THE COOKBOOK TEST #0053: CODE NOIR REVISITED
INSTALLMENT #0053 (FREE) BACK TO OUR PLEDGE DRIVE / A FEW NOTES ON HAITI / THE MAGIC ORANGE TREE / THE COMEDIANS / POUL NAN SOS OR "CHICKEN IN SAUCE"
Dear Readers,
First things first. Last week I asked those of you not paying to support THE COOKBOOK TEST to consider doing so. The project requires a ton of work, I run up real expenses (books and ingredients, to say nothing of time), and I publish every week like a culinary John Henry. I hate to see my own labor exploited, even when the evil boss doing the exploitation is… (checks detailed org chart)... me.
My goal was to move from 37 paying subscribers to 50. We've picked up 5, bringing us to 42. BUT! There are another two gift subs coming soonish, and we've had another five people subscribe to Heavy Table in the interim. Is it 50? It’s damn close. Close enough that I'm not going to quit in a huff, at any rate.
To all of you who subscribe, and to everyone who signed up: Thank you, thank you, a million times - thank you! I'll do my best to keep this column lively, topical, and full of replicable deliciousness.
And if you like what we do here and you want to help make this a sustainable, long-term column, here's another chance. (It's also another chance to squeak in a legitimate 50 subs, right under the wire.)
Anyhow, let's get back to it. Lots of cookbooks out there, and just about infinite recipes. They're not going to cook themselves.
at your service,
James
CODE NOIR: AFRO-CARIBBEAN STORIES AND RECIPES
BY LELANI LEWIS
TRA PUBLISHING | 2024 | $35
This week, we're returning to a cookbook that I've already written about, the excellent CODE NOIR by Lelani Lewis. If you don't own it, pick it up - it's a gorgeously illustrated, smartly written, geopolitically thoughtful cookbook that offers its readers both style and substance.
It’s also a relatively agreeable way to get your head around the realities of slavery and colonialism in the Caribbean. Yes, it's a bit of a drag topic. But it's in the news at the moment, thanks to a series of really reprehensible lies being spread by the Republican party in general (and Donald Trump specifically) about Haitian immigrants.
These lies are meant to dehumanize vulnerable people and expose them to violence; the bomb threats and vandalism already taking place in Springfield, Ohio, show how words spoken in a public enough forum can result in real trauma. There's been a not-accidental trend among some online to suggest that these lies are funny memes, but they're not - they're a blood libel.
There is no ethnic or religious group that deserves what's being directed at Haitian immigrants at the moment, but if you know even the loose backstory of Haiti, you know why it's all the more horrible that these particular families are the target of nasty lies told by powerful people.
Haitian slaves fought to throw off the shackles of their French oppressors in the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804. France's military-backed threats to recoup its financial losses (mostly the slaves who freed themselves) led to the bankrupting of Haiti, and are widely regarded as the reason Haitians have struggled with poverty, violence, and political terror ever since.
The author of Code Noir writes about her research into the French decree itself:
I read about a seventeenth-century decree by French King Louis XIV: Code Noir. A philosopher in the 1980s described it as "the most monstrous legal text of modern times." It meticulously outlined how enslaved people in French colonies should be treated, from the amount of food they should receive to who would legally own the children born to enslaved women. The document is revolting and as dark as the name it bears, mirroring the entire history of the Caribbean. However, meeting people from the region, you would think differently. They are positive, warm, and cordial, and their food is a delightful product of that dark past.
I know this is a little far afield for a cooking newsletter, but this stuff hits on just about everything I regard as sacred: threats to innocent human life, the code of hospitality and caring for one's guests, history, politics, and food. It's all here. I was educated as a generalist, and I guess that’s what you get when you read this newsletter: someone who starts with a book, or a recipe, or a half-remembered flavor and then chases it to wherever in history or society it ends up. It’s exhausting. And tremendously satisfying, too.
THE MAGIC ORANGE TREE
One of the books I grew up reading as a kid was called THE MAGIC ORANGE TREE AND OTHER HAITIAN FOLKTALES. If you're into folktales (and why shouldn't you be? they're the root of all storytelling) and/or you've got impressionable young children to read to, it's a hell of an interesting title.
Some 35-40 years later, I can't remember the details of the stories from the book, but I can tell you the titles I still remember:
Four Hairs from the Beard of the Devil
Cat and Dog and the Return of the Dead
Papa God and General Death
“Papa God First, Man Next, Tiger Last”
The Last Tiger in Haiti
How great are those titles? Most of those would work as stand-alone titles for entirely free-standing books.
THE COMEDIANS
If you like a classic, good-versus-evil, action-packed spy thriller, Graham Greene is probably the wrong choice for you. Greene is a man who wove his stories with yarn dyed into a subtle rainbow of gray. Few people are what they appear to be, and the most dangerous ones tend to be the innocent, well-meaning idealists. In Greene's books, as in life, they have a tendency to get themselves - and others - killed.
Greene was a hell of a good storyteller, and if you've ever been in politics (as I have) or journalism (ditto) or diplomacy or war, he's one of the most subtle and engaging and entertaining thinkers you can read.
THE COMEDIANS is Greene's book about Haiti, and as you probably surmised, it's not terribly funny, nor are its characters. Their names are Brown, Smith, and Jones and they hide behind anonymous masks that hide their real intentions and capabilities. Greene's Haiti is a place that is batted around mercilessly by ideologies and ideologues, and held at the mercy of unmerciful men with guns.
And as the 1966 New York Times review of the book points out, it's a book that's all about failure:
Doctor Duvalier is a failure- a dictator who dares not leave his palace. The "good" Communist is a failure, shot as a sacrifice to the U.S.A., so that Haiti shall continue to be "a buttress against Communism." The rebel leader, a failed Baudelairean poet, fails at rebellion. "Major Jones" is perhaps the greatest failure. Part of his public face is that of a bold guerilla leader, who has fought in the Congo, and fought with Wingate in Burma. So of course the little band of rebels wants him as a leader. In fact he has never seen a man dead; his whole war service has been to arrange concert parties of the tattier sort to entertain the troops. And he has flat feet: even Castro might have failed if he had been cursed with flat feet. Nevertheless he is the novel's hero.
The Comedians isn't a full slice of Haitian life, and the action is mostly seen through British and American eyes. But it's an observant, sad, compelling and beautifully told story.
ON TO THE RECIPE
Because Code Noir has such a limited focus on Haiti as a place (no disrespect intended, the book covers a lot of other specific Caribbean territories and offers up a lot of regional food, too), I decided to poke around in the leaf litter of the Internet to see if there might be anything else that might make for a tasty and straightforward introduction to the cuisine.
What I found was a well-written, beautifully contextualized recipe for Haitian chicken stew on Food and Wine. I recommend you check out their version for a fuller story, and also to read about the recipe's author, Portland, Oregon-based chef Gregory Gourdet.
You gotta hand it to this recipe: It's a straightforward, wholesome way to make a lot of hearty, delicious, nourishing food. The chicken has a bit of kick thanks to the habaneros but the overwhelming flavor note is that of the bell peppers accented with citrus, which recalls a big plate of homemade chicken fajitas. This comes highly recommended for a Sunday night cook that'll keep you fed until midweek.
Watch your chicken prices: I ended up snagging chicken at Target, and drumsticks, thighs, and wings were $1.50, $2, and a whopping $4.50 a pound each, respectively. Apparently people crave those wings with an economics-distorting level of ferocity.
POUL NAN SOS OR "CHICKEN IN SAUCE" OR HAITIAN CHICKEN STEW
Minimally adapted from a Gregory Gourdet recipe published online at Food & Wine
Marinade
3 pounds mixed bone-in skin-on chicken thighs and drumsticks, patted dry
3 Tbsp kosher salt
1 orange, halved
1 lime, halved
1 lemon, halved
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2-4 Scotch bonnet or habanero chilis sliced thin, number depending on how much you like heat
1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves
Stew
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 oz. can of tomato paste
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 red bell peppers, seeded and deveined, cut into long, thin slices
2 yellow bell peppers, seeded and deveined, cut into long, thin slices
2 cups chicken stock
Season the chicken with salt in a large bowl, then squeeze the citrus halves over the pieces. Add garlic, chilis, thyme and onions, and toss well, then marinate in the fridge for 12-24 hours.
Preheat oven to 375. Remove chicken from marinade, pushing stuck-on bits back into the container. Pour marinade through a strainer over a bowl, reserving both the solids and liquid. Pat chicken dry with paper towels.
Heat the oil over medium-high in a wide, heavy, oven proof pot until just shimmering. Cook chicken skin-side down, turning the drumsticks but not the thighs, until skin is deep brown, 10-12 minutes. Move chicken to a plate.
Reduce heat to medium-low, add tomato paste and salt, and cook for about 3 minutes. Then add the bell peppers and reserved marinade solids, and cook until peppers soften slightly, about 8-10 minutes.
Return chicken to the pan, and pile the peppers and other aromatics on top of it. Pour in reserve marinade liquid and stock. Cook covered in the oven for 30 minutes, then cook uncovered for another 25-35 minutes until sauce is slightly thickened and meat pulls off the bone with slight effort.
Optional: Serve on rice.