If a Condiment is eaten alone, is it a Condiment?
Condiment Grrl, her husband, Mr. Mustard, and Baby Balsamic (that's not a bad name for a child, is it? Hmmm....) recently journeyed to the mountains for a idyllic soujourn. Friends of ours own a cabin (an amazing three-story cabin with a sunken tub and floor to ceiling windows that frame Mt. Index) and they invited us up for a night to celebrate a birthday. When we arrived, there was a deer on the edge of the meadow below the house, barely visible in the mist. Our intrepid hostess greeted us at the path and told us to be a bit quiet as there was a new-born deer in the grass and the deer we could see was the Mother Deer, who would protect her young with the ferocity with which I would protect Baby Balsamic. Or, for that matter, Balsamic vinegar.
Now, dear reader, don't fret that we then slaughtered the deer for a feast of roast venison rubbed with a pepper cherry marinade. We watched the deer in awe and joy; how magnificent is the natural world! Then we went inside and fell upon the venison sausage that we brought as an offering to the birthday boy. The venison sausage was a gift from a friend originally from Wisconsin whose family annually hunts, creates their own sausage and sends him culinary gifts to remember his boyhood. Having watched me fall upon this delicious venison sausage with glee and gusto many times, this friend will pass extra sausage onto us. And, this is a big confession, could eat this sausage without dipping it into anything, that's how much I like it. But sausage is sort of food combined with the condiments, ground up and squeezed into an intestinal casing.
Inside, our hostess also presented us with a bit of appetizer nosh: creamy goat cheese spread onto a slice of pumpernickel bread topped with Quince paste. The combination was tangy and filling, the bitter sweetness of the Quince balancing the ubiquitious gaminess of the goat cheese. And now we come to the title of the blog post: I didn't enjoy the Quince paste on its own. I only enjoyed it with the bread and cheese. Side fun fact: the word "marmalade" used to mean Quince jam, but it expanded its meaning. Not unlike the word "phat."
Now, many of you "normal" people out there probably feel that eating mustard on its own is weird. And I say to you, "Well. Whatever." But since the official definition of a condiment is a "a substance, such as a relish, vinegar, or spice, used to flavor or complement food," then Quince Paste is a condiment in the truest sense of the world. Unless I was very, very hungry, I wouldn't eat a spoonful of Quince paste. It's a bit too bitter and I've never been a huge fan of jams or jellys unless they had chipotle, garlic or mint in them. I have been known to take spoonfuls of mustard. So, when I do that, is the mustard a condiment? Or a food?
I pondered this question as I dipped pieces of the venison sausage into a mild roasted garlic mustard and watched the Mother Deer come back for her child. You know, I am just now realizing that the Quince paste would have been quite good spread on the sausage. A condiment on a condiment on a condiment. It's like a edible Escher painting.
Mustard is PHAT,
Condiment Grrl
Now, dear reader, don't fret that we then slaughtered the deer for a feast of roast venison rubbed with a pepper cherry marinade. We watched the deer in awe and joy; how magnificent is the natural world! Then we went inside and fell upon the venison sausage that we brought as an offering to the birthday boy. The venison sausage was a gift from a friend originally from Wisconsin whose family annually hunts, creates their own sausage and sends him culinary gifts to remember his boyhood. Having watched me fall upon this delicious venison sausage with glee and gusto many times, this friend will pass extra sausage onto us. And, this is a big confession, could eat this sausage without dipping it into anything, that's how much I like it. But sausage is sort of food combined with the condiments, ground up and squeezed into an intestinal casing.
Inside, our hostess also presented us with a bit of appetizer nosh: creamy goat cheese spread onto a slice of pumpernickel bread topped with Quince paste. The combination was tangy and filling, the bitter sweetness of the Quince balancing the ubiquitious gaminess of the goat cheese. And now we come to the title of the blog post: I didn't enjoy the Quince paste on its own. I only enjoyed it with the bread and cheese. Side fun fact: the word "marmalade" used to mean Quince jam, but it expanded its meaning. Not unlike the word "phat."
Now, many of you "normal" people out there probably feel that eating mustard on its own is weird. And I say to you, "Well. Whatever." But since the official definition of a condiment is a "a substance, such as a relish, vinegar, or spice, used to flavor or complement food," then Quince Paste is a condiment in the truest sense of the world. Unless I was very, very hungry, I wouldn't eat a spoonful of Quince paste. It's a bit too bitter and I've never been a huge fan of jams or jellys unless they had chipotle, garlic or mint in them. I have been known to take spoonfuls of mustard. So, when I do that, is the mustard a condiment? Or a food?
I pondered this question as I dipped pieces of the venison sausage into a mild roasted garlic mustard and watched the Mother Deer come back for her child. You know, I am just now realizing that the Quince paste would have been quite good spread on the sausage. A condiment on a condiment on a condiment. It's like a edible Escher painting.
Mustard is PHAT,
Condiment Grrl
posted by CondimentGrrl at 3:31 PM
1 Comments:
I used to have a recipe for a Rhubarb-Mango chutney (alas, how I miss my long-lost copy of "The Northwest Palette"!) that I would occasionally consume by the spoonful, it was that good. But, that's the only bona-fide condiment I can think of that I would misuse in such a delicious way.
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