Receive!

I’ve barely had this site a month, yet I’m sure we’ve been through this already: I don’t like recipes. They stifle creativity and keep people from trusting their own senses. Lists and measurements and instructions might lead to better meals from time to time, but they keep us at a certain distance from what our hands and pots are doing with our food. I’m not sure that distance is desirable, and I’m sure it’s not enjoyable. I’d rather toss things into pans with at least a little bit of abandon. If it’s too salty, too oily, or whatever, I’ll know better next time. A few months of this, and I will have learned to cook. (It is how I learned to cook.) Food cooked with love beats food cooked with science any day.

Recipes were not always what they are, however. The word comes from a command from Roman doctors. Receive! they wrote above their lists of tinctures for their patients. I’ve never seen one of these, but it sounds like a shopping list. Like a receipt, as it were, which is what recipes were called until 17something or other. Until relatively recently, recipes were just lists of quantities of things purchased. Methods were presumed known. Restaurants didn’t exist until 17something or other, so getting out of learning how to cook was impossible unless you were very wealthy.

All of which is to say: Recipes aren’t really anything at all. What they are today often strikes me as a vehicle for book sales, with little value added. But they can be helpful in their lists of ingredients—helping to figure out what goes with what—and their descriptions of techniques for those of us who are not medieval chefs or may need a little refresher course. They shouldn’t be followed with any precision. That’s boring, it stifles creativity, et cetera.

But rules are made to be broken, and diatribes exist to be contradicted. I still hold that recipes are not so great for cooking, but they are excellent for baking. This date walnut bread is one of my favorites. It belongs at the end of a meal, served in thinnest slices. Highly recommended with Roquefort and apples. Receive!

Date Walnut Bread

Adapted from Patricia Wells, Vegetable Harvest

This is more of a loaf cake than a bread, and if you still must call it bread, keep in mind that it is a quick bread and therefore takes no kneading or waiting. Mrs. Wells writes wonderful recipes. However, I do take issue with her specification to use “hottest possible tap water.” Things dissolve more easily in hot water than in cold. Accordingly, if you’re using hot water directly from the tap, you have a much higher chance of dissolving mineral deposits formerly languishing in your pipes into the water that will be coming out of the faucet, which will then end up in your bread. This is kind of gross, and the effects on your health may be suboptimal. Unless you are certain that your pipes are pristine, you should boil cold tap water yourself; it’s not too hard.

Walnut oil or butter  |  12 oz dates, pitted coarsely chopped  |  1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped  |  ½ tsp baking soda  |  ½ tsp salt  |  ½ cup honey  |  ¾ cup just boiled water  |  2 eggs, lightly beaten  |  1 tsp vanilla  |  1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

For the vessel: You can use 1 quart-sized loaf pan for this, but I like 2 pint-sized pans better. The recipe can easily be cut in half to make just 1 tiny bread.

Heat oven to 375 F. Coat the pans with walnut oil or butter. If they tend to stick, consider flouring them as well. Please do not use cooking spray. It is full of chemicals and tastes like it, too.

Combine the dates, walnuts, baking soda, salt, and honey. Add the hot water and stir. Add eggs and vanilla and stir again. Add the flour, stirring until just combined. Don’t let little flour deposits get stuck in the walnut crevices like I did. Your guests won’t find them very appetizing, I’m afraid.

Pour batter into pan or pans, and jiggle to even out. Bake until a skewer comes out clean, 30-40 minutes for the pint-sized pans, 40-50 minutes for one quart-sized pan. Let cool for at least 1 hour before serving. Mrs. Wells says this can be stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. I kept mine for nearly a week, and it never got stale.