A suprise meal

 Everyone knows about Eckert's farm and store and restaurant, right?  If not, here is a quick summary of what you have been missing: Long ago at a galaxy far and away, my grandparent's used to take my brothers and I, to Eckert's to go apple picking in the fall.  They would drive out and we would do the apple picking and then we would enter the country store, which I recall at the time, being nothing more than a large barn.  We would go in, get a wooden basket, go out and get apples, and then bring them back where they would weigh them and you would pay pennies for each pound of picked apples.  This was great.  Now, within the past few years, or year, they changed everything.   

This is what the Country store looked like a bit ago, with the restaurant to the left of it.  Then they did this:


You can tell that this farm is doing well when they can tear down their old store and make a huge one.  This store is very much on the inside, as high-tech as a Whole Foods or Schnucks.  As for the restaurant, it used to be tiny, country-style decorated and could sit maybe 50 people.  Now, the place is huge and can easily seat a few hundred.

Now, while the family is still running the farm and businesses, these 6th and 7th generation Eckert's have created a memorable and delicious menu for their restaurant to boast and surpass their apple and other produce picking.

My favorite item of all, is chicken and dumplings.  What I love about the chicken and dumplings at the Eckert's restaurant is: first of all, it is bottomless and second of all, it tastes just like my grandma used to make.  Well, first off, they call it "bottomless" on the menu and what that means is that if you have an awesome server, like we did, he will notice when you are remotely close to the bottom of the large bowl of chicken and dumplings and then he will come out with another large bowl and take the old one.  That's right, a wonderful server will come and replenish your ambrosia, before you can flinch, all for $10.  What made our time there even better, is that when I took what was left to go home, our cool server not only refilled my bowl and placed it into a to-go container, but then he filled up a second container for me.  Awesome.

Now, what about my grandma?  Well, she is of German ancestry.  Her parents came from Germany and started a horse farm near Sullivan, Missouri.  As time went on and she became older, her parents sold the farm for a flat in St. Louis.  Then, she went to work at a shoe company, on Washington Avenue.  Every day, her mother and grandmother (whom lived with them), would make their dinner, which I lust for because it was awesome German food.  Now, my grandmother made two kinds of dumplings:  One was a potato dumpling and then other was a spaetzle dumpling.  What I find most often called "dumplings" when paired with chicken, is the spaetzle ones, which are made with flour, water and some egg.  These are what proper dumpling became to be and as my brothers and I grew older, the spaetzle dumplings paired with chicken

So, the chicken and dumplings I ordered at the restaurant, tasted just like the ones my grandma used to make, which means, the original recipe they make to sell, must be similar in cultural or ethnic region.  Anyways; the famous fried chicken, which is also served and sold as an all-you-can-eat option, is also incredible and juicy and moist with a super crispy coating.

So, my thoughts?  Service, atmosphere and food, all get a 4 out of 5 stars for me.

Go there and give it a shot.

What do you have cooking in your log cabin?

I admit, I am not so much a history buff than a history reader.  I do enjoy reading history and learning about things of the past.  I even enjoy reading about what ancient peoples ate and how they prepared their food.  Corresponding with that notion is an interesting book called Log Cabin Cooking, from Barbara Swell.

My mother took a trip to Springfield, Illinois, where thanks to our 16th President and his modest life, the idea of living in a log cabin has been pushed to the brink of Romanticism and given a feeling of adventure, when for those who were actually dealing with the life, it was nothing fun at all. My mother picked up this cookbook, which tells a little about how people in the 1830's cooked and did their basic food stuffs, without the use of fancy gadgets, like: thermometers, microwaves or refrigerators.

While some of the ideas and generally accepted principles were good enough to get food on the table, in most cases, it wasn't goo enough to make things tasty.  Even so, many of the frontier people survived because they did a few things that would help them.  How they survived with little to no fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy products is beyond me as I can't make it through the day without a big glass of chocolate milk.

Out of necessity came simple recipes that needed little wet ingredients: baked items, like breads and muffins.  Out of this book, I tried my hands at the cornbread, which likely came from a 1835 recipe.  Unlike the original peoples, I had an easy time at this, as my oven has a thermometer built into it so I set the temperature I wish and simply wait.  The book suggests that you get your wood oven hot and then place your hand inside of it so you can check the temperature.  Like a grill, the temperature is based upon how long you can have your hand near the fire without having it burn off.  Using their simple recipe, of mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ones and combine them together, I was able to pour the batter into my Pyrex cooking pan, instead of my cast iron pan.

Now, again, I had it easy as I was able to play some video games while this was cooking, compared to those living in the wilderness, but in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes, a nice tasting, but a tad dry cornbread came out of the oven.

Now since I have never seen anyone server cornbread dry, I know that it is okay.  You always serve cornbread with a soup, because its dryness sucks up the broth.  You also almost always slather a thick coating of butter on it and either fix certainly made this a very tasty cornbread.  So, give one point to the housewives in the 1830's.

Along with this, you have to wonder how they did their everyday work and still make food for the table.  There was a lot of breads or muffins, a lot of soups and stews and a low of preserved things.  House chores would be so much more difficult as you would have to go outside to wash the clothes and the dishes. However, overall, some of the great things we have today as American dishes, came from things that were prepared during this time period or the time in the West.

The History of Taste

What you see above is an example of a great book: mixing history and food together into a great history of taste as why we eat what we eat. Not so much for the physiology of how we as humans developed a taste for something in particular, but more so how and why people cooked and ate the food they did. I finished this book, just this week with a last chapter focusing on everything from the 19th century until now.

The first chapter or so explains how humans at some point began to have the need for fats in their body, which then help the brain and nerves evolve and grow. It was suggested that the earliest form of fats, was sugar in the form of nectar or wild honey. That started it all as while humans started to evolve they needed more and more nutrients and it was discovered that cooking food made it easier to digest. I know that in the past 20-30 years, there have been a large number of experts who suggest that raw food is better for your body or that no meats or fat are better as well and while I can live with their opinions, history has showed us that humans are meant to eat meats and fats.

Around the middle of the book, it starts to look at food and eating by different cultures. For instance; the ancient Greeks believed that eating meat was obscene and was evil, so they ate mostly lentils and vegetables. The Romans and other cultures had no problem with meat and ate large amounts of it as well as other foods. In ancient China, kitchens were made with a "demon" painted on the wall or decorated somewhere in it. The demon was to represent a spirit who was cursed by eating too much food so when food is eaten and prepared in an ancient Chinese kitchen, the people must take only what they can and will eat and no more, as to not waste it as well.

With information and recipes dating back a thousand years or more, for added insight, the book explains and answers some great questions, like who invented ice cream? The Arabs invented ice cream almost a thousand years or more back. They developed a way to cool water using salt and then to freeze cream and sugar, producing the first ice creams, or to be technical, it was gellato.

It is larger than an average sized book and with about 370 pages in it, it makes for a long read, if you are busy or a good afternoon read if you have the time. Highly recommended:

 Food: The History of Taste (California Studies in Food and Culture)