I have a confession to make: I’ve been looking forward to this assignment for about two months. Since I first heard that I would get to cook something, I’ve been mulling over ideas in my head about what exactly the “perfect meal” would be to me. I toyed around with the thought of cooking many different dishes, trying to decide exactly what was feasible with my limited resources and small cooking space. I took ideas from many different places and people, and my menu ended up being a little eclectic. As I look back at my meal, I can’t help but see it as a sort of metaphor for my identity. Several of my dishes-- the two entrees and the desert-- had their own unique meanings for me, and the resulting meal, however odd, somehow came together in perfect harmony.
The main entree of my dinner, and the first dish that I decided on making, was a soup called Spider Soup. Contained in the beef-stock broth are no creepy crawlies, but rather beef cubes, pasta, and a wide variety of vegetables. Spider Soup has a strong history to it; it was the first dish that I ever cooked by myself. When I was in 7th grade, we did a class activity in my Home Ec class in which we listened to a song called “The Spider Song” and made up a recipe to go along with it. The result was a recipe for Spider Soup. I, of course, promptly ran home and asked my mom to let me make it. This was only the second time that I’ve made Spider Soup, and all of the familiar smells and flavors made me feel like I was 12 years old, cooking soup for my family under the watchful eye of my mother. Spider Soup represents personal history, the idea that all of our past experiences contribute to who we are today.
The next dish I prepared was Banitsa, a Bulgarian egg and cheese pie that my Grandma Zonka used to make. My grandma died when I was about three, so I don’t have very many memories of her, but the stories that my family tells about her are more than enough to supplement these missing memories. I’ve heard stories about her ingenuity (she could fix anything from scissors to televisions, and helped build my dad’s childhood home from the ground up), her strength (she and my grandpa were prisoners in an Austrian work camp during World War II before they could escape to America with their two young daughters), and of course, her cooking. She was a wonderful cook, but Banitsa is one of only a handful of her recipes that we left. I had to call my aunt for this recipe, and she gave me the “shortcut” version-- instead of rolling out my own dough from scratch, she advised me to just buy a box of fillo dough from the supermarket. Banitsa is a thin, crispy, layered pastry, and there is an elaborate song-and-dance to follow when making it. As I layered the fillo dough, cheese, eggs, and butter, I thought about my Grandma Zonka. I thought about how many times she must have made this dish, rolling the dough from scratch with a wooden dowel (because she didn’t have a rolling pin). I thought about how and why she came to the conclusion that the second layer gets two sheets of fillo dough and is sprinkled with butter, while the fifth layer has only one sheet of dough and cheese but no butter. The Banitsa represents family history, my yearning to remember where I came from and what my family went through in their struggle to assimilate to American culture, and also how thankful I am that our family recipes and traditions have survived this assimilation.
For dessert, I made homemade chocolate chip cookie dough and pretzel ice cream. The ideas for this dessert came from two different friends of mine. Growing up, one of my best friends, Katie, introduced me to eating pretzels and cookie dough together. It is without a doubt one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted, a perfect culmination of salty and sweet, creamy and crunchy. So, I’d originally planned on just making cookie dough and serving it with pretzels for a dessert. The decision to make it into an ice cream treat was a spur of the moment one. I was talking with a close friend at K, Laurel, and she mentioned that she had an ice cream maker that she was eager to use. And so, just like that, my dessert morphed into a batch of homemade ice cream with cookie dough and pretzel mix-ins. This dessert represents the way in which my friends have influenced who I am, and how important friendship is to me.
Finally, the individual ingredients that I used in this meal have meaning for me as well. I did my very best, when shopping for my ingredients, to buy as many organic and unprocessed foods as I could. The Spider Soup was made of entirely organic vegetables (with the exception of the onion and the canned peas), and the cookie dough and the ice cream were made with organic half-and-half, whipping cream, and eggs. I was raised eating some local and organic foods, but after recently hearing several food industry horror stories that are hidden from the public, it has never seemed more important to me. The kind of ingredients that I chose represents my ideals and my personal opinions about food.
With a Caesar salad and some whole-wheat rolls added in to round off the meal and help appease the vegetarians, my menu was set. After roughly three hours of cooking, I was able to sit back and dine with eight of my friends. All of my hard work definitely paid off; everything was delicious. The soup was just like I remembered it, the Banitsa was flaky, and the ice cream was sweet, creamy, and mouthwatering. I was glad to see that my friends were enjoying the food as much as I was, too. Watching so many of my friends come together and share this meal with me was a wonderful experience; we talked, chewed, and laughed together, and though I can’t speak for anyone else, I definitely left the table with a full and happy belly.
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