What to Feed a Fester: Snips, Snails, Puppy Tails

Nina Solomon knows how to make great food look disgusting. That’s not the most sought-after talent in a chef and food stylist, but it came in handy when Solomon was recently asked to cook for a family with very bizarre tastes: the Addams’--Gomez, Morticia and an uncle called Fester.

“The producers of ‘The Addams Family’ film wanted food that looked really ugly and really strange,” says Solomon, executive chef for both Tastefully Yours and Life’s a Party, a prop food service and catering company, respectively. “But the cast was really going to eat them.”

Solomon’s solutions involved dishes incorporating intestinal-looking oddities such as wood-ear mushrooms, whole jicama and calamari, as well as more esoteric edibles such as hoofs, livers, kidneys, pancreas and lots of tripe--even a roasted goat’s head or two. She also plied the Addams with alligator bread, chocolate grasshoppers, “weird-looking hors-d’oeuvre-y things” and such simple fare as the purpler-than-purple oatmeal eaten by the Addams’ offspring, Pugsley and Wednesday. “It was just boysenberry jam and oatmeal,” Solomon says. “It was very purple, very simple and very tasty. Wednesday loved it.”

A graduate of Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, Solomon spends most of her time making food beautiful. The chef for the films “The Doors,” “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “Dad” and TV’s “Murder, She Wrote,” Solomon has plenty of opportunities to whip up dishes that look as good as they taste. “I get to make so much goat cheese ravioli and poached salmon in aspic that preparing the Addams’ food was a lot of fun and a fabulous change,” she says.

“I’m used to making food look beautiful,” says Solomon, who did the food for the made-for TV movie, “Dreamer of Oz.” “For the premiere, we did a fabulous display of mini fruit tarts with kiwis and green grapes for the Emerald City and rainbow fruit skewers to create a whole rainbow.”

But come Halloween--her favorite holiday--Solomon gets to cater parties with the dishes from her dark side.

In spite of the many blood-and-gore fests Hollywood churns out, however, Solomon has not had much opportunity to cook ugly food. Before “The Addams Family,” her only on-camera epicurean effronteries were a fake cockroach she made for “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” (it wasn’t used) and a stuffed cat, some guts in a bag and similar gastronomic grotesqueries for “Alien Nation.”

With “The Addams Family,” however, she was able to boundlessly indulge her ghoulish whims. For much of the Addams’ food, Solomon made liberal use of food dye, especially blue. “Against my grain?” she asks. “A little bit. My background is in classic French cooking.”

Still, she says, by using natural coloring such as boysenberry or naturally colored won-ton skins (used to make the dumplings on the Addams’ buffet table) anyone can achieve weird effects--without resorting to chemistry. Solomon recommends passing the hors d’oeuvres on beds of variegated kale and adding fake spider webs and plastic spiders. For a truly ghastly effect, try making “eyeballs” by carving jicama with a melon baller and adding a slice of black olive. Solomon uses a wood pick dipped in red dye to make the veins.

“It’s Halloween,” she says. “Get crazy. And remember, it’s the presentation that will make the food truly ugly.”

UGLY MUSHROOM CREAM SAUCE

3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons diced shallots

1/4 cup diced onion

4 ounces button, shiitake and porcini mushrooms, sliced

3 ounces wood-ear mushrooms in large pieces

Salt, pepper

3 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons Sherry

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 1/4 cups beef stock or canned consomme

1/4 to 1/2 cup whipping cream

Grilled meats

Melt butter in skillet. Add and saute shallots and onion until tender. Add mushrooms and saute 1 minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Add Sherry, white wine and beef stock.

Whisk sauce until smooth. Add cream. Simmer 5 minutes, stirring. Adjust seasonings to taste. Serve with grilled meats. Makes 4 servings.

CHICKEN, SHRIMP AND SPINACH DUMPLINGS

5 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and drained

1 (8-ounce) can water chestnuts, drained and minced

2 green onions, minced

6 ounces chicken, ground

6 ounces peeled and deveined shrimp, ground

1/2 tablespoon minced ginger root

1 egg

Soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon chile oil

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce

55 colored won-ton wrappers (Fiesta won-ton wrappers from Frieda’s Finest--green, orange, yellow)

Combine spinach, water chestnuts, green onions, chicken, shrimp, ginger, egg, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, chile oil and hoisin sauce. Mix well.

Cut won-ton wrappers in circles. (Trace outer rim of household glass). Place 1 teaspoon filling in center of wrapper. Place wrapper in palm of hand and bring all outside edges up around filling, leaving top open so filling is showing. Steam dumplings 10 to 12 minutes and serve with additional soy sauce. Makes about 55 dumplings.

MANGO-COCONUT SHRIMP BALLS

1/2 pound peeled and deveined shrimp, ground

1 egg

2 tablespoons mango juice

2 1/2 tablespoons diced fresh or bottled mangoes

1 tablespoon milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon beer

3 to 4 tablespoons flour, about

4 cups shredded coconut (color with red, green or blue food color, if desired)

Oil for deep-frying Mango Dipping Sauce

Mix together shrimp, egg, juice, mangoes, milk, salt, baking powder, cayenne and beer. Add enough flour to thicken. Form into 1-teaspoon size balls, then roll in coconut.

Heat oil to 350 degrees and fry balls about 3 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through. Serve with Mango Dipping Sauce. Makes 15 to 20 balls.

Mango Dipping Sauce

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons mango chutney

1/4 teaspoon curry powder

Combine sour cream, mayonnaise, mango chutney and curry powder in food processor. Mix well. Makes about 2/3 cup.