Adieu, Le Bec-Fin

First they famously dropped a star, now they are disappearing for good.  After 40 years dishing out the best French cuisine on the East Coast (if not the nation), the Philadelphia institution makes plans to unplug the bain-marie next year.

Several years ago, I was in Philly on a business trip.  I scheduled the 9:00 seating, then took the train and met an old friend at the station.  (My train had caught fire in Vermont, delaying the journey just enough to make getting there a nail-biter.)  He negotiated the city streets like a pro and we made the seating with but a moment to spare -- Le Bec-Fin was not known for flexible seating times.  The service was as slow as the snails I ordered, so my friend helped me pass the time by pointing out a party of local politicos out to dinner with very beautiful women -- clearly not their wives.  After that, we did what came natural while waiting: we drank heavily and adjourned several times to the patio (aka sidewalk) for cigarettes.  By the time dessert came -- thanks to the combination of the liquor, six courses, and a long train ride -- I was barely able to stand.

The experience was everything I expected, but it served as a reminder of why I am at heart a gourmand, rather than a gourmet:  The food was delicious and beautifully presented, but awfully precious, and the service bordered on obsequious.  Every time came back from a smoke, my napkin had been perfectly origamied on my chair, and a server was behind me to slide the chair under my buttocks.  It's too much.

A few weeks later, I met another friend at the solid, unpretentious Tewksbury Inn in the hunt club expanses of central New Jersey.  The atmosphere was pleasant, but not refined -- it is a country inn, after all.  But the frog legs dissolved on the tongue, the wine (a Paso Robles zin) was excellent, the onglet was the best I've had, and the bill was a fraction of what it had been at Le Bec-Fin.  In all, simply a better experience.  C'est la guerre.

Food and Freedom

A lot of my writing in the past has been slanted toward the political, and I'm a big fan of freedom.  So when a story comes along that combines food and freedom, I get sucked in.

Living in an area where there is still a semi-thriving dairy tradition, I've been intrigued by the surging popularity of raw milk and raw-milk cheeses.  There is information out there on the laws that govern raw-milk sales, but as this video makes clear, a multitude of federal, state, and local agencies are just starting to get their noses in the barn door.

When it comes to food, I simply don't see a government role in the decision-making process.  For example, the San Francisco decision to ban fast food kids' meals with toys in them represents all the worst of governmental in loco parentis -- note that the ban is binding even when the parents are present and ordering the meal for their kids.

Worse, the policing of your plate seems to grow each year: from salt to trans fat to foie gras to the latest danger du jour, caffeine and alcohol in energy drinks.  The lesson in all is the same:  Each time we give the government some sort of authority over what we do with our bodies, we commit two mistakes.  First, we allow someone else to make decisions for us, which is usually a pretty bad idea.  (Think back to the '70s, when we were all told that margarine was the way to go.)  Second, once the state gains the power to regulate what goes on your plate in one way, it rarely remains satisfied for long.  There are hosts of other hidden killers out there, from BPA to HFCS, that only your government can save you from.

If my body is a temple, I'll opt for strict separation of church and state.

Taking a Bite

(Originally published in the Malaysian magazine Against the Grain.)

For an American who has never even seen the Indian Ocean, Malaysia conjures simple, storybook images: stunning beaches framed by high hills, tempestuous monsoons, music and dance from intermingled cultures, and…wait a minute.  What’s that funny smell?

That smell is, in fact, the Durio zibethinus, known as the durian.  We’ve been hearing about it in the U.S. for a while now, but the stories had a quality about them that was almost legendary.  This aromatic “King of Fruit” was said to be so foul-smelling that it was banned in public places in some countries; some said that it was illegal to bring one on airplanes, due to ventilation issues.  One American magazine told a story about durians shipped to Europe to be processed for ice cream.  When no ice cream materialized, the shipper in Malaysia called Europe to find out why and was told that all the fruit had arrived rotten.  As the shipper no doubt told the sensitive-nosed European, they’re not rotten; they just smell that way.

These stories were irresistible to me.

Maybe I should start with the obvious question: What’s an American doing writing for a Malaysian magazine?  Is the term “globalization” too overused?  Let me give you my view of that great word.  It’s possible that as our generation (X, that is) comes into its own, as we begin to make our mark in governments, companies, and media, we will discover that globalization means that I have as much in common with Generation X in Malaysia, despite being a world apart, as I do with my parents and their generation in America.  I think that bodes well for the future of our world.

That said, the next question must be, “Why write about a durian?”  (Or even, “Don’t writers usually choose a subject that is more familiar to them than to their audience?”)  Perhaps it is because I like adventure, trying new things, going to new places.  America exports so much of its culture but can be rather slow to sample someone else’s.  And I like symbolism.  The durian strikes me as a compelling symbol.  The conflict between the senses of smell and taste indicates how carefully nature guards her secrets.  “Brave” doesn’t even begin to describe the person who took a whiff and said, “Maybe this would be good to eat.”

I had to try one.

Getting one’s hands on a durian in America is not an easy matter, but it may be getting easier.  (Modern transportation has done wonders for the distribution of food that, historically, has not shipped well.)  A Malaysian friend of my wife’s suggested the local Vietnamese grocery.  As for getting a ripe fruit, I had read that the durian must pass three important tests: it must look good, have no holes, and be fairly free of blemishes; it must smell, well, like a ripe durian; and it must not rattle too much when shaken.  Thus armed, I walked the four blocks to the grocery, joined by my wife and a friend.

In the store, I found a durian before too long.  Was it a good one?  It had no holes or blemishes, and it certainly smelled like something.  I picked it up to shake it and quickly discovered how sharp the spines are.  The sight of me trying to shake this brownish-green porcupine of a fruit drew smiles from other shoppers, obviously aware that I was a neophyte.  Not willing to stand around shaking the prickly fellow any longer (since I didn’t really know what to listen for anyway) I marched my durian up to the counter at the front of the store.  The young Vietnamese man there greeted me with equal parts amusement and concern.

“You know what you’ve got there, right?”  A smile played on his lips, but he did seem genuine in his warning.  I nodded.  “It’s not a jackfruit, you know,” he added.  I tried to thank him with the air of someone who knew what he was doing, but I’m sure he saw through me.

Back at home, I carved into the fruit.  My first thought was that the scent of ripe durian was not at all what I expected.  It was certainly pungent, but more reminiscent of asafetida than anything else, and certainly not “rotting onions” or other descriptions I had heard.  My wife scooped some of the custardy flesh into bowls, and we ate.

The texture was creamy, a little fibrous, and surprisingly juicy, the flavor unlike anything I had ever tried.  It’s always entertaining to see what words or comparisons people will use when tasting something new.  Vanilla and pine, I thought.  “Cherimoya plus melon plus banana – kind of,” said my wife.  “Really fleshy,” said my friend.  But the smell had a taste, too.  That aroma that lingered in your nose lingered on the tongue as well.  While not sickening, the taste and smell seemed to build to a point at which you knew your limit had been reached. 

My friend got there first.  He set down his bowl and said, “I think I’d prefer an orange.”  He came back to pick a bit more, finally conceding that the durian held some charms.  Then my wife was finished.  Then I, too, found my limit.  I packed up the leftovers, reserving a separate container for some friends at work, who had pointed out a magazine story about the durian and were happy to let me be the first to sample it.

So now I’ve got about a pound of durian in my freezer.  Anyone want to share some recipes?

Restaurants on the Sly

Radley links to a NYT article on a boomlet in unlicensed restaurants. Says the article:

These underground restaurants range from upscale to gritty, and are born from youthful idealism, ethnic tradition or economic necessity. They lack certification from any government agency and are, strictly speaking, against the law. You dine in them at your own risk. If you can find them.

I saw this phenomenon, on a smaller scale, in the alleyways of the string of Hispanic-flavored little towns along the Jersey side of the Hudson: Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Union City. One Cuban fellow I worked with (call him Carlos) was a good example: After work, he would go home, open the back door, and dish out homemade comfort food -- soups, stews, red beans -- that his wife cooked up during the day. It was only a couple of bucks, and it was great food. A number of Puerto Ricans and Salvadorans ran similar businesses, with good food at good prices -- all illegal as hell. Of course, their market wasn't the white yuppies but the locals, so word of mouth tended not to spread very far, and the likelihood of a health department bust was low.

What Radley doesn't say, and the article only implies, is that in a major city, the restaurant business is a racket in which the business owner is regularly rolled by suppliers, the mob, and . . . the state. (In Massachusetts, you need a special license to serve milk, for chrissake.)

''It's all about how to avoid making people sick,'' said Jack Breslin, director of the consumer protection program at the San Francisco health department. ''If no one is looking over my shoulder to see how I'm storing, processing and serving my food, the greater the risk of something bad happening.''

It's a lovely sentiment, but really, I'm a big boy now. I can weigh the risks of getting my menudo or pupusas on the sly. The cost of opening a restaurant is often prohibitive, especially in a poor neighborhood. Carlos couldn't charge his neighbors enough to go legit; as it was, his prices covered food costs and a bit of profit for his family. Getting licensed, providing bathrooms, meeting ADA access requirements: these were not in his budget, and they would have priced him out of his market's reach. In the end, how much do you want to pay for a plastic bowl of red beans and a hunk of cornbread on a napkin? How much more is it worth, and how much better is it, in a china bowl with silverware?

Another thing: Carlos . . . was essentially a garbage man, managing waste disposal for a large apartment building. I regularly saw him digging through the central dumpster because the chute was clogged. Does it make a difference? I had no concerns about eating the food he served, about getting sick from contamination, from food poisoning. In fact, I think I probably felt better about it from seeing how clean he kept the trash room at that building.

Everything but the Squeal

Amusing article in Slate on the surging interest among chefs (or at least the ones with Food Network shows) in variety meat -- typically organ meat, but also jowl, foot, and other typically throwaway cuts. It's hip enough, apparently, to have made its way into the fake-a-loo scene, wherein you can tell your friends you ate brains without having to actually taste them.

At Babbo, Mario Batali seems to want to transcend the ingredients themselves . . . [He] goes to great pains to mask his [ingredients], in texture if not in taste. Pig's foot Milanese is pounded so thin and breaded so thickly that the flavor of the pig's foot is not readily discernible through the fried bread crumbs. Beef cheek ravioli are delicious, light and pillowy, with only a hint of fibrousness to the meat and a telltale chalky aftertaste. Lamb's brain francoboli are so heavy on cheese and so light on brain that they taste almost vegetarian. While all of these dishes are delicious, the question inevitably arises: If the recipe requires that you camouflage the central ingredients, why use those ingredients at all?

Good question. Another one: Why eat it? The article's author, Patrick Keefe, speculates on the many possible reasons for cooking or eating "offal," from "the frisson of naughtiness associated with eating such things" to "the sheer challenge of making bad things taste good" and even "an anti-PC tendency among diners who want to outdo even ardent carnivores in sheer carnivorousness."

What the story seems to ignore is the possibility that variety meats can taste good -- even without being disguised. Sweetbreads are best when prepared simply. I'm not a huge fan of tripe, much as I'm not a huge fan of octopus, but a nice dish of menudo can be dandy. While in the UK, I simply had to try haggis; unless you live next to Groundskeeper Willie, you won't get the chance very often. It was delicious. At a Lebanese restaurant, I had lamb testicles -- prepared very simply, not disguised or hidden -- and they too were excellent.
 
But you're not going to sell them that way in the mainstream. As I mentioned, we're talking about America's disposable income vanguard, the hip/dorky folks who used to be called "yuppies" and now prefer "bobos." These people are suckers for trend bait, like the folks who just had to try the salad with tobacco leaf shavings (about 1/32 of a teaspoon) that became a minor culinary hit/ironic statement after the great Bloomberg coffin-nail crackdown. At any rate, there are two things to keep in mind about these people: 1) they do most things in order to talk about them; and 2) they are generally white, non-ethnic (or ethnically removed by, say, social status), and urban. In other words, their great-grandparents may have eaten all manner of hoof, entrail, or organ -- on the farm or in the old country.

The point is, there isn't much new under the sun. Almost incidentally, if not accidentally, Thomas Keller (of French Laundry fame) puts his finger on exactly why variety meat fell out of favor -- because falling meat prices allowed for ease:

It's easy to cook a filet mignon, or to saute a piece of trout, serve it with browned butter a la meuniere, and call yourself a chef. But that's not real cooking. That's heating. Preparing tripe, however, is a transcendental act.

Speaking of heating, his "transcendental" rhetoric needs to come off the stove. But he does have a point. Straight muscle cuts, with some exception, don't need to be prepared as much, cooked as long, soaked, skinned, veined, or shaved. The opening of the "Tripe" section of the Joy of Cooking (second edition) reads:

If you start from scratch, cooking tripe is a long-drawn-out affair -- as you will see by the following description.

Similarly, kidneys, widely eaten until a generation ago, must be soaked (for hours in the case of large kidneys), blanched, trimmed, and removed from their membranes. All before you even begin cooking. Compare to a boned filet of fish, a trimmed piece of sirloin, or a rolled roast. As with all things, if you have the money, you can buy leisure. Thus, organ meat, before it became "gross" or "weird," first became symbolic of ethnicity and, more generally, poverty. That's the origin of the disdain.

In any event, it's nice to see this bit of reverse democratization of tastes.

A Manifesto?

Perhaps.  But if so, take it, as Pliny would have it, cum grano salis.  I've hacked out this space in the ether and set up shop to record my thoughts, challenge my own assumptions, and occasionally even get political about food.  Hence the name Ergo Edamus -- Therefore, Let Us Eat.

I don't necessarily want to be the grumpy gourmand, though I have been known to play that role.  But I contain multitudes, and with luck I will contradict myself on occasion.

I have read Michael Pollan, and I have read Tony Bourdain.  But I'm neither here nor there.  I've read Julia Child and Madeleine Kamman, and I still turn a spatula the wrong way.

I have been in and out of the kitchen -- scrubbed the pan, cleared and set a four-top in a hurry, waited my section and Gina's while she shtupped the busboy, prepped the salad, flipped the eggs.  I once worked a shift where I did nothing but butter toast for four solid hours.  I once made 500 hamburger patties -- 6 ounces each.

I was nearly killed by a waitress when I told a daily coffee-and-muffin that he had left a sawbuck instead of a single.  And by a sous chef when I touched his knife.

I don't know it all, but I know some.  Here's what I think...