A New England Christmas

Christmas Dinner 2008, Hank Mann in the Traditional Role of the Lamb Santa


Hank Mann is a great chef. The food he has served me in his home is simply some of the best food I have ever eaten. Hank has served me the best mussel I've ever eaten, the best shrimp, the best artichoke, the best paella, the best curry, the best bouillabaisse, and just this thanksgiving, the best turkey I've ever eaten. He and his wife Carol were kind enough to extend an invitation for Christmas dinner this year, there is no where I would rather be, and no one I would rather dine with, so I gladly accepted.

Dinner at the Mann's can be an epic experience, not only for the quality of the food and wine, but for the sheer scale of the evening. Hank routinely cooks for over twenty people, and often serves meals of six, seven, eight courses. It is not uncommon to arrive for dinner at 2pm and eat and drink for eight hours until you simply have to leave and go lie down. Once, he hosted a 2005 Spatlese Riesling tasting, we lined the wines up on a small antique drop leaf table, there were so many wines that the table gave way, sending wine to the floor. We lost a dozen or so bottles, still I counted forty-six wines that we tasted through over a four hour period. Then we had dinner, with a whole new set of wines.

I've had 1982 Ch. Latour at his house, and 1970 Ch. Gruaud Larose and 1975 Ch. Pichon Lalande. I've had 1990 Ch. Rayas at his house and consumed so much 1978 Ch. Beaucastel that I smelled like Mourvedre for a week. Once when I mentioned to his friend Ken that I had never had a Trockenbeerenauslese before, Ken produced from his bag two bottles from two different vineyards and we drank them standing in the kitchen talking about drainage in the vineyards of the Great Ramp in the Mosel.

Hank and Carol live deep in the woods of Stonington on an old homestead that was first settled in the 1600's. The original house was lost to fire and replaced by the current home built in 1777. There are still ruins and outbuildings that provide insight into Colonial life in the woods of Connecticut. They have an earthen ice house with a stone roof by the pond, and a spring house, and an old barn with a flat rock foundation with no mortar, there is even a family cemetery on the hill. The house itself has wide board floors, exposed hand hewn beams and a wide shallow fireplace with a deep granite hearth. In short, a perfect place for Christmas.

I arrived at two o'clock with a bag of goodies and had the singular treat of cooking with Dr. Mann. We began with a plate of Sliced smoked duck breast, Pate de Foie Gras with 2% truffle, and a very ripe Epoisses. I opened a bottle of Domaine Dujac Chambolle-Musigny, and I was like a kid at Christmas. I had been holding on to that bottle of Dujac for over a year, with very high expectations. It has a magnificent reputation and an unfortunate price. The wine did not disappoint, It was dark red with black undertones, fully opaque, with raspberry and brambles, fine strong tannins well integrated into the fruit with a touch of iron. The wine paired perfectly with the stinky Epoisses, also from the Cote d'Or, and the earthy, loamy Foie with truffles and smoked duck.

As we ate and drank, we prepared the next course, duck confit. We unwrapped the duck legs and trimmed the excess fat to expose the meat. We boiled the potatoes for three minutes, then tossed them with butter and salt. We placed the confit in the center of a wide shallow pan, surrounded them with the potatoes, added in the trimmed duck fat and dusted the potaoes with rosemary. Then into the oven at 425 for 35 minutes. As the duck legs cook the fat is rendered out providing a fantastic medium for the potatoes to cook and crisp and brown.

While that cooked, Hank had me try some of the curry he had made the night before. "The trick is to add the chicken late so that it doesn't overcook, it stays moist and keeps it's texture that way, and here try this". He added a dollop of ginger pickle and lime pickle paste. In twenty years of eating curry this was the best I've ever had.

After the taste of lime pickle had subsided, we pulled the cork on a bottle of 2005 Ch La Vielle Cure and prepped the lamb. With a nice hard wood fire going in the fireplace in the dining room, we set up a grilling rack and placed the lamb loin over the open flame and glowing coals and sat at the dinner table drinking wine and watching lamb roast.

I opened a bottle of 1983 Hermitage La Chapelle and decanted it. I have had this wine many times, and at twenty-five years old it still seemed a little young. Thankfully, both the duck confit and the lamb provided just the thing, the perfect key to unlock the wine and allow it to express itself, fat. Gamey, dark fat.

Carol set the table with her grandparents 19th Century china, beautiful stuff signed by hand on the underside. I have always loved good china, it makes for a beautiful canvass for the artistry of great food. It was a small gathering on this night, Hank, Carol, their son Tommy and their daughter Melanie, and myself. It was a very happy day in my life. We sat and ate like a family, like I was part of the family.

For dessert Carol brought out a cheese cake with a raspberry orange sauce. We opened a bottle of 2001 Hugel Gewurztraminer Vendage Tardive Grains Noble, that at first glance seemed a little shy on the acidity, but with the tart raspberry sauce, it was perfect, perfect.

This was the quaint New England Christmas you see in the movies, it was Norman Rockwell with cool people. It was the Christmas I have always wanted, it was the Christmas I finally got.

Breakfast

An e-mail Sent to Dr. Hank Mann, Sunday Morning-

I cooked up some duck bacon this morning. When it was done I pulled it out of the pan, leaving the rendered fat hot and ready to go. I dropped in a quarter cup of diced red onion and started to sauté. Have you ever seen onions cooking in duck fat? It is truly beautiful. I pulled them out, drained the excess fat, and started making my eggs. When they were done I was so excited that I started eating with my hands, lest washing a fork delay me in any way. By the time it was over, I was bare chested and covered in duck fat above the waist. It was not a pretty picture, but I'll send you a copy anyway. I'm going to go lie down now. I'll look into the Wild Boar's leg this week.
-Jim

Pet Your Food

"On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors Inc. is an area known as the "head table," but not because it is the place of honor. It is where workers cut up pigs' heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out. Over eight months from last December through July, 11 workers at the Minnesota plant - all of them employed at the head table - developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms, and some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses.Scientists have yet to figure out if there is something in the brain matter that could be causing the symptoms. Quality Pork has not said what it does with the pork brains"- Dow Jones Newswires.


It was this story last year that was the last straw for me. Not since Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, had the written word so changed my very intimate relationship with food. Then, as now, I was forced to look at each piece of meat with suspicion. Quality Pork processes pork for Hormel Chili, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out where the pig brains are going, (what did you think was in it?). I'm not big on Hormel Chili or Dinty Moore Stew, or Civil War Era canned horse meat, so I could probably avoid this issue altogether. But after thinking about the head table, having in turn up in my dreams, giving me pause every time I ate something I didn't make myself, I realized that gastronomic elitism wasn't going to save me. I had to face the fact the our food system has been corrupted on a major scale.
I set out to compress the distance between me and my food. Vegetables are fairly easy. There are plenty of local produce stands and farmer's markets in New london county. In the winter I just suck it up and go to the Supermarket, I figure a bag of carrots from Stop and Shop probably has a minimum of swine brains in it. It's the meat that's the hard part, coming as it does, all wrapped in plastic from who knows where.
So I went to Beaver Brook farm where they make sheep. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but I figured that if they looked happy and healthy, I would eat one. I approached the barn and was greeted by the guard sheep, and it was adorable. I rubbed his little head and introduced myself. He smelled like sheep, that is to say, food. Gamey, musky, earthy, like all my favorite wines, cheeses and parts of the human body. I walked into the barn and dozens of sheeps were there, basking in the low hanging afternoon sun. They stood collectively, and stared with the blankest of stares. Their ears stick straight out, their eyes are on opposite sides of their heads, pointing in different directions. It reminded me of that scene in The Birds, when Tippi Hedren is in the attic, surounded by birds, harmless birds, but hundreds waiting to attack. I leaned over the fence to get a good look at my dinner, and a sheep mooed right at me. But it wasn't a moo, it was more a Bhaaa! Then they all started doing it, hundreds of sheep moos. So I left before there was any real trouble.
I bought some cheese, lamb and frozen lamb stew, all of which was delicious. When I go to a restaurant, I like to be able to see the kitchen, and when I buy meat, I like to be able to see the barn.