Monday, October 06, 2008

poverty meals

Because of my crappy ugly pictures I can't show you a picture of my first fall supper.  It consisted of a wine-braised wiesswurst (say that three time fast) from Morants, Braised green cabbage, and mashed russets.  The wiesswurst was great.   It was pale and lean, and had a spongy consistency, but in a pleasant way.  Very German.  Weisswurst is the traditional sausage of the German second breakfast (Zweites Frühstück), which is eaten before noon along with pretzels, mustard, and wheat beer.  How do I know this?  Because I have the current Saveur, which is about breakfast and is super fun to read.  This was also my first try at my new Fall food philosophy: poverty cuisine.  Not because I am actually living in poverty but because food inflation has reached such insane levels that I am going to try to just stick to fun variations on cheap staples like beans, lentils, whole grains, cabbage, potatoes, etc.  I can include Morants in there because it's very affordable.  

I'm going to see Mates of State tonight!  Shortly smiller and I will be leaving to follow Dark Star Orchestra and I won't be posting for a week or so.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you eat the casing on that weisswurst; was it edible? If you search for "how to eat weisswurst" on youtube, you'll find entertaining/gross/mouthwatering clips.

Ben

Anonymous said...

ha! you spelled Weißwurst wrong twice. I'm doing it only once.

Saveur's wrong. Any sausage'll do for that meal, which people only out in the country have time to eat.

beckler said...

hey thanks for the spelling correction, i really cherish that. i don't know what that made up letter you used is, though. are you sure about the weiberwurst fact? it's not like they said webblewurst was de rigeur, just customary, which seems to be an oft-repeated statement on the internet.

yeah, i ate the casing, it split in an unnattractive way. i noticed it wasn't a snappy casing.

beckler said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
beckler said...

I just had to delete another painful "joke" i made about the spelling of weisswurst. Those videos are making me hungry so I'm going to go eat some more weisswurst.

wburg said...

The "ß" is a symbol used to represent a "SS" sound, so I wouldn't take that scheiße too seriously.

"Poverty meals" sounds like my entire approach to cooking: what my grandfather (who grew up in rural Italy) calls "peasant food" (aka healthy and cheap things, generally repackaged as hifalutin' yuppie chow, but what the peasants in other countries eat.) It was also the basis of my old "Hundred Dollar Budget" class (now more like $150-200 for a month's worth of food, thanks to inflation), based on unprocessed ingredients, bought in bulk quantities or direct from the producer, from discount stores at the best prices, and prepared at home.

Eating cheap and good is a whole attitude. Hopefully some of the new generation of "foodies" use their cooking skills to learn how to cook the cheap (but good) basics, and not just the yuppie chow.

beckler said...

I may have to forgo my love of expensive cheese, or try to resist it. Maybe it's time to re-read "how to cook a wolf" by m.f.k. fisher, although i'm not about to eat that nutritional loaf thing.

Cheap drinks is (are?) the bigger problem, because all six packs cost at least 9 bucks now, and Belgians are at least ten. And Fall makes me want red wine, which is hard find a decent bottle of for less than an arm and a leg.

beckler said...

this will make a certain person laugh, the twinsoup blog offices(?) are moving to the retrolodge! i wonder how big the team is that writes twin soup?

beckler said...

here's a good quote from twinsoup:
the perfect between-season ankle bootie

just what i've been searching for!

beckler said...

the fader just posted about jay howell's new punks get cut zine:
http://www.thefader.com/articles/2008/10/6/jay-howell-s-punks-git-cut-zine

and you can buy it here:http://www.needles-pens.com/puinksgitsanji.html

Liv Moe said...

Her "sludge" recipe has always appealed to me in a sort of practical way although I'm sure if I ever made it I probably wouldn't desire more than one serving of it. I'm sure Buddy would be stoked on the leftovers tho'.

Speaking of Italian peasant fare I really wish there was *good* authentic Italian restaurant in Sac that wasn't a million bucks to dine at. It's not like it's expensive food to prepare.

beckler said...

Besides the spaghetti factory?

Anonymous said...

Mama Suzannas!

gbomb

Anonymous said...

Just say the word & I'll cook up some delicious bachelor scramble.

-miller

wburg said...

liv: it's all the northerners' fault. not enough of us good red sauce eating southern Italians in this town. I'm still in mourning for Slamerico's.

Anonymous said...

Watch it Burg! There are some fiesty readers if Genoan descent present here.

Roma Pizza II still makes some great food for not too much moola.

Dani

Anonymous said...

Poor Folks Food around my house was S.O.S or shit on a shingle which consisted of Steamed Milk and Toast.Oatmeal was a notch above.
Living the Quasi-single salary man life in Nagoya my meals usually consist of potatoes and whatever vegetable happens to be near by.I like to Saute my potatoes in yaki niku sauce..
I also remeber spinach and rice mixed together alot for dinner.My Greek/Ukrainian dad did that..
J

wburg said...

dani: No offense intended, just feeling the obligatory campanilisimo. I'm sure there's some decent chow involving white sauce, but southern Italian is the Mediterranean equivalent of soul food: we're poor dumb country folk but we can cook like a you-know-what. You got the artists and the architecture and the fashion...we got the food!

archbishop said...

Food for my family growing up was Rel's Sandwiches. Probably a very good reason why I have arthritis.

beckler said...

shit on a shingle was also a fave at my house. once during a screening of "stripes" i made vegetarian shit on a shingle, which was not really a hit with my friends.