Momstuff podcast response--"Stuff Mom Never Told You"; Discovery.com

In re: episode Dec. 26^th 2012

“Is foodie culture the new art?”

Charles Imbelli

New York, NY

12/28/12

The following are my thoughts on food and art and sex and hipsters, in no particular order.

On Food and Cooking

I have always found it somewhat ironic that until recently, cooking was seen as somehow feminine. That is to say, as a kid with a serious cooking habit as early as, I don’t know, ten, there were still home economics classes. Girls took classes on baking and boys took shop. Still, the majority of professional restaurant cooks and chefs were men. In fact, the Culinary Institute of America (which is worthy of it’s own crazy long rant, or hey, maybe a podcast) was originally founded as a technical school for former military. Now it’s all rich white kids (a totally viable alternative to a regular college), and career changers (most of whom don’t realize just what it takes to be a professional chef).

I will say that there is certainly something very feminine about cooking, in that it’s about feeding people—again, I use this expression loosely. It’s absolutely about servitude, whether in the home or in the professional kitchen. It’s the “service” industry. We cook in service to tradition, to ingredients, to taste, and to the guest. We take care of people.

So the stay at home mom in the fifties and the tattooed former marine are both engaged in the “womanly arts.” There is a tendency in the modernist cooking movement to get away from this sense of spiritual food and care taking. There is an unfortunate trajectory among the hobbyists away from the emotional experience of dining, and towards the technical, the scientific and the easily replicable.  This recipe as chemistry approach to cooking appeals, I’m sure, to the traditional male, stuck in notions of cooking as feminine, wherein the only “manly” way to cook is to turn it into science, or throw it on the grill.

I do not want to give the impression that I’m against modernist technique, especially in the professional kitchen, where part of taking care of the guest is making sure the food is always perfect. It’s just that in the home kitchen, this sort of hobbyist approach lacks the soulfulness of the sort of cooking as art that I’m trying to sort through.

Food Can’t be ART, can it?

Let’s define art. I think at it’s most basic, art is anything that makes people feel. Additionally, art needs to stand on its own. That is to say, if it’s an absolute necessity, it’s not art, it’s a craft.

It’s been generally accepted that the culinary “arts” are in fact crafts, in the sense that the people at the top of their fields, from a technical standpoint, are essentially craftsmen—chefs take something we need, and elevate it to the level of craft through proper technique and ingredients. Of course, there’s just food, too—ramen noodles in a package, canned soup, anything commercially produced. Moreover, most “hipster food fads,” the taco trucks and the retro stuff and the fancy junk food—that’s all craft. Jojo’s Sriracha is craft. If you can buy it on scoutmobbe, or Etsy, or learn how to do it from Martha Stewart and her army of stylists, it’s a craft.

I love Martha Stewart. I love food trucks. I love “artisanal” everything. It’s usually better. But it’s a craft.

So. What makes food art, then? It’s all about intention.  Food at the level of art has behind it a clear ethics and philosophy, above and beyond pure technique. The ethics is the political idea driving the dish, or the restaurant. The philosophy is the intended emotions that the dish or the restaurant is trying to invoke.

Folks concerned with the elitist nature of organic/artisanal have bandied about much criticism of foodies. The claim is that being a foodie isn’t necessarily accessible to the regular folks out there. But hasn’t every cultural movement started as the interest of a select privileged few? I mean, people protesting in the occupy movement aren’t typically on food stamps, or welfare.  Or if they are, they tend not to have started that way. Nearly every revolution in culture and politics has come out of the middle class.

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with privileged white people standing for things, just that there’s a lack of self awareness about just how privileged most white people that go to college and care about stuff actually are.

That being said, look at the course of food culture over the last 30 years. Alice Waters has probably done more to advance the cause of good, healthy food for all than any single person until Michael Pollan. And she’s not even a chef—Jonathan Waxman and Jeremiah Tower were the real chefs at Chez Panisse.

As mentioned above, every aspect of mainstream culture tends to be filtered through the sub-culture, or “hipster,” according to Norman Mailer’s original definition of the word. As the mainstream media jumps on any particular bandwagon, and Old Navy starts releasing off the rack “vintage” t-shirts, the mainstream adopts the sub culture and hipsters move on to the next cool thing. I don’t mean to sound too tongue in cheek or derogatory about any of this. “The next cool thing” is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the interest is not in cool for its own sake.  This is probably the only example of a trickle down philosophy actually working, and in the long run, benefitting the proletariat at large.

From the NY Times, Oct. 26, 2012 (William Deresiewicz)—point.

We’re “confusing our palates with our souls?”

“Food doesn’t express emotion?”

Food doesn’t let one “see the world in a new way?”

It doesn’t provide “insight into other people?”

It won’t let one take an “inventory of the soul?”

From everything we know about society and life and taste--counterpoint

“Confusing our palates with our souls?” That’s a bad thing? Really?  “Ratatouille” already addressed this question, brilliantly, in the penultimate scene, where the food critic, who is probably supposed to be that famous grump William Grimes, also of the NYTimes, is transported through the years to a childhood that was full of wonder and new tastes and small, good things (with apologies to Raymond Carver).  Hell, we even have a tendency to refer to pithy expressions as “food for the soul.”

Sure, Proust had  a thing or two to say about the madeleine. And sure, the resulting piece was art. But why not the madeleine itself? Why shouldn’t a meal inspire further thought, or in the case of Alice Waters, and finally, Michelle Obama, political action?

I can virtually guarantee that if Americans tried cooking for themselves three times a week, instead of buying whatever government subsidized MRE available from the grocery store, or McDonald’s, or the school cafeteria, we would lose weight. We would be happier (because cooking and eating together makes people happy). We would share more stories with each other and create ritual and tradition that can be shared.

But how do we get there? We get there when the elite becomes the mainstream. We get there when a handful of food hipsters get enough attention through social and traditional media that people in Missoula start to pay attention. When we realize as a government that maybe modern nutritional theory is actually more harmful than helpful (see the margarine debacle). When we start to realize that maybe subsidizing corn to the point where there’s so much of the stuff (and it’s inedible in its raw form) that we need to turn corn into sugar and fuel for our cars.

If it weren’t for Alice Waters and Michael Pollan, and those dudes with the thick glasses waiting for the Korilla Truck, would Mayor Bloomberg have taken steps to address the public health crisis that is government subsidized sugar? Would NYC be as proactive about teaching minorities how to cook real food? Would we have programs to provide EBT access at greenmarkets throughout the city? Would we have as many greenmarkets as we do, especially in areas that are considered “food deserts?” It’s now easier in many parts of the city to buy greenmarket produce a couple of times a week than it is to get to the grocery store.  At least in most major metropolitan areas, green market shopping, let alone eating in fine dining restaurants is no longer the provenance of “stuffy old white folks,” and that’s not a bad thing.

The idea that foodie culture is somehow callous or frivolous when there are “people [who] can’t afford a good meal,” is fallacious, especially given the fact that there’s literally no reason to not be able to afford a good meal. Further, as mentioned previously, dining itself is frivolous. As soon as refrigeration became possible, fire and spice became obsolete, except as a matter of taste. Before that, fire killed bacteria, and spice covered up the taste of rotten food. But we still cook with fire, and we still season our food, because it’s tasty.

I remember the first time I ate at Per Se. Afterwards, I told my dining partner that I wanted to pay with a bag of pennies. It would have been a VERY heavy bag, but that meal was worth every single one.  It was a transformative experience—not just in the way I think about food, but in the way I saw the entire dining experience.

Yes, we need food to live. But since art and entertainment is essentially a diverting experience, dining is food elevated to the level of art, wherein the experience of eating is sublimated into a purely emotional response to good food, good service and good conversation. The very experience of dining is inherently diversionary. It’s not that conversation necessarily stems from the food itself, but rather the experience is a seamless melding of socializing and dining, wherein one necessarily informs the other.

And that, in the end, is the goal of art—it’s frivolous, it’s something people do because they can. It’s pretty, or at least interesting (or for our purposes, tasty). But somehow, against all odds, it’s more than all of that. It’s an alchemy of the soul, that stands on its own, and provokes if you let it.

Miscellanea:

On the subject of food and gender, I just picked up the book “Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen,” by Charlotte Druckman. If I had read it yet, I would be able to comment on the book itself, instead of my own experience, but I haven’t. Still, maybe check it out.

 Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where George couldn’t, um, climax without a Sandwich? Now that’s my kind of food and sex. Forget whipped cream. Forget naked sushi. Just gimme a sammich and I’ll be happy.

Also, check out:

KCRW’s “Food is the new rock” podcast

A note on hipsters: The rumors of their demise have been greatly exaggerated…

Why the vitriol? First: Everyone hates hipsters, but no one will self-identify as one. I’ll be the first. Why? I love food, movies, literature, mostly non-popular music. I wear ray-bans. I have a tattoo of the cover of “The Great Gatsby.”

Anyway, it’s not even a good insult. Like, “oh, I’m sorry I have such good taste in stuff.” And it doesn’t even work semantically—like, “tipsters” leave tips, “pollsters” take polls, “jokesters” make jokes. But hipsters are . . . douchebags? Maybe call “hipsters” what they actually are—taste makers.

Some hipsters/“revolutionaries” that are actually  worthy of disdain:

From the infamous NYU Occupation Protest of ‘09

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q6KAg6qEGY)

Take note of the incredible juxtaposition of the phrase “corporate water,” and the surfeit of apple products.

Feeding myself

It's too often I forget to eat proper food when I'm not working--I find myself content with a bowl of cereal in the morning, a cup of coffee (or three) and then nothing until Kristina gets home and I'm forced to address the fact that I haven't eaten all day and should probably figure something out for dinner.

More often than not (when we're being good) we'll have a big salad--last night was Caesar. I chopped the heads of romaine, grated Parmesan liberally with the microplane, shook out half a bag of croutons and tossed with Caesar dressing. Last night we used "Mrs. Cubbisson's" Garlic and Butter croutons. We didn't have our favorite Caesar salad dressing--that one is made by the Silver Palate, and you can find it at Citarella (it's nearly perfect).

We don't bother with things like croutons and emulsified dressings when we're at home, just the two of us. Maybe it's the curse of having worked in big professional kitchens for two long, but when it comes to emulsifications, I find it hard to make less than a quart, and if there's one thing you don't want to keep in your refrigerator too long it's a dressing made with cheese, raw eggs and anchovies. As for the croutons, let's just say that croutons from a bag are delicious (guilty pleasure or not)--come on, I'll be the first to admit, unless you're Wiley Dufresne (and willing to spend more on home made croutons then it's worth) "special seasonings" are really hard to replicate). Same goes for BBQ potato chips, although I will say that I've come pretty close.


Stay tuned tomorrow for our other standby weeknight salad...

Christmas

Something about the season, the shortening days, the darkness outside, the hope for a short winter and a quick spring. I watched the total eclipse of the moon on the twenty-first--the winter solstice. I thought of winters past, and on Christmas Eve, remembered an epic meal of Christmas Past.

I was ten, maybe eleven and my sister, who was five or six, was obsessed with the American Girl stories. One of the girls, Kirsten, was a Swedish immigrant, growing up in the Heartland. Of the innumerable products the series offered, my sister had been given a cook book featuring traditional Swedish dishes. One cold, dark, short winter Saturday, I poured through the cook book, made a shopping list, and led my mother to the store to make a traditional Swedish Feast for Santa Lucia, one of only a handful of Roman Catholic Saints venerated by the Scandinavians and maintained as part of their pre-Christian heritage.

I spent hours at the kitchen table with my mother watching over me, and finally we sat down to our mid-winter dinner--there were meatballs and scalloped potatoes and lingonberry jams and Swedish Pancakes and egg noodles and apple sauce. It was a triumph.

This year for Christmas, my fiancée and I drove to her parents' house in Golden's Bridge, New York. If you take the Metro North out of Harlem, east of the Hudson, Golden's Bridge is past Mount Kisco, past Chappaqua, past Katonah, over an hour north, one of the last commuter town's because of the distance.

It's an exurb more than a suburb, really, its cul de sacs and wooded areas and tree lined drives, and grand white houses reminiscent of Revolutionary Road. We spent Christmas Eve in Danbury, the nearest shopping center. I was going to re-create the Swedish Feast of my youth for Kristina and her parents--Kristina's parents are part Swedish, and culturally at least, grew up eating a lot of the more esoteric Swedish foods--Lutefisk and pickled herring, etc. In fact, Kristina and I fell in love baking together--in high school, I would stay over and Sunday Mornings we would make Swedish pan cakes together, huddled over the plett pan, dipping each airy crepe in powdered sugar and eating them hot as soon as they were done.

That night we had Swedish Meatballs with Gravy, Scalloped Potatoes, and a cucumber salad (made ahead and soaked in vinaigrette to nearly pickle the cucumbers and serve as a foil to the heavy meal). My brother in law doesn't eat beef, so we made turkey and chicken meatballs as a concession to his dietary restrictions, which despite going against my every instinct as a chef turned out not to be noticeably different from the traditional beef and pork. There was also a tofurkey for my sister in law, but we won't get in to that.

I didn't take strict notes on the recipe, but I can paint a broad stroke picture--really we made it up as we went along, which is of course all part of the joy of cooking--despite what the book might have you think.

Start with a couple of onions, some cloves of garlic and of course a handful of shallots. Small dice everything and sweat together with a little olive oil. Add water as needed to really keep them nice and translucent, and when the mirepoix (let's call it that for the simplicity's sake) is soft through, add a nice hunk of butter. Let it melt. Take half of the mirepoix and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, add the rest of the mirepoix, some rosemary sprigs, and a quart of light cream, bring to a boil and turn off the heat. Peel and slice 4-6 potatoes, depending on the size. The potatoes should be about 1/4 inch thick and very uniformly sliced. You should have enough potatoes to layer in a standard sized casserole dish. Place the potatoes in overlapping layers, like a deck of cards spread out, moving from one side of the casserole to the other and continuing until you reach 3/4 of the way up the dish. Pour the cream over the potatoes, shaking the dish to make sure the cream settles over all of the slices, and place in the oven at 375 degrees, for about an hour and a half--the cream should start to boil and reduce. I used light cream, which doesn't hold up to heat as well as heavy cream--the cream will break a little bit (i.e. begin to curdle), but that's ok: it actually adds a nice textural contrast to the softness of the potatoes, which should be fork tender and practically melt in your mouth when done. After the potatoes are finished cooking, grate a generous amount of aged white cheddar cheese over the top and broil a minute or two to brown.

Next, make your meatballs. I used  two packages of dark ground turkey meat  and one package of light chicken. Mix together well in a bowl with two whole eggs, a splash of milk and your now cooled mirepoix. Chop a hand-full of parsley and a couple of sprigs of oregano. Season with a pinch of nutmeg, a scant pinch of ground cloves, hungarian sweet paprika, cayenne pepper, ground black pepper and a generous amount of salt. Mix together well and then add about seven slices of small-diced white bread, folded in as well as half a cup of bread crumbs. Test the seasoning as well as the texture by cooking off one small meatball. Adjust the seasoning as desired, and adjust the texture (if it's too soft) by adding more breadcrumbs. Fry the meatballs in batches, and finish cooking in the oven.

For the gravy, make a simple roux (one part flour to one part butter). Cook until golden brown and then whisk in chicken stock. Season with similar seasonings as the meatballs, and don't skimp on the salt. Add a splash of dry cooking sherry for a touch of sweetness.

The salad is simple and as I mentioned, should be made in advance and let sit to almost pickle the cucumbers. Slice one whole hot house cucumber into 1/4 inch slices and half a red onion. Add some halved cherry tomatoes. For the vinaigrette, mix 2 parts red wine vinegar to 5 parts olive oil. Season with salt and fresh ground black pepper. Pour over the salad and let sit.

We served our liberal take on a mid-winter's Swedish Feast (thankfully sans lutefisk and pickled herring) with sparkling cider and Hefeweizen, as well as a relish plate of bocconcini mozzarella, pickled peppadew peppers (say that five times fast), olives, carrots and celery.

For desert we had a simple rice pudding. Everyone added cinnamon sugar to taste.

Later, we sat in the living room. The Christmas tree filled the bay window. Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole sang their standards as the fire raged, every seat in the room turned towards the warming flames and we opened not one but two presents, late that Christmas eve.

Julia Child (Halloween)

Just one more food blog, like Lazarus from the grave:

The new yorker article on David Chang had a nugget of good news buried
in it for long time fans of the original Momofuku--the dressing down
he gave the cooks on a recent visit to his flagship kitchen. In the
past, the flagship was where the founding chef spent most of his time
(see babbo, Daniel, jean-georges). With momofuku though each new
venture took chang away from the original, and it showed. The last two
times I went dishes were noticeably off. On the last visit my pork
neck ramen was practically flavorless (an easy fix though, given
enough sea salt and soy sauce.) But my girl friend's scallop special
was beyond salty. The service, too was especially inattentive,
unforgiveable given it was a slow, midweek lunch. In any case, I
haven't been back. Given the degradation chang dishes out though, it
looks like its time. Let's hope the cooks took it to heart.

Farm on Adderly

Wednesday night off from the restaurant, I have this standing date with a friend in Carroll Gardens. We usually eat at Fragole on Court St., although sometimes we pick up Chicken Parm at Vinnie's on Smith. After dinner we watch Lost at his place, guilty pleasure, I know, but I don't miss it. Anyway this week he couldn't make it, and I don't have cable, so I did what I often do when plans fall through--took myself out to dinner.

Now I've been reading a lot of MFK Fisher lately--I would quote her on this, but I've lent my girlfriend the book. And there's something about the way she ate alone, and something about her dignity and aesthetic and the way I feel when I'm alone, how sometimes it's nice to not have to be anything for anybody. I could have gone to Blue Ribbon where they know me, or to my old restaurant, but somehow being around people I would have to talk to missed the point.

Besides, taking yourself out should be new and different and exciting. I had never been to the Farm before, had always wanted to check it out, but never did. Walking there, I started to feel a little sorry for myself, a little awkward, having second thoughts at the door and looking at the menu, watching people eat with people and laugh and I went in anyway. Sit at the bar, look at the menu, order a drink and ask the bartender what she likes. I order then, pate to start and fettucine; a heavy, meaty appetizer and a lighter entree, something I can linger over, and then the bread comes and it's not perfect--a little dry maybe, but I wipe it through my little dish of oil, and I'm ready for more. Things start to feel good, and the pate comes--a big plate, one solid slice of terrine, some mesclun, grainy mustard, olives and cornichon. I smell the terrine, slice a piece and it's everything a country pate should be, hearty and well seasoned. The mustard is delicious and I eat each piece differently, trying every combination of bread and meat and greens, mustard, pickles and olives. The olives are creamy and the mesclun is acidic with a citrus undertone.

I finish, pushing the plate away and nodding to the bartender. I tell her it was delicious, I'm glad I ordered it, and then the fettucine comes, a giant bowl of pasta and peas and broccoli rabe. It's a little bland at first, but some kosher sprinkled over, a good swirl with my knife and it's perfect, filling but light, good spring vegetables, fresh pasta and I eat it quickly, finishing every strand. I'm full now, sit back and look at the plate. The bartender sees the peas I've left, says "You don't like peas." I laugh, "No I love peas, I'm just full," and somehow saying it gives me enough push to dig in again, and I finish the plate. Skip desert because, really, I am very full. I look down the bar, to the back of the restaurant, half full, a couple of tables having come in since I sat down. It's a Wednesday night, after ten, and a restaurant in Brooklyn is almost full. Life is good.

david chang in interview at momofuku ssam bar

To elaborate--it's no secret I've got a hard on for the guy, so needless to say, I was excited to see him. I stopped in with friends for a ssam or too. Ended up eating the pork buns and Dr. Pepper. On my way to order, I congratulated him. I wanted a chance to talk a bit more, but the interview went on for a while, and then we were ready to leave. The reason I love David Chang is in every salty sour sweet bite of pork bun, the bottom of the bun splitting, and I try to keep the meat in with my fingers, holding it to my mouth pinched between thumb and index, my pinky ring and middle cupped under the bottom of the bun and my other hand catching the drips, still pork is spilling out and there's juice on my chin and I'm with friends but goddam this is a good pork bun and, i'm sorry, you were saying? I love the restaurant because it's fucking delicious and I could talk about the atmosphere and the decor and the hip factor and the p.r. machines, but at the end of the day, I'm sitting elbow to elbow at a bar with guys in suits and girls in mini skirts; we've all got meat juice dripping down our chins,and it doesn't matter because it's about the fucking food...period.