About peasant cooking

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More tips & insights (continued)

Be a cuisine explorer

I recommend that you search out peasant dishes on your next trip abroad. It's an excellent way to become experience the rural way of life.

How to meat peasant cooks.

One of my methods is to ask a friend or acquaintance who lives in the country I am visiting to arrange a trip to the home of a skilled peasant cook (not all peasants are good cooks, mind you).

Another method is to hop in a car, drive through the dirt roads of the countryside, make inquiries, and leave fate to serendipity. It works most of the time, at least.

If I can't rent or borrow a car, I try to find a local cab driver who is related to a great peasant cook. I then do my best to negotiate a fair rate for him to drive me to his relative's home. The trip turns out to be a one-day paid vacation for the driver to visit his relatives in the country and a splendid opportunity for me to learn more about peasant cooking.

Express a genuine interest
in someone's food

This is one of the quickest ways to win a heart and help from a peasant cook. Take Spain, for instance. If you go to the hinterland and tell the typical peasant that you enjoy reading the works of the Spanish author Juan Valera, you won't arouse his interest. If, on the other hand, you tell him that you enjoy one of the peasant dishes of his region, his eyes will gleam.

Ask a restaurant that serves peasant dishes for a recipe?

Your chances of learning how to cook a peasant dish authentically from a restaurant recipe are skimpy. Anyone who has worked in in them, as I have, knows that a restaurant - if it is to pay its rent - usually cannot afford to take the time-consuming traditional steps that spell the difference between a passable and superb peasant dish.

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I hope you find this web page on peasant cooking useful

©2008 HQP / Hillman Quality Publications