Man’s Best Friend

“Animals are such agreeable friends”, novelist George Eliot once wrote. “They ask no questions, they pass no criticisms”. I assume she (yes, a woman named George) did include dogs among her friends. Or maybe not, because how could she have failed to mention that dogs are also insatiable eaters? They eat the food you give them at their regular feeding times. They also eat the food you don’t give them, like my sandwich on the table while I answer the phone. They eat whatever worm or other creature has expired on the sidewalk, no matter how long ago. They also eat rubber gloves. At least our Brussels griffon does. We know that because it came out his back door again, finger by finger. Our female Yorkshire terrier, all five pounds of her, has an even more exotic idea of what constitutes gourmet food: she cleans up after herself and eats it.
I remember, a long time ago, that one of my uncles had a dog for whom he always cooked horse meat and vegetables in a big kettle. Recently we became suspicious when the commercial food we had been buying, labeled ‘Bison and Potato Formula’, was suddenly relabeled ‘Potato and Bison Formula’. We intrepreted this as a discreet admission that meat was not the prime ingredient. Since the bison is a cousin of bos taurus, the common bull, we feared that, let’s just say, we would never be told straight out how much actual meat was in this pelletized mix of gristle, sinews, bones, hair, hoofs, skin, and sawdust that we are often warned about in the press. We decided to cook our own dog food from scratch. We did not stoop as low as horse meat, but we had a recipe for a two-course menu of chicken thighs and greens. We came to the first hurdle at our first visit with the butcher at the supermarket. It seems that people’s eating habits have changed toward better nutrition. Nodody buys chicken with skin any more. All the chicken the butcher had, consequently, was skinless. We needed chicken with the skin still on. And it had to be boneless. And it had to be ground. Well, this butcher was unable to do all that.
We eventually found one who was able and willing to prepare what we needed. But he had no innards. I mean, he had none for sale, there were not any in the store. He said that people don’t want them any more, that he couldn’t afford to stock things people don’t buy. Nowadays, the typical American grandmother’s famous gravy comes out of a package, just add water. Who wants to mess with liver and gizzards?
In other cultures, in France for example, or in Iran, chicken livers are highly praised delicacies. So we found a butcher who spoke Farsi, a most friendly and accomodating man who was delighted to supply us with all the liver we could handle. It occurred to me then that our government, instead of trying to come to an understanding with the uncooperative ayatollahs might be more successful working things out with the Iranian butchers’ guild.
Unfortunately our new Iranian friend was out of gizzards or he would have thrown some in. But a nearby Korean market had plenty, enough for our recipe, anyway. To chop liver is no great art. To chop gizzards is a challenge. The job requires a very sharp knife. Mine was razor sharp. That is why I nicked my thumb. Only a quickly grabbed Kleenex prevented me from adding blood to the dog food. We finished the job using the Cuisinart food processor.
To cook ten pounds of meat, rice, vegetables, and fruit one needs a big pan, one bigger than anything we had. In simpler days one could go to the store and buy a pan. Not so any more. No one goes to the store, in the first place. One goes to the computer and googles Amazon. There one learns that there is no such thing as ‘a’ pan. There are only sets of twelve convenient sizes and the shipping is free for orders over fifty dollars. By luck we found one ‘open stock’ skillet of the right size and material at a half way reasonable price. But let that go. The cooking done and the food having cooled, we mashed it all up in a bowl. The dogs paid close attention.
Such food spoils easy. One must freeze the bulk of it until needed for a feeding. One does this by measuring out daily portions. This operation involves the dog owner in most complicated computations, namely how much to give each dog per feeding. The complications arise from the fact that several different units of measurement are in use. In the markets they weigh all food in pounds and decimal fractions of pounds, 2.25 pounds, for example. Our recipe specified the same amount of ingredients in terms of pounds and ounces, like 2 pounds, 4 ounces, while the suggested rations were given in terms of two more different sets of measurements, namely cups, half cups, and fourth cups, as well as tablespoons and teaspoons. Where I come from dog lovers have it easier: everything is weighed in grams, the dogs as well as their food, it being considered irrelevant if served in cups or with spoons. Once weighed out, the portions are set into the freezer where they are promptly forgotten until the following morning’s feeding when everything is frozen solid. This is where the microwave oven comes in, bless the inventor.
It takes two adults to feed four dogs their proper rations, what with shopping, cooking, measuring, and presenting the food in suitably cut up and digestible condition, not too cold and not too hot. The last step is giving the food to the pack in such a way that they all get their’s at the same time. It is a dramatic event. I recorded, mentally, some snippets of our kitchen conversation:
“Beckie’s dish is ready. No, wait. Too much, I think. Where is the scale?”
“Here, stick this one in the microwave, just a few seconds”.
“Not on high! Defrost it, I meant, don’t cook it! Oh, let me do it, here, hold this”.
“Have you done Tiffy’s yet?”
“Hold it, this is Tiffy’s, ready for the oven”.
“Not Tiffy! Her FOOD! Get it together, now”.
“I need one more container”.
“No, not the small one”.
“Is there more room in the oven? What smells so?”
“Do you have something in the toaster oven?”
“Why did you stick Beckie’s food in the toaster?”
“Yes, I may have said “oven” but I meant “microwave” of course. A child would have understood that”.
“Stop barking, Benji. Don’t you see we are working at it?.
“Here, Gwendolyn, let me blow on yours. It was way too hot, wasn’t it?.
“Is it o.k. now? Take a bite, darling”.
“Not you, I was talking to the dog”.
“I am losing it. These animals drive me crazy”.
“I see”, is all I could get out by way of agreement. The funny thing is that what took us hours to prepare they slurped up in ninety seconds and then came begging for more. Needless to say, our pack shows no signs of malnutrition or stress other than that they could handle another cup or ounce or spoonful without trouble. Not to worry, they would somehow ‘gram’ it in.
(c)2016 by Herbert H. Hoffman