Food taboos

This is a sensitive subject, one that interests me deeply, as a would be anthropologist, but one that can get you into a LOT of trouble, in so many ways.
First, there's the issue of what exactly is a "taboo?" I THOUGHT I could consider it something that an organized body that someone belongs to forbids. But has that become too restrictive a definition? Yes, there are the kosher rules, for example, about not combining meat and dairy. And there's another one about not eating pork. Muslims have their food taboos, so do Hindus. Do Catholics? Hmmmm. That's where we start getting into these issues of what is and isn't a taboo. I can't think of anything that I was told was an absolute NO (except of course human flesh, and that's not an inconsequential exclusion). But then we get into things that people won't eat, for whatever reason. There are folks who won't drink alcohol, for example, for various good reasons. Is that a taboo? I mean, if they CHOOSE not to drink it, or if for health reasons they can't metabolize it, is it a taboo? How about vegetarians? Or vegans? When does a personal point of view become so strong that it becomes a verifiable taboo?

I've been thinking about this because I've been thinking a lot about my friend Ben. I know few people who respect food as a whole as much as Ben does. He knows a lot. More than I did when I was his age ( a LONG time ago....). And he laughs about how he's not religious but he holds onto certain things and won't eat them. And he told me that, on a very basic level, his soul shudders , NOT at the thought of other people eating these things, but at HIM eating them.

It's a very open mind that says "do what you want, it's not for me" and leaves it at that. And it makes me think very hard about a smart guy who feels so strongly about these things that he JUST CAN'T. I come away with more than curiosity. I come away with a need - that will go unfulfilled, becasue these things CANNOT be explained - to understand how one comes to and keeps such a strong position.

Anyway, this is all by way of something that I want to urge everyone to keep in mind when you're cooking for your friends: respect them. Yes, you will have "difficult" friends who will eat chicken, but only if it's organic, or who will eat walnuts in a salad, but won't eat them in a cake, and they will drive you crazy with their pettiness. But when you have a friend who says politely
"I don't eat...." it really is never your place to ask "well, why not? " If s/he wants to tell you, fine. But if not, don't push.

This weekend I'm cooking food for a dinner party, and the featured main course is a pork roast cooked in milk. It's a compromise dish: one guest didn't eat lamb (and I was planning on leg of lamb), and another guest didn't eat tomato soup (my original first course), and I just had to throw out the first menu completely and redo it. Yes, I was frustrated. VERY frustrated. But if you love your friends, then you take a deep breath and realize it's not about you. So IF Ben were coming over, and IF the guy who doesn't eat lamb were still coming over, I'd move onto something else. That's what friends do. There are more than 60,000 recipes in the canon of Italian cooking, surely you can find something. And so it goes.

But anyway, Ben ISN'T coming over, so we're having this absolutely succulent dish, which is so easy to make it isn't funny. "Maiale al latte" is what it's called in Italian. When I learned it ala Marcella Hazan, I did it on the stovetop. Very nice, beautiful dish, but a pain in the neck. Now, I do it in the oven. There are lots of options for making it, and I'll lay them out for you, if you can eat it. If you can't then make something else. There's so much that you can cook, whether it's a taboo, a dislike, whatever, leave it alone.

You need a pork shoulder roast for this - a big one. Five pounds is about the minimum size. You can have it boned and tied, but I really like it better with the bone in it, and not tied. I think there's more flavor, because there's more exposure of the meat to the other ingredients, and I think that a bone adds flavor always. You'll also need about 1/4 cup of olive oil, some salt, and three cups of whole milk. Optionally, you may want half a cup of a good white wine, like a sauvignon blanc or a non woody chardonnay, and a handful of spices. Rosemary is good, so are juniper berries . Bay is mighty fine, and so is thyme. Just don't use them all.

Ok, turn your oven on to 350, and get it preheated while you do the rest. Pat your pork roast dry, and salt it well (you know, when you salt meat before you put it in a pan, be generous. You're going to lose a lot of it in moving it). Get your olive oil hot in a pot that is big and heavy. Brown the meat thoroughly on all sides. Don't skimp on this step. In fact, don't EVER skimp on the browning portion of cooking meat. You'll never regret the extra time. When the meat is finished browning, drain off as much of the fat as you can. Add your spices, if you're using them (and I almost never use anything but a few juniper berries), then pour in three cups of the milk, and if you're using it half a cup of wine (I don't use it). Cover the pot tightly, and move it into the oven. You're going to let this go for about three hours. Every 3/4 of an hour or so, if you remember, go in and turn the meat with some tongs.

After three hours or so, the milk will have cooked into what some people feel is a disgusting mess, and others like myself think is one of the more amazing things in cooking. The liquids in the milk will have penetrated the meat, and the solids, left behind, will have curdled in the heat. Then they brown from the heat.

If you're a true Italian, what you do is take out the meat and cut it into slices after it's rested for about twenty minutes, and then you gently stir that sauce and break up the milk curds. You pour that all over the meat and serve it forth, preferably with some potatoes and some green vegetables. But if you get the skeeves when you see what looks like curdled milk (because it is curdled milk), then strain it out of the sauce. You can let it sit so that the rendered fat separates out, but again, you don't have to. And then use that.

If you think you're going to want to strain the sauce, I would go with more spices to get more flavor into the dish.

You'll have leftovers unless you're cooking for a lot of people, and this makes a truly great sandwich.

So, sorry Ben, I understand that this is one you'll pass, but I got others. We'll eat again soon.