Hello and welcome to a new FYCE series. I will trawl my vast archive of celebrity recipes and try to present one every week. A caveat: I may not have made all of them. These two I have not. But I thought I’d start with Marilyn Horne because today is her 88th birthday and I have to start somewhere.
Horne, as you probably know, is an astonishingly talented mezzo-soprano opera singer, known worldwide. She’s retired now but here are two fun facts: She voiced a role in the 1961 film of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song. I could say a few words about Flower Drum Song, and maybe I will later on, because Jack Soo was in it, and he went on to play Detective Nick Yemana on Barney Miller, and I bet he has a celebrity recipe floating around somewhere.
Alright, quick sub-paragraph here about Flower Drum Song: It was lauded for having a primarily all-Asian cast, somewhat remarkable for 1961, but it wasn’t an all-Chinese(-American) cast, as in the case of Jack Soo, who was Japanese-American. Also, the song “I Enjoy Being a Girl” comes from FDS.
But back to Marilyn Horne. She performed at President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993, singing “Make a Rainbow” and “Simple Gifts.” Simple gifts. Well, the Clintons are the gifts that keep on giving. Anyway, without further ado, the two Horne recipes I have never made.
Chilled Dilled Peas
This is from my family bible, The Sinatra Celebrity Cookbook. They managed to spell Horne’s last name wrong, they dropped the “e”. Thanks a lot, Frank and Barb. I don’t know what this is supposed to be. Horne refers to it as a salad so let’s go with that.
Blend 1 cup sour cream, 1 bunch chopped chives, 1/4 cup chopped dill, 1 tsp. curry powder, and some salt and pepper to taste. To this, add 1 16-oz. can of tiny French peas (I have no clue either) and mix lightly to coat the peas. Garnish with dill. Chill and serve. Serves 4.
I don’t know what to make of this. I suppose it’s along the lines of having a somewhat dietetic scoop of tuna/mayo/celery on iceberg lettuce leaves as a lunch “salad.” I wouldn’t serve this as a dip. Maybe serve it alongside slices of a smoked shoulder or a ham steak?
Picadillo
This I would do, with one substitution. Horne blessed us with this in The Hollywood Bowl Cookbook: Picnics Under the Stars, but how you would transport and serve this to picnic under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl I don’t know. I love the Hollywood Bowl, by the way, just FYI.
⅓ cup dried currants (this is my substitution: raisins, which are much easier to find and what they use in northern Mexico)
2 tablespoons oil, divided
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
⅔ cup stuffed green olives
1 (3-ounce) jar capers, drained
2 ½ tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
⅓ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1 bay leaf
Hot pepper sauce
Salt
2 pounds ground beef
4 cups chopped peeled tomatoes
Hot cooked rice, for serving
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Place the currants in a bowl, cover with warm water and let stand 30 minutes. Drain. Find your bag of unsweetened raisins.
Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and bell pepper and cook until tender, stirring constantly, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the olives, capers, vinegar, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf, and hot pepper sauce and salt to taste. Cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes.
Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in a Dutch oven over high heat. Add the ground beef and cook until browned, stirring to break up the lumps, 5 minutes. Drain. Stir in the olive mixture, drained currants raisins, and tomatoes and mix well. Cook over medium-low heat, loosely covered, stirring frequently and skimming off the fat as needed, 1 hour. Remove the bay leaf and discard. To serve, spoon the picadillo over rice.
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So, you see what I mean? Am I supposed to lug a battery-operated chafing dish, if such a thing exists, to the picnic areas of the Hollywood Bowl? (They have picnic tables and seating, it’s very civilized.) And I wouldn’t serve this on paper plates, because I think they would soak and fail. Never mind that you’re also schlepping drinks of choice, and the parking is 20 miles away (or so it feels like.) That said, I would make this here at the Casa Encantada.
And there you have it, my first Celebrity Sunday Matinee FYCE post.
Thank you Cousin Matthew! And thus a FYCE star is born.
Do you think I have a shot on “America’s Got Talent”?
Simon Cowell: So tell us, what exactly do you do?
Me: Well, I find celebrity recipes and sometimes I make them and I offer little thumbnail bios.
Howie Mandel: I’ve got one. I make this incredible—
Me: You’re hardly a celebrity at this point. What about you, Terry Crews? I really admired your…uh, work…in those Old Spice commercials.
I would be completely unsurprised to learn that Terry Crews was an excellent cook. Seems reasonable for him.
I’ve had the chilled peas salad. I had great aunts who loved midwestern salads where it’s like *here’s one or two canned vegetables and a bunch of other stuff mixed together*
Also, isn’t everyone familiar with the cans of tiny French peas? I see those in the stores. I had a college roommate who loved them.
Personal opinion about the propensity of midwestern salads to not actually contain fresh things (or perhaps a fresh item like chopped broccoli or cauliflower) is that it’s based on the reality of a pretty dispersed population over a large area where you can’t get to the grocery store that often. I had college friends in Northern Missouri where the family went to a grocery store every other week, that sort of thing. So if almost all your ingredients are shelf-stable or at least last a long time before going bad, that’s what you’re going to make your recipes out of. Especially if you know you have a 45-60 minute drive to get to a grocery story and who knows what’s even in stock.
Exactly, the money for most farmers was in big commodity crops like corn, wheat and soy beans, not labor intensive fruit and vegetables. Individual farms might have gardens, but they didn’t sell much, and even by the 1950s most rural populations were shifting heavily away from direct farm employment and toward things like retail, construction, and white collar jobs.
Yep and for much of the year you don’t have fresh veggies ripe in the garden, anyways.
Not to mention that Mary Louise always bring the best ambrosia salad to the KoC potlucks and it is just so refreshing with that fruit cocktail!
So I’m curious. Is the pea salad eaten alone? I did a little research, mostly image research, and there were a few things that were kind of like this but they usually had something else in them, like bacon. And from context you get the feeling that it’s a side, but not in The Sinatra Celebrity Cookbook. I also looked up what French peas were, and I think you make black-eyed peas out of them (which I’ve had) but nowhere close to me seems to sell them.
You’re overthinking French peas. This is what she’s referring to, I am sure of it.
https://lesueurvegetables.com/vegetable/le-sueur-very-young-small-sweet-peas/
Yeah it’s a side, great for a family event or potluck etc since you don’t have to worry about them needing to be served warm. Pretty sure I’ve seen pea salads sold at some deli counters too along with the other “salads” like ambrosia salad, watergate salad, that broccoli salad that is broccoli/cauliflower/mayo/bacon/shredded cheddar, that other broccoli salad that is broccoli/mayo/grapes/sunflower seeds/bacon, the cauliflower/chopped salami/mayo/shredded cheese salad, macaroni salid, seafood salad (krab and you can guess the rest), etc etc.
Yeah, black eyed peas are totally separate, vaguely like pinto beans.
The curry-dill combo in that is weird. I’ve seen salads with one or the other as flavoring, but never both.
The curry powder is there for color, not flavor. Like how my mom had a “curried rice” Instant Rice microwaved recipe that basically had no flavors from curry powder but the turmeric added a lovely color.
Remember the dingy old tin from McCormick’s? I looked them up on ebay and the first few ingredients are coriander, fenugreek, and turmeric. All of which would go fine with dill.
Yup, that is where my mind went. They have their fans in my household…as a treat I will serve them those tiny, gray-green, mushy peas.
Yeah I don’t understand the appeal. I love peas. I have a few bags of frozen peas on hand all the time. But the teeny tiny ones are just annoying and even harder to get on a fork.