Omelet wrote:
> Joseph Littleshoes wrote:
>
>
>>>Alternately, I'll nuke them and serve them steamed, or pressure cook
>>>them and serve them mashed.
>>
>>That's about the only reason i have for using the pressure cooker, small
>>reds, under pressure for a few minutes and then lightly salt & serve.
>
>
> Try adding a bit of rosemary to that.

ummmm....i think not. Not even butter or garlic, just fresh out of the
PC (Pressure Cooker with a bit of salt.

Very fresh, young, new red potatoes not peeled & just cooked, served
with a pinch of salt. As a delightful flavor its in my top 10 list of.
Very close to the top. Its not my single most favorite flavor only
because i don't have any one favorite flavor, i make no favorites among
my favorites. A fully ripe, even slightly over ripe strawberry freshly
plucked from its bush has got to be right up there with a steamed new
potato.

>
>
>>>I don't do a lot of baking so rarely serve them truly baked. (Been
>>>without a stove now for about 3 years so cook everything on hot plates,
>>>electric grill, microwave, or BBQ.)
>>>
>>>IMHO, coal BBQ baked are tastiest. <g>
>>
>>Stuck in the embers of a wood fire or in a fire pit dug in the sand on
>>the beach with sea food, potatoes & unschucked corn on the cob and
>>seaweed to steam it all with.
>
>
> Oh hush. ;-) That sounds lovely!

Its been a long time but in my youth such things were almost ordinary,
routine and to be expected.

Im trying to remember whether the corn & potatoes were on the bottom
next to the fire and the sea food over them? or the other way around.

I vaguely recall the fire pit being dug in the a.m. and a fire tended in
it for several hours before any food was put in. As i recall only when
the sea food began to arrive were layers of food put in and covered with
sea weed, i think veggies went in first and the sea food over them,
then more veggies & more sea food in layers.

But i was very young and more interested in the hugh boulders and
running around the seashore & dunes like a wild animal than i was
writing down a cooking technique.

I tried to duplicate it on my own in my early 20's but with very little
success. Im much better with a camp fire and will grill you up a nice
freshly caught trout and have potatoes in embers waiting along with mud
baked corn, but the coastal fire pits are really a group effort. It
takes a good 10 - 20 people to do it well.

The thing has to be tended and built up in some esoteric way i am not
familiar with over the space of many hours. Stones & Seaweed gathered
and even some of it 'aired' so its not too wet when you put it over the
fire. Iirc some of my relatives would put in wood they had specifically
brought to use in the pit. In very large pits boards or slabs of wood
would be used for support in the fire pit. And i seem to recall fir
boughs being put in, but i may be getting that memory mixd up with a
funeral

And once the catch is in, the sea food arrives, sometime in the early
after noon as i recall, only then does the actual cooking start. And
then its cooked in levels & stages so it can be served in those varying
stages ..... which iirc after a few hours or so, the whole thing is done
and one is down to the largest of the whole fish that might have been
cooked, after eating through any other, smaller fish, crustaceans &
veggies that went in at varying stages above them.

Of course all served with all the proper accompaniments, i can remember
cases of beer being unloaded, hugh loaves of bread, lots of fruits
(family orchards) and many 'side dishes' lovingly prepared. My mothers
breads and jams were often commented upon as particularly good and that
in the days of home made condiments.

Of course these types of meals i attended as a child & youth were a
miniature gathering of the clans. Several families, all related would
gather at an area of the coast one of them owned and have this type of
family gathering. This went on for many years interspersed with the
occasional gathering at other family homes in other areas.

Several divorces and contested wills later and by the time i was 19 i
was out of there! And, metaphorically, have never been back.

The immediate family has shifted from a coastal area to the American
southwest and i suppose i will eventually move there myself, i just wish
i were fonder of a barren desert BBQ
--
Joseph Littleshoes