The Paprika Piece or How I Learned to Cook in Self Defense

Paprika is kind of a joke, especially with Syd and Mirm. They know if they happen to have a tin hanging around the kitchen or even suggest it- I will fall into a fugue state and foam at the mouth. That's because Syd and Mirm have known me long enough to remember my mom, and her house, and her cooking. But as ever, I digress- I will try and start closer to the beginning of things.

I had a fine culinary history up until the time my father married my stepmother. My dad was a cook in the Merchant Marines and aside from a tendency to cook in very large quantities, made everything from English Muffin Pizzas to Chicken Cacciatore incredibly well. My grandfather was a baker in his home town in Poland and baked gorgeous challahs each Friday morning. As survivors of the holocaust my grandparents had long abandoned their faith or any sort of formal religious observance, and their lingering parsimony meant that we ate Ann Page white bread the rest of the week. Friday nights.. well, for whatever their reasons, we still had that tradition, and it seemed like a holiday each week to get a thick slice of eggy yellow bread with the crisp reddish brown crust and topping of mon (poppy seeds). My grandmother made blintzes from scratch and gallons of blueberry jam from our trips to the Catskills for the summer. In that house, it was never a question- everything on the table, while perhaps plain and peasant in origin, would be delicious. Then my dad fell in love.

Nina was nothing like any woman I'd ever met. My grandmother's housedresses went straight to the Smithsonian upon her demise and for her make-up was a fine coating of vaseline to protect her skin. Sixteen years my father's junior Nina wore spike heels, teased her hair into a "pageboy" and wore lipstick. She moved into our house in 1969 and brought with her pink spiky curlers, above the knee suits and a new modern housewife attitude. This included an an addiction to convenience food cooking. Suddenly things like Banquet frozen salmon croquettes with convenient white sauce in a packet and Chow Mein (a three-can extravaganza- 1 can La Choy Chinese Vegetables, 1 can La Choy Chop Suey and 1 can La Choy Chinese Noodles, served on a hamburger bun- as kids we swore it looked like something expelled from your nose at high speed). Sometimes my mom kept it simple- but the plain meats were the worst- you could be momentarily distracted by novel, albeit bastardized versions of foreign cuisines from France or China, but when it came to the simpler foods my mom covered everything from poultry to veal to devilled eggs with paprika. For me the challenge was to overcome the gag reflex long enough to stave off hunger pangs and avoid my father's "don't hurt Nina's feelings" look. My dad was happy for the first time in his life and I didn't truly want to spoil it- though it seemed from time to time in the tradition of stepfamilies and the testing of boundaries- I tried. I just couldn't deal with the red stuff. It looked to me like food that had been rolled in the dust of Mars before landing on my plate.

What is Paprika? Wikipedia defines it as a spice and says it is a culinary seasoning made from the grinding of dried sweet red bell peppers (Capsicum annuum). In many European countries the name paprika also refers to bell peppers generally. The seasoning is used in many cuisines to add colour and flavour to dishes.

To me it tastes like the tin rusted and they are selling the flakes- every McCormick's can of paprika I ever saw shook out a substance that looked exactly like dried blood. Even at nine years of age I recognized it- I'd scraped quite a few knees by that time- some were even my own.

In the 60's paprika was touted in the new full color cookbooks and recipe cards as a miracle spice that would add color to meats... no one seemed to want to wait until food browned on its own in the oven. I still cannot figure out how my mom managed to have meat arrive at the table pale under its crust of the dreaded pepper powder and yet strangely deprived of any of its natural juices. We could not have a fan blowing over our kitchen table when a turkey was carved- the breast meat with blow away once the skin was removed. It was that dry. My mom tried- REALLY tried. I recognize that now. She could have just let my dad cook. We could have had TV dinners- we LOVED TV dinners. After my mom's experiment with health food especially. She had heard that brown rice was healthy- so she added cinnamon to white rice until a healthy brown color was achieved. It seemed a very small inconvenience to have the Swanson's apple cobbler mixed with peas and carrots after that particular culinary exploration. Food by Nina was cooked on three settings; burned, hopelessly mushy or raw. Bless my dad. he never said a word. Everyone said how good my stepmom was for him- he had dropped so much weight since the wedding.

After my dad died my mom lost her zest in the kitchen- she just didn't really have the energy to enter and re-enter the place my dad had spent so many hours "giving mom (and us) a break" by making dinner, or breakfast. Or just occupying the room with his big voice and slap happy cooking style. I am just realizing as I write this that I caught a lot of that from my dad- when you have a confidence in your ability to cook- it becomes fun- and it shows in the food- and the room not only smells better- it feels better, it feels full of love. My mom missed the love, I guess we all did. We just processed it in different ways. I began cooking at 13, under the auspices of giving my mom a break as well. I learned to make potato salad, and stews, and spaghetti and eventually to baking cakes, learning to stir fry and eschewing the La Choy cans languishing at the back of the cabinet. The family happily ate what I made and even learned not to reach for the ketchup before tasting. To this day if someone reaches for the salt or pepper before tasting something I have cooked, I stiffen, hopefully not so visibly on the outside from the lack of culinary trust. Perhaps my mom's cooking was not the only mom's that occasionally needed a little pick-me-up to be palatable.

My mom still believed in paprika, and even into my late teens insisted that the family turkey had to be covered in the poisonous powder to brown properly. One year I told her I would make the turkey. I rose at 5 am and took my dad's stained white apron, carefully preserved, from the drawer and pulled his tattered-red checked kitchen towel through the apron strings just like my he'd done. I prepared the bird and made the stuffing from memory- I had no cookbooks back then- my dad didn't use them and my mom's research came from manufacturer's instructions printed on the back of cans and bags. I remember opening the box of Bell's Seasoning and the smell of that mix of rosemary, and sage and so many other spices made me feel my dad was standing right behind me.

I monitored the bird's progress throughout the day. Helped my mom burn the sweet potatoes- some holiday traditions would never die, freed the cranberry sauce from its can and sliced it, and opened cans of green beans and took the brown and serve rolls and placed them on a pan to be cooked when the bird came out of the oven. After three and a half hours of peeking and basting the heavenly smells of butter and roasting bird were beginning to fill the room I felt it was time to remove the tin foil tent and let the bird brown. I knew from watching my father that I had about a half an hour before it would be ready to remove from the oven and went upstairs to take a shower. When I came downstairs the turkey was on the table covered in foil to keep it warm and the rolls had been placed in the oven. I began bringing dishes to the dining room table and prepared to place my masterpiece on its platter. As I lifted the foil the steam brought an all too familiar scent to my nostrils. It smelled like...oxidation. My mom had covered the bird stem to stern in paprika. "Now isn't that better?" she said, smiling.

I ate at Burger King that night. I never cooked at my mother's house again.

For years after when the holidays rolled around I cooked at the homes of friends and continued wowing the crowds with my sage and onion rolls and butternut squash and leek soup. I developed my own Thanksgiving traditions- I listen to Alice's restaurant while I cook and watch the Macy's parade on TV with the sound off. I cook that meal alone, always, asking guests to come in the afternoon when all but the table setting is done. It's all really easy and a joy for me. Perhaps the solitary method by which I cook has something to do with a deep-seated fear someone will sneak in a can of paprika. Mostly I reflect and commune with my dad. Lately I have begun to recognise that by being a truly adventurous cook and an abysmally bad one, I was as inspired by my stepmother as my dad. Though he got all the credit.

Nina. Though I think you might be maybe more than a little offended, I hope you will understand, and appreciate how important what you taught me was. Thanks for the paprika.

:) X