Quotes from the texts in relationship to the meal:
“Charlotte introduced me to the high art of cooking on an alcohol burner. She would cook three-course meals on it; it didn’t take me long to catch on and we gave the best dinner parties in the hotel.” (Smart-Grosvenor 55)

“Kali used to go shopping each day for us and she did a beautiful job. One day I sent her for a demi-baguette and she came back with a half loaf of pain de campagne and two pain au chocolat. She said they didn’t have any more baguettes and so she got what she could with the money she had.” (Smart-Grosvenor 64)

“We always had lots of company on Rue des Ursulines. One day Pat and Ted and Dave came and all the stores were closed. We only had a couple of thin slices of ham and a few potatoes and eggs in the house so I made something that I called Omelette Des Ursulines.”(Smart-Grosvenor 64)

 

Root Vegetable Hash: Throughout the text there is an underlying theme or making due with what you have, whether it be limited money or ingredients. Spring time is a transitional time for farmers and ag workers. I’ve heard March, April and May as the hunger months. A time when all the stores of food that the farmers have saved for times when the fields are not producing much are all but used up. These times call for ingenuity, and the ability to make do with what you have. The kale rabe you are eating came from kale plants that had overwintered in the field, and harvested before they were mowed down. Many people overlook rabe, but to a resourceful person it’s a meal. Similarly, root veggies have a longer storage life than other veggies, many times they’re the last morsels of food left over from the previous seasons harvest. As you eat the root vegetable hash with kale rabe and the mixed spring salad, please consider how you’ve managed to feed yourself in hard times. What resourcefulness have you found yourself resorting to in times where you may not have had enough money to buy the ingredients you wished to have, or times when you haven’t had the proper space to prepare a meal? How do you feed yourself? How do you stretch out your money, while at the same time providing your body with the energy and nutrition it needs to get you through the day? Do you ever go without eating? Do you ever go to sleep hungry because you lack the means for a proper meal? How many of the ingredients/recipes we use on a regular basis have their roots in poor-agrarian communities?

I thought this meal was incredibly beautiful, and it was also very nice to be able to eat the meal outside in the sunshine. We unfortunately had a power outage in the middle of the two students cooking the meal, but we were still able to eat a delicious homemade bread along with a colorful salad with plentiful mixed greens, and due to the power outage, this was also one of the reasons why we ate our meal outside, but the atmosphere worked well. After a little while, the vegetables finished cooking, and later the rice also finished and we continue to feast during the rest of class on all the foods brought to the table.