I spent the first four years of my life with my grandmother on her farm in North Carolina in the south of the US. My mother and father -- as so often happens right here in Thailand -- were in the big city, New York in my case, trying to make their fortune. When I became of school age, I was wrested from my idyllic life in the country and thrust into the sophistication of the big city. But there are some things which are instilled from birth and that become such a part of you that it becomes your fundamental belief system. So it is with la cocina povera.
My grandmother and after her my mother, believed that one must make use of every scrap of produce raised on the farm or purchased at the market. Nothing, and I mean nothing was wasted. Today, we use fancy and fashionable terms terms like the title of this blog to describe what was to my folks a simple matter of survival. Starvation, whilst not imminent, was something always looming and standing measures had to be adopted to keep it at bay. Once again, I see much of that same philosophy reflected in Thailand, particularly here in Isan.
Not surprisingly, at Milford's Corner, the principles of la cocina povera irresistibly come into play. This Friday's Special, for example, is Chicken Livers Peri Peri, a dish up from Portugal by way of southern Africa, and in itself the subject of another blog post. Stay tuned.
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