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Many Aroostook County youngsters spend summers picking rocks in potato fields. Well, William “Bill” Forbes is no youngster, but he is still picking rocks. The problem is, according to his wife, Warrena, he takes them home.
He’s retired (he was a professor at UMPI), but not completely. He’s having too much fun. Bill Forbes is a geologist and even better, he’s a paleontologist. He’s not only interested in rocks, but what’s in the rocks. Like fossils of strange fish or plants.
Forbes’ home is nearly filled with rocks, fossils, and other strange objects he’s picked up in his travels, like a large portion of a mastodon’s tooth from a construction site in Massachusetts. He has a fossilized fish framed and ready to hang in the living room, but Warrena won’t let him.
She will, however, let him handle the fresh fish. “He’s a better cook than I am,” she says. “I eat a lot of popcorn when he’s not around.” Forbes has created quite a few specialties over the years, from Asian cuisine to Middle Eastern dishes. Like his rock-hunting persona, he sees each dish as an ongoing discovery. Part of the reason is, he almost never measures.
Take Forbes’ choice for the evening’s appetizer, shrimp cocktail. Creating the sauce turned into a bit of a cooking show, as Forbes added ingredients, tasted, added, and sampled again. This method is the only one you can really rely on, he says, since “different brands of ketchup make a difference.” His recipe calls for “a bit” of Worcestershire sauce, “a good liberal dash” of Tabasco sauce, and “quite a bit” of horseradish. (The meaning of “quite a bit,” he says, “depends entirely on the brand and age of the horseradish.”) ”I just keep adjusting the flavors, compensating for the age and type of ingredients. Finally you strike a balance.”
All that tweaking makes Forbes’ cocktail sauce at least as tasty as the shrimp itself. Place the cocktail sauce on a good bed of crisp lettuce, he says, “so when the shrimp is gone, you can eat the sauce with the lettuce.”
How did a globe-trotting scientist and scholar became so interested in cooking? “Throughout my professional career, I had to travel great distances, into a lot of different countries, a lot of different cultures, and experience a lot of different foods. Many of them I liked. I liked the way the spices and other things went together. When I came back home and found they didn’t have the foods here, I decided to create my own.”
Forbes does his flavor re-creation by substituting what’s locally available to come close to the tastes he experienced abroad. “It’s really a waste to go out and purchase exotic ingredients. I’ve always believed in cooking with the best ingredients you have at hand. The key is making sure your ingredients are fresh. You can’t salvage things that are on their way to the compost.”
His fresh-only philosophy applies to the evening’s main course, a creamed haddock dish. “The people at the IGA fish counter take good care of me,” he says. Forbes finds another secret to a great creamed haddock is using high-quality butter, not margarine. “I’ve found the Amish rolled butter to be the best,” he says. “We buy it in two- to four-pound blocks in Boston.”
Even with plain ol’ butter, Forbes’ creamed haddock is delicious and easy to make. [We asked him to translate “some flour” and “a dash of cream” into firm measurements for his recipe on page 50.] And, he adds, “it always is good as leftovers. When you only have a couple of people in your household, anticipating leftovers is important.”
His wife confirms it: Few, if any, of Bill Forbes’ leftovers are left to fossilize in the back of their refrigerator.
Geologist's Creamed Haddock
Serves 4
2 lbs. of haddock
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup heavy cream
Chopped fresh parsley
Dip the haddock in the melted butter. Place flour, salt, pepper, nutmeg in a zip-lock bag; add the haddock and cover with remaining flour. Then place the haddock in a well-greased or buttered casserole. Cover liberally with sweet onion and add heavy cream. Bake covered for 10 minutes in a 375°F oven; lower to 350°F and bake an additional 25 to 30 minutes. Garnish with parsley.
He’s retired (he was a professor at UMPI), but not completely. He’s having too much fun. Bill Forbes is a geologist and even better, he’s a paleontologist. He’s not only interested in rocks, but what’s in the rocks. Like fossils of strange fish or plants.
Forbes’ home is nearly filled with rocks, fossils, and other strange objects he’s picked up in his travels, like a large portion of a mastodon’s tooth from a construction site in Massachusetts. He has a fossilized fish framed and ready to hang in the living room, but Warrena won’t let him.
She will, however, let him handle the fresh fish. “He’s a better cook than I am,” she says
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Take Forbes’ choice for the evening’s appetizer, shrimp cocktail. Creating the sauce turned into a bit of a cooking show, as Forbes added ingredients, tasted, added, and sampled again. This method is the only one you can really rely on, he says, since “different brands of ketchup make a difference.” His recipe calls for “a bit” of Worcestershire sauce, “a good liberal dash” of Tabasco sauce, and “quite a bit” of horseradish. (The meaning of “quite a bit,” he says, “depends entirely on the brand and age of the horseradish.”) ”I just keep adjusting the flavors, compensating for the age and type of ingredients. Finally you strike a balance.”
All that tweaking makes Forbes’ cocktail sauce at least as tasty as the shrimp itself. Place the cocktail sauce on a good bed of crisp lettuce, he says, “so when the shrimp is gone, you can eat the sauce with the lettuce.”
How did a globe-trotting scientist and scholar became so interested in cooking? “Throughout my professional career, I had to travel great distances, into a lot of different countries, a lot of different cultures, and experience a lot of different foods. Many of them I liked. I liked the way the spices and other things went together. When I came back home and found they didn’t have the foods here, I decided to create my own.”
Forbes does his flavor re-creation by substituting what’s locally available to come close to the tastes he experienced abroad. “It’s really a waste to go out and purchase exotic ingredients. I’ve always believed in cooking with the best ingredients you have at hand. The key is making sure your ingredients are fresh. You can’t salvage things that are on their way to the compost.”
His fresh-only philosophy applies to the evening’s main course, a creamed haddock dish. “The people at the IGA fish counter take good care of me,” he says. Forbes finds another secret to a great creamed haddock is using high-quality butter, not margarine. “I’ve found the Amish rolled butter to be the best,” he says. “We buy it in two- to four-pound blocks in Boston.”
Even with plain ol’ butter, Forbes’ creamed haddock is delicious and easy to make. [We asked him to translate “some flour” and “a dash of cream” into firm measurements for his recipe on page 50.] And, he adds, “it always is good as leftovers. When you only have a couple of people in your household, anticipating leftovers is important.”
His wife confirms it: Few, if any, of Bill Forbes’ leftovers are left to fossilize in the back of their refrigerator.
Geologist's Creamed Haddock
Serves 4
2 lbs. of haddock
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup heavy cream
Chopped fresh parsley
Dip the haddock in the melted butter. Place flour, salt, pepper, nutmeg in a zip-lock bag; add the haddock and cover with remaining flour. Then place the haddock in a well-greased or buttered casserole. Cover liberally with sweet onion and add heavy cream. Bake covered for 10 minutes in a 375°F oven; lower to 350°F and bake an additional 25 to 30 minutes. Garnish with parsley.
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