"Prudêncio, a black houseboy, was my horse every day. He’d get down on his hands and knees, take a cord in his mouth as a bridle, and I’d climb onto his back with a switch in my hand. I would whip him, make him do a thousand turns, left and right, and he would obey—sometimes moaning—but he would obey without saying a word or, at most, an—'Ouch, little master!'—to which I would retort, 'Shut your mouth, animal!'"
Book: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria
Big Pie, Goiano Style
For the filling:
1 cup vegetable oil
1 lb boneless, skinless thigh meat
1/2 pork loin
2 hard boiled eggs, cubed
11/2 cup manchego cheese, cubed
1/2 cup olives
1 cup sliced hearts of palm
For the sauce:
1 cup tomato puree
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped scallions
1/4 cup parsley
1 small chili - deseeded, deveined, and minced (for Jay - who doesn't like things too spicy - otherwise, keep the seeds and veins for the heat)
2 tbsp flour
1 frozen pie crust (top and bottom)
1 egg yolk
In a frying pan, cook the bacon and remove. Add the oil to the bacon grease and cook the chicken until it is browned, about 4 minutes on each side. Set the chicken aside and cook the pork until it is browned, about 3-4 minutes on each side. When the meats are cool enough, cut them into cubes keeping them in separate piles.
Using the same frying pan, add the tomato puree over medium heat and deglaze the pan. Add the tomato paste, scallions, parsley, chili, and 1 1/2 cups of water. In a bowl, whisk the flour into the remaining half cup of water. Gently add this to the sauce.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Follow the directions on the pie crust to assemble the bottom crust in a pie pan. Layer the fillings in the following order: chicken, bacon, pork, eggs, cheese, olives, and hearts of palm. Top with a generous layer of sauce. Then assemble the top of the pie crust. Brush the pie with the beaten egg yolk. Bake on the lower rack for 20 minutes, then move to the top rack for 10 minutes to brown the crust. Let the pie cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Of course, I omitted the olives and replaced them with capers. I also added the bacon, which, coupled with the capers, pushed the limits of saltiness, but thankfully, not too far. I also couldn't find Manchego cheese, so I substituted some fontina as a close approximation, and that tasted just fine to me. While it seems at first glance to be a mishmash leftovers thrown into a pie crust, it was actually delicious. We served it with some asparagus and a side dish of rushing since we were on our way to Jay's mother's day show. The leftovers were even better than the first round.
About the book:
Perhaps I was just dragging my feet about the first few chapters. The story has actually picked up quite remarkably since I last spoke about it. There are some serious references to the colonial period, which lasted until 1822; and there are a lot of references to slaves and class issues. At this point in the tale, our hero is the only son of an upjumped family of merchants and pirates trying to assume a place in society. What better way to do that than to raise your son as a profligate brat? As the above quote gives testament, young Bras Cubas wasn't shy about getting his own way. He tells the story of making his slave boy his horse, he tells another tale of how he "split open the head of a slave because she’d refused to give me a spoonful of the cocoanut confection she was making and, not content with that evil deed, I threw a handful of ashes into the bowl and, not satisfied with that mischief, I ran to tell my mother that the slave was the one who’d ruined the dish out of spite." He is never punished for these offenses, nor do the slaves ever complain about it. That might be because at this time, slavery wasn't going to be abolished in Brazil for about 73 years (1888).
That Bras Cubas starts out this tale of his abusive ways as a youth by alluding to Wordsworth makes me wonder just what kind of man he was...
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