What Exactly IS Hash?
This is a question whose answer you have all, undoubtedly, been dying to know. Well wallow in ignorance, no more! The definition of hash, according to Webster is
2hash n (1662) 1: chopped food; specif : chopped meat mixed with potatoes and browned 2 : a restatement of something that is already known 3 : a confused muddle
Hopefully the definition itself is not a hash for you educated folks, however, I myself had no clue what it was until fixing Texas Hash, pg 60. After said experience, I would have ventured a guess that hash is a medly of over-cooked meats and vegetables resulting in an amalgamous mixture of questionable taste and texture, and I wouldn't have been far off.
Actually, lest I do more harm than I intend to my hash, I should say that upon taking it out of the oven I was mildly disappointed. It tasted like a bland chili, and the texture was something like undercooked oatmeal. Little pieces of meat and veggies and rice hanging out together on one eating utensil. However, when I ate it later on that evening, it tasted like honey from the gods (possibly the fact that I was hungry made a tiny bit of a difference).
I picture hash as a quintessentially Mennonite dish: to enjoy it properly, I would have to sit down to a table with a hunk of ripe Swiss cheese, overcooked peas, homemade applesauce, freshly-made bread served with butter and jam, a jello-mold salad and at least 6 other people, and fill my plate to the brim with all the different dishes until all the juices run together in the middle and intermingle. And I would mop up all the extra grease from the hash (since the recipe didn't call to drain the meat) with my bread that was already soggy with butter, jam, and other food juices, and love it immensely. This is how my grandpa ate all his meals, when he was living at home and eating more than nursing-home food, and this is why when my grandma makes a small lunch she pulls out like 6 different sides from the refrigerator.
Sometimes when I'm cooking from MCC:FFR I think, "We've come a long way baby!" But other times I think, "What have we lost?"
2hash n (1662) 1: chopped food; specif : chopped meat mixed with potatoes and browned 2 : a restatement of something that is already known 3 : a confused muddle
Hopefully the definition itself is not a hash for you educated folks, however, I myself had no clue what it was until fixing Texas Hash, pg 60. After said experience, I would have ventured a guess that hash is a medly of over-cooked meats and vegetables resulting in an amalgamous mixture of questionable taste and texture, and I wouldn't have been far off.
Actually, lest I do more harm than I intend to my hash, I should say that upon taking it out of the oven I was mildly disappointed. It tasted like a bland chili, and the texture was something like undercooked oatmeal. Little pieces of meat and veggies and rice hanging out together on one eating utensil. However, when I ate it later on that evening, it tasted like honey from the gods (possibly the fact that I was hungry made a tiny bit of a difference).
I picture hash as a quintessentially Mennonite dish: to enjoy it properly, I would have to sit down to a table with a hunk of ripe Swiss cheese, overcooked peas, homemade applesauce, freshly-made bread served with butter and jam, a jello-mold salad and at least 6 other people, and fill my plate to the brim with all the different dishes until all the juices run together in the middle and intermingle. And I would mop up all the extra grease from the hash (since the recipe didn't call to drain the meat) with my bread that was already soggy with butter, jam, and other food juices, and love it immensely. This is how my grandpa ate all his meals, when he was living at home and eating more than nursing-home food, and this is why when my grandma makes a small lunch she pulls out like 6 different sides from the refrigerator.
Sometimes when I'm cooking from MCC:FFR I think, "We've come a long way baby!" But other times I think, "What have we lost?"
posted by A Knutson at 9:12 AM
2 Comments:
V. Cool project. It would be fab' if ya'll could post some of the recipes that you're discussing on the blog, on the blog :-)
never heard of it. sorry!
Post a Comment
<< Home