A bottle of coke
"culture in a bottle"?
The quote at the top is not really a quote. It's a slight change from something I found that described tea as 'culture in a cup'. Anyway I thought if ever there was anything that was culture in a bottle it was Coca Cola. It is so American, and summed up by images (above) and words (below) from Andy Warhol.
"What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it." Andy Warhol
Now I am by no means saying that Coca Cola is good. But it is an American icon and represents all that is sort of admirable and also awful about America. Other quotes mentioned that wherever you were in the world - like anywhere - if you mentioned Coca Cola the people would know what you are talking about. People have gone on at length about the evils of Coca Cola - you have only to do a quick internet search, but that's not what I am on about here.
The wedding is over, my sister has gone and I have been clearing out the fridge and the Gatehouse of the few leftovers in the fridge and pantry. One of these is a half-opened, well more than half is still there, bottle of Coke. My first reaction was to throw it out. Coca Cola is evil after all is it not? But my thrifty nature stopped me and I thought I would look at whether I could use it in some way for cooking. And I then remembered that I had noticed a recipe in How to Eat, by Nigella, which I was flicking through the other day, for gammon cooked in Coke. In that book she did say that gammon was a term not used much any more, and I see that on her website the recipe is now called Ham in Coca Cola.
She raves about the dish at length.
"The first time I made this, it was, to be frank, really just out of amused interest. I’d heard, and read, about this culinary tradition from the Deep South, but I wasn’t expecting it, in all honesty, to be good. The truth is it’s magnificent, and makes converts of anyone who eats it. But, if you think about it, it’s not surprising it should work: the sweet, spiky drink just infuses it with a spirit of barbecue. I have to force myself to cook ham any other way now; though often I don’t bother with the glaze but just leave it for longer in the bubbling Coke instead. But just one thing before we start: don’t even consider using Diet Coke; it’s full-fat or nothing."
Well we don't have gammon here in Oz. I think gammon was also what we called bacon joints back in my youth in England. I liked it a lot and moreover it was cheap. It's sort of uncooked ham. Indeed at one point in one of her versions of the recipe Nigella says that once the gammon is cooked it becomes ham. Anyway we do have ham in Oz, so I thought that this recipe might well be a distinct possibility. The only problem being that generally in Oz, ham comes in large pieces and there are now only two of us to feed. And when I looked further at the recipe I saw that it also required black treacle which I don't have, and which probably comes in largeish tins which would most likely lurk in my pantry for evermore. So I looked further - trying to stick to reasonably well-known sources. And here are a few to tempt you.
This is one of those seriously simple recipes - just chuck the wings in a dish and pour over the ingredient mix and cook. But it does take a long time - three and a half hours in a slow oven, so you need to plan. I'd be worrying it would all burn to a crisp, but it is a slow oven - 150ºC so I guess it might be alright. And I guess you could also do it with larger bits of chicken. So worth a try I think.
Pork spare ribs that is. Slightly more complicated as it involves puréeing tomatoes and softening onions, but pretty simple all the same. He says ribs are cheap - personally I think ribs are one of the more expensive pork cuts which I can never understand. Anyway - also a tempting possibility.
Published in delicious Magazine, it's a variation on the theme but with different ingredients. A slightly more elaborate method though. Soaked in coca-cola overnight, cooked covered in the oven and then glazed and cooked some more with a mix from the Coke and other yummy things.
I think these three should give you some ideas for cooking sticky barbecue kind of things. But then there's chocolate. As if you needed to add yet more evil things! Here are three of them:
The first is for Coca-Cola brownies from the Serious Eats website. The next is Chocolate cola cake from delicious Magazine and the last is from Coca-Cola themselves. And, of course if you really want to discover the full breadth of how to cook with Coca Cola, though why would you? - then the Coca-Cola website is the place to go.
I gather all of this cooking thing may have begun back in the days of the war when there were sugar shortages and coca-cola was suggested as a sugar substitute. Well it is virtually all sugar isn't it?
So there you go. Waste not, want not. I think I might go for something chickeny when the weather has got a bit cooler. Can't cook things in the oven for hours when the temperature is in the high 30s or barbecue either when there's a fire ban.
But I shall end with a couple of quotes that have nothing to do with cooking but a lot to do with America and Coca-Cola.
“A billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth. A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged. A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music. A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning." Robert Goizueta, chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company, April 1997
"I rinse my hair with Coca-Cola sometimes. I don't like my hair when it's washed - it's fine and limp - but Coca-Cola makes it tousled, like I've gone through the Amazon or something." Suki Waterhouse
I have no idea who Suki Waterhouse is, but I'm old and out of touch. Besides there are so many weird things you can do with Coke - some of them somewhat frightening. I don't suggest deliberately buying any to cook with, but if, for some reason, you find yourself with a bottle there's quite a lot of possibilities.
