by Suzanne Morris
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| Source: Wikipedia |
I am typewriting my version
of the recipe for Coulibiac.
This hearty main dish has
endured since the 17th century
and requires a long list
of ingredients that
I must divide by half
whenever I prepare it, for
it makes enough to feed
a family of Russian peasants
after a long day of laboring
in the fields.
A customized version at hand
will save time as I spread
a rectangle of dough with
salmon, rice, boiled egg slices
and sauce redolent of scallions and
mushrooms and tarragon
then top with another sheet of dough,
seal the edges, glaze with raw egg
and bake the plump mound
to golden brown perfection.
In a flood of sympathy for the
valiant people of Ukraine,
I feel I should omit the note on the
origins of Coulibiac.
Then I remember how it
saddened me when
Ukrainians stripped the
names of
19th century literary giants
such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
from street signs, parks,
and public squares:
Weren’t they overlooking the
deep sense of moral justice
that flowed from the pens of
these Russian novelists,
as warming to the
human heart
as a fire in the hearth
on a snowbound winter’s eve?
Who is to say they would not be
wielding their pens today
to tell the truth of
the evil being done
in their country’s name, and
warn of the dire consequences?
...the worm gnaws the cabbage,
but dies before he’s done...*
*Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, 2007.
Suzanne Morris is a novelist and a poet. Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, and in journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, The Pine Cone Review, Stone Quarterly, and Emblazoned Soul Review.