THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 5, 1996 TAG: 9608030012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: 59 lines
For as long as I can remember, some of my favorite things to eat have come in nicely browned - and crunchily edible - wrappings.
One of the great treats of my early years turned up in the lunchroom at old Ballentine School in Norfolk. I almost never bought a full meal at recess, since my routine was to bring a bagged lunch from home. But somehow on certain days I went to Ballentine with a couple of coins tied in the corner of my pocket handkerchief. Those were the days when apple turnovers happened to be on the school menu.
These were marvels of warm succulence, all hidden until a first bite broke through the outside shell, a triangular affair with the edges crimped to hold the juices in.
Dessert delectables such as those, along with pies (covered, uncovered) and tarts generally, make up one category of the foods I'm talking about.
A second - and for me, far better - category embraces more stick-to-your-ribs kinds of eatables. The list of simple but satisfying creations in this branch of cookery seems to be growing - or perhaps it's just that my experience is.
Chicken potpies and their close cousins, pork and other meat pies (met a lot of these in England during the war) have long been hearty favorites in a lot of places. And now we're being offered (with plenty of takers, I sense, along American highways and at dinner tables) some considerable variety beyond the pork-pie genre.
As more and more zesty foods bearing foreign labels have built followings here, we eat more and more jacketed items like egg rolls and tacos and burritos. And pizzas, with dough over as well as under. And coming on stronger and stronger, even showing up now at fast-food counters, the pita, that ingenious pocket bread that can be used to deliver helpings of all manner of chopped meat and vegetables.
All very toothsome. And there's more.
Another baked-dough-clad delicacy (the outer shell is a flaky pastry in this instance) goes back to heavy timbering and mining operations in the American North, and back further than that in mother Europe.
I first made eating acquaintance with ``pasties'' (the ``a'' is pronounced like the ``a'' in ``hat'') on a trip to Michigan several years ago, and have renewed the flavorful contact several times since.
Pasties are plump, rounded ovals that could be carried in workmen's pails for reheating, by any of various means, at mealtime. They look, outwardly, like smallish, brownish footballs. Inside, brought to a savory turn in the baking, are wonderfully seasoned mixtures of meat and vegetables - often given a special zing by the inclusion of rutabagas and/or turnips. Some of today's devotees, just before indulging, like to top them off with dabs of ketchup or dollops of gravy.
Yum. Somehow, I guess I'll always have a special, taste-buddy feeling for foods cooked within an inviting crust.
``They'' say that you can't judge a package by its wrapping. But there are a few notable exceptions.
I say. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk. by CNB