freeze doses of this in freezer bags. Now I have a winter supply of mildly-peppery, and of highly-peppery, home-grown ("organic"!) peach chutney. Do you know how good this stuff is with cheese, meat, or even on crackers with cream cheese?
As I mentioned, we emptied the peach tree just in time to keep the possums from eating them all.
Some were ripe (the peaches, not the possums), some still hard, and some over-ripe with moldy or mealy spots. The ripe ones are for eating today. The semi-hard ones go on the table in the sun. The hard ones, and the marred or half-bad ones, are for chutney. Some had a worm but I cut them out along with the bad spots. Worms do not eat much, and I don't bother spraying.
This year, I am making some of it with light brown sugar, slivered red onions, cider vinegar, roughly-chopped jalapenos (lots - 5 of them in that pot), roughly-chopped fresh ginger so you can bite into a piece (lots), a big box of golden raisins, a little salt. I use recipes as rough suggestions. For hot peppers, I always triple whatever they say.
Best not to overcook a chutney (or it will taste homogeneous and gooey like Major Grey's), and best to use it fresh. I'll freeze the excess - no need to can it. Too much trouble, and comes out tasting less fresh. Go easy on the vinegar, and add more if needed because peaches produce a lot of liquid themselves especially if they are near-ripe or over-ripe.
Peach Chutney - good with fish, steak, chicken, pork, or on a ham or turkey sammich. Google it and find a wide variety of recipes.
Below is a pic of a slightly-cooked one with a light honey sauce and a splash of vinegar, and a little chopped cilantro - some restaurants will make it like that, fresh every couple of days, as a fancy condiment for sole or chicken:
"If you don't want my peaches, don't shake my tree." That's a line from one of the versions of Blind Lemon Jefferson's perfect song from 1927 - "Matchbox Blues." I don't think Albert King used those lines in this version with Stevie Ray, though. I could listen to Albert all day long.
Our peaches up here in Yankeeland begin to ripen right about now. I get a good crop from this tree every other year, but this is the second great year in a row. I see peach pies in my near future, and maybe a year's worth of canned peach chutney. Also, a good supply of fresh peach chutney, which is better than canned: takes about 15 minutes to make. Photo is from this afternoon:
When driving on I-95 (actually, I-195 - thanks, astute reader, it is past Providence) through southern Massachusetts, you can enhance your trip greatly by stopping for a bite at Gene's. It's been there for 55 years, going strong. Delicious, near New Bedford.
There is great road food out there in the Northeast US, if you can find it. At Maggie's, we know a few of the best ones in the Northeast. McDonald's? Are you kidding? Never. Barf.
Take the Fairhaven exit (18), and drive south to the light, then take a right on the main drag. It's not too far, on the right side of the road. Do it - you will thank me. Try the fried oysters, or the fried clam bellies, or the codfish balls, or the fish and chips. Or anything else.
If I were Elvis, I'd send a chopper out there to fetch good snacks and meals. Cheap, too.
Yes, if you recall, Fairhaven MA is where Joshua Slocum found the Spray as a deteriorating hulk. If you have never read his book, then you can thank me for that too. First guy to sail around the world single-handed, in her.
Readers know that my favorite grilled veggies are eggplant and corn (maize to our readers overseas).
Drizzled with a little olive oil and salted, all of these are tasty: red onion, peppers, asparagus, tomato, summer squash slices, potato slices, pineapple, apple, etc. Anything can be grilled, and it keeps you outdoors.
Best way to grill corn on the cob? Soak them in the husks in a bucket of water for an hour or two, then strip off the roughest outer husks, then toss on grill. When the husks brown a little and the flossy stuff burns, they are done. A little salt to serve - no butter.
Marshmallow candy originated in ancient Egypt. It was a honey candy that was flavored and thickened with Marsh-Mallow plant sap.
Photo below is the Marsh Mallow plant which is a native of marshy areas in the Old World, now wild in North America. You can read about it here.
In Yankeeland, the revolting Marshmallow Fluff is an old classic in the form of the Fluffernutter sandwich. Generations of New England kids were raised successfully of a diet of this goo.
I prefer my Marshmallows plain, on a stick over an open fire, preferably permitted to burst into flame to produce a black crust before blowing them out. Few can resist some campfire S'mores, but I can. Too sweet for me.
Took this pic of a clamming boat coming into dock in Wellfleet in September a couple of years ago. The refrigerated truck will arrive just as he ties up.
Those are Sea Clams which are harvested along the Northeast coast by dredging, from deeper water than the Quahog of the tidal flats but much shallower waters than those inhabited by the deep-sea Ocean Clam. Here are Sea Clams up close:
Sea Clams are the main processed clam in the US, and their shells are commonly used as ashtrays.
The hard-shelled clam, the Quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria - why that name?) is the clam of Atlantic US estuaries and tidal flats. It tastes better, in my opinion, than the Sea Clam - especially when you dig them yourself. Unlike the Sea Clam, you eat the Quahog feathers and all: Littlenecks and Cherrystones - and the chowder-sized Quahogs.
We found some large clams, of the species Mactra solidissima, which the storm had torn up from the bottom, and cast ashore. I selected one of the largest, about six inches in length, and carried it along, thinking to try an experiment on it. We soon after met a wrecker, with a grapple and a rope, who said that he was looking for tow cloth, which had made part of the cargo of the ship Franklin,(17) which was wrecked here in the spring, at which time nine or ten lives were lost. The reader may remember this wreck, from the circumstance that a letter was found in the captain's valise, which washed ashore, directing him to wreck the vessel before he got to America, and from the trial which took place in consequence.(18) The wrecker said that tow cloth was still cast up in such storms as this. He also told us that the clam which I had was the sea-clam, or hen, and was good to eat. We took our nooning under a sand-hill, covered with beach-grass, in a dreary little hollow, on the top of the bank, while it alternately rained and shined. There, having reduced some damp drift-wood, which I had picked up on the shore, to shavings with my knife, I kindled a fire with a match and some paper, and cooked my clam on the embers for my dinner; for breakfast was commonly the only meal which I took in a house on this excursion. When the clam was done, one valve held the meat and the other the liquor. Though it was very tough, I found it sweet and savory, and ate the whole with a relish. Indeed, with the addition of a cracker or two, it would have been a bountiful dinner. I noticed that the shells were such as I had seen in the sugar-kit at home. Tied to a stick, they formerly made the Indian's hoe hereabouts.
The entirety of Thoreau's report of his amusing 1849-1867 ramblings, Cape Cod, can be read here.
We have commented on the subject of the human diet and health before, but it's time for another comment, because the NYT Science Times has written on it.
"Healthy food" has been an on-and-off American obsession, comparable to the obsession with flavor in France.
Since Rev. Sylvester Graham, a minister, vegetarian, and food-obsessive invented the Graham Cracker in the 1820s to provide "digestive fiber," Americans have been food faddists and vulnerable to food quackery.
More famously, Dr. John Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan, an 1870s charlatan with a diet fad, fooled Americans into thinking that cereal was breakfast food. It is not. In Yankee-land, breakfast is eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, potatoes, fruit and apple pie.
Eat what you want, and be happy. All humans are prone to "magical thinking" - aka "wishful thinking." We'd like to imagine that we have some control over things like health, and that things we put in our mouths will make a difference. There is essentially no evidence for that idea, assuming absence of a disease, or a problem like high cholesterol, or pregnant, etc.
Even being fat doesn't seem to make any significant difference to health. (Being obese is a bad plan, though.) I advise patients to eat plenty of salmon, trout and char for their magical properties, and whatever else they want; to exercise and work out if they want to be strong and fit but not because they will live forever; to lose weight if they want to look better and feel less tired; to eat all the salt and steak they want; and to avoid magical health diets. Vegetarian? Fine. Leaves more lamb and steak for me. Just don't imagine that it's about health. What's a healthy diet? Any average mix of stuff, but most of all - enjoy it, and don't fuss about it too much.
(Image from the excellent medical blog Kevin, MD. That steak could be a bit more rare, if you ask me.)
Garlic is one of the most popular flavorings on the planet, and rightly so. There is no point to growing it, because it is so cheap and abundant. Like taters and like pasta. Who would bother growing pasta these days?
Despite not being an Italian "garlic-eater", I love garlic. I am informed that I occasionally reek of it. Too bad. Actually it seems that the Chinese consume the most.
No visit to NYC is complete without a little side trip to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. The old Little Italy in downtown Manhattan has mostly been invaded by new Chinese immigrants who have been expanding Chinatown, and the Italians have moved through the tunnel to Jersey. Don't ask me why.
Today, New York's Little Italy is Arthur Avenue in the Fordham area of the Bronx. It's near the lovely Fordham campus, The Bronx Zoo, and the famous and magnificent New York Botanical Garden.
Is it a "safe" neighborhood? Hardly need to ask that about a heavily Italian neighborhood in New York, for several reasons. You do not need to lock your car. Many in the metropolitan area come by just to shop for Italian delicacies.
The restaurants do not take reservations, so you have to plan it out, be early, or wait in line a bit. Lots of folks I know like Roberto. I need to get there soon.
The Lobster Roll is right up there with Clambake as classic New England summer cuisine. Clambakes have to be made by you, on the beach in a hole in the sand just like the Indians used to, but every New England seafood joint has its own recipe for the simple Lobster Roll.
I thought it might be interesting to go over a few food combos that sound just terrible when mixed together, yet go great together when a third food is involved.
This will be one of those famous "user participation" posts you read so much about in Blogger's Digress. As we did in Bag O' Links, I'll add any additions left in the comments to the list ASAP. The rule is, two of the foods have to evoke a "Yuck!" when mentioned together, but go perfectly well when a third food is introduced.
Probably the classic is ketchup and grape jelly, or any kind of jelly or jam. Can you imagine eating a bite of jellied toast, then tossing a spoonful of ketchup into your mouth? Yuck! Or eating some french fries with ketchup, then suddenly eating a teaspoon of grape jelly? Uck-yay!
Then you'll be sitting there eating some scrambled eggs with ketchup, and halfway through the chew you'll take a bite of the jellied toast, and there's your ketchup and jelly. And, amazingly, they go perfectly together because of the scrambled eggs.
And there's another small anomaly in the same meal. Would you mix ultra-sugary and ultra-salty foods together? Not usually. Yet there you are, chewing on the ultra-sugary jellied toast while stuffing another piece of ultra-salty bacon or sausage into your mouth, again brought together by the eggs.
Another oddity is pepper on bananas. You never see anyone peppering a banana, just because it would look too weird. In secret, or in the confidence of a mate, perhaps. I wouldn't know, I've never tried. It would just look too weird.
Yet I've peppered tons of bananas in my life. Sliced, on sandwiches. As soon as you add the bread and mayo, the pepper just seems to magically fit and the results are delicious. I'm not sure I'd eat a banana sandwich without pepper, just because it adds so much to the taste.
And here's one I bet you've never tried. How about munching on some barbecue potato chips... then washing them down with chocolate milk? Doesn't sound very appealing, I admit. We're back to that salt-sugar clash.
But, assuming you like egg salad sandwiches, the next time you have one, buy a bag of BBQ chips and your favorite brand of chocolate milk. It's just amazing how well the three go together.
How about garlic bread and soy sauce?
"Yuckypoo!"
Exactly. But there I was the other night, eating some garlic 'Texas Toast' with some Chinese eggrolls, dunking the garlic bread in the soy sauce on the plate. Somehow the eggrolls magically tied everything together.
If you have your own favorite food quirk, toss it in the comments and I'll slap it on the list. If you'd like to include an accompanying blurb like the above, please do so.
Why is the CDC based in Atlanta? Because Georgia was the center of malaria in the US, and elimination of malaria from the US was the CDC's first job. It's hard to imagine, but through the 1940's malaria was endemic in the southern US, and prior to that in the northeast too. Every doc in New England used to treat malaria routinely.
DDT was a major factor in the elimination of malaria in the US, but it remains a common disease in the Third World, in the southern hemisphere. And, sadly, DDT harms lots of other things, too, besides mosquitoes but probably isn't as evil as Rachel Carson claimed.
The long history of malaria would make a fascinating book. I'll just share a few facts: the germ which causes malaise, fever, and anemia is a plasmodium, a wierd one-celled bug. There are 4 varieties. The vector (meaning the thing that distributes the bug) is of course an anopheles mosquito, which squirts the germ into the human bloodstream with its anticoagulating saliva. The plasmodium reproduces in your red cells, then goes loose in your blood, where it is presumably sucked up by an innocent mosquito who spreads it further. Humans are the host of this bug (meaning their reproductive home). Like any parasite, the goal is to keep the host alive, while reproducing itself. If you kill your host, you sort of defeat your purpose (like over-taxing productive people), so malaria is more likely to cause chronic illness than death, except in the otherwise vulnerable. Fascinatingly, the sickle-cell trait of Africa confers resistance to malaria. Nature is amazing, which makes being an MD an astonishing privilege.
Prevention is simpler than treatment. Treatments include derivatives of sweet wormwood, as discovered in China in 300, and derivatives of cinchona bark (quinine), as discovered by the Spanish in the 1600s. The quinine treatment/preventative of course gave rise to the finest drink of the British Empire - the Gin and Tonic, which exemplifies the idea of making a virtue of necessity. A Brit will drink nothing without either gin or wine in it. Add a lime and the Limey can prevent scurvy too, as was attributed to Captain Cook. Thus truly a superior medicine for both body and soul.
Does the brand of gin matter? For martinis, yes. For gin and tonics, not to me anyway.
I like cooked potherbs, aka a "mess o' greens" -of any sort: collards, turnip tops, dandelion, kale, chard, spinach, cabbage. Especially fond of collard greens, even though they are far from typical Yankee cookin'. The Romans got their collards from the Greeks (along with everything else), so collards have a long history as food.
I will not prepare raw greens, such as salad, but have been known to eat that rodent food when placed in front of me. My theory is that greens are meant to be cooked, either with a bit of meat, or with garlic and olive oil. But collards require meat.
If there are no spare ham hocks in the fridge, I cook them with bacon or a couple of slices of ham, and I like them with bits of bacon and/or chopped onion on top. Collards are in the cabbage family, and I love cabbage in any form due to my northern European peasant roots (I'll try to remember to post my favorite cabbage recipes in the fall). Collards do not smell good when cooking, and you just have to put up with it.
Here's some collard history, and a basic Southern collard recipe. It's a given that collards and their juice have to be served with corn bread, even if you live north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Gimme some smoked short ribs or pulled pork, a bowl of collards, some corn bread, and a couple of beers, and this New England Yankee is close to heaven.
Photo: Collards
Addendum: Re raw greens, I forgot to mention cole slaw, known as "ragbag" among old timey Yankees. Home-made ragbag is a wonderful thing. I guess it's a salad, of sorts, and it works well with barbecue and just about anything else, including fresh fried codfish or a plate of fried oysters. Which reminds me that fried oysters were once food for the poor - hence the "poor boy" fried oyster sandwich. Yum.
One of my favorite chefs in town makes cucumber slaw. Slivered cucumber with slivered carrot with a vinaigrette.
Assigned to bring a large platter of cold red meat to an outdoor supper party last weekend.
Decided to bring a platter of almost-carpaccio - thick Costco New York Strip grilled very rare - just a few minutes per side to sear it, cooled off, then sliced thin with my amazing meat knife. Although we love carpaccio, not everybody does so I sometimes fake it by sizzling the surface for about 3 minutes per side.
Decorate at time of serving with salt and pepper, some shaved Parmesan, and a splash of truffle oil and serve the platter on a bed of arugula or dandelion. Nice treat.
Photo shows one way it can be done. Yes, lemon can be ok with rare meat. Italians do like that. I'd say either truffle oil or lemon - not both.
It's summer squash season around here, a two -to-three- month squash explosion during which little zucchinis turn into 1 1/2-foot Zucchis seemingly overnight.
Besides cold soups, it's fun to stuff those big zucchis. Google Stuffed Zucchini to find tons of recipes. Best ones I've had use seafood stuffings with clams and shrimp.
Scoop out the pulp, fill with stuffing, wrap in foil and bake until done. Brown the top at the end.
A "zucchini" (singular, zucchino) is an immature Zucca (gourd).
Clam chowder is very good, but cod chowder is great. Here's how I begin:
Chop up a hunk of salt pork into 1/2" or 1" pieces. Bacon is a poor second choice. Plus some butter. Chop carrots or parsnips, onion, garlic, celery - easy on the celery, one or two stalks. Sautee in the pork and butter until soft. There's your mirepoix.
Toss that into a stewpot, then a pile of fish heads and/or bones (from lean fish - no salmon, trout, tuna, bluefish etc. Heads are the best - your fishmonger has 'em and will happily give them to you). Add black crushed peppercorns, a bay leaf, some parsley, and one clove. A sprig of thyme is good. Cover with water and a cup or two or three of drinkable white wine, and simmer, covered, for an hour or two, while consuming the rest of the wine.
Cool it, strain preferably through cheesecloth but I use a strainer, chill in fridge then remove any fat on the surface. Some people like to find some bacon or salt pork in their chowder, so you can salvage them from the strainer, or make new.
You can reduce it or use as it is (I always thicken chowder with corn starch), as the base for fish soup or fish chowder. Don't use it as a base for New England clam chowder, though, because the fumet will overpower the delicate clammy flavor.
Grilled marinated pork chops and grilled asparagus with some steamed yellow squash on the side. Here's a tip: There's no need to cook the heck out of a nice 1 1/2-inch-thick Costco pork chop anymore. Trichinosis is a thing of the past. Pink inside is perfect.
The real thing: 
The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious 
As I mentioned, we emptied the peach tree just in time to keep the possums from eating them all.
Spicy
The 
We have commented on the subject of the human diet and health before, but it's time for another comment, because the NYT Science Times has 
Garlic is one of the most popular flavorings on the planet, and rightly so. There is no point to growing it, because it is so cheap and abundant. Like taters and like pasta. Who would bother growing pasta these days?
No visit to NYC is complete without a little side trip to 
The Lobster Roll is right up there with Clambake as classic New England summer cuisine. Clambakes have to be made by you, on the beach in a hole in the sand just like the Indians used to, but every New England seafood joint has its own recipe for the simple Lobster Roll.
I thought it might be interesting to go over a few food combos that sound just terrible when mixed together, yet go great together when a third food is involved.
Why is the CDC based in Atlanta? Because Georgia was the center of malaria in the US, and elimination of malaria from the US was the CDC's first job. It's hard to imagine, but through the 1940's 
spreads it further. Humans are the host of this bug (meaning their reproductive home). Like any parasite, the goal is to keep the host alive, while reproducing itself. If you kill your host, you sort of defeat your purpose (like over-taxing productive people), so malaria is more likely to cause chronic illness than death, except in the otherwise vulnerable. Fascinatingly, the sickle-cell trait of Africa confers 
I like cooked potherbs, aka a "mess o' greens" -of any sort: collards, turnip tops, dandelion, kale, chard, spinach, cabbage. Especially fond of collard greens, even though they are far from typical Yankee cookin'. The Romans got their collards from the Greeks (along with everything else), so collards have a long history as food.
Assigned to bring a large platter of cold red meat to an outdoor supper party last weekend. 
Expert Gerry Tosh Offers A Wonderfully 
It's summer squash season around here, a two -to-three- month squash explosion during which little zucchinis turn into 1 1/2-foot Zucchis seemingly overnight.
Dr. Bliss' Blissful Fish Stock (Fumet)
The two best uses of big Quahogs are Stuffies and Chowda. 
So is life.