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The other night I caught T-Bone Burnett on the Colbert Late Show and felt as if I’d heard truth for the first time. “If you want to know what’s good about the United States, listen to our music. In our music all the promise of the United States is realized because people from all nationalities, countries, languages, religions, and ethnicities have gotten together and listened to each other and created harmony. and that’s the promise of the melting pot, and that’s the promise of the United States,” he said.
Could this have been more clearly, more beautifully put?
It got me thinking how food is so similar to music. Food is more complex, of course, because it’s so political, not everyone gets their share, nor do they have the liberty to experience it as an art form, but as a scarce necessity. It can, though, involve so many different peoples listening (tasting) and creating harmony.
I will always remember being in Anatolia on a pistachio farm, owned by a tribal chief who lived there with his 18 family members. I’d asked the person who helped me organize my trip if I could meet the “cooks on the ground,” those who are in the daily business of preparing traditional and regional dishes to feed their family and community.
I was with a pistachio scientist who had a modicum of English so could interpret, and we were shown into a receiving room, empty but for the beautiful cushions lining the floor, where we sat. We spent many hours there with the chief as he answered my questions about the technicalities and economics of pistachio farming. I was going a little cross-eyed with the intricacies of it all, but when I interrupted the conversation to enquire gently about meeting the cooks, the interpreter sent me dagger-looks and whispered, “They’re not allowed to meet strangers, just be patient.” I have patience, and paid attention as we sipped endless cups of mint tea and nibbled fresh pistachios that were served by the chief’s youngest son, not far out of toddler-hood.
Finally, I was taken through a courtyard and behind the farmhouse to an open kitchen, with a fire “hole” in the floor and a wood-fired bread oven, and there I found the women, the cooks. The interpreter hied out of there, explaining that while he could interpret the details of grafting and growth, he would be lost talking family and food. I trembled as I watched him walk away with the chief, knowing that my handful of vocabulary wouldn’t take me far. What I didn’t count on was the way listening is a language of its own.
The women, each dressed more colorfully than the other, were as curious about me as I was about them and their food and lives, and we managed to share not just recipes, but stories about our children, laughs about how they got tired of cooking all the time, tips and tricks for the way they made their ekmek (bread), muhammara (walnut and pepper purée) Cerkez Tavugu, chicken with walnuts.
We listened and expressed ourselves about essential traditions and values, and opened our hearts to each other thanks to food. I met all of their cute little children and shy adolescents, showed them pictures of mine, and when the interpreter came to get me because we had to leave, none of us wanted it. The women grabbed my hands, begging me to stay and have dinner with them, and oh would I have loved that, but I couldn’t. Politics got in the way, because I had a big dinner to attend, where I was to present my project to the regional counsel.
That visit has stayed deep within me, because in a brief afternoon I not only fell in love with a warm and beautiful group of women, but somehow the boundaries between us simply disappeared. We were just a bunch of friends sharing stories over a cup of tea. We needed no verbal language, just listening and harmonizing. It was so joyful, so easy.
And here is where food and music overlap. They are primordial values, art forms from the guts and hearts of humanity. And the same way the political dinner I needed (and wanted) to attend got in the way of the purity of that moment and the fragile bonds we’d created, so reality gets in the way of the sharing and harmonizing we can do.
But I recreate moments like that often. All of us cooks do. Perhaps not as exotic nor as heart-searing as what I experienced in that Anatolian kitchen, but the beauty of making a meal for friends, family, acquaintances always includes those basic elements of listening and harmonizing. Boundaries disappear.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we all realized that we’re all so much alike and have so much to share? If we could all just get into the kitchen, put on some T-Bone Burnett, Tim Maia, Pink Martini, Yann Tierson, Rose Betts or other favorites, then proceed to ignore what upsets us and let the alchemy of food and music, universal truths from the guts of humanity, have their way with us?
Let me share a recipe from that trip to Anatolia. The Muhammara here is actually from Filiz Hosukogolu, a wonderful engineer by day and gastronomy expert by every other waking hour, who lives in Istanbul and regularly flies to amazing heights with food, and yet adheres to her mother’s recipe for the muhammara that is on her table every single day.
This recipe is also part of the collection in NUTS IN THE KITCHEN (William Morrow, 2010)
MUHAMMARA – HEAVENLY RED PEPPERS AND WALNUTS
NOTE: Muhammara keeps well in the refrigerator in an air-tight container for at least one week. It goes with every meal.
1-1/2 pounds (750g; 3 large;5 small) red bell peppers
1-3/4 cups (175g) walnuts
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3/4 cup (60) fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon coarsely ground red Aleppo pepper or mild paprika
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly toasted, coarsely ground
Fine sea salt, to taste
1. Roast the peppers over a gas flame, over coals, or under a broiler, turning the peppers with tongs, until they are completely charred. Transfer the peppers to a paper bag and seal it. Let the peppers sit until they are cool enough to handle – at least 15 minutes – then slip off the charred skin and remove the seeds from the interior. Don’t rinse the peppers, for you will rinse away a great deal of flavor. Instead, to completely cleanse the peppers of their charred skin and seeds, scrape them gently with a plastic scraper, or the back of a sharp knife blade then wipe them with a cotton towel.
2. Place the walnuts in a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse several times until they are coarsely ground. Add the peppers and pulse several times. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add all of the remaining ingredients and process into a coarse paste, scraping down the processor from time to time. Season to taste with salt. Serve it immediately.
Generous 2 cups (500g)
