I am a “fallen” Irish Catholic male. “Fallen” meaning I don’t go to church much anymore. My wife, an Episcopalian, tells my inquiring son (“how come Dad doesn’t have to go to church?”) that I went to church a whole lot when I was young and so I don’t have to go now.
I hope St. Peter swallows it better than my son.
Like most Irish Catholics (fallen or otherwise) I was brought up on tasteless food. The Irish Cookbook is the world’s smallest book. “Take everything that walks, swims or flies across the face of the earth and boil the living bejeezus out of it.” “Add butter if you have it.”
My mother embraced the Irish Cookbook more religiously than her rosary. She was the prophet of “one pot” cookery. Put it in one pot. Put the lid on. Boil until the white scummy foam comes out under the lid. Plate it up. Add butter if you have it.
We had a lot of white dinners. Potatoes, cod and cauliflower boiled together. Haddock, onions and potatoes boiled together. The plates looked religious in and of themselves—“Three Sorrowful Mysteries.” Sometimes Mom would add canned string beans for color—gray.
My little brother was a food genius of a type particular to this boiled “white cuisine.” Boiled cod tasted pretty bad, but if you wanted to watch TV you had to eat it—or make it look like you ate it! He would hide his fish in his milk. Really. Drink half his milk, break up the fish and slide it right in there.
I was in charge of washing the dishes, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn him in—it was too clever—sometimes I even used it myself.
The exception to the “Irish Cookbook rule” was my Aunt Irene—“Reney,” for resonance.
Reney was a food saint. Her food was a flavorful wonder, a profound revelation. She used garlic when her sisters regarded onions with suspicion. She made macaroni and cheese with four cheeses and added tomatoes and bacon—radical.
She cooked lasagna with garlic and ricotta and peppers. She made Italian and Chinese meatballs, stuffed peppers, Hungarian goulash and scallops baked in cream with Gruyere. Food with taste. Food that was not associated with punishment.
Her husband, Uncle Slim, was a co-conspirator. Slim was a butcher who made his own sausages, pickled meats and eggs, and ate pepperoni and blue cheese. Yea….blue cheese—when all God fearing cheeses were orange.
Her sisters thought Reney was a little “food quirky,” “stuck-up” about food. Nobody firing on all of their cylinders would keep blue cheese in their fridge. Why would anyone eat something that was obviously going bad? The cousins and I played “blue cheese” tag.
Touch it and then rub your fingers on the other guys’ neck. A visit to Reney and Slim’s always included a search for Slim’s cheese.
My boiled-fish-trained digestive tract would go into crisis after Reney’s cuisine—I discovered flavor…and heartburn, gas and flatulation. I was the best burper in seventh grade after a weekend at Aunt Reney’s.
Aunt Reney was also the original Emeril—the first TV chef. She began as the “grocery-store-lady-who-gave-out-samples.” You’ve seen them; the lady at Publix with summer sausage on a plate with toothpicks stuck in the nickel size pieces, the lady with the three sauces to stick corn chips in, cooking up little weenies in the electric frying pan.
Aunt Reney got a part time job sampling out a new line of Chinese food products—plum sauce, sweet and sour, and soy—exotic products then—Chinese food by the “Red Dragon” Chinese food company—or something.
We’d all get together at Aunt Reney’s and make egg rolls. The next day she would slice them and stick them with picks and give them away at the grocery store.
As it turned out, Reney was the best damn "Chinese-food-grocery-store-lady" for counties and somebody in marketing thought it might be neat if they had her actually cook the egg rolls on TV. Aunt Reney became Chef Rhee-Nee—a little make up, one of those little silk Chinese jackets from the costume store, some umbrellas and a couple of Chinese lanterns. A Chinese TV chef at a time when they had yet to invent Chinese TV dinners. She cooked up chicken fried rice, ribs, cherry chicken, pineapple chicken, sweet and sour chicken, chicken in plum sauce.
The show had a good run—ten months and then the same marketing guy came up with a line of French products, hollandaise in a can. After a quick makeover, Chef Rhee-Nee became Chef Renée. I don’t even think anyone noticed. The silk jacket was replaced with a beret and I got to burn the Chinese lanterns off the end of the dock.
Reney’s French chef career was short lived. Some TV genius decided that cheffing on TV was never really going to catch on—why would anyone watch someone cooking on TV?
Maybe it was all in the name. We should have tried calling her Chef Reneril. “Bam it” with a little plum sauce. “Kick it up a notch” with sweet and sour.
Aunt Reney cookware, cookbooks and Chinese style aprons. Oh, well.
Reney’s still wowing them up north with her pickles, jams and ribs. And I can still close my eyes in the vicinity of a bubbling spaghetti sauce and transport myself back to Aunt Reney’s kitchen, a huge slab of lasagna, the wondrous warm and sated feeling, and the flatulent walk back home to Mom’s boiled fish.
For all those meals and all that flavor—thanks, Rene.