The Perplexity of Petrified by Pâté

And a reminder to pick up a copy of Feast On Your Life!

Dear Tamar:

I’m 6 months pregnant, and while trying not to get too wrapped up in thinking about all the things I could be doing to prepare for a-completely-totally-unfathomably-new-existence, I am also trying to feed myself (and baby) well. I am not someone who craves liver...but know that it is a nutritional "powerhouse." One (of two) pregnancy books I’m reading offered a recipe for Beef Liver Pâté and I thought: “Ok. Let's try it.” The liver itself was an intimidating orb of grayish maroon, with an off-putting shimmer. I prepared it according to the directions. Did I look at other recipes before trying this one? No. Did I dive into the comments section of an online version? No! I just followed the printed directions. My husband agreed to having it as part of our dinner spread last night with toast and a big punchy green salad.

Tamar. It was terrible! Metallic, upsetting, unpalatable. And now I have 4 jars in my freezer. Salvageable? Worth even trying? My iron levels are probably fine...

-Petrified by Pâté

Dear Petrified by Pâté,

I had a cook in Georgia whom I’ll call “Julien” for the purposes of this column. That wasn’t his real name, but I don’t sense that more facts would add anything to the story’s truth. Julien could have been a model cook. He was fast and strong and positive—when he decided to be. He had a good palate, and promised he’d stop smoking after I nagged him about how much better his palate would get once he quit. He seemed able and excited to learn—sometimes.

Julien was also unreliable, prone to excuses, and truculent. I was a very new, very green head chef, with no experience inspiring or managing or directing humans. I didn’t know how to deal with the disparity between what Julien could do and what he did. I (justifiably) doubted my authority and spent much of my energy trying to prove it—to my cooks, to my patrons, to my partners, to myself.

What I came up with, in Julien’s case, was to offer him a raise. If I could show him the trust I had in his development—if I performed this act of faith—Julien would rise to meet my hopes for him. The raise had to be authorized by the restaurant partner who held the purse strings. I remember sitting with the partner, making my request, and watching his face. “Didn’t he just call out sick for Saturday dinner?” the partner asked. Yes, he had. “Didn’t you just reprimand him for leaving the grill dirty?” Also, yes. The partner looked wary. “I’m not going to tell you how to manage your staff,” he said, “But I would advise not throwing money at a problem.”

Did I mention that I was very new and very green? I ignored the counsel, gave Julien a raise, and watched his behavior get precipitously worse. His absences became routine, his truculence became full-on fights. I don’t remember whether, in the end, I fired Julien or let him quit. I remember offering a mea culpa to the partner who’d had it right all along.

I revisit the quandary when I make a culinary mistake and have to choose: give up or fight? The closest analogy I have to the wording of the partner in Georgia is someone—whose true name I really can’t remember—once counseling me not to “throw good ingredients after bad.” To this advice I’ve also only been able to occasionally abide. I’ve heard it echo in my head as I try to rescue an overly acidic vinaigrette by adding more olive oil, and then more…or to thin a mistakenly-whipped creme fraiche dressing by drizzling in cream—resulting in more mistakenly whipped dressing.

In this comparison, Julien ends up as a “bad” ingredient. He wasn’t. But his behavior should have been attended to or jettisoned, not rounded out with more cream. The tricky thing is that sometimes it works. Sometimes, even though I find myself with a whole jar full, the acidic vinaigrette is evened out by more oil (and more mustard and more salt.) Sometimes, good ingredients applied to mistakes will convert them.

I wish I had a formula for kitchen mistakes as clear as not throwing money at a personnel problem. I have made fixes that felt like miracles. And I’ve had to sigh and throw out ingredients and time and will and hope and kitchen fuel—and more of each than if I’d just given up earlier.

The closest I’ve come is a twofold general guidance:

1. If you will get pleasure from a success and not suffer from a failure, then it is worth an assay and attempt.

2. If you make your attempt on only a portion of the dish, you risk less time and will and hope than if you try it on the whole thing.

Based on your description of your pâté as “metallic, upsetting, unpalatable,” I’ll admit: Some of my hope is at risk. I find myself asking whether your recipe directed you to soak the liver first in milk, or milk and sugar—recommendations I’ve read for softening liver’s iron twang. I have other questions—like the ratio of fat to meat, which should be high—and how thoroughly you cooked the liver, which really can only bear medium rare. I can’t know those answers, which makes this even trickier.

But you did mention having divided your remaining pâté into four jars. This gives me enough to work with. If it will be pleasurable and you will not suffer, thaw one jar and see what happens if you amend it with the seasonings in this recipe for Vietnamese banh mi pâté, or this one, which includes bread and egg. Both include shallots, garlic, five spice powder, and sugar. One includes MSG. Those are all strong enough flavors that they might overpower the upsetting, metallic taste of the pâté as it stands. They might not. But if you’ve only dealt with one of the jars, it will be one or two shallots, a garlic clove, and a dash of five spice. Procedurally, I would mix the ingredients in with a firm hand rather than in a blender. I would add room temperature butter, too, even if the recipes don’t suggest it, because everything is better with butter and, again, you’ll only add—and risk losing—a tablespoon.

Dear cook, you ask a forever question, a daily one, an hourly one. Do I let go or do I gather my nerve—and my five spice powder and butter—and give it another shot? I do not have a formula for the more general form of the question, either. Or, I guess I only have the same answer: If you can make your effort without too much suffering, and without unaffordable risk, then perhaps it is worth it. And if you sense that the stakes are too high, and the risks too great, you can remind yourself that you are a grown human, in the process of growing another human, and you will not let yourself become petrified just by some pâté.