First off, I need to make this clear: I wasn't raised on a farm.
I also didn't walk 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow to school. It was seven miles, tops. And sometimes it rained. Which was good, because, apparently, wolves don't like rain.
But back to the farm thing. No, I was not raised on one. But thanks to my family's agricultural background and my parents' insistence that my brother and I function as indentured servants for at least part of our summers, I did spend a reasonable amount of time on one.
Enough, at least, that when I hear the phrase "farm to table," well, it resonates.
Yes, I know, I've discussed this before. But sometimes, experiences bear repeating. Especially when something that started off as a hippy, dippy kind of fad suddenly becomes a "thing."
More history here. When I was younger and actually doing what passes for work on what at the time passed for the ranch/farm/sunbaked and windswept patch of shrub and stickers my grandmother owned in the not-particularly-good part of Lawton, Okla., (all right, let me beat you to it: "what, there's a good part?"), I knew what farm to table meant.
It meant, typically, that you were about to eat something you had fed that morning.
Today, of course, it's a new dining experience highlighted by the reliance of the chef on products organically grown or produced locally and often prepared with an eye toward preserving and reflecting an area's culinary heritage and traditions.
All of which sounds great. And none of which explains why the Lovely Mrs. Smith and I found ourselves in a restaurant in Tulsa's Blue Dome district, staring at a menu like it was the Rune Stone.
For me, that was not a particularly new experience. After all, I'm still pretty sure there is actual pork in pork skins. But when an establishment can win at "Stump the Patron" with the Lovely Mrs. Smith, it's possible, just possible they're just making some of this stuff up.
In fact, at one point we created our own fun party game, "Food/Not a Food." The point of it was to Google various ingredients on the menu and determine if each was actually something a person would eat, or if whomever was writing the menu just spilled a Scrabble board and decided to go with it.
You scoff? OK, without looking it up, exactly what is fenugreek? I went with a Star Wars character. The Lovely Mrs. Smith thought it was someone of Adriatic descent who likes to have a good time. Turns out it's a plant that smells sweet and is a mainstay in Indian cuisine.
I kind of liked our answers better.
Now, under normal circumstances (or at least as normal as the circumstances that would find me in an Indian restaurant would be), seeing a little fenugreek on the menu wouldn't seem unusual (OK, that's a total lie. I've written the word twice now and I still can't believe something named that even exists.).
What is a bit of a surprise to someone with my background is it's on enough farms in Oklahoma that you can even bring it to a table. Because, you know, no one likes frozen fenugreek (seriously, that's a word? Really?).
I'm pretty sure I didn't see any fenugreek when I was hoeing that stupid garden. Not that I'd know what it looked like. Maybe it was hiding behind the collard greens, along with the broccoli raab and the harissa (all featured on the menu and none recognizable to me).Or maybe I was spending too much time looking out for snakes (not featured on the menu, at least as far as I can tell).
So while I don't remember any of this stuff, I am willing to accept that Oklahoma farms may actually have become a little worldlier. However, I am curious as to exactly where in the Sooner State they're getting the squid ink for the Squid Ink Pasta.
I'm going to guess out in the Panhandle. Seems like the kind of thing they'd do out there.
The good news is, wherever they get it, apparently they don't have to get much of it. Our waitress said they don't use a lot, which I can certainly understand. I mean, Mom always said there was a fine line between just enough squid ink and too much.
Surprisingly (well, not as surprising as the fact that someone would actually come up with the idea to cook with squid ink, but very close) and despite the fact the menu tended to over-share when it came to ingredients, the food was actually quite good.
So, our dinner may have highlighted for me the valuable lesson that, whether it's farm cooking or squid ink, you've got to realize the world has changed, and it's not such a bad idea to try new, potentially odd-sounding things.
And about walking to school: I did it for exactly two school years while we lived in Puerto Rico. It's about 85 degrees year-round, the school was four blocks from my house, and at least three of those blocks ran parallel to the ocean, where we could see whales swimming by. So, one more thing that wasn't all that bad.
Don't recall seeing the squid farm, though.
Commentary on 06/12/2015