To my sister, the marjoram in the garden of my life.
Stories We Tell
Food tastes delicious, in large part because of the stories we tell ourselves about it. When I invent a new recipes, I am simply tugging on multiple story lines and blending them together in a novel way. The stories may come from childhood memories, travel experiences, books or family traditions, but I feel that they are no less important ingredients than the spices and broths I choose to cook with.
This was no less true when I got together with my sister to cook a themed dinner together (see Part I here), except that this time, many of the story lines found new iterations not only implicitly, in the dishes that made their way to the table, but also explicitly, through our banter and conversations.
One particular story goes a bit like this:
Once upon a time, two teenagers, left to their own devices, decided to join forces to make the kind of dinner that required more effort than pressing buttons on a microwave. Maybe they enjoyed cooking, or maybe they simply had nothing better to do. The story doesn’t specify. Likely, their father was away on a business trip, eating food that put those frozen muffins and taquitos to shame, and had left a few twenties in the jar near the microwave. In any case, the sisters browsed the internet for a recipe that sounded summery and not-too-highfalutin. They settled on a recipe for a pasta salad with tomatoes, feta and a marjoram vinaigrette. Marjoram was unknown territory, but it looked pretty in the picture, and if it was in the recipe, it must also be in the supermarket, or at least a supermarket. Somewhere.
At dinnertime, equipped with two spoons and a large bowl of their homemade pasta salad, the girls found a suitable log on the beach and gobbled down their dinner, marveling at how delicious something so simple could taste as they listened to the lapping waves. The end. Well, not really.
The Great Marjoram Hunt
So enchanted were we with our creation that we would forever talk about it in glowing terms, supplemented by the guttural exclamations that accompany particularly poignant sensory memories. The sound of impending rain on a summer’s day and the sound of it tinkling against a tarp when cozied up in our sleeping bags. Sunset from Isla del Sol and Sunrise from Machu Picchu. Crêpes bretonnes in Montparnasse and glaces on the Riviera.
Oh. And that orzo salad we made as bored teenagers forced to feed ourselves when our parents were absent. OH MON DIEU, OUI.
We talked about that salad, occasionally, and craved it, often. But when we set out to make it for a second time, we found to our bafflement that the first supermarket we visited did not carry our coveted herb, nor indeed did the subsequent two.
Fresh marjoram was not, as we had presumed, something we could take for granted, and our fresh and easy summer salad became impossibly difficult. The caveat in fresh and easy is that fresh is often not easy… to procure. To the urban cook and supermarket forager, you are working within the confines, not as much of the vagaries of the seasons, but of the whims of the supermarket. Fresh marjoram was not regularly on offer, or presumably, much in demand, in the city of Victoria. Nevertheless, we would crisscross the city, looking for it, often in vain.
It became an entrenched habit to scrutinize the displays of packaged fresh herbs whenever we were grocery shopping , and the rare plastic container of marjoram became a treasure, triumphantly toted home and transformed into an impromptu pasta salad soiree, no matter the season or temperature.
Backyard Epiphany
After many frustrating attempts to secure fresh shiso leaves for a Japanese recipe and supermarket dilemmas of whether or not to buy a whole bundle of fresh thyme when one sprig would be enough, I had a moment of epiphany. Ok–it wasn’t exactly an epiphany, but more like a seed in the back of my mind that gradually grew, in tandem with the blossoming of spring. Why not liberate myself from the whims of the supermarket, and learn to live instead with the slightly more predictable vagaries of the seasons. In other words, why not grow my own herbs? For at least half of the year I would have all the fresh herbs I desired (within reason), whenever I needed them, in whatever quantity, at not cost, just a few steps away from my kitchen…
Now, I don’t have to hunt for marjoram. Nor shiso or thyme. I only have to water them once or twice a week. I wish I’d thought of that before, but then again, if marjoram had always been easily available on demand, would my sister and I have enjoyed today’s salad as much we did?–with laughter, mutually intelligible moans, and a deep sense of satisfaction?
I certainly wouldn’t be telling this story.
No-Pasta Salad
Today’s salad is directly inspired from our memory of the orzo salad we made together as teenagers. The recipe bears little resemblance to the original, but the essential flavour components have been retained. As soon as we put the first bites to our tongue, sensory memories flooded back in and our eyes flashed with recognition. The soapy, floral taste of the marjoram and lemon, the juiciness of the tomatoes, the tang of the goat cheese. It was perfect. It was better. It was the taste of a memory; of a pleasure, rekindled and perpetuated. Santé!
Joëlle
Serves 4
Lemon and marjoram work beautifully together to create a sweet and tangy dressing with floral and woodsy undertones, to showcase fresh summer produce. Soft and delicate chèvre provides creaminess and contrast. Beautiful.
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Ingredients
- 4 cups arugula
- 12 green beans
- 12 yellow beans
- 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/2 cup kalamata olives
- 1 shallot, minced
- 2 tsp fresh marjoram leaves, finely chopped
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 1 Lemon, zest and juice
- Black Pepper, freshly ground, to taste
- Olive Oil
- 200g chèvre
- Maldon Sea Salt
- Pine nuts, toasted
Instructions
- Steam beans for 2 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Mix together all the vinaigrette ingredients except the olive oil. Set aside.
- Prepare the rest of the ingredients, adding the beans, tomatoes and olives to a mixing bowl.
- Whisk the olive oil into the vinaigrette. Pour into the mixing bowl, and toss to cover the vegetables.
- Just before serving, make a bed of arugula at the bottom of a serving dish, pour the marinated vegetables on top, and garnish with crumbled chèvre, pine nuts and Maldon salt.
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Inspiration
Bon Appétit. (2003, June). Orzo, Feta, and Tomato Salad with Marjoram Vinaigrette. Retrieved July 29, 2019, from https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/orzo-feta-and-tomato-salad-with-marjoram-vinaigrette-108235
2 comments
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I love this story! Wonderful to picture you and your sister sharing memories over a simple salad....
Best to you both,
Kim
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Thank you so much!
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