Book 14 - Chapter 12 - Khndzorov Tolma, Nigvziani Badrijani, and a Few Insights on Happiness and Suffering

"While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom."

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes: Culinaria: Russia by Marian Trutter

Khndzorov Tolma

(Apples stuffed with Ground Beef)

8 medium apples
3-4 tbsp butter
2 onions finely chopped
1/4 cups ground beef
1 bunch each parsley and cilantro
Sweet paprika, salt, and pepper to taste
2 cups boiled rice (I used cooked pearled barley)
2 very ripe tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth

Carefully cut the tops off the apples, and using a spoon, core them, and scrape out some of the apple flesh to make room for the stuffing.  Reserve the apple flesh.

  

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat.  Saute the onions until they start to become translucent.  Add the ground beef, herbs and spices and cook through, adding the reserved apple at the end.  Mix with the rice or barley.  Use the mixture to fill the apples and replace the apple tops.

Puree the tomatoes in a food processor and run through a sieve to remove seeds.  Arrange the apples in a saucepan with their tops on and pour the tomato puree and broth over them.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until the apples become tender but do not fall apart. 

Nigvziani Badrijani

1 large eggplant
Salt
Oil for frying (I actually roasted mine in the oven)
11/2 cups of finely chopped walnuts
2-3 cloves of garlic
Khmeli Suneli (spice mixture of saffron, fenugreek, and corriander - I didn't have anything even approximately close to this mixture)
2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro

Cut the eggplant lengthwise into thin slices.  salt each slice and cover it for an hour to draw out the moisture.  Drain and press the remaining liquid from the eggplant (I made this recipe after work and skipped this step).  Fry teh eggplant in hot oil on both sides, remove from the pan and leave to cool (or you could just roast it in the oven).  Dump the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and run it until you have a thick paste.  I didn't have most of the spices for this, so I used a lot of extra cilantro, which made my paste a rather pleasant green color; in the cookbook, the saffron made it a rather pleasant yellow color.  Spread the paste on the eggplant slices and fold them in half so the skin is on the outside.  Let them sit at room temperature for about an hour to let the flavors blend (I skipped this part too, but the leftovers did taste better than the ones I ate right away.)

I was a little hesitant about apples and tomato broth, but in fact it was delicious.  After the uncooked garlic yogurt experience, I was also a bit hesitant of the eggplant, so for the second batch, I put the spread on first, then roasted it.  It didn't make a very appreciable difference except that the pleasing green color turned brown.  These were both good recipes, it was a lot of work to core the apples so carefully, which is why there are only 4 of them in the photo.  The rest of the filling is in my fridge waiting to be steamed into the rest of the apples, which are in my fruit bowl.

About the book:

Pierre has finally been rescued!  By our lost friend Denisov!  But while a prisoner of the French he has learned some powerful insights about his own choices in life; he thinks, "that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet that were covered with sores—his footgear having long since fallen to pieces."  He has even learned to cope with his sore feet, much in the same way that young Rostov has learned to cope with his fear of death during a battle, Pierre simply thinks about other things.  


Rostov's younger brother, Petya, did not learn his older brother's discipline in war.  He did not listen to Denisov before engaging in a mercenary, pointles battle against the French troops, not to defeat them, but to take supplies from them which they were wholly ready to surrender.  He rushed into a token resistence and was shot through the head.  This episode, of course, will be used to highlight my next post where I will take up Kutuzov and his experience of the "glory" of war.  Look for that blog post later this afternoon.