Almonds and the Madonna’s eyes. They were both the same shape and creamy white color. Her image in the newspaper possessed me as I sat with a plate of the blanched nuts — slipping off their papery brown skins one by one. It was a task to read by and She was impossible to miss on the front page. A museum had just acquired Her and the Child for a record amount of money – over 45 million dollars. A curator of European painting was quoted as saying the Madonna represents the artist’s complete thought on the subject. I can’t even begin to imagine what that means.
The Madonna caught me on a day when I was on a cooking journey, making something that was new for me but in fact is very old. Like Her – the origin of this thing called a
picada dates back to the 14th century. It’s a paste used to thicken sauces in Catalonian cuisine. Traditionally it’s pounded in a mortar and pestle – like an Italian pesto — but then the picada is stirred into a warm sauce before the dish is served. It’s a coda of nuance that enhances the flavor at the very end of the process. Common ingredients are garlic, bread that’s been toasted or fried, olive oil or pan juices, nuts, herbs and spices. The success of it is judged on its smoothness – how well it blends into everything else and the subtleness it adds. It’s the ultimate secret ingredient – you can’t tell what it is exactly but if it wasn’t there – it wouldn’t be right. This picada was made with unsweetened chocolate, parsley and brandy, to go with the lamb shanks that I’d marinated overnight in leeks, a head of garlic, onions, carrots, bay, thyme and oregano and a bottle of red wine.
I set the meat in a low 250 degree oven covered with wet wrinkled parchment paper and a tight fitting lid. After a few hours — my house was filled with distracting aromas. And that’s when I discovered the Madonna, while prepping the last element — the picada.
I’d skinned all the blanched almonds and then toasted them. They burnished like warm gold. I was squinting at the blurry colors of the newsprint to see if they matched the color of her pupils but I couldn’t tell. She’s painted on a piece of wood the size of a piece of typing paper. Experts say that She remains in her original frame — which is burned — singed along the bottom edge by devotional candles. Apparently The Madonna and Child were hung in someone’s bedroom as an altarpiece. The pudgy babe in her arms looks like an old man that could slip off her lap and the painting at any moment. He reaches for her veil with a thick arm and points to her eyes. The Madonna looks at him
and past him at the same time. She seems sad to me. The curator describes her expression as pensive and said that ‘the artist had explored intimacy in a new way.’
That night I served the picada and lamb with a thick grainy polenta for earthbound balance. We ate around the table shadowed by the fireplace, votives and the yellow light from the oven. The meat fell from the bone. We all agreed how we’d never tasted flavors like this before and how extraordinary that really is.
originally broadcast Nov. 17, 2004
