things kevin hates

The 20th century brought us lots of wonderful inventions. The World Wide Web. Satellites. Airplanes. Bikinis. One invention, however, has a few benefits, but on the whole has been a terrible scourge to humanity. I speak of the microwave, of course, that destroyer of taste and producer of soggy, flavorless dishes. Any good New Orleanian must take a stand against bad food. And since microwaves make bad food, we must unite against them.

One of my favorite foods ever since I was little has always been rice and gravy, which my 91-year-old Maw Maw* (who grew up in rural southern Louisiana and whose first language was French) often cooks for us. Rice and gravy is a staple of Cajun cuisine; there’s a few variations with different types of meat, but hers always uses veal rounds, which my family would get from Guillory’s on Derbigny Street in Metairie, just a block down the street from where I grew up. The meat and gravy are prepared by braising the veal rounds with some onions and garlic over a low heat; my grandmother seems to leave it on the stove all afternoon. As the veal rounds cook they make a wonderful gravy. It’s really fantastic, and I’ve never had anything like it.**

In between our visits to our grandmother’s house, my mother would cook rice and gravy (or, as my sister and I called it, “meat gravy and rice”—I don’t think anyone else in the world ever called it that), and while the meat came out okay, her microwave-made rice was a sorry substitute for the real thing.*** The microwave rice was only edible if you could manage to drown it in gravy. I would always protest at having to eat my mother’s second-rate microwaved rice. And I think that’s where I first acquired my hatred of microwaves.

Which is not to say I didn’t use them; on the contrary, I used them a ton. I made myself breakfast every weekday throughout all my years of school—nothing fancy, just a bowl of cereal or Pop-Tarts or instant oatmeal or instant Cream of Wheat or instant grits. Or maybe french toast sticks or Eggo waffles or…well, you get the point. Packaged, overprocessed, sugar-packed trash, much of which was designed to be microwaved. And for some of the items, I was pretty damn used to the microwave kind. The few times I would have grits at a restaurant I wouldn’t really care for them, being more used to the instantly microwaveable variety, topped with a pat of butter, and maybe with an ice cube thrown in to cool it off more quickly. I eventually came around on the grits, though, in two especially wonderful experiences.

The first was about a year and a half ago. I was in the chorus of an opera, and in addition to a weekend of performances in Metairie we also had a rehearsal and performance at the Saenger Theatre in Biloxi.**** I got a room at the Beau Rivage and made a weekend out of it, but, alas, I lost money at the poker tables. In any case, I met two of my fellow cast members for brunch at the casino buffet. I mostly stuck with the breakfast items, which were very good. Especially the grits. They were amazing. I realized why my mother had always sworn by real grits. I guess I’ve had some microwaveable grits since then, but now I know the fake stuff isn’t even in the same league as the real deal.

Just in case I needed confirmation, I got it a couple months ago. My father, sister, and I were visiting my paternal grandparents, who moved to Bogalusa a few years ago. They’re regulars at many of the restaurants (all three of them, give or take) in Bogalusa and the surrounding towns. One of those restaurants is Vicki’s. We had eaten there once before (possibly when we evacuated up there for Ivan, but I wouldn’t swear to it). I’d had a fantastic chicken tender sandwich along with a disappointing cup of baked potato soup, which had been highly recommended. My mother and I wanted to try said soup so badly that the proprietress was willing to drive over to her house to get some for us because they had run out at the restaurant. (It’s that sort of a place, and that sort of a town. You know, the sort of place where the owner hugs you as you leave.) On my most recent visit I ordered one of the day’s specials—barbecued shrimp served over an enormous bowl of cheese grits. I actually wasn’t crazy about the shrimp—I’m much more of a fried shrimp kind of guy—but the cheese grits. Wow. It was like having the same grits epiphany all over again. Which doesn’t seem possible, but it happened. So rich and flavorful and creamy. My only regret was that I was too stuffed to finish the enormous serving.

And even the things you think microwaves would be good at, they’re not. Like reheating things. You’re much better off turning the oven to about 350 degrees and heating up your leftover pizza. (Yeah, some people like their pizza cold. While it’s okay in a pinch, it’s hardly preferable. It’s like Pop-Tarts. Yeah, you can eat them cold when you have to, but they’re much better hot from the toaster.) And just about any sort of reheated leftover is a poor simulacrum of the original. I guess sometimes there’s no choice but to use a microwave—I don’t know you else you’d reheat lasagna, for example.

Or defrosting things. Every time I try to defrost something in the microwave I either underdo it or end up cooking it halfway. Very frustrating. Much better to let things sit in the fridge for the day or on the counter for a few hours.

I really just don’t understand people’s interest in microwaves. Are they quicker? Maybe, but most things that take a while to cook can be left largely unattended. More convenient? If you’re going to microwave anything, you usually have to stir it a couple of times to make sure it heats evenly. And stirring something is much less convenient when you have to pause the microwave, open it, reach in to stir the dish (or take it out to stir it), and restart the microwave. When you’re cooking something on the stove, you just stir it. At most you have to take the lid off. So the two biggest supposed advantages of microwaves aren’t all they cracked up to be.

Now, I think there are probably some reasonable uses for a microwave, but I don’t really care to know what they are. I do my best to get by without using that damn contraption.

* Yes, all her grandkids call her that. Even many people who aren’t her grandchildren call her Maw Maw.

** Oddly enough, the one thing I’ve had that reminds me the most of the taste of the veal rounds is the carnitas at Felipe’s. (If you haven’t been to Felipe’s, you need to go there ASAP. One location uptown near Claiborne & Calhoun, one location in the quarter, and the original location is in—wait for it—Cambridge, Mass.) Anyway, carnitas is made of pork, which is pretty different from veal, but I think the slow-cooking methods used for both lead to a surprisingly similar end result.

*** I was eating the similar dish of roast and rice the other day with my parents and my dad remarked that the only rice he really likes eating just for the taste if the rice is Maw Maw’s. I’d have to say I agree. I don’t know if it’s the ancient cast-iron pot she cooks it in, I don’t know if it’s some kind of esoteric knowledge learned on the bayous, I don’t know if it’s just years of experience. It’s just fluffy and tasty and just gooey enough to be perfect. And then add the gravy to it…words will not suffice. And as a pathetic footnote to a footnote, I consider myself a pretty decent cook but after several attempts I still can’t cook a pot of rice to save my life. As someone who is 1/4th Cajun (or Creole, or whatever the hell I am; see Chela’s blog entry about the topic for some information on the differences between the two commonly-conflated groups), I feel that this a rather humiliating shortcoming. Someday, I will rectify this.

**** Biloxi’s Saenger Theater opened in 1930, three years after the theatre of the same name in New Orleans opened. In fact, most of the Gulf South’s major cities have a Saenger Theater of their own, all dating to roughly the same era, as two drugstore owners, the brothers Julian and Abe Saenger, sons of a rabbi, got into the entertainment business and built an empire of movie palaces throughout the south.