ASPARAGUS
The food I like?
The dishes I really crave?
The things off which I would dine every day of my life?
I never see them. I never have them.
Why?
Because Mrs. Bok says there is not a digestible dish amongst them.
But I often think of them,—wistfully, oh, so wistfully!
Here they are:
- Soft-shell crabs, done in hot olive oil; or hard-shell crabs; deviled.
- Lobster with mayonnaise.
- Filet Mignon; panned in brown butter.
- Veal loaf.
- Roast pork tenderloin.
- Fried eels.
- Sausages; never had enough; ditto scrapple!
- Currants with a hot roll lightly wound through them.
- Hot fresh doughnuts.
- French pancakes of a thinness like unto gauze.
- Strong black coffee.
- Chocolate meringue glacé.
But as I never had the good fortune to know the above foods at first hand, I cannot well give you the recipes for them.
Perhaps you might like to know my favorite way of serving asparagus in my home, Dutch fashion, as I remember it in my native land of The Netherlands.
The asparagus bunches are placed in a double boiler upright, the tips being above the water, and thus cooked by steam. Passed at table, with the asparagus, is hard-boiled egg, put through a ricer, a small quantity of finely ground nutmeg and a dish of hot, melted butter. It always has to be explained to guests, but once the introduction is over the convert is made!