This past Saturday the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History held its annual wine festival. We were delighted to be there serving the participants.
With some 7,108 steps, we served 1,400 "meatballs and mashed potatoes" to some 1,000 guests. Well, they were not as pedestrian as you might imagine. Being a flavor-smith, I added a few flavor twists.
I used 50 pounds short ribs as the meat base and added black chanterelles (see note) with a little truffle oil for good measure. The chanterelles, also called trumpets of death or "poor man's truffles," were dried and reconstituted in warm water. I set these little flavor gems on mashed potatoes flavored with dried porcini mushroom powder. The potatoes looked like a peanut butter mix but has an earthy, rich flavor that begs for a pinot noir.
As fast, and we were fast, as we could dish the meatballs up, they were snatched up by the wine enthusiasts, all 1,400 of those meatballs.
Note from Wikipedia: "
Craterellus cornucopioides, or horn of plenty, is an edible mushroom. It can also be known as the black chanterelle, black trumpet, trompette de la mort (French) or trumpet of the dead.
The Cornucopia, in Greek mythology, referred to the magnificent horn of the nymph Amalthea's goat (or of herself in goat form), that filled itself with whatever meat or drink its owner requested. It has become the symbol of plenty.
A possible origin for the name "trumpet of the dead" is that the growing mushrooms were seen as being played as trumpets by dead people under the ground."
