The Nostalgia of Mouth Feel

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I first became besotted with mouth feel during Sunday lunches at my Grandparents’ house. The main course typically consisted of beef tenderloin, perfectly cooked to a dusty rose hue, accompanied by shiny roasted potatoes that first resisted the knife and then with a crackle gave way to the tender middle. But the star of the meal was the dessert. My grandmother whispered the initials to me so that I could guess. HM – honey mousse – was my favorite.

Sixty years have passed but I can isolate the very moment that honey mousse hit my tongue. No other senses were involved. After all, honey mousse was odorless and the visual was not compelling – a pallid scoop the color of dispirited dishwater quivering on my plate - but the sweet molecules glommed onto beckoning taste buds. Overflowing globs cloaked the roof of my mouth with the smooth but slightly grainy softness of a low thread-count sheet. Dear, sweet honey mousse did not overstay its welcome – there was no cloying smear of an aftertaste. It was there and then gone and I could start fresh with the next spoonful.

I had a glorious run with honey mousse until we moved on to the next iteration of family gatherings after my grandparents died. Sunday lunches transitioned to a fully loaded sandwich bar spread across the kitchen counters in our house. We often ate standing up at the counter in wet bathing suits that dripped on the floor. For dessert we rummaged in the huge mudroom freezer filled with popsicles and ice-cream bars. Honey mousse vanished from my life. My mother never attempted to make a mousse because she was afraid of the vagaries of gelatin. She liked to tell the story of how she overshot the gelatin in her attempt at tomato aspic and ended up with an inedible rubberized concoction that could bounce on the floor.

As my grandmother’s 110^th birthday approached, I decided to revive honey mousse and take my chances with gelatin. Sitting in the shelves of each of my cousin’s homes is a copy of the cookbook, “Have Fun with Herbs,” self-published by my grandmother in the early 1950s. I proposed a family unity exercise to dedicate a weekend when we would each concoct one of the recipes in the cookbook and then gather to share memories of my grandparents and our Sunday lunches.

As I perused the book, I realized that while being a cherished family item, “Have Fun with Herbs” was seriously flawed as a cookbook. There were many instances where the temperature of the oven was omitted, and that maddening phrase, “cook until done,” was frequently used. The cookbook’s dated quality was charming; many recipes focused on the novelty of frozen vegetables and processed food. The recipe for “String Beans and Mushrooms” called for a package of Birdseye French Style frozen beans and a can of mushroom soup. My cousin Susie thought that the theme of the recipes was to add wine early and often, while I detected that the recipes skewed toward the unhealthy trio of butter, cream and eggs.

I assumed the responsibility for dessert but also leafed through the cookbook to find intriguing entrees. Recipes for tripe and tongue would add a unique flair to the meal but my proposed menu was greeted with outright hostility by the senior members of the group. When asked which he preferred, Uncle Frank said he would prefer not to come, and my father begged to have something different. I was secretly relieved, since the recipes required me to “skin the tongue,” and “wash the tripe.” I had no experience with a tongue, but skinning it sounded like something a cannibal might do. And the tripe - based on my experience as a pathologist doing autopsies, I knew there was no way I could clean tripe to an edible level. I abandoned the entree options and focused on honey mousse as my showstopper.

The recipe included the unhealthy triumvirate of honey, cream and eggs held together with the intimidating gelatin. If I had to classify myself as a cook, I would say I’m more instinctual than technical. Specifically, I often conclude that the recipe just can’t be correct. Honey mousse was no exception. I made the executive decision that the amount of cream was excessive, so based on Susie’s observation I substituted a cup of sherry for one cup of cream.

The recipe called for placing the sweet creamy concoction in a mold - and I found just the thing. The previous Christmas, I had received a catalog from the Anatomical Supply Company (1-800-ANATOMY) which primarily sold instructional posters and models of body parts for physicians’ offices – i.e. the circulatory system, the ankle, the lungs, etc. But they also sold molds of body parts as a novelty, and I purchased molds of a heart, a left hand and a brain. Buloop, bloop, bahloop, I poured the honey mousse into the brain mold and set it aside to congeal.

I worried about over gelatinizing, but as lunch progressed, I peeked at the brain mold and was pleased to see a satisfactory consistency. The next challenge was to extract the mousse in one piece. My young niece Della and I went into the kitchen and jiggled the mold and then used a little knife around the edges. Holding our breath, we turned the mold upside down. With a sucking whoosh noise, a glorious and glistening anatomically-correct brain thumped on the plate. Einstein had nothing on this brain.

The Anatomical Supply Company had helpfully provided recipes and suggested that watermelon Jello would produce a most life-like brain. They obviously had never considered the attributes of honey mousse. I told Uncle Frank that since he had rejected other organ meats, I had subbed in a different organ for dessert. I gave him the honors of serving it up. The poor man was panic-stricken. He broke out in a sweat, his eyes bugged, his breath quickened. He honestly thought I had repurposed a brain for dessert. Worried for his health, I reassured him by sampling the first bit and announcing it was our old favorite, good old HM, honey mousse.

The sweetness of the honey combined with sherry packed a wallop. My taste buds rose up in grateful awe as the comforting texture blossomed in my mouth. Taste and mouth feel converged into a full-on nostalgia. At the start of the meal my dining room table felt cramped. Now it seemed to stretch on forever – so far that I imagined my natty grandfather shrouded in wispy mist at the opposite end talking business with my Uncle Frank. Now a generation later, Uncle Frank looked exactly like my grandfather as I remembered him. Young nieces and nephews had taken my place as the younger generation. I had transitioned to the sandwich generation. I leaned over to my young niece and whispered HM, the initials for dessert.

From a presentation perspective, we all agreed that honey mousse was not a success. Our group of twelve barely made a dent in the frontal lobes. The cerebellum and auditory cortex remained untouched. The leftovers languished for a few days in our fridge, then the gelatin lost its spunk and the dessert sagged into something that looked more like roadkill. However, the dessert has remained a valued nugget of family lore.

Do you remember that time when we had honey mousse that looked like a brain and Uncle Frank looked like he might have had a stroke?

We’re having a family reunion this summer. Time to introduce the next generation to the pleasures of honey mousse in a brain mold. And how about a tomato aspic in the heart mold. The role for the left-hand mold remains elusive.

Bonus Word Game Poem

The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters as spot, post, stop) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One missing word with rhyme with the previous or following line, giving you a big clue. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.

* * * * * * * are meant to be broken is my basic cooking strategy and scheme,

So when I made honey mousse, I added liquor instead of cream

And then I put it a mold of a brain that was anatomically correct and * * * * * * *,

So that when it was served, it looked like a perfect human sacrifice.

Picture Uncle Frank’s anguished scream as it * * * * * * * the room

The poor man thinks he has to eat what only cannibals consume.

Answers:

recipes, precise, pierces