Santa's Incarceration Cuisine: Mofongo
I have a dear friend who was recently removed from his cushy Conneticut home, and placed in an Ohio prison. I know that might seem odd to you, because I'm a happy little do-gooder of a thing, not the type who generally consorts with criminals. It seems odd to me too, as my friend is also a happy do-gooder of a thing. He's a good man and a good friend who is currently in a bad situation. But I digress, as the whys and wherefores of Santa's (not his real name, but in the spirit of the season) incarcertation are beyond the aspirations of this blog.
However, our cuilinary converstions are well within the bounds of the blog. When we met in the workplace, about a decade ago, Santa mentored me. Not in digital technology, which is what we were both doing at the time, but in writing and cooking. He bought me my first copy of Escoffier, a complete set of Bill Bryson books, and many, many sushi lunches. He encourage me to pursue my loves and passions, foregoing the easy career for that which was more difficult, and he assured me from the perspective of a mentor, more rewarding.
Over space and time we lost touch, but about a year ago I was told by mutual friends that he was in prison. I was shocked, confused, and sent him a Valentine's Card the next day. We've been prison pen pals ever since, and he continues to be a mentor, shining bright light on my life, and trading food stories.
Santa sent me the following a month or so ago (and subsequentely granted me permission to blog it). It's a little present from Santa and me to you, in the spirit of remembering those who've encouraged you along your way, and finding the cheer, wherever you are. Merry Christmas.
+++++++++++
All You Can Eat Behind Bars
As told to Allison by Santa
Let me tell you of a humorous, ongoing sutation of a culinary nature, in honor of your of your chosen profession. Sitting comfortably? Mmkay...
In some pique of mordant wit, some time ago, a drunken official at the BOP decided to call the first and second meals of the day on weekends "coffee hour" and "brunch", affecting images of hot beignets, eggs benedict, Bloody Marys, Cafe du Monde, warm beds, softe cuddly SOs and the Sunday Times. How totally cruel they are.
To add furter insult, I give you the Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet. Every Saturday and Sunday, most inmates sleep through a pathetic offering that is "coffee hour" typically a stale, shrink wrapped pastry well past its sell-by date, and long since pulled from some distant Government vending machine, too old and evil-looking even for low-level CDC or HHS drones. The date on the wrapper is usually from the summer before. (In my life I have never eaten so much out-of-date food, and I can happily tell you that it won't kill you. Right away, at any rate.) And in my months here I have had one (1) sip of the """coffee""", which surely has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with coffee beans. It isn't even brown, it's kind of a muddy bluish gray. I think not.
So, when 11AM rolls around, they bring forth the Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet. The Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet consists of a row of dented industrial chafing dishes, each containing an unidentifiable entree, generally random lumps of something that could have, at one time, been part of a living thing, but not a healthy thing -- medallions of weasel perhaps -- soaking in a semi-coagulated, gravy like liquid, generally a yellowish-brown in color, sometimes with a tinge of gray or green.
The buffet is tended by a hatchet-faced, hostile looking man wearing a chef's uniform with large permanent stains. This man never speaks. We call him Emeril. Emeril does not appear to actually cook anything. Just before the Buffet (note capitalization, for it is deserving of such...) begins, he produces the chafing dishes and lights the burners. During the Buffet, he sits behind the counter, arms folded, glaring into the distance, refusing to answer inmates' questions (the most common question being what is this?). At the end of the Buffet, he removes the chafing dishes.
It was my cellmate Rudolph who proposed the theory that Emeril was setting out the same food day after day.
"Why not?" he said, "Hardly anyone eats it. It could last for months."
"I think some of it is actually getting larger," I added. "On its own."
So I decided to test the theory that Emeril was recycling the food. I went thorugh the Buffet some weeks ago, pretending to be selecting my lunch. Previously I had cut out a photo of our Warden, H. Meiser. I slipped this photo under one of the weasel medallions.
The following week, plate in hand, I searched the Buffet, dish by dish, picking through the mystery lumps. I thurst my fork triumphantly in the air, when, in the fourth dish, I uncovered the gravy-soaked but still-smiling face of the happy Warden.
This discovery led to the creation of a betting pool among the inmates, five stamps a man to see who could predict how long Emeril could keep the Warden's dish alive in the Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet. For five weeks, I had gone through the Buffet; each day, sooner or later, I'd find the photo.
This past Saturday was critical. It was six weeks since I placed the photo, and only two inmates were left in the pool: myself, who had bet seven weeks, and Brother Claus, our local obese, bellowing Pentecostal preacher, who, though a Man of God, wasn't above winning the whole mess o'stamps. (He bet six weeks...) Thus, there was considerable tension in the chow hall this Saturday when I, the other inmates watching closely, went down the row of chafing dishes, fork in hand. There are ten chafing dishes, and as of nine, I had found nothing. Painstakingly, I rooted through the tenth one and...
"YES!" I shouted, reaching into the dish, pulling out the slowly decomposing photo and holding it for all to see.
"Shit" said Brother Claus.
"Emeril," said I, "you DA man!"
Emeril, from his stool, continued to glare into the distance.
"Should we start another pool?" I suggested.
"I dunno man," said Rudolph. "Maybe we should warn somebody about this. I mean what if somebody eats this? They could die!"
"The way I see it," said Brother Claus, "anybody who eats this wants to die."
"That's a point." I said.
So back goes the photo into whatever it is in the chafing dish, and we began a new pool this week. Brother Claus took two more weeks. Fat F (the local loan shark) took three weeks. I took a full month.
"I have faith in Emeril," I said. "This man is loyal to this food."
Mofongo
An authentic jailhouse recipe.
6 bags of chips
4 ramen soups
3 packages instant rice
10 packages mackerel
2 pre-wrapped "sausages"
2 packages kipper snacks
1 16-ounce bottle of squeeze cheese
1 bottle ketchup
Adobo seasoning
2 garbage bags.
First, crush chips to powder. Mix with water to form a thick paste. Squeeze out excess water and deposit on opened garbage bag. Fold bag over top. Using a cylindrical deodorant container, spread thinly through the plastic, making sure no deodorant leaks out. Form a large rectangle of chip paste. When spread thinly and evenly, open bag.
Mix up soup, rice, according to directions. Do not use soup "flavor" packets. Mix in paint bucket 'til combined well. Spread in a "line" on chip slurry, about 18 inches long, 5 inches wide. Open mackerel packages. Squeeze out fetid, stinking fish slime. Set aside. Spread mackerel evenly along top of soup/rice line. Repeat with kipper snacks. Repeat with chopped "sausages". Apply most of ketchup to top. Top with all the cheese. Sprinkle liberally with Adobo for that blood-pressure-making Dead Sea salty flavor. Now, using bag, roll top of chip slurry over top of "line" much like a strudel. Seal with water. Brush with remaining ketchup mixed with fish slime. Cover wtih top of bag, and twist ends to retain shape. Insert into second bag.
Sneak into kitchen. Insert Mofongo into dishwasher. Run through three full cycles, and sneak back to unit. Cut into thick slices; serve immediately.
However, our cuilinary converstions are well within the bounds of the blog. When we met in the workplace, about a decade ago, Santa mentored me. Not in digital technology, which is what we were both doing at the time, but in writing and cooking. He bought me my first copy of Escoffier, a complete set of Bill Bryson books, and many, many sushi lunches. He encourage me to pursue my loves and passions, foregoing the easy career for that which was more difficult, and he assured me from the perspective of a mentor, more rewarding.
Over space and time we lost touch, but about a year ago I was told by mutual friends that he was in prison. I was shocked, confused, and sent him a Valentine's Card the next day. We've been prison pen pals ever since, and he continues to be a mentor, shining bright light on my life, and trading food stories.
Santa sent me the following a month or so ago (and subsequentely granted me permission to blog it). It's a little present from Santa and me to you, in the spirit of remembering those who've encouraged you along your way, and finding the cheer, wherever you are. Merry Christmas.
+++++++++++
All You Can Eat Behind Bars
As told to Allison by Santa
Let me tell you of a humorous, ongoing sutation of a culinary nature, in honor of your of your chosen profession. Sitting comfortably? Mmkay...
In some pique of mordant wit, some time ago, a drunken official at the BOP decided to call the first and second meals of the day on weekends "coffee hour" and "brunch", affecting images of hot beignets, eggs benedict, Bloody Marys, Cafe du Monde, warm beds, softe cuddly SOs and the Sunday Times. How totally cruel they are.
To add furter insult, I give you the Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet. Every Saturday and Sunday, most inmates sleep through a pathetic offering that is "coffee hour" typically a stale, shrink wrapped pastry well past its sell-by date, and long since pulled from some distant Government vending machine, too old and evil-looking even for low-level CDC or HHS drones. The date on the wrapper is usually from the summer before. (In my life I have never eaten so much out-of-date food, and I can happily tell you that it won't kill you. Right away, at any rate.) And in my months here I have had one (1) sip of the """coffee""", which surely has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with coffee beans. It isn't even brown, it's kind of a muddy bluish gray. I think not.
So, when 11AM rolls around, they bring forth the Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet. The Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet consists of a row of dented industrial chafing dishes, each containing an unidentifiable entree, generally random lumps of something that could have, at one time, been part of a living thing, but not a healthy thing -- medallions of weasel perhaps -- soaking in a semi-coagulated, gravy like liquid, generally a yellowish-brown in color, sometimes with a tinge of gray or green.
The buffet is tended by a hatchet-faced, hostile looking man wearing a chef's uniform with large permanent stains. This man never speaks. We call him Emeril. Emeril does not appear to actually cook anything. Just before the Buffet (note capitalization, for it is deserving of such...) begins, he produces the chafing dishes and lights the burners. During the Buffet, he sits behind the counter, arms folded, glaring into the distance, refusing to answer inmates' questions (the most common question being what is this?). At the end of the Buffet, he removes the chafing dishes.
It was my cellmate Rudolph who proposed the theory that Emeril was setting out the same food day after day.
"Why not?" he said, "Hardly anyone eats it. It could last for months."
"I think some of it is actually getting larger," I added. "On its own."
So I decided to test the theory that Emeril was recycling the food. I went thorugh the Buffet some weeks ago, pretending to be selecting my lunch. Previously I had cut out a photo of our Warden, H. Meiser. I slipped this photo under one of the weasel medallions.
The following week, plate in hand, I searched the Buffet, dish by dish, picking through the mystery lumps. I thurst my fork triumphantly in the air, when, in the fourth dish, I uncovered the gravy-soaked but still-smiling face of the happy Warden.
This discovery led to the creation of a betting pool among the inmates, five stamps a man to see who could predict how long Emeril could keep the Warden's dish alive in the Sumptuous All You Can Eat Buffet. For five weeks, I had gone through the Buffet; each day, sooner or later, I'd find the photo.
This past Saturday was critical. It was six weeks since I placed the photo, and only two inmates were left in the pool: myself, who had bet seven weeks, and Brother Claus, our local obese, bellowing Pentecostal preacher, who, though a Man of God, wasn't above winning the whole mess o'stamps. (He bet six weeks...) Thus, there was considerable tension in the chow hall this Saturday when I, the other inmates watching closely, went down the row of chafing dishes, fork in hand. There are ten chafing dishes, and as of nine, I had found nothing. Painstakingly, I rooted through the tenth one and...
"YES!" I shouted, reaching into the dish, pulling out the slowly decomposing photo and holding it for all to see.
"Shit" said Brother Claus.
"Emeril," said I, "you DA man!"
Emeril, from his stool, continued to glare into the distance.
"Should we start another pool?" I suggested.
"I dunno man," said Rudolph. "Maybe we should warn somebody about this. I mean what if somebody eats this? They could die!"
"The way I see it," said Brother Claus, "anybody who eats this wants to die."
"That's a point." I said.
So back goes the photo into whatever it is in the chafing dish, and we began a new pool this week. Brother Claus took two more weeks. Fat F (the local loan shark) took three weeks. I took a full month.
"I have faith in Emeril," I said. "This man is loyal to this food."
Mofongo
An authentic jailhouse recipe.
6 bags of chips
4 ramen soups
3 packages instant rice
10 packages mackerel
2 pre-wrapped "sausages"
2 packages kipper snacks
1 16-ounce bottle of squeeze cheese
1 bottle ketchup
Adobo seasoning
2 garbage bags.
First, crush chips to powder. Mix with water to form a thick paste. Squeeze out excess water and deposit on opened garbage bag. Fold bag over top. Using a cylindrical deodorant container, spread thinly through the plastic, making sure no deodorant leaks out. Form a large rectangle of chip paste. When spread thinly and evenly, open bag.
Mix up soup, rice, according to directions. Do not use soup "flavor" packets. Mix in paint bucket 'til combined well. Spread in a "line" on chip slurry, about 18 inches long, 5 inches wide. Open mackerel packages. Squeeze out fetid, stinking fish slime. Set aside. Spread mackerel evenly along top of soup/rice line. Repeat with kipper snacks. Repeat with chopped "sausages". Apply most of ketchup to top. Top with all the cheese. Sprinkle liberally with Adobo for that blood-pressure-making Dead Sea salty flavor. Now, using bag, roll top of chip slurry over top of "line" much like a strudel. Seal with water. Brush with remaining ketchup mixed with fish slime. Cover wtih top of bag, and twist ends to retain shape. Insert into second bag.
Sneak into kitchen. Insert Mofongo into dishwasher. Run through three full cycles, and sneak back to unit. Cut into thick slices; serve immediately.
posted by Allison Fishman Task at 11:48 AM
2 Comments:
dude wtf! i neva thougth about put the shit into the diswasher.thats tough.ill do it next time i get lock up! holla at ya boy the joint!
PERU in the block mfkr!!!
MOFONGO IS GOING INTERNATIONAL, HOLLA!
My ex-husband did some time in jail, and he came home making this for us to eat all the time! It had a few differences to them as far as ingredients go, but the concept is the same.
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