Household Hints
In which I experiment with the imperative mode
Or
How to Make Garlic Oil
Yesterday, my family and I celebrated 52 weeks of the homing blog.
As I look back I see (and hear) that I have tried on different voices in relation to homing: there are first-person accounts, third-person accounts, and even entries in the second person. I appear a s a girl, a woman, an “I” and a “you.” Some entries focus on my childhood relation to home (Housebound) and surprise me with the strength of their psychic pull. Some reflect my current persona and voice as a professor; although I hope that none of the entries are “academic” in the sense of being obscure or impenetrable, many of them are abut academic topics (the home/owner metonymy) and spaces (my classroom).
One voice I have not used—although my family and perhaps my students would note its absence, is a full-throated authoritative one; one grammatical mode I have avoided so far is the imperative. The imperative mode produces a syntax that makes me uneasy. The sentences it generates break down in my hands, and I generally have recourse to other ways of writing. Even in my paper assignments for undergraduate classes, I have a hard time saying “Write a three-page essay.” I change the grammatical subject from student to essay, and from myself to an obscurantist “class” or “assignment:” “This assignment requires that you write a three-page essay.” With my family I often retreat into what might easily be construed as the passive aggressive avoidance of commands: “Could you make dinner tonight?”is not, despite its ending lilt and question mark, really a question. When all else fails “please,” attached to a command obscures its force: power, frustration, anger.
Domestic life trails with it a host of proscriptions, prescriptions, extortions: think (says she imperatively) cookbooks, advice manuals, self-help books, hints, hacks, tips, genius hacks and genius tips. I call this network of directives the “domestic imperative” that may or may not adhere to a particular grammatical mode. Recipes are written from the culturally powerful place of the domestic imperative, most obviously something like “Take the walnuts (a blender is second best here) and crush them to a fine powder without turning them into a paste.” The domestic imperative inhabits sentences that are not technically in the imperative mode. Here is Marcella Hazan, whose voice, as I note in Letter to Martha, still rings in my ears whenever I cook.
“Pesto may have become more popular than is good for it. When I see what goes by that name, and what goes into it, and the bewildering variety of dishes it is slapped on, I wonder how many cooks can still claim acquaintance with pesto’s original character, and with the things it does best. Pesto is the sauce the Genoese invented as a vehicle for the fragrance of a basil like no other, their own. Olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, butter, and grated cheese are the only other components.”
This is actually the softened Marcella of later editions; my first (more i[perative) editions of her cookbooks were destroyed by Harvey, but the memory of her “nevers” lingers as a taste on my tongue. Never heat pesto. It is never made only with parmesan. It can be made in a blender, but she would never use anything but its namesake mortar and pestle.
Whatever its syntax, the domestic imperative has historically served as a way for women to express their authority, to create a domain for themselves. I think of Isabella Beeton, Victorian journalist and cookery expert, who, it is said, worked through the death of her infant son and the revelation that her husband had contracted syphilis by compiling the landmark “Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management” from a wide variety of (unattributed) sources. The book continues to be praised by modern cookbook writers, as much for what Elizabeth David has called “the clarity of its instructions” as for the food it inspires. What most people forget is that before the more than 900 pages of recipes is a section on the role of the mistress of the home. The domestic imperative begins early in the book—and early in the day. “Early Rising is one of the most essential qualities which enter into good Household Management, as it is not only the parent of health, but of innumerable other advantages. Indeed, when a mistress is an early riser, it is almost certain that her house will be orderly and well-managed.”
My aim for this entry was less ambitious. The idea was, after a year of writing analytical entries, to produce, as unironically as possible, a series of my own household hints, derived from 60 years of cooking, perhaps 20 years of recognizable “household management” and, especially, from the experience of pandemic homing. Perhaps this was the time, gently or not, to access the domestic imperative— to recommend that my (dear) readers do as I do. I would set out clear instructions for making pandemic staples like garlic oil, preserved lemon, and hands-off whole wheat bread in the time of multi-day sourdough baking. I would share pantry and kitchen organizing tips, hints about caramelizing your tomatoes for sauce or remembering the diagonal when producing (my favorite term) tablescapes. I would suggest to my readers that, with limited garden space, they only grow herbs unlikely to be found at the nearest grocery store—at least by the personal shoppers of the pandemic. I would have few cleaning tips, since when I clean I tend, at least at first, to make things dirtier. Perhaps, though, something on using bluing instead of bleach to keep white clothes white?
Garlic Oil
Like many unfamiliar enterprises, hint-writing is harder than it looks. This is by way of understatement. I got as far as the first item on my list.
Everyone should have a jar of homemade garlic oil on hand, I began.
This is truly a sentence born of the domestic imperative. I had certainly shed my inhibitions here. Really, “everyone” I asked myself? Perhaps something less, well, assertive and universalizing was needed.
During the pandemic, I have made sure always to have a small container of garlic oil at the ready by the stove.
The “I” here invites people into my home. “Small” suggests a doable project, an intimate scale.
During the pandemic, I have become obsessed with having certain supplies always on hand, for example, garlic oil preserved lemons, grilled eggplant. This is a formulation that is everywhere in internet ads. Everyone is “obsessed” with something from a crisp white shirt to political blogs. The word means nothing, until it means too much. Am I making myself too vulnerable here? Revealing a strange fetish?
Garlic Oil. Make it. Direct, simple, confrontational. Like garlic, in fact. Is this what foodies call respecting the ingredient?
This is one of the most useful items you can have in your kitchen, incredibly easy to make and to store. Since peeling and crushing garlic is one of my least favorite kitchen tasks (smelly hands, sticky garlic press, knives don’t work for me) this gets rid of the problem for any recipe that calls for both garlic and oil. There is also a health advantage. Garlic’s potentially stomach-upsetting chemicals, as followers of the FODMAP diet will know, dissolve in oil, rendering them inert.
On the whole this is pretty authoritative. It has science in it, and an acronym. Like Beeton’s recipes some 200 years earlier, this one draws its power both from experience and from outside authorities. It allows the reader into my kitchen, and to imagine that kitchen permeated by the small of garlic. It is also, perhaps (horrible word) relatable: I may be able to wield science but I have trouble wielding a knife. I am fiercely competent but also (I hope engagingly) inept. This section also relies on that resonant division first articulated by anthropologists: the clean and the dirty. Garlic is dirty; garlic oil is clean—inside and outside the body. Rereading these sentences, I can register the feeling of tedium as I try to wash the congealed garlic from the little holes in the garlic press. That feeling, and the pervasive smell of garlic turn this hint into a hack: making garlic oil is a way around something unpleasant. What this doesn’t have, of course, is any sense of pleasure or positive purpose.
Cut off the very top of the head of garlic, exposing the cloves. Do not peel. Put the clove in a small pot where the garlic head will fit comfortably, and pour enough olive oil into the pot to cover the garlic. Bring the oil to a gentle boil, simmer covered for five minutes until the garlic has begun to soften, then turn off the heat. Allow the garlic to steep in the covered pot for twenty minutes, and then pour into a jar. Garlic oil can be kept on the counter for two weeks. Individual cloves can be fished out during that time and spread on bread or added to salad dressings or dips.
Except, perhaps, for “exposing,” this is still not about pleasure and it involves some very tangled prose. At the last moment I am proud that I remembered to tell people to cover the pot—a detail that is often annoyingly absent in professional recipes. The times I mention with, I like to think, some aplomb, are of course made up on the fly. I have no idea how long I simmer the garlic, or how long I let it steep off the flame. Even shakier is the promise that the garlic oil will last on the counter for two weeks. This is about how long it takes for me to use a batch, but I wonder if I am risking poisoning my readers. The iffy science reminds me that I should really, really, look up the FODMAP diet and check my earlier claims for accuracy. It does not help that I do not entirely believe in the claims of the FODMAP diet.
The oil will impart instant flavor to sauces and stews; if you prefer a less garlicky end result, combine it in the pan with plain olive oil before browning meat or vegetables. Although I often sauté onions in this oil, I find that for many recipes the garlic oil makes other aromatics (onion or shallots) unnecessary.
I have finally used a positive word, “flavor” although this still reeks (he he) of convenience. You use garlic oil to avoid work later. Can I use the word “unctuous” in a sentence?
This recipe will produce a flavorful oil, and a whole bulb filled with unctuous pockets of creamy garlic.. Simply fish out the bulbs from the jar and squeeze individual cloves to add extra flavor in uncooked recipes like salad dressings
Apparently not. “Unctuous” sticks out like one of those four-syllable words in the party game “keep talking.” I have also overused “flavor,” despite uncharacteristic recourse to my “synonyms” app. “Taste” doesn’t work, “zest” is confusing under the circumstances, and “smack”(??) is just plain odd.
Must I also use the term “umami”?
By this time I have also lost all relation to the clean. “Fishing” is an unfortunate choice of words, but no trip to the thesaurus can disguise the fact that I am asking my readers to stick their hands in a small jar of oil to remove a head of garlic covered in oil. This is a second moment when I wonder if what I am asking is actually hygienic, the second time I wonder if writing hints should involve legal and medical consultations.The whole point of the domestic imperative (exemplary mode) is to tell people what I do, but what if what I am doing is disgusting? After all, I have imagined readers who don’t want to clean garlic off their hands or implements. “Unctuous” is not going to fix their recoil from “fishing.” (This is not the place to mention that I sometimes add anchovy paste to the mix.)
Perhaps I can make the process sound fun, make lemons out of lemonade, garlic-oil out of garlic.
This is a hands-on process. You could use a slotted spoon, but then you would not experience the lubricous feel of oil on your fingers and palm. I have found that garlic oil is a fantastic moisturizer!
I have learned something. From now on I will use a slotted spoon, which means buying one small enough to fit in a jar. Or I could “decant” the oil. I love decanting.
When the garlic has finished steeping, use a small slotted spoon to remove it from the jar, or strain the oil into a container. You can store the softened garlic in the fridge for (a made-up number of days) and use it to flavor salad dressings or dips. Simply squeeze out the desired amount and discard the papery peel. The garlic will be soft and creamy, with a slightly sweet flavor.
Always end on a sweet note.
Hints, it turns out, take a long time to write. The domestic imperative—at least as it is embodied in writing—is exhausting. Although making garlic oil may be a shortcut, describing the very easy process by which it is made feels like an infinite loop. I have a new respect for Hinters and Hackers from Heloise to Food52. I do want to tell you about making almost instant preserved lemons, but it would take longer than preserving them. But please, always keep grilled eggplants around. You will be glad you did, although I don’t have the room to tell you why.