Parsley parsley everywhere!

I’ve been watching the first season of Downton Abbey again, and reliving all the problems the aristocracy have had with inheritance and the birth of a boy.

In England, when children ask where babies come from, they are told: “From the parsley bed.” This notion has survived for hundreds of years. In 1748, the second son of an English noble wrote a little poem on the subject of parsley and its relationship to destiny:

This day from the parsley bed, I’m sure,

Was dug my elder brother, Moore,

Had Papa dug me up before him,

So many would not now adore him.

But, hang it, he is only one,

If he trips off, I am Sir John.

My own parsley bed, and indeed the whole herb garden is flourishing so abundantly, I plan to snip a bunch and make a variation on a simple pesto, adding three kinds of parsley and some chives to the traditional basil.

I’ll serve the pesto with green fetuccini and six green vegetables. (This is a little green on green on green culinary fantasy and a lovely lunch dish with or without a green salad and a glass of white wine.)

Here’s a recipe for pesto.
(It makes 1-1/2 cups)

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (horribly expensive) pine nuts, or substitute other nuts

1 cup light olive oil

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Combine the basil, garlic, salt and nuts in a food processor. Add the oil in through the top in a slow, steady stream with the motor running.  Lastly add the cheese.

Rosemary remembered

Note: To store pesto, pour a thin film of olive oil over its surface. Cover and refrigerate. Stir in the olive oil when you are ready to use the sauce.

If you’re a gardener and find that you have too many herbs, here is a food job: make little bouquets of these fragrant leaves, tie them with a lavender ribbon and sell them to a neighborhood restaurant as a little gift for the guests to take home. Or provide rosemary to the florist to add to the bridal bouquet.

Rosemary, in case you forgot, also is the herb of remembrance.

Science reaches ever more extensively into the world of food. As nations address issues related to world hunger, there is an urgent need to learn how to grow food more efficiently, to grow it in inhospitable lands, and to invent new methods of irrigation.

There are unlimited possibilities for employment in many fields relating to food science. They loom large once you accept the premise that growing, preparing, and cooking food is a marriage of science and art. Whether you are more interested in the medicinal value of herbs or flavors developed in chemistry labs, science and technology offer numerous ways to turn your appreciation of food into a profession.

In Discover magazine, Jeffrey Klugar writes that, “In the United States alone, there are more than 75 science-based companies churning out artificial flavors. Each of these labs serves hundreds of brand-name food manufacturers, who include their inventions into nearly everything we eat, from frozen dinners and tacos to Tootsie Rolls.”

Do you have a job in food science? Can you share any insights on what you do and how you found your job?

Michael Pollan, author of Cooked

I add my voice to the rousing chorus of fans singing the praises of Michael Pollan. He is the crème of the crèmes. His recent masterpiece is Cooked: A Natural History of Tranformation. In the introduction he states:

“The premise of this book is that cooking — defined broadly enough to take in the whole spectrum of techniques people have devised for transforming the raw stuff into nutritious and appealing things for us to eat and drink — is one of the most interesting and worthwhile things we humans have done.”

So. He suggests we all return to home cooking. Hmmm! Really?

Once upon a time we had to cook to survive.

Imagine, we wanted a bacon cheeseburger in the 19^th Century. We would need to know how to raise cattle and hogs, how to bake bread and light a fire. (No lettuce, pickles, onion, sesame seeds, ketchup or fries on the side available).

Today we complain when we’re forced to stand and wait in line for a burger for more than three minutes.

We have surrendered our ability to cook into the hands of others. We are the willing accomplices of armies of food processing companies and their technologies. Sensors use refracted light to test the sweetness of preserves. Machines measure ingredients with uncompromising accuracy and mix, stir and knead a dough or batter to achieve the correct texture every time.

Radio waves detect the crispness of cookies before they burn. Hands of steel weave breakfast cereals from oats, wheat, corn and rice or engineer blends of multi-grains, and extrude them in a triumph of physics and technology married to food chemistry.

We may confess we actually prefer Kraft mayonnaise rather than homemade mayonnaise. We’d rather have V-8 than make juice from our own home grown kale, spinach and other worthy greens. Give us our daily bread (from the store) and Ben & Jerry’s instead of the pale slush we “make” in our very own electric ice cream maker.

For generations, we have been persuaded to believe we have the freedom NOT to cook.

A visit to Whole Foods or Wegmans or any supermarket is as thrilling as going to the Museum of Modern Art. We love to look.

But cooking is a far, far different thing. For some it is a joy — a creative, satisfying endeavor. For many, it is a chore. For the inexperienced, cooking is fraught with stress and fear of failure. It is not an indoor sport, though it’s certainly competitive. Timing is a mystery unless you understand the why as well as the how-to of preparing a meal for “friends and family.”

It is hard to understand why HGTV home buyers always insist on expansive space, stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops to entertain. Hardly anybody entertains at home any more.

A recent study reveals: “The average person spends less than an hour for both food and fitness in one day.” A young mother sighs, “I work all day, go to the gym and all I feel is — tired.”  Too tired to cook. Almost too tired to toss a “square meal” into the microwave, but not too exhausted to spend hours watching the Food Network; a sensational trial; the super bowl; opening night of the Olympics; Dancing with the Stars or checking e-mails.

Of course, this turn of events is really good news for the restaurant business. Mr. Pollan, cook your goose if you wish. We’ll go out to eat and “have what she’s having…”

Food Job: Personal Chef