{"id":131864,"date":"2018-12-14T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T14:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=131864"},"modified":"2018-12-14T14:18:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T19:18:26","slug":"cooking-with-nescio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/14\/cooking-with-nescio\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking with Nescio"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Valerie Stivers\u2019s Eat Your Words series<\/a>, she cooks up recipes drawn from the works of various writers.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nescio<\/em> is Latin for \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d and was the pen name of a respectable Holland-Bombay Trading Company director and father of four publishing in Amsterdam between 1909 and 1942. The writer, whose real name was J.\u2009H.\u2009F. Gr\u00f6nloh (1882\u20131961), worked in an office by day and by night sparingly penned not-so-respectable short stories about artistic passion, upper-middle-class sexual longing, and the luminous vistas of his water-soaked city. His minuscule output (two books over forty years) is classic literature in the Netherlands but nearly unknown here. Amsterdam Stories <\/em>was translated into English for the first time in 2012 and published by NYRB Classics.<\/p>\n

The book is a series of interlocking stories about a gang of pals who want to be painters and how they fare over time. Some quickly give up the artistic dreams of their youth for the grind of making money. Others struggle longer against the inevitably conventional middle age. The one who \u201csucceeds\u201d in the art world is portrayed as a successful businessperson of a different stripe. Japi, a character introduced in the story \u201cThe Freeloader,\u201d is the true artist of the bunch but also antisocial, a sponger, and a jerk. The protagonists mostly wind up with boring office jobs and staid marriages, drowning in the daily details of their lives, as we all do. Of packing lunch for children (the way I begin my morning five days a week), Nescio says, \u201cYou<\/em> try slicing bread and making sandwiches for four kids just once, if you\u2019re not used to it, the way the unfortunate writer of these pages has done on occasion, it\u2019ll drive you insane.\u201d Yes, it will. Yet even faded souls have stirrings, \u201csome vague idea\u201d toward art and nature, love and greatness. Much of Nescio\u2019s charm for the modern reader is in how recognizable the issues he examines are, how little has changed.<\/p>\n

Appropriately for a book about the daily grind, people in Amsterdam Stories<\/em>\u00a0are frequently seen eating that most office appropriate of meals: the sandwich, sometimes mentioned to be \u201cham\u201d but usually unspecified. Sandwiches appear enough in the stories that I wanted to know what they were like in Nescio\u2019s Netherlands and why people didn\u2019t eat anything else. Via the auspices of the internet, I discovered that the sandwich\u2019s prevalence in the book was no coincidence; supposedly, that\u2019s all Dutch people eat for breakfast and<\/em> lunch. They like them small, with thin fillings, and there are many classics, like pastrami and sliced liverwurst, and three-layer \u201czebras\u201d of rye bread and chive cream cheese (as you\u2019ll see below, I made both). They also eat sandwiches with butter and sugar sprinkles (called \u201chail\u201d), but that must have been after Nescio\u2019s time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Liverwurst and pastrami is an old-fashioned sandwich combination that ought to be revisited.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sandwiches in the book are life-sustaining but not inspired. In one telling scene, a character named Bekker, who has tried to quit his job and go live on the land, returns to Amsterdam, \u201cand he walked down Linnaeusstraat at half past eight every morning again with his sandwich in a bag from home. There\u2019s a lot a person needs.\u201d I love the ambiguity of that last sentence, which could be about saving money for other needs by bringing a sandwich to work for lunch (sound familiar?) or could be about larger matters. Bekker needed to follow his dream and go live for art, but maybe even \u201con the heath,\u201d needs plagued him, presumably those for money and human society, and so he returned\u2014with, of course, idle dreams. In the same passage, the narrator observes: \u201cBut we weren\u2019t thinking about reused bags that night. We were doing our best to believe that we would still manage to accomplish something, really something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reused bag is depressing, but the quotidian has its comforts. In another place, the friends are out for a walk on a day so beautiful, \u201cit was as though my head was filled with golden light and blue water.\u201d When the sun goes down, they feel lonely and start gazing at the baker\u2019s truck with \u201cthe raisin bread inside it\u201d and the lights going on in the houses. Then: \u201cThe teapot sat on the tea light, and our hearts completely melted, we would conquer the world some other time, for now we were thinking more about having something to eat and drink, bread and coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Making festive Christmas rum balls is easy\u2014just mix and roll.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

To cook from Nescio, I made several types of food\u2014his workaday sandwiches, that comforting raisin bread (which turns out to be a staple of Dutch cuisine called oliebollen<\/em>; I added currants to mine in addition to raisins), and two desserts, rum balls and cream puffs, both of which were associated in the stories with sexuality. In the passage quoted above about packing sandwiches for children\u2019s lunches, the narrator is telling us about a \u201clittle poet\u201d who has fallen for his wife\u2019s younger sister, a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl to whom he brings \u201cbonbons and brooches and rum balls. The rum balls were their little secret.\u201d He\u2019d once had similar feelings for his wife, whom he used to see on her lunch break, \u201ccoming out of the dairy where she ate her sandwiches with a glass of milk and sometimes a cream puff or a piece of apple pie with whipped cream. Her<\/em> sandwiches.\u201d Six years and too many packed lunches later, sexual boredom has descended, and he\u2019s thinking in the same way about another woman.<\/p>\n

My rum balls were delicious, fun, and easy to make, and in America, they\u2019re supposed to be a Christmas gift\u2014perhaps a better use than the one they\u2019re put to in the book. For the cream puffs, I had a vision of virginal whiteness with the kind of cloud-like and flavorless filling that you sometimes get in bakeries. To this end, I tried the stabilized whipped cream recipe in Rose Levy Beranbaum\u2019s The Pie and Pastry Bible<\/em>, though I often find her recipes overcomplicated and not guaranteed to turn out. The whipped cream was good but not the texture I was looking for, and it seemed no different from the ordinary, easier version. (To be fair to Beranbaum, my family ate the cream puffs too fast for me to test the filling\u2019s longevity.) Instead of Beranbaum\u2019s pate a choux, which was too complex, I made The Bonne Femme Cookbook\u2019s<\/em> much simpler version. And voil\u00e0, cream puffs.<\/p>\n

According to Amsterdam Stories<\/em>, we\u2019re all going to age and lose our youthful dreams. The little poet observes: \u201cAnd twenty-eight years farther on down the road to the grave he saw his father\u2019s gray head. He had always done well too and had not accomplished anything special either.\u201d Cream puffs are one consolation for this, and I\u2019d say the beauty of Nescio\u2019s prose is another. Is it enough? Do we ultimately get what we need, in the right measure? Nescio doesn\u2019t know\u2014it\u2019s the meaning of his pseudonym, after all. I can\u2019t say I do either.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Two Versions of the Ever-Present Sandwich <\/strong><\/p>\n

(Each recipe makes two sandwiches.)<\/p>\n

Pastrami and Liverwurst Sandwich<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 slices sourdough bread
\n2 slices dark rye bread
\n1\/4 lb liverwurst
\n1\/4 lb pastrami
\n2 tsp spicy German mustard
\n2 tsp mayonnaise<\/p>\n

Dutch sandwiches often have one type of bread for the bottom slice and one type for the top. Spread the two slices of sourdough bread with mustard, and top with just one slice of liverwurst and two of pastrami. Spread the mayonnaise on the rye bread, and add it as a sort of lid. Cut on the diagonal. Repeat for the second sandwich.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Zebra Sandwich <\/strong><\/p>\n

6 slices of rye bread (the darker the better)
\n4 oz cream cheese
\n2 tbs minced chives<\/p>\n

Mix the chives into the cream cheese. Spread onto two slices of the bread, and then stack, with a third slice of bread on top to make it a triple-decker. Cut on the diagonal. Repeat for the second sandwich.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dutch Raisin Rolls (O<\/em>liebollen<\/em>) <\/strong><\/p>\n

(This recipe is adapted from BBC Food<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n

1\/4 cup sugar
\n4 tbs butter, cut into cubes (plus 2 tbs butter, melted, for brushing)
\n1\/2 cup milk
\n7 oz packet of yeast
\n2 1\/2 cups flour
\n1\/2 tsp salt
\n1 tsp cinnamon
\nzest of 1 lemon
\n1\/2 cup raisins
\n1\/4 cup dried red currants
\nsunflower oil for greasing
\nhoney to serve<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Put the sugar, butter, and milk in a small saucepan, and heat gently until the butter has melted. Pour the mixture into a heatproof bowl, and allow to cool to lukewarm, then add the yeast. Stir and let sit for ten minutes or so, until the yeast has puffed up.<\/p>\n

While the yeast is proofing, mix the flour, salt, cinnamon, and lemon zest in a large bowl. Make a well in the center.<\/p>\n

Whisk the egg into the warm milk mixture, then pour it into the flour. Stir with the handle of a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a ball, then turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead five minutes to make a smooth, pliable dough. Knead the raisins and currants into the dough for a few minutes until they are evenly distributed.<\/p>\n

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, beneath an oiled layer of plastic wrap or a damp towel. Allow to rise until doubled in volume, around an hour and a half.<\/p>\n

Return the dough to the work surface and punch it down. Divide into eight equal pieces. Roll each of these into a ball, then pull the dough from around the sides and tuck it underneath the bun to give it a neat shape.<\/p>\n

Place the buns on a large baking tray lined with parchment, and flatten them slightly. Leave at least three inches of room between the buns, and use a second tray if necessary. Cover with oiled plastic wrap, and leave to rise for another forty-five minutes. Preheat the oven to 375.<\/p>\n

Bake the buns in the center of the oven for about twenty minutes, until puffed up and golden brown. Brush the tops with melted butter. Serve warm with butter and honey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rum Balls<\/strong><\/p>\n

12 oz package vanilla wafers
\n1 lb pecans
\n1\/2 cup honey
\n1\/3 cup bourbon
\n1\/3 cup dark rum
\n1\/4 cup cocoa powder, for rolling
\n1\/4 cup confectioners\u2019 sugar, for rolling
\n1\/4 cup white sparkling sugar, for rolling<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Using a food processor (or a mortar and pestle if you\u2019re low-tech like me), grind the wafers to bread-crumb size, and reserve in a large bowl. Then grind the pecans. Add the pecans to the wafer crumbs.<\/p>\n

Add the honey, then the bourbon and the rum, and mix thoroughly.<\/p>\n

Roll the mixture into balls, about an inch in diameter. Roll in decorative sugars or cocoa powder to coat, as desired.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cream Puffs<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

(Makes eight servings. Adapted from The Bonne Femme Cookbook<\/em>, by Wini Moranville, and The Cake Bible<\/em>, by Rose Levy Beranbaum.)<\/p>\n

For the pate a choux: <\/strong><\/p>\n

1\/2 cup flour
\n1\/4 tsp salt
\n1\/2 cup milk
\n4 tbs unsalted butter, cut into pieces
\n2 large eggs\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the whipped cream: <\/strong><\/p>\n

2 tbs powdered sugar
\n1 tsp cornstarch
\n1 cup heavy cream
\n1 tsp vanilla
\npowdered sugar for dusting<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To make the cream puff: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.<\/p>\n

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. In a medium-size saucepan, heat the milk and butter over medium heat until the butter is melted and the mixture is steaming.<\/p>\n

Add the flour mixture all at once to the milk mixture. Cook while beating with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Cook and stir for a minute more. Remove from the heat. Let cool for ten minutes.<\/p>\n

Add the eggs, one at a time, to the saucepan, beating until the first egg is completely incorporated and the dough is smooth before adding the next. Drop the dough by the teaspoonful onto the baking sheet.<\/p>\n

Bake for fifteen minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 350. Continue to bake until golden brown, eight to ten minutes more. The insides should be dry but soft\u2014pull one open to test. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To make the whipped cream: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Refrigerate the mixing bowl and beater for at least fifteen minutes.<\/p>\n

In a small saucepan, place powdered sugar and cornstarch. Gradually stir in a quarter cup of the cream. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and simmer for just a few seconds, until the liquid is thickened. Scrape into a small bowl, and cool to room temperature. Add vanilla.<\/p>\n

Beat the remaining three quarters of a cup of cream just until traces of beater marks begin to show distinctly. Add the cornstarch mixture in a steady stream, beating constantly. Beat just until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised.<\/p>\n

To assemble: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Slice the cream puffs in half horizontally with a serrated knife. Fill with whipped cream, dust with powdered sugar, and serve.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Valerie Stivers is a writer based in New York.\u00a0<\/em>Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Eat Your Words<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nescio, the pen name of J.\u2009H.\u2009F. Gr\u00f6nloh, is Latin for \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d but Valerie Stivers knows exactly how to drum up recipes for his \u2018Amsterdam Stories.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30795],"tags":[44291,35,23519,1442,1671,38271,44299,5562,418,44296,20498,115,44297,44305,16937,44295,21022,44306,44250,112,23467,7753,44302,44294,44301,44300,32406,20632,44293,14459,261,34032,32404,44304,44303,27102,44298],"class_list":["post-131864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eat-your-words","tag-amsterdam","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-christmas","tag-cooking","tag-cooking-with","tag-cream-puff","tag-dinner","tag-dutch","tag-dutch-cuisine","tag-ennui","tag-food","tag-j-h-f-gronloh","tag-japi","tag-latin","tag-liverwurst","tag-longing","tag-meal","tag-nescio","tag-novel","tag-nyrb-classics","tag-office","tag-oliebollen","tag-pastrami","tag-raisin-bread","tag-raisins","tag-rose-levy-beranbaum","tag-rum-balls","tag-sandwich","tag-sandwiches","tag-short-story","tag-the-bonne-femme-cookbook","tag-the-cake-bible","tag-the-freeloader","tag-the-pie-and-pastry-bible","tag-valerie-stivers","tag-workaday"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCooking with Nescio by Valerie Stivers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nescio, the pen name of J.\u2009H.\u2009F. 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