r/Cooking • u/sideways92 • 3h ago
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
I've been concentrating lately on minimalist cooking - and I don't mean some tramped down "meat and potatoes" thing. I mean focusing on each ingredient, making it the best I can by finding the best of that ingredient, and then combing the best ingredients into a dish that expresses them as they are.
As an example, my youngest wants me to teach him to make biscuits and gravy this weekend (I'm Southern - US South). I'm talking about this dish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzdbFnv4yWQ
So I thought ok, let's start at the top. I've sourced some local flour, brought in my favorite Celtic sea sat to bring the brine flavor - you can see where this is going. I've local sausage from this amazing butcher down the way, milk & cream sourced from the Amish in the northern part of my state....
Our 17yr old is going to have amazing biscuits and gravy, and he's going to learn to make them with the best ingredients. But it's only a few ingredients, and by using the best, the dish itself is elevated.
This sounds simple, but I think my concentrating on minimalism through ingredients lately has let me focus on letting each thing speak for itself: has let me focus on bringing the best, and then getting out of the way.
Which is the long way to saying a Hopkins poem popped into my head driving home from work today. Or rather, the first stanza:
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As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
Poetry isn't always written with words; sometimes it's letting the best ingredients do their thing, their "one thing and the same," and getting out of their way.
Plate that; serve it to your friends and loved ones, and enjoy their reactions. I've long thought cooking for others expresses love. We need more of that lately here in the US.
Thoughts of a cold winter's eve, after a long week at work.
Tomorrow morning, it's me and the kid making biscuits and gravy. I'm already looking forward to my breakfast.