Archive for "recipe"
Food for Thought: Corn Pudding
November! Thanksgiving! Native American Appreciation Month!
Thanksgiving is, literally, barreling towards us. I am sure you all have your normal foods and traditions, and be it a small dinner with the family, an enormous dinner with all of the cousins and their seven wives, or just a dinner amongst great friends, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time. Though it’s also a very stressful time for law students, it’s nice to have a day to eat wonderful foods, be with the people you love (most of them anyhow) and reflect on all the good things in your life.
Thanksgiving, like the 4th of July, is a true “American” holiday.” No matter your religion or your race, sexual preference or outside beliefs, it’s a day when all of us, as Americans can gather and feast.
Not surprisingly, November is Native American appreciation month. I know that this is a bit cliché perhaps, and maybe you are wondering why we get a month, but it’s a nice opportunity to appreciate this wonderful, mysterious, dying culture. After all, if it weren’t for Native Americans, the pilgrims would probably not have survived their first winter. I am a quarter Kiowa Indian, so this month gives me an extra opportunity to appreciate my culture and learn about the values of my people.
If you have time, there is the Museum of the Native American near Wall Street. It’s free to enter and it’s something you can do when you need a break from the books.
Of course, this column is called “Food for Thought,” not “Culture for Thought,” so in the spirit of Thanksgiving and in appreciation of the Native American I wanted to share my corn pudding recipe. Corn pudding is extra delicious, a bit indulgent and an homage to corn, that truly American crop. Maybe you can impress everyone at the table with your legal jargon, your knowledge of negligence per se and this lovely corn pudding.
Ingredients:
5 eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 (15.25 ounce) can whole kernel corn
2 (14.75 ounce) cans cream-style corn
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 Degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.
In a large bowl, lightly beat eggs. Add melted butter, sugar, and milk. Whisk in cornstarch. Stir in corn and creamed corn. Blend well. Pour mixture into prepared casserole dish.
Bake for 1 hour.
Introducing “Food for Thought”
The Oxford American dictionary defines “eat” as “put food into the mouth, chew it and swallow it up” (it also offered many other definitions, which are less than appropriate for my column). This is such a simple definition. Eating is so much more than that. It is an experience that involves all senses: you smell the food, you of course taste it, you touch the food with your hands and the vibrant (or not) colors of the food draw your eyes. Eating is one of life’s great pleasures. It draws people together. It can make a bad day good. It allows you to experience culture.
We’re in law school. Somehow, amongst all of the studying, cramming, internships and schmoozing, we’ve lost what it means to eat good food- good not only in taste, but for the body as well. Coffee becomes a food group. Fries at McDonalds are justified as “healthy” because they are fast and are made of potatoes. A bag of chips sneakily consumed at the library constitutes a whole day’s sustenance. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. You can still enjoy eating. You can still fit into your interview suit after exams.
The area around BLS is FULL of good restaurants, cheap (and sometimes even healthy) food, and exotic food that you may want to experience only once. Just because we are in law school, doesn’t mean we have to lose the “joy of eating.”
You may not know where to start. That’s OK. That’s where I come in. I love food, I know food, and I cook food. My family used to plan our vacations around food (seriously my parents would review all of the restaurants in the area before making the final decision). I am not afraid of strange food. Since you’re going to be reading this fabulous paper to catch up on school news anyways, why not read about food? Maybe some restaurant or bar will catch your eye. Maybe you can make something I’ve made to impress your girlfriend/boyfriend/professor/dog. The point is that being in law school does not mean we have to give up eating food that tastes good and is good for our bodies.
So starting next week, my Food for Thought column will dive into the depths of local restaurants, grocery stores and watering holes around BLS. My goal is to make eating fun again, to make you all realize that fries are probably not a food group. I am really open for ideas as well. So if you know a restaurant or place I should go, let me know.