Here is my first mundane mental conundrum post partum. Brace yourselves, it’s a doozy.
Sitting bleary eyed and wishing for sleep, instead I stared at the breakfast tray the set before me while I was doing a little self mutilation of my own, called breastfeeding my daughter. ( Those of you who have never breastfed won’t get the reference, but BF, to put it mildly, hurts quite a bit until your nipples toughen up. I a couple of days I fully expect to be able to cut glass with “the girls”, until then, it’s motrin and teeth gritting.)
Anyways, staring at the scoop of artisically arranged scrambled eggs, I focused in my tired state at the parsley atop and found my thoughts churning over and over again on this garnish. Here are the questions:
What’s the deal with parsley?
Yes, I know it’s edible, but does anyone every really ever eat it?
Why in the hell put a garnish on hospital food, fercryin’ out loud when everyone knows it’s gonna be just above crap in the taste department?
Then my mind entered a zen like mode regarding this weed on my plate:
If every patient in the hospital used/received parsley,but no one ever ate it, this would be a huge waste of money. Instead, cut this expense and channel it towards something more functional, like adhesive strips wider than a mosquito runways on the pads given to new mommies. Thus resolving the problem of sliding pad syndrome.
I think the parsley farmers are getting some kind of huge government subsidy.
Just a few days ago, while dining out, I made the comment to my SO that I wanted to be a parsley farmer. Has to be the only guaranteed successful farming venture.
Well, it’s a crucial ingredient in my favorite pasta sauce. Prepare a fresh, spicy tomato sauce, then add a heaping handful of chopped parsley at the very end. Heat through, and serve with grated, aged Parmesan. The key is not to cook very long after adding the parsley or it loses the freshness of its flavor.
As a garnish, it might as well be made of plastic.
The Romans used it either to sober up or as a breath freshener (it’s been a while since I heard the story).
A bit late for this particular child, but it’s packed with folic acid, and thus good for women in their childbearing years to help prevent birth defects.
I had to smile at the idea of being a garnish farmer, though. I can see her, hard at work, harvesting the back acre, with a hedge trimmer and kitchen tongs.
In addition to being a garnish, it’s used in preparing a number of sauces.
Its mildly bitter taste helps to produce some tang and alleviate oversweetness in entrees that have a tendency to sweetness. For example, my wife always uses it in beef stroganoff (which she makes from scratch) in order to add an extra tang to the sour cream based stroganoff sauce, which always comes out a bit too sweet for our tastes.
Many pasta sauces call for it, I believe to counteract the (relative) sweetness of tomato paste.
Yes, I think traditionally it’s a breath freshener, and to me it seems to work significantly better than nothing, so I always chew mine up good, and everyone else’s who doesn’t want theirs (ie most people). Give it a shot.
“Parsley is America’s favorite herb. Sweet and rich, it brings out the flavor of other
spices and herbs. It also seems to lessen the need for salt in soups, stocks and
sauces. Parsley flakes are light-1 oz. equals almost 2 Cups. The leaves can be
used whole or crumbled for breading, or mixed with other herbs for a bouquet
garni.”
– the Penzey’s Spice catalogue.
The abover refers to the packaged dried commodity, but I would recommend, even more than with other herbs, that you use the fresh stuff.
But fresh or dried, tt’s America’s favorite herb. So don’t mess with it, commie.
I always had this vague notion that it was an indicator of freshness. You know – if the parsley’s wilted, the plate has been sitting for a long time.
Thinking about it now, I realize I have never seen wilted parsley. My guess is a plate of food would have to sit an awful long time before the parsley is visibly changed, by which time there would be plenty of other indicators that the food is no longer fresh (congealed gravy, fruit flies, salmonella).
Maybe that’s why they use it. “Hey, we need something barely edible and extremely hardy to use as a freshness indicator. We’ll pretend it’s a garnish.”
So maybe all my life I’ve been suckered by a UL, taught to me by (sob!) my MOM!
“pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen
Although I have never had the misfortune to be hospitalized, from what I have been told about hospital food any sort of garnishing, even one of those toothpicks with colored cellophane streamers on it, could not help but improve it.
Besides, in common with some of the other posters in this thread, I find the taste of parsley to be quite attractive.
As to why parsley is considered a garnish to be thrown away, whilst basil is thought of as a spicy herb to be added to upper-scale spaghetti sauce, I have no idea. I decided years ago that a culture containing people actually willing to pay perfectly good money for NKOTB recordings is beyond my comprehension, anyway.
It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.
When I go out to eat, not only will I eat the parsley on my plate, but I’ll eat everyone else’s parsley, too. I love the stuff! “Send me your poor, your tired, your huddled parsley, yearning to be eaten.”
Well, I see my restuarant experience comes in handy for something at last…
Parsley, as used as a garnish, goes back to olden times. It’s a natural breath freshener, and in the days before Tic Tacs, one would chew on the leaves after a spicy meal so as not to offend others afterwards.
In fact, when I waited on tables and was coming back froma smoke break, I would grab a sprig and chomp it down so I wouldn’t hit any of my customers with a blast of used Marlboro.
You gotta love the irony of crappy hospital food finished off with a sophisticated garnish of parsley. A funny mental image. Hey Shirley, better check the bill - that piece of weed probably cost $5 or so.
“Parsley : the post partum leaf of love”
hey, thats even better than
“Pork : the other white meat”
“Solos Dios basta” . . . but a little pizza won’t hurt.
Gabe: Naw, weed hasn’t cost five bucks since the mid-'70s…
Unc: “Belinda lived in a little white house, with a little black cat and a little white mouse, and a little yellow dog and a little red wagon, and a really-o, trulio, cowardly dragon.” Tah-dah!
I never knew there were so many people out there that ate parsley. I’m going to start up a bumper crop ( and maybe a white wall crop too this year…and make it organic too, just to raise the price. ( Organic, meaning my dog peed on it for extra flavor.)
This is a sure way to make millions. Faster than my start an Xmas tree / mohair goat raising/ pet the llama farm, until my husband had the nerve to build houses on the back 10.
Ok, here is what to do with all those tons of unwanted parsley.
It’s a recipe for salsa that a friend gave me and to which I have become addicted. I go through at least a batch of this stuff per week. It’s quite unusual as salsas go in that it contains no tomatos.
Chop yourself up:
1 “bunch” of parsley (I assume grocery stores everywhere sell this in similarly sized bunches).
1 “bunch” of fresh cilantro.
1 bell pepper of any color. Green are cheapest usually. Take out the seedy bit in the middle.
2 anaheim chillies. (leave seeds)
2 jalapenos.
3 serrano peppers. (You can use 4-6 if you like really hot salsa).
1/2 of a small yellow onion, raw.
Mix the chopped stuff together. Add maybe 1/2 tsp of salt, a tsp of black pepper, and add mexican oregano to taste (I add a lot). Shake well to distribute the spices and then eat with baked tostitos.
Warning to contact lens wearers: those serranos are wicked little blighters (up to 25 kiloscovilles; jalapenos are only 2-5 Ks). If you get the oil from them on your hands and then touch your contacts, you will become unhappy. So wear hand protection while chopping them up.
