TV Show: Back in Time for Dinner

Using the Hola VPN extension, we watch some programs on the computer that would normally be region blocked.  That is, we can shows on the BBC website, shows from Australian television, and the like.  Normally, the interwebs can tell that we don't live in the U.K. nor Australia, but Hola makes it look like we do.  It's pretty great.

While looking for something to watch the other day, I came across Back in Time for Dinner.  The idea is that a middle-class English family is having their home transformed to look like a typical home would throughout the post-war decades in England.  This is a lot of fun to watch, and is of course of interest to this blog.

Though there are some similarities between what they showed in the episode on the 1950s to what is in our cookbook, there are some pretty serious differences as well.  The food that the mother - and only the mother - cooked for the first few days (one day for each decade) was pretty attrocious:  National bread, drippings (rendered fat), boiled potatoes, and cabbage, and that's it.  This due in no small part to post-war rationing.  Even after rationing ended in the middle of the decade, the food wasn't all that great, but at least it would have started to look familiar to our Ladies in Thief River Falls.  For example, for the coronation of the queen, the mother tried to make a fancy gelatin salad that was supposed to look like a crown.  It looked like something straight out of the cook book... even though it was a complete failure.  Sorry, English mother.

It was also interesting in that the crew of the show transformed the ground level of the family's home to look like a home would have sixty years ago.  Instead of an open floor plan, they created a small closed sitting room, a very small formal dining room, and a VERY different kitchen.  The wife had no refrigerator, and instead had a larder - essentially a pantry with marble shelves to keep food slightly cooler.  There were no convenience appliances (until later in the "decade"), so everything was done by hand.  Attached the the sink was a set of rollers for squeezing the water out of washed clothes.  This was something of an indication of how much time the poor woman spent in the room.  Though in the modern iteration of this family, the father did most of the cooking he had instructions to generally keep out of the kitchen.  Instead between cleaning, prep, cooking, and cleaning some more, the seemingly spent almost all of her waking hours in that room.  Considering the poor quality and limited amount of food she had access to for the first few years of the decade, it was a pretty thankless job.  Her family was clearly not a fan of what she spent hours making.  Even once the decade progressed and she was given a few convenience appliances (a mixer, etc), she didn't spend any less time in the kitchen as she prepared meals that were more ambitious and time intensive; something I imagine our Ladies of Zion could probably identify with.

One of the nicest parts of this episode was when some local women from their town who were housewives during the 50s were invited over to watch the coronation on a vintage TV and to have tea and some food.  Though the 50s were clearly a difficult time in the U.K., these old ladies were delighted to be brought back in time to see the house the way it had been transformed, and to see the kitchen in particular.

I am really looking forward to the next episodes as the family explores the food and culture of the next few decades.  I heartily recommend this show.

OH!  Hey!  The first episode is on Youtube.  I tried to embed it, but it's not working for some reason.  Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDuGNwJ2pCo

Norwegian Dishes - Norwegian Meat-balls

Consider this a cautionary tale of the dangers of not respecting authority, and following directions.  I blatantly disregarded the wisdom of one of the Ladies, Mrs. Gust Haugen, who gave us such classics as Carrot Ring (*hork*) and Cabbage Rolls, by not reading all the way through the recipe before getting started and by missing the time listed to finish the recipe.  Ok, so maybe it's not a particularly exciting or suspenseful story and its one I've been a part of many times, so you'd think it would be a lesson learned for me.  But I guess I don't operate like that.

Once upon a time, in a land not far from here on a Monday not long ago, a dad had to make dinner.  Meatballs!  Meatballs will be a great dinner.  He had a recipe for meatballs that includes a gravy, "I'll cook up some kind of vegetable to go with them,and we'll have a great meal," he said.  "What could go wrong?  Nothing!  I'll even plan ahead."  This is where things took a turn for the worse.  And by worse, I actually mean better... sort of.

Ok, I can't keep that up.  Too much work.

So, meatballs.  Norwegian meatballs.  Whoever heard of Norwegian meatballs?  Doesn't Ikea have a patent on any and all Scandinavian balls of meat?

It certainly looks that way.  I guess even Martha had to pay up.

I guess the Ladies probably didn't have an IKEA to go to to get their meatballs, and this wasn't a time too far removed from Swedish/Norwegian animosity.

No, 46 years isn't very long at all.

Norwegian/Swedish animosity certainly was a part of my family history.  I don't remember the whole story, but as I recall it had to do with my great grandparents on my mother's side.  They lived in Fargo, and the Swedish son taking a Norwegian bride caused no small trouble for his family.  Correct me if I'm wrong, family, but I think his family came from a line of relatively prosperous merchants or maybe even lesser nobility in Sweden.  Her family, however.  Well, does it even matter?  She was Norwegian!  His mother, my great great grandmother, apparently wouldn't even let her new daughter-in-law into the house.  The porch was close enough, thank you very much!  I don't imagine my great great grandmother would have troubled with Norwegian meatballs.

The Ladies of Zion, however, had no problems with them.  Me?  Well, yeah, there are some problems, but we'll get to that.

Pies & Desserts - Marshmallow Pie

I have a theory.  It is known that animals don't all perceive color the same way.  For example, dogs only perceive two different colors.  It has also recently come to light that penguins can only taste salty and sour flavors.  This seems a little surprising since you would think that tasting umami would be a useful and beneficial thing for them and their fish diet.  But apparently, they can only taste sour and and salt.  I'm not suggesting that we are part penguin, but rather that we've only evolved to taste the five basic tastes in the last fifty years.  Hear me out.  At some point in time, probably in the 80s, it became beneficial for people to be able to taste more fully.  Before this time, people only had receptors for salty, sweet, and umami.  Suddenly, in evolutionary terms at least, it became critical for people and their offspring to be able to also taste bitter and sour.  That this corresponds with the rise of coffee and beer culture is not a coincidence, I think.  So mates were chosen based on whether or not they had fully developed taste receptors, and successful sex-selection rapidly worked to provide our current population with all five tastes we are familiar with today.  This explains why flavors from our cook book are so muted.

It can be the only explanation as to why our food is so much better and flavorful today.  I am ready to accept my Nobel Prize for medicine/physiology now.  You can learn about how to nominate me here.

I bring this all up because on the day I made the following marshmallow pie (that doesn't taste like much) was the day that Twins pitchers and catchers reported to spring training.  Think about it.  It makes perfect sense.  Even if it doesn't, I'm going with the idea.  If you don't see the connection, you're probably not thinking about it enough... or maybe you're one of those genetic hold-overs who can't yet taste bitter and sour... weirdo.

Go Twins!

Preparation

So... marshmallow pie.  It was a little tough deciding what to make this time around.  Last time, I made mock apple pie, which was a fun experiment and that was good enough that I made it a second time.  As you can see, the second page of the Pies & Desserts section also has a rhubarb pie recipe, that is a custard pie.  I really like rhubarb custard pie, so much so that it is one of the pies that I make the most frequently, using my mom's (great grandmother's?) recipe.  But as it isn't remotely rhubarb season, I decided to pass on that one.  That, and the fact that we are in the middle of marshmallow season, I needed to use up the marshmallows we recently picked from the mallow orchard last week.  So marshmallow pie, it is.

C'mon Mrs. Minnie, don't do us wrong.

My biggest concern about the recipe is how marshmallows may have changed throughout the decades.  There are so many new additives and ingredient substitutions, I was a little unsure whether or not today's marshmallows would behave like Minnie's marshmallows did.

How much corn syrup, modified food starch, etc. were in the marshmallows of 1951?

I suppose I didn't need to worry too much though, because if marshmallows don't melt when people want to make s'mores and rice crispy bars, they would buy them.

Anyway, here are our ingredients for the day:

Should be easy as... well... pie.

So first thing we need to do is to make the graham cracker crust.  Graham crackers go in the food processor with the butter.

C'mon crackers, crush!

After I dispatched the reluctant graham crackers (Why won't you break down evenly?  Why is my life so hard?), I put the butter and crumb mixture into a pie plate.  I was a little concerned because there didn't seem to be enough butter and the mixture seemed pretty dry and crumbly.  There was also a lot of crumb mixture.  But we need to follow the recipe, so we'll do the best we can.  Sarah has much more experience with graham cracker crusts than I do, as she's been making me birthday cheesecakes for 9 years (best birthday tradition ever), so I didn't feel really confident about pressing the crust together.  I did seem to remember hearing something about pressing the crumbs into shape with a glass though, so I gave it a shot.

Though I'm no longer a Teamster, I'm proud to have been one.  Solidarity forever!

The crumbs were dry enough though, that this didn't work so well, so I improvised.

This worked reasonably well.

Into the oven the crust went, and though it was thick and crumbly, it looked pretty good.  

Look how clean our stove top is!  Let's pretend that this is how it looks all the time!

Dance Break

About this time, A Prairie Home Companion came on.  Though he is a Minnesota institution, I don't have a whole lot of time for Garrison Keillor nor that show.  So it was time to put some music on.  Because it was the start of spring training, and we're dreaming about spring, I decided to put some latin music on.  Putumayo is great stuff.

Sarah and I can dance like that, but we're self-conscious about it, so you'll have to take my word for it.

So now your instructions are to listen to the music while you read the remainder of this blog post.

The music immediately got the boys dancing and in their natural blurry state.

James Blurry Olson and Thomas Wigglemonkey Olson

GAME ON!

Unfortunately, I only had twenty big marshmallows, so I had to take some from the "trail mix" that Thomas had brought home from pre-school.  Fifteen mini marshmallows are the same as one big marshmallow, right?  Accuracy is of utmost importance here.  So we melt marshmallows with the milk and then add the chipped chocolate.

No, James, you can't have a taste.  It won't taste good, and we need all the flavor we can get.  Remember, we have evolved taste buds.

An oddly satisfying process.

Lastly, we pour, and then let the marshmallow mixture set in the refrigerator.

I totally did this without making a mess.

Yes, Sarah, you may have some lickins.

Lastly, after I had read all of the articles about the Twins in the newspaper, and after the boys had finished dancing and wore themselves out (for a few minutes at least), the pie finally set and I sprinkled some more graham cracker crumbs on top.

Da-daa!

Layers?  Strata?

Tasting and Reaction

My willing guinea pigs were Sarah and James.  James was particularly excited about the idea of marshmallow pie.

Chomp!

James – Yum!  It smells like marshmallows.

Sarah – What are you tasting?

James – Mostly the marshmallow, but a bit more the chocolate.

He then expressed confusion where the marshmallows are

Sarah – It kind of reminds me of a s'more.  It also kind of reminds me of those powdered hot chocolate mixes with the marshmallows in them.  It seems like a waste of a cup of whipped cream though.

Me – I think you said that before.

Sarah- *laughs*  Oh yeah, was that for the carrot mold salad?

Nope, it was the fruit salad.

Sarah – James, do you like the pie?

James – Yeah.

Sarah – What was your favorite pie?

James – This one.  This is the best pie I ever had.

Sarah – Is this better than the pie we had last fall with the eyeballs? [from the Pie-Off]

James – No.  Too silly.

Sarah – So this pie is serious?

James – This is my favorite pie.

Sarah – I think you should market this to Betty’s Pies.  They’re a North Shore tradition!

This is an inside joke on our part.  We like Betty's Pies about as much as we like A Prairie Home Companion.  If you want pie up on the north shore, go to the Rustic Inn Cafe instead.  

Me – It’s marshmallowy… and sweet… and kind of that’s about it.

Sarah – I think you’re right in that there is too much graham cracker crust.

Me – As crumbly as the crust was, it’s holding together relatively well.  But yeah, it is a little thick in places.

Sarah – It might be good with a more solid layer of melted chocolate on the bottom.  Especially since it separates a little, you’d have three separate layers.

Me – It needs more chocolate.  It seriously needs more chocolate.  I can actually taste the chocolate for once though, as opposed to some of the other recipes.  Instead of one square of chocolate though, I’d maybe use three or four squares.

Sarah – So this is something you’d make again?

Me – Probably not for us, but it’s not bad.

Sarah – So maybe a layer of chocolate on the bottom and a layer of chocolate on the top.

Me – It’s rather better than I expected.  Though there is far more generic sweet than flavor, it’s not bad at all.  I do have a pretty substantial pile of graham cracker crumbs left on my plate.

Sarah – It’s pretty sweet.  Maybe that’s where more unsweetened chocolate would help.

Me – Yeah, I think it’s a good thing this didn’t use sweetened chocolate.  That’d just be overload.  So on a scale of one to ten, where would you put this?

Sarah – On a scale of all pies?  Ever?  In existence?

Me – Sure.

Sarah – I mean, it’s not a pie that I’d specifically seek out to eat.  That said, it’s taking a lot of willpower to keep from eating and eating and eating it.

Me – I’d agree with that.

Sarah – I was just thinking of some of the Pie-Off pies, and it’s definitely better than some of those.

Me – That’s pretty high praise.  I don’t know that it’s so good that I would plan on making this for us again.  There are plenty of pies that I like more.

Sarah – Right.

James – Every time you make a pie now, we should have lots and lots of marshmallows. Marshmallow pie.  You should make more marshmallow pie.  Of all of the pie in the whole wide world, let’s have this one.

*he continues to chant, “Of all of the pies in the whole wide world, of all of the pies in the whole wide world…”  and then kind of skats to himself while working on his puzzle.

Me – I guess I’d give it a solid five.  It’s not bad, it’s not great.  I’d take a good fruit pie or a custard pie over this pretty much every time.

Sarah – I’d say four or five.

So there are some serious issues with the pie.  The flavor is very one-dimensional, that is sweet.  There is almost no chocolate flavor at all.  There is too much graham cracker crust that doesn't hold together particularly.  I think that Sarah is right in that it would benefit from a good layer of chocolate melted on the bottom, or perhaps a rich chocolate mousse.  But all that said, the pie isn't bad.  I can't say that I was particularly excited about making a marshmallow pie, but it was easily better than expected.  I'm not sure I would go and make it again, but James does think it is the best pie in the world, so we'll see.

Next time:  Norwegian Dishes!