Making of a Foodie – The Early Years

I readily admit I’m a foodie. But just what makes one a foodie anyway? Webster describes it as “a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads” and while that’s certainly an interest of mine, it goes way beyond that. Foodie.com defines the obsession in a way I find to be a little closer to my personal truth: "The foodie lives to eat, and eating to live is definitive boredom. A true foodie clings to all things culinary…To find the perfect cheese or the best macaroon recipe is life's work." So, while it may not be macaroons for me, I have been to known to research and experiment with dozens of lemon meringue pie recipes or to otherwise spend far more time than is practical trying to figure out just how to make the best ascolane, an amazing meat-stuffed, fried olive snack from Italy.

I sometimes wonder where my interest in food came from. My obsession runs the gamut from eating it (a particular favorite), making it, reading about it, researching it, experimenting with, traveling to, and to generally always be in search of, and then some. It’s certainly not from my upbringing, unless you believe that children will always rebel against their parents as in, if your parents like rock music you will go country. Growing up in northwest Indiana in a family of limited means, it would be fair to say there wasn’t a whole lot going on of major epicurean interest. Sure, we always had plenty of food on the table and as I grew older we even had dishes like tacos from time to time but it’s not as though there was an emphasis on fine dining, exotic cuisine or seeking new experiences with food. It was about getting the family fed, having a meal that didn’t lead to too much squabbling (about the food or anything else) and chiefly about getting it done without too many complaints or outliers with their “I don’t like that” who therefore wouldn’t eat.

What I do know is that my interest in food, especially cooking, started very young. Before I was 5 my Mom had me up on a chair stirring my own scrambled eggs and it really seemed to take off from there. She had this set of cookbooks she must have received as a wedding present or young newlywed that I just loved. It was about a ten or twelve book set and I poured over those books like most kids poured over Encyclopedia Britannica or roasted ants with a magnifying glass. These cookbooks covered everything from beverages to butchery and loads in between and each book even had a few inserts of color pictures! I was completely smitten.

By the time I was old enough to read, I already had a few dishes under my belt including scrambled eggs (by then with bits of ham), grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup and anything that could be made with peanut butter and marshmallow Fluff. For some reason, I came to believe that anyone who could read and follow a few directions could cook just about anything be from those books or just about any other book. I know over the next ten years or so, I certainly set out to try. I cooked lots and lots of things from Mom’s cookbooks. My early repertoire was very baking-focused. I consider this to be a formative period for me in the way that Picasso had his blue period. Baking is great for kids for any number of reasons: it’s fairly easy, kids love sugar, it usually involves things already in-house, you get a lot of takers, and there’s an amazing comfort factor in the aromas involved whether it be bread – which I made quite a lot of, sugar cookies or chocolate cake. I literally cannot count the number of cakes, cookies, candies, or Jell-O concoctions I made between the ages of 7 and 12. Any time we needed something for a barbecue or family event, I’d volunteer to make a cake or other suitable creation. For some reason, even though I was then and remain completely lacking in visual artistic talent, I loved to decorate cakes and make sugar cookies with all kinds of wacky color schemes involving colored sugar, sprinkles, icing, you name it. I was the queen of food coloring and anything that could be done with it. One of my biggest regrets was when trying to make a Halloween cake that I could not get the black icing to work out no matter how much food coloring I used. It ended up being more like orange and purplish-brown!

As I grew to be a little older, a lot of other cooking influences came my way. I discovered there were cookbooks at the local public library and I also happened to stumble upon this wildly eccentric, giant of a lady with a strange accent and a flair for the dramatic. Her name was Julia Child. When I was about 7, she had a show on Channel 11 in Chicago, our local public broadcasting station that aired every day at lunchtime during my summers off from school. It was probably strange to see a kid watching her show but I rarely missed one. One of the things I loved about her was that things didn’t always go to plan, yet she had to finish the show so she made the best of it no matter what. Over the years I saw most of her shows several times throughout the course of a few summers.

It was through this broadening of my food influences that I started to branch out into lots of cooking beyond baking. I was a taken by anything with vivid color and a photograph so when I first saw a picture of an autumn stew baked inside a pumpkin I knew I had to make one. I remember reading about Country Captain, a rather basic chicken curry dish that was most exotic to me and not just because of the curry powder (which surprisingly, we had) but because it was served with about a dozen condiments – everything from raisins, to chopped hardboiled egg, to coconut. So, of course, I had to make this dish and find a way to get all the condiments, even the mango chutney which was not something easily found in our Midwestern town. For whatever reason, I was particularly drawn to making food that seemed exotic to me, whether it was due to the ingredients themselves, or simply that it came from a place far away from Indiana where I dreamed I might visit one day.

There is much more to this story and what led to my interest, both personal and professional (at times), for food that will be shared in future posts. Today I share my recipe for Ascolane, that amazing olive snack from Italy that pairs superbly with anything bubbly, be it a nice, slightly fruity prosecco, beer, or Italian soda.

What early food memories do you have and how have they informed your interest in food over the years?

Ascolane (Recipe makes about 25-30 stuffed olives)

For the stuffed olives:
1-1/2 lb. very large, pitted green olives (should be fairly mild in flavor although we like to use the chili marinated ones and rinse them well)
4 oz. fresh ground pork sausage
4 oz. ground lamb
4 oz. ground veal
2 oz. pancetta (or use about 2 strips of good bacon), finely chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
½ cup dry white wine
¾ cup freshly grated Parmigiano
About 1/2 cup fine bread crumbs (not seasoned)
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
¼ teaspoon ground fresh nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the chopped pancetta in a heavy skillet over medium heat stirring regularly until lightly brown. Remove pancetta from pan and set aside. Cook the pork sausage, lamb, and veal in the same skillet, stirring often until thoroughly cooked. When cooked, drain off excess pan drippings and set aside. Add the pancetta back to the pan with the other meat. Stir in the garlic and continue cooking until the garlic starts to soften. Add the white wine and continue stirring until the wine is mostly evaporated. Set the pan aside and cool until the meat is just warm. Run the meat mixture through a meat grinder or pulse quickly in a food processor until finely ground. Stir in the Parmigiano, parsley, and nutmeg then stir in the breadcrumbs a little at a time until the mixture holds together easily when a small amount is placed in your palm and squeezed. Add a bit more of the pan drippings you set aside if the mixture seems dry. Season with pepper and additional salt, if needed. Let cool.

To stuff the olives, take a pitted olive and stuff as much of the meat filling as you can in the center. Depending on the size of the olive, you may need to slightly split the olive a little to really get the meat into the center. Take about another tablespoon or so and completely encase the olive with it, pressing firmly to make it into a fairly round ball that holds together well. Continue with remaining olives.

For the breading and frying:
Oil for frying – at least 3-4 cups depending on the size of the pan you will fry in but make sure you have a depth of at least 1-inch of oil.
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs
¼ cup milk
2 cups fine bread crumbs (not seasoned)
1/ 2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Heat the oil to 350 degrees.

Set up a breading station:

In a shallow dish or bowl stir paprika into flour and season with salt and pepper to taste. The flour should have a savory flavor without being too salty or peppery.
Make an egg wash in a separate small bowl, by whisking the eggs and milk gently. Set aside.
Place the bread crumbs in a separate shallow dish and stir in the Italian seasoning.

To bread the stuffed olives:

Roll each stuffed olive ball in the flour to get a light but even coating. Shake off excess flour.
Dip the flour-coated olive ball into the egg mixture.
Roll the olive ball in the breadcrumb mixture to coat lightly but evenly.

Fry the stuffed, breaded olives:

Fry the olives in the hot oil until lightly browned in each side. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels. Let the olives cool a little bit before eating as the olives taken straight from the oil will be very hot. The olives are best eaten shortly after frying while still a bit warm or are even at room temperature.