Yes, I fail at Vegan MoFo, but perhaps another recipe from the fourteenth-century Forme of Cury will make up for my lapse. This one is basically a fairly simple recipe for whole boiled garlic cloves. Sure, you’ll stink after this, but I promise it’ll be worth the stench. The original reads, “Aquapatys. XX.III. XV. Pill garlec and cast it in a pot with water and oile. and seeþ it, do þerto safroun, salt, and powdour fort and dresse it forth hool.” My method was to first brown the whole garlic cloves in a bit of olive oil, add water and bring to a boil, simmer until they’re tender.

The “powdour fort,” or “strong powder,” bit requires a bit more imagination. Powder forte was a blend of spices that occurred in quite a few medieval and renaissance recipes, but the exact composition is a little obscure. Samuel Pegge, the eighteenth-century editor of Forme of Cury, speculated that it was a mixture “of the warmer spices, pepper, ginger, &c. pulverized: hence we have powder-fort of gynger, other of canel [cinnamon].” It probably included also a few spices that are today a bit hard to find, such as grains of paradise, a relative of cardamom, and cubeb pepper, sometimes called Java pepper.

For this incarnation, I just blended up the warmer spices I had on hand: cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and loads of freshly ground black pepper. I added salt and a pinch of ground saffron, tossed the boiled and drained cloves in the mix until well coated, and then ate them spread on slices of baguette. The boiling really cuts the harshness of the garlic in case you’re a bit wary of eating whole cloves, and they become nicely creamy and spreadable. Good times.

Taylours. Take almondes, and grynde hem raw in a morter, and temper hit with wyne and a litul water; And drawe hit þorgh a streynour into a goode stiff mylke into a potte; and caste thereto reysons of coraunce, and grete reysons, myced Dates, Clowes, Maces, Pouder of Peper, Canel, saffron̄ a good quantite, and salt; and sette hem ouere the fire, And lete al boyle togidre awhile; And alay hit vp with floure of Ryse, or elles grated brede, and cast there-to sugur and salt, And serue hit forth in maner of mortrewes, and caste there-on̄ pouder ginger in þe dissh. (Harleian MS 4016)

The simplified, roughly translated version? Pour some almond milk in a small saucepan, add powdered cloves, mace, pepper, cinnamon, salt, a pinch of saffron. Throw in some raisins and chopped dates, bring the whole thing to a simmer for a bit. Then stir in a little rice flour. You don’t need a lot. I’d start with a tablespoon, maybe two, let it thicken for a minute, and then add more as needed. It turns into a gummy gruel fairly quickly. Stir in some sugar, sprinkle on some powdered ginger. Consume.

The end result is somewhere between hot cereal and a big steamy bowl of spiced cookie dough. It’s great in the morning as an alternative to oatmeal or cream of wheat, or in the evening if your insomnia makes it difficult to tell your dawn from your dusk…

When I first saw romanesco, I was fascinated by its striking appearance, but figured it was just a gimmicky upscale cauliflower. But romanesco really does have its own distinct flavor. It doesn’t have that taste I associate with normal vanilla grocery-store cauliflower. It’s sweeter, almost buttery. Plus, it really is a damn fine thing to look at.

And it’s quite possible the nerdiest vegetable there is.

I did a quick and dirty Google search—Sorry, not my usual standard of research, I know—for information on romanesco and mathematical patterns in nature and found tons of discussion online. And most of it, like this brief overview of non-Euclidean geometry by mathematics lecturer Mircea Pitici, is way over my head at 2AM on a Saturday morning. But Pitici’s overview talks about romanesco and crocheting, plus uses the wonderfully Lovecraftian phrase “non-Euclidean,” which makes it quite the nerd hat-trick in my book. Maybe someone can put it into small words that my sleep-deprived brain can comprehend…

If it weren’t for the social aspects of the Internet, getting to share my food and photos with the world’s netizens, I probably wouldn’t cook all that much. Preparing anything fancier than tofu and rice just doesn’t seem worth it if you don’t have the opportunity to share, even if only virtually. And I just forget to eat properly, sometimes for a day or two at a time, and when the hunger finally catches up to me, it’s usually late at night when I don’t feel particularly inclined to cook anything ambitious, much less drive to the 24-hour grocery.

It’s times like those that having a decent store of various flours and other dried goods comes in handy. The other night, I found myself once again facing an empty stomach and an empty fridge, and managed to throw together some hushpuppies. If you’re not familiar with hushpuppies (and if you’re reading from outside the US, you’re probably not), they’re basically little deep-fried nuggets of cornmeal-based batter. Traditionally, they often contain eggs and dairy, but as often turns out, those can be left out without really affecting the final taste or consistency.

These I just made with cornmeal, salt and pepper, a bit of garlic powder for flavoring, a little wheat flour to bind it all together, and plain old water, all deep-fried in corn oil until golden brown. I don’t measure anything, since it’s pretty difficult to screw this one up. Oh, and they’re especially good with Black Panther hot sauce, but what isn’t?