Paper Chef #11 Start - Favorite Fall Foods

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our and a half billion years ago, so we're told, a Mars-sized object slammed into the Earth, knocking it off-kilter, and, oh by the way, chucking enough stuff off the Earth to form the Moon. The tilt of the Earth caused by that event means that at some times in each year parts of the Earth receive sunlight at greater or lesser angles, and so the seasons were born, and, as day follows night, nearly all lifeforms on Earth evolved to some extent in response to this annual cycle.

Click HERE for Paper Chef rules and history.

Fast forward a few years to the start of the eleventh monthly Paper Chef competition (founded by Owen, of Tomatilla! ), where, with apologies to our Southern Hemisphere and Tropical Zone participants, we are smack-dab in the middle of Fall, the best season of the year -- and because we love Fall so much, this month's theme is Favorite Fall Foods!

Forget for a moment that we live in a Wal-mart world (and if you don't now you will soon) where foods aren't related to seasons, and go back with me to those days when our food came from the land around us and didn't travel more than a few miles to get to our tables. For temperate-zone residents, Fall was about the harvest, and about consumption of foods that had to be harvested but could not be preserved, and about the return to the table of preserved foods whose supply had been depleted in the year since the last harvest.

As the light goes golden and the trees turn, pumpkins lie plump in the fields, the pigs are ready for slaughter, game birds and animals are fatted for the coming winter and trees in the orchards bend with heavy fruit. Wild mushrooms cluster on the forest floor, nuts mature and fall, the tomato, grape and squash vines are studded with bigger and bigger fruits, sweet and flavorful from the maturation process, and the time has come for digging up carrots and parsnips and storing them in the root cellar. The smokehouse gears up to put by the year's bacon and ham, the kitchen air is heavy with the steam and aromas of home canning, and strings of drying fruit festoon the eaves.

Okay, I know that for most people reading this it's a fantasy of a bygone era, but living where I do, in Coastal Maine, where evidence of that lost way of life is still visible by the roadside, and some people still cling to the old ways, I can't help falling for it every year.  Cobbler, cooked apples, pork, squash, pumpkin and roasted late-harvest tomatoes suddenly clamber forward in my cooking, pushing aside all those summer pleasures that were at center-stage for months, and even though I'm not a hunter the idea of game meats appears in my thinking. Long simmered soups, roasted root vegetables and lovingly tended stews and roasts take over, and somehow the aroma of bread baking in the oven takes on a cozier, cheerier quality than it had only a few weeks before.

So let's get to the kitchen, celebrate Fall and enjoy the harvest! Please email your entries to me (include a permalink to the entry, your name, your blog name and your location) by noon Tuesday, October 11 (Pacific Time) -- we're allowing another day for the U.S. Columbus Day holiday -- subject of course to Owen's laxity about lateness, as discussed in the rules (see below).

Please put the words Paper Chef Entry in your email subject line so I won't miss anyone, and if possible write a few words in your post about what fall foods mean to you and why your entry is a Fall favorite. (For those of you in locations where it's not Fall right now, either make and write about a dish that's a favorite for you when it is Fall where you are, subject to availability of ingredients, of course, or present a seasonal dish of your locale, with some commentary to connect it to our theme of harvest and Fall.)

CLICK HERE for Owen's summary of the rules and history of the Paper Chef, notes about participation if you don't eat meat or have allergy problems, and the Notes On Judging for this version of Paper Chef.

Happy Cooking!

Comments

[Alanna]

Stephen - There's as much elegance in your prose as on your plates! What an inspiration for an already-inspired event. Alanna

[kevin]

Stephen,

"Fast forward a few year..."

This is a great ingredient mix.

[sarah]

omg - can i substitute something for the duck? i just can't eat donald and daffy!

[Chopper Dave]

I'd have to echo sarah. Duck is not something that we can easily find here on our island, and I don't want feel like I'm out of the running because of availability of ingredients.

[Chopper Dave]

I hate typos!! I meant to say the duck is something that we CAN'T find easily here. If it is available at all it would be at a local farm, and therefore prohibitively expensive.

[2-minute Noodle Cook]

What a beautiful post! Great ingredients list, so many options, 1 main dish or 3 courses? Peking duck perhaps? The first and last time I cooked duck, it was my "fall" from cooking success with a raw version of Martin Yan's 8-treasure duck! Well, here's my chance to return to grace or a lame excuse (Paper Chef #11) to ruin dinner again :). But someone else is cooking this time!

Sarah, how about chicken, tofu or even pumpkin for duck substitute?

[Stephen]

Okay, Sarah, okay Dave...to quote Owen's rules, which still apply: "It is also absolutely OK to substitute if you just cannot find an ingredient or if you or someone who will eat the dish has an allergy, or vegan/vegetarian issues - just try to substitute with something close to the original to remain in the spirit of the occasion." This also covers not wanting to eat the real version of a cartoon character. Owen suggests tofu skin or mushrooms if you want to go vegan with the duck substitution, or if you don't mind eating the real versions of Foghorn Leghorn or Chicken Little, there's always chicken. Or turkey. Or game hen. Anyway, the message is: substitutions are permitted, with an excuse.

[mrs D]

Hey Steven,

Actually we just figured out something we can do that involves something we have already that involves duck (was that vague enough for ya?).

I am aware of and appreciate Owen's guidelines, but I do think Dave raises a valid concern about being "in the running" when one has to substitute ingredients. I can't recall ever seeing a winner that used a substitute, but then I haven't gone back and searched entries to be certain.

[Owen]

Well, here's my 2cents. Since I don't get to judge very often, I'm not sure about if substitutes ahve or have not been winners, but as far as I am concerned, any kind of valid attempt to match the spirit of the occasion qualifies you full on for the rest of the occasion. I admit that if you made no attempt (say a PBJ - argument 'well all I had was bread, peanut butter and pear jelly' that'll get you nowhere. But tofu skins stuffed with toasted sesame seeds and caramelised pear slices in a ginger glaze (for a nut-allergic vegetarian) would lose you nothing and would keep you right in it.

Also, I hope people aren't only entering in the hope of winning. Have I spent years as a soccer coach teaching and teaching my kids that it is about playing, not winning, all in vain?!

I liked these ingresients by the way - the nut butter throws it for a little bit of a curve. I hope to have time to enter myself although duck may be a stretch for me, too.

[kevin]

Stephen,

The nut butter is a hell-of-a curve. But that's what makes this event so much fun. Besides, I think I've got it solved.[smirk]

[2-minute Noodle Cook]

The duck is definitely a bit rich at $16: ended up with oriental fermented duck liver sausages as the closest substitute. I am afraid my entry is going to be very late.