Posts Tagged ‘food for thought’
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, March 19th, 2009
Gourmet dining may not be for everyone.
By Warren Rojas
“The Foie Gras Wars: How a 5,000-Year-Old Delicacy Inspired the World’s Fiercest Food Fight.” Mark Caro. Simon & Schuster, 352 pgs., $25
But from April 2006 to May 2008, the powers that be in the Windy City decided that one particular delicacy—that wedge issue that is fatty duck liver—wasn’t for anybody.
Chicago Tribune reporter Mark Caro tracks what he dubbed this “tempest in a Crock-Pot” in “Foie Gras Wars,” a from-the-frontlines view of what happened when civic leaders unceremoniously banned the high-end treat, only to find themselves at the center of a worldwide controversy that’s tarnished political careers, sparked violent demonstrations and pushed Chicago restaurateurs into the shady business of “quackeasy” dining.
A dedicated entertainment sleuth, Caro does the due diligence in terms of food research: visiting various U.S. and French foie gras farms, chewing the fat with bombastic liver barons (“We are the key in the door … after doing away with us, well, it’s going to be veal, chickens and some other things”) and picking the brains of the pro-animal activists determined to halt what they perceive as cruelty in the name of haute cuisine.
But Caro is truly at his best when he simply gives the oversize personalities involved free reign and then watches the battling factions behave like wounded animals (“Take a dish with a funny French name, add ducks, top it all off with celebrity chefs eating each other’s livers, and that’s entertainment”).
What’s the life lesson here? Caro’s not sure. But he does wish folks would think before they legislate (“If some people love foie gras the way others love chicken nuggets, who are we to say one dish is frivolous while the other is acceptable?”).
(March 2009)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, December 8th, 2008
By Warren Rojas
Secret Suppers
Those who savor the theater of dining as much as fine cuisine are sure to enjoy food columnist Jenn Garbee’s “Secret Suppers,” an expose on the closed-door dining clubs that have popped up all over the country.
As part of her investigation, Garbee infiltrates 10 clandestine venues stretching from the Pacific Northwest to right here in our nation’s capital (Hush), offering up over three dozen recipes gleaned from the covert cooks in charge.
Along the way, she encounters all kinds of personalities and culinary curiosities, including: cryptic doodles-cum-dining clues in Brooklyn, N.Y. (“In the hallway is a plain white piece of printer paper with a crudely drawn whisk and an arrow pointing to the left”), an outlaw Oregonian whose custom remixes (“One night he’ll mix up the James Bond theme song on the same CD with Britney Spears’s “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” … the next night it’s Frank Zappa, ZZ Top and the Foo Fighters together”) nourish music aficionados as well as industrious ex-pat locals (Austin’s Supper Underground was founded by Virginia native Hannah Calvert).
Noteworthy recipes include: heirloom cherry-tomato jam (an all-purpose pleaser), bacon-wrapped bacon (think pork belly, rice wine and brown sugar), Wagyu steak, duck eggs and creamy leek potatoes (breakfast never had it so good) and “oatmeal on the rocks” (a vodka-powdered potable).
“Secret Suppers: Rogue Chefs & Underground Restaurants in Warehouses, Townhouses, Open Fields and Everywhere in Between.” Jenn Garbee. Sasquatch Books, 256 pgs., $18.95
(December 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, December 8th, 2008
By Warren Rojas
Tea: The Drink that Changed the World
According to John Griffiths’ exhaustive treatise “Tea,” Starbucks remains on the losing side of history.
The ex-journalist-turned-beverage detective touts tea as the second most popular beverage in the world (water tops the list), and devotes over 300 pages to proving his point in a scholarly review that drones in spots—jokes that might elicit chuckles at a soiree with Lipton and Twining heirs fall flat for average readers—but enlightens in others (it took Britain till 2005 to harvest its first commercial tea crop).
Though born into the trade (his father authored “The History of the Indian Tea Industry”; his brother raised tea in northeastern India), Griffiths rejects anecdotal information in lieu of scholarly timelines and scientific data.
To wit, he provides back-of-the-envelope calculations of Britain’s tea consumption since 1657 and advances a CSI-style deconstruction of the Boston Tea Party, calculating the manpower and time required to loose the estimated 92,000-plus pounds of tea into the surrounding waters (his conclusion: British sailors must have been complicit in the attack). He also pontificates a bit, lambasting British tea merchants for participating in a dubious opium-silver-tea circuit that proved profitable to European importers and detrimental to Asia’s addicted (“This country could [not] have been opened up without the opium pipe,” disgraced conspirator Warren Hastings says of the rocky road to trade with China).
“Tea: The Drink that Changed the World.” John Griffiths. Andre Deutsch, 328 pgs., $29.95
(November 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, December 8th, 2008
By Warren Rojas
Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns and Other Southern Specialties
To hear journalist/career socialite Julia Reed tell it, party planning is basically second nature for anyone reared in the deep South.
“Giving a party was as natural as breathing, and almost as necessary and frequent (there wasn’t a lot else to do),” she relates of her Mississippi upbringing in her latest collection of personal essays, “Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and other Southern Specialties.”
As part of her trip down memory lane, Reed reflects on a life of impromptu family get-togethers (elaborate fetes anchored by a “visiting dignitaries” menu of rare beef, yeast rolls, vegetable casseroles and gelatinous desserts her mother could whip up at will), lavish weddings, intrigue-laden celebrations (a planned embassy gala commemorating her graduation from Georgetown University was unceremoniously felled by the Ayatollah Khomeini) and amusing epicurean anecdotes (her yarn about 2004 presidential hopeful Howard Dean’s awkward exchange with a Niman Ranch hog farmer now seems like a bellwether for his poor showing in that year’s Iowa primary).
Reed also shares nearly seven dozen recipes garnered from her personal collection as well as from the stable of celebrity chefs and fellow food writers she encountered through her work for Vogue, The New York Times Magazine and other high-profile publishing outfits. Noteworthy temptations include: cayenne-cheddar-filled olives, cherry-tomato canapes, oysters Rockefeller salad, bacon-braised mustard greens, seafood lasagna and the Southern standby that is red-velvet cake.
“Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns and Other Southern Specialties: An Entertaining Life (with Recipes).” Julia Reed. St. Martin’s Press, 224 pgs., $23.95
(October 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, December 8th, 2008
By Warren Rojas
The Saucier’s Apprentice
What’s a celebrated music biographer to do when faced with an impending divorce, a string of fatally flawed dinner parties in his wake and a heart seized by pangs of unrequited love? Road trip through Europe, of course.
Too long in the tooth at 50 to enroll in boot camp, veteran author Bob Spitz opted to bring order to his life by at least honing his rudimentary culinary skills. His insanely naive plan: Spend three months interning at 18 different cooking schools and award-winning restaurants scattered across France and Italy. The resulting madcap journey is laid bare in “The Saucier’s Apprentice,” epicurean tell-all-cum-philosophical travelogue.
Along the way, Spitz devours meal after glorious meal (“The butter-and-cream sauce was as thick as cake frosting; the fennel was as sweet and fragrant as an Easter lily,” he wrote of one inspired fish dinner), pines for his lady love Carolyn and suffers bravely through a parade of culinary taskmasters—including a painfully comedic episode of expert omelet-making at the hands of perfectionist toque Yannick Alleno.
Can’t make the trip yourself? Spitz shares over two dozen of the hard-earned recipes he collected during his travels, including: “heavenly” biscotti, foie gras au torchon (salt- and pepper-crusted liver “cooked” in the freezer), wild asparagus ravioli with truffle butter, Brittany-style seafood stew (a butter- and cognac-fueled brew) and curried chicken fricassee.
“The Saucier’s Apprentice: One Long Strange Trip through the Great Cooking Schools of Europe.” Bob Spitz. Norton, 320 pgs., $24.95
(August 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, December 5th, 2008
By Warren Rojas
Courtesy of Wiley-Blackwell
When I tell new acquaintances I am a food critic, some ask about the career path required to secure such a position. Most folks, however, sidestep the feigned interest in my credentials and leap ahead to delineating why they should have my job.
I guess everyone really is a critic.
Just ask the academics, culinary experts and everyday food lovers who lent their voices to “Food & Philosophy,” a collection of thought-provoking essays on eating beyond basic nourishment.
Co-editors Fritz Allhoff, an assistant professor of philosophy at Western Michigan University, and Dave Monroe, an ex-chef-turned- philosophy student, argue that because humans consciously reflect on what has been eaten, “we ought to think about what ramifications our diets may have for other people, animals, or the world at large.”
St. Cloud State University assistant professor of philosophy Michael Shaffer takes critiquing down a peg by asserting that virtually everybody shares the hard-wiring for taste (“any properly functioning human can detect real, objective tastes such as saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and so on”). Elsewhere, Minneapolis Star Tribune restaurant critic Jeremy Iggers laments the rise of self-aggrandizing foodie web forums (“where participants reinforce each other’s sense that their sensibilities are more sophisticated and/or adventurous than the middlebrow tastes of the newspaper critics”) and communal-dining arbiter Zagat (“undermines the very premises of the taste hierarchy by treating all of its reviewers as ‘authorized knowers’”).
“Food & Philosophy: Eat, Think, and Be Merry.” Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe. Blackwell Publishing, 320 pgs. $19.95.
(January 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Local finance guru dishes about fiscally-motivated dining
By Warren Rojas
Discover Your Inner Economist
Some people bring their work home with them. George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen takes his to dinner.
An avowed food lover—he has traveled to over 75 countries, “always with a serious eating plan”—Cowen began sharing his thoughts about local restaurants shortly after arriving in town in 1989. He encapsulates some of the lessons learned from his innumerable dining expeditions into his latest book, “Discover Your Inner Economist.”
In the book, Cowen applies economic principles to everything from child-rearing to philanthropy. The dining chapter is peppered with candid advice, including: 1) always order the unfamiliar at fine-dining establishments (“if it sounds bad, it probably tastes especially good”), 2) order generously at ethnic restaurants and 3) scour suburban strip malls for local gems (“low-rent food ventures can experiment at little risk”).
“Discover Your Inner Economist.” Tyler Cowen. Dutton, 256 pgs., $25.95 For a peek at Cowen’s local dining recommendations, visit: www.tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com; to check out his economic musings, visit: www.marginalrevolution.com.
For a little more insight, we quizzed Cowen about his own local dining habits.
NVM: Most over-saturated cuisine right now?
TC: Thai food is pretty played out right now. You know something is wrong when you can get a Perrier at most Thai restaurants.
NVM: Favorite go-to dining spot?
TC: China Star is right by my home, and Hong Kong Palace is still getting better.
NVM: Additional dining tips?
TC: Buy three or four cookbooks on cuisines you love … and spend a lot of time reading them and cooking with them. The returns to that strategy are very high for your food appreciation, not just your cooking.
Meanwhile, Cowen says he thinks he has enough dining material for a stand-alone food book, but is still weighing his options.
(November 2007)
