I have a particular affection for plebian dishes.
"Peasant food," is how Hubby refers to these dishes; in any culture, in any cuisine, it's pure and simple cooking, workhorse dishes meant to warm a tummy.
In Vietnamese cooking, I have a plethora of these favorites, the most favored of which is sweet rice with Chinese sausage or with garlic-ginger steamed chicken. In French cuisine it's gratin. For Italian, few things please me more than a rustic meat sauce with pasta.
I've been eating a lot of pasta recently -- when last I ate this much pasta, I was in grad school, relatively poor and on the verge of scurvy from carbo loading. Time does heal all wounds, even the culinary ones.
Hubby makes a great meat sauce. Lots of meat, lots of garlic, chunky tomatos, a good paste, parsley, basil, oregano and wine. The first time he made it, I was blown away by the flavors -- I later realized why: a $40 bottle of wine went into making it. Really it's true: never use a cheap wine with which to cook.
It's the sort of dish that requires no accoutrements; no decorative sprinkles of parsley or excessively grated parmigiano, though both are great.
No, if I'm to eat peasant food, I think the dish should be honest: plain Jane and perfect.
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