The Cultural Diplomacy of Food

Chipotle's Asian Concept -- CALLED IT

2011-12-10T18:39:00.005-05:00

A long time ago on this blog, back when it was still in its infancy and I was figuring out what shape it might take (I say as if I have since figured out what shape this takes...), I wrote about Chipotle's new "Asian concept" that was reportedly in the works.

Specifically I wrote:

Sidestepping the PC-minefield of conflating the diversity of Asian cuisines into one concept, I can see a Vietnamese "inspired" (for all you purists out there) menu that could easily work within the Chipotle model:

Banh mi sandwiches
Bun (room temp vermicelli salad-type dish)
Spring/summer/garden rolls (I'm thinking of the fresh ones, rather than the deep fried ones)

All of these draw upon easy to source local ingredients, can be adapted to suit a variety of diets and food preferences, and can be quickly assembled to order. Oh yes, and they're delicious.

Well ShopHouse has been open for a few months now, and all I have to say is,

CALLED IT.

The basic components of ShopHouse's menu? "Bowls" of protein, veggies, and sauce over your choice of jasmine or brown rice, or chilled rice noodles, and banh mi sandwiches.

Interestingly, despite being almost a year old, that original post has the most hits of any post here, and people still regularly find my blog from searching for "chipotle asian concept."

Apparently Chipotle is not the only one to draw on the mainstreaming banh mi bandwagon, though, as I discovered when I stumbled upon BONMi, just a 10 minute walk down the street from Shophouse. BONMi's website seems to espouse a lot of the same values as ShopHouse: inspiration in Vietnamese/Southeast Asian cuisine of course, but also "locally sourced environmentally friendly products whenever possible", and even similar tones of orange in their color schemes.

Despite emanating from national companies (Denver-based Chipotle and the New York-based JBH Advisory Group), both ShopHouse and BONMi are currently only located in Washington, DC. In another example of eerie similarities, both proprietors have talked about how DC is actually a great city for trying out new food concepts.

The District is an ideal launching pad for the concept, according to [Lynne] Jacoby [a partner in the JBH Advisory Group that has conceptualized the new 40-seat eatery]. "...D.C. is the best place for restaurants to open, believe it or not," she says. "Unemployment is very low here, it's a very eclectic group of people here, and there's a high concentration of educated people..." (BONMi Opens Today In Downtown D.C.)

"As for why ShopHouse chose to debut in the District of Columbia and not in New York City, [ShopHouse's director of concept development, Tim Wildin] explained that D.C. is a better "proving ground."
"There are just hundreds of restaurants in New York City that aren't great, but last," he said, noting that New York City's high population density might sustain an eatery even when the concept isn't exceptional. On the other hand, Wildin said, a restaurant's performance in D.C., a city with a burgeoning food scene but fewer people, might be a better indication of a concept's potential success elsewhere. (ShopHouse, Chipotle's New Asian Spin-Off, Opens In D.C. )

This is one of the few times that, from a food perspective, I feel lucky to be in Washington, DC.

My Love Affair With Brunch

2011-11-23T13:55:00.004-05:00

This is a story that begins with buffet and ends with brunch.

First plate

When I was a kid, I used to say, "I don't know" a lot to people's questions. What did I want for lunch? I don't know. Did I want to sit next to Mom or Dad? I don't know. Do I want milk or juice? I don't know. Buffets, however, were the perfect answer to my indecisiveness. At a buffet, you don't have to decide on just one dish, only to regret your choice later. You can have it all.

Second Plate

I loved buffets. My family used to go to the Sunday brunch buffet at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. I don't actually remember much about the food there, except that there was a lot of it, and I could choose anything I wanted. What I remember most are the distinctive concentric circle-patterned floors.

My love of buffets often befuddled my parents. Or maybe just pissed them off, because much as I loved the variety of food available, I could never actually eat enough to get their money's worth. Such are the perils of having a small stomach.

Third Plate

When my family moved to Hong Kong, we started frequenting the Sunday buffet at the Conrad hotel. There are actually two restaurants that jointly occupy the eighth floor of the hotel, Nicholini's and Brasserie on the Eighth. Though they generally function as separate restaurants, with a de-nationalized room mediating between their Italian and French cuisines respectively, on Sundays, the borders dissolve to host a tour de force champagne brunch buffet. Over 20 years of patronage, my family has now come to refer to this experience simply as "Conrad". As in, "Did you confirm the reservation at Conrad?" or, "If I died tomorrow, I would want my last meal to be Conrad."

Or, "Conrad is the birthplace of my love affair with brunch."

Photograph courtesy of my niece

What Conrad lacks in cool floor patterns, it makes up for with a bounty of deliciousness.

Photograph courtesy of my niece

Omelette station, carving station, sushi and seafood station, pasta station, waffle station. Mounds of breads and pastries, plates and bowls of antipasti and salads, tureens of cold and hot soups. Bamboo steamers with dim sum delicacies, sterno-fueled chafing dishes full of international cuisine reflecting the diversity of Hong Kong's globalized influences, and, in more recent years, a kiddie table with popcorn, mini-hotdogs and hamburgers, and gummi cola bottles.

Photographs courtesy of my niece

There's a respectable cheese selection, a massive array of desserts and fresh tropical fruits, juices and bottomless champagne for the adults. Still not satisfied? You can also choose from one of several hot entrees from the cook-to-order menu.

Though the potlatch-esque excess of the buffet at Conrad seems to be its main feature, for me, brunch at Conrad is never just about the food. I mean, of course it's a little bit about the food -- it's hard to find such an expansive selection that does not sacrifice quality for breadth, and there are few other places where I can find gummi cola bottles to accompany my prime rib.

Fourth Plate

But Conrad is less about taking advantage of an all-you-can-eat deal and more about a complete experience. It's about making a reservation at 11 am, with the luxury of getting there closer to noon, and not leaving until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. It's about starting off with a few plates, taking a break to explain how baseball team standings work, perhaps having some dessert, and then deciding that you actually want more pasta.

It's about the Conrad-stamped rubber duckies they give to kids that have accumulated around my mom's tub in Hong Kong. It's about the choice between champagne or sparkling peach juice that makes you feel fancy even if you are a teetotaler. It's about the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the tangle of skyscrapers of Hong Kong's banking district. In short, Conrad is a break from LIFE -- the very definition of luxury and leisure.

Fifth Plate

From time to time, my family will attempt to branch out of our Conrad mold. Like Vegas, Hong Kong is awash in buffets. We've tried the Japanese fusion brunch at Zuma, and the French-inspired brunch at Spoon. Stateside, the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay has come close to a Conrad experience, though the price point is much higher, and their two-seatings system doesn't allow for quite the same amount of langour. Despite consistently good food, magnificent settings, and superior service, nothing seems to satisfy quite like Conrad.

Sixth Plate

Objectively, no brunch experience truly rivals Conrad in my mind. Yet, over the years, I have extrapolated my love for Conrad to my love for brunch in general; brunch in any context ultimately relates back to Conrad in some large or small way. The drawn-out, forget-the-clock, lazy feeling of brunch at home. The indulgence of eating a substantial meal early in the day, wherever and whatever that meal might be. The intimacy of gathering friends and loved ones around before dispersing for scheduled activities and individual errands.

Six and a half

Brunch is not a business meal, a first-date meal, a grab-and-go meal. It's not as formal as dinner, nor as casual as breakfast or lunch, even if all you're doing is having breakfast in the afternoon or lunch in the morning. It's about taking the time to say, "Hello day!"

Final Plate

Oddly, my affinity for brunch has intensified over the years, even as my love for buffets has waned. Perhaps now that I'm older and have to pay my own way, I realize what a bad deal I am in those all you can eat scenarios. Brunch at Conrad though? For that I will gladly shell out anytime.

The Evolution of a Foodie OR An Ode to My Nephew

2011-10-13T11:35:00.015-04:00

Since coming into my life about 7.5 years ago, my nephew has been one of my favorite people in the world (the other favorite being his sister who followed him a year and a half later).

One of the things that makes him especially awesome? The fact that he will pause mid-bite in whatever he is consuming with nary a complaint, just to let me take a picture.

Of course I would love him to bits regardless of his aptitude for being a featured subject in my food photography habit. But seriously, here he is about to chow down on an ice cream mooncake (kind of like an ice cream mochi), and he barely batted an eyelid when asked to delay his gratification so that I could take this picture.

Since I've never lived in the same city as him for more than a couple of months, I don't get to witness the evolution of his food tastes firsthand very often. Of course I know that he loves chocolate cake, and that he will eat almost anything wrapped in a tortilla. I know that when he's about to garnish his pumpkin pie with whipped cream, you'd better make sure he takes his finger off the trigger at some point. But usually these are things that I learn ex post facto, seeing the culmination of several experiences into one preference that I can identify, but don't know the origins of. I'm rarely there at the actual moment of discovery, the moment when he takes a bite of something and realizes that this is not just anything in his mouth, but something that he wants more of, something revelatory and magical that transcends the current meal to become a food memory.

Maybe it's the age he's at or the experience of being in a foreign place, or some combination of the two, but our trip to Hong Kong at the end of July proved an especially ripe occasion for memory-making. Like the night we had three dinners.

Dinner number one

My sister could only take a week off of work, so for the first few days of my two-week trip in Hong Kong, it was just me, my parents, and my niece and nephew. We started the evening at the Kowloon-side outpost of Mak's, a won ton mein place known for their noodles made the old-fashioned way: with a bamboo pole and plenty of elbow grease. (Do yourself a favor and hunt down the No Reservations episode where Anthony Bourdain watches the guy making these noodles. It's nothing short of pure poetry).

Crammed into a utilitarian booth, knocking knees at the very back of this postage stamp-sized restaurant, my dad ordered plain noodles, sans won ton, for the kids, and three house specialties for the rest of us. My niece will readily slurp up anything involving noodles or soup, but my nephew can require a bit of prodding at times; he's more rice than ramen. Ever one to share, however, I proffered one of my won ton for him to try.

Like many of the male sex, my nephew is rarely exuberant in displaying his emotions. Unlike my niece -- who will charm you with an over-the-top display of closing her eyes in rapture, licking her lips, and declaring, "Yummy!" when she likes something -- you have to look for the more subtle clues of his delight. Like him readily accepting the rest of my won ton mein. And then proceeding to ask for more.

Bowls of noodles at Mak's are pretty small, and my parents had been discussing a place my grandparents had visited that purportedly had massive won ton. Since this other place was just a few blocks away, we decided to continue on to dinner number two -- because that's how we roll.

That this new place's won tons were significantly larger than at Mak's did not escape my nephew's attention. Having just discovered that he did, indeed, like won ton mein, he readily attacked his second dinner of the evening.

Then, to finish things off, my dad suggested a stop at Yee Shun Milk Company.

Famous for their steamed puddings, this "cha chaan teng" (kind of like a "tea diner") also serves the usual suspects of cheap and easy food: HK style milk tea, Ovaltine, and, my favorite, corned beef sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off.

My dad's intention was just to get dessert, but faced with an assortment of delectables that I never eat in DC, I couldn't resist making this dinner #3. I ordered a sandwich and milk tea, while my mom shared a "sai daw", or Chinese French toast, with my nephew.

This is perhaps one of my favorite pictures of the trip. Though my mom and nephew dutifully posed for a more typical picture celebrating their third dinner, I feel like this one captures the shared intensity of grandmother and grandson eating something especially delicious. Completely focused on the food, they're oblivious to anything else around them. For my mom, this was but one of many sai daws she's consumed, dating back to her own childhood, through her kids' childhood (though I prefer mine with peanut butter in the middle), and now through her grandchildren's childhood. For my nephew, this was the beginning of what I hope to be a long line of French toasts. And given the epic nature of the night, I wouldn't be surprised if he remembers exactly when he first discovered the wonders of a sai daw.

By special request, sai daw for lunch again the next day

But if, by chance, he forgets, if, by chance, this night fades into a blur of won ton meins and American, French, and Chinese French toasts accumulating over a lifetime, I suppose I'll at least have these pictures to remind him. Dear nephew, THIS is when we turned you into a foodie.

Post-script:
That my family is preoccupied with food, especially in the context of traveling, is something that I both identify and take for granted as an adult with a fancy piece of paper that attests to my research background in food and culture. Yet it still kind of bowls me over to have this preoccupation pointed out to me by my nephew's innocuous remarks.

He recently returned from a trip to France (where he spent the first few years of his life), and when I asked him if he had missed home during the two weeks he was gone, he said yes.

"What did you miss?" I asked, imagining that he might mention his mom, or his grandparents, or his friends at school.

"You know, Stacks [a local breakfast joint], Fresh Choice, things like that."

"Oh. And now that you're back in San Francisco, what do you miss about France?"

"Duguesclin [a restaurant]."

While in France, his dad took the family to a beach resort in Spain. When they Skyped me, I asked very generally how things were going.

"You know," he said, in a tone of amazement, "There's actually really good food in Spain."

Kids say the darnedest things...

The Fanciest Dim Sum I Ever Ate

2011-09-28T14:08:00.007-04:00

Part of the fun of returning to Hong Kong is in seeing how food in its "original" context is so much more varied and nuanced than the standardized version that gets exported to the States. To see the myriad interpretations of a dish in its homeland is, I think, one of the strongest arguments against the idea of a single, representative "authenticity" when it comes to food. Dim sum is a perfect example of this.

In the States, dim sum is generally a casual affair. As with most American Chinese cuisine, its hallmarks involve tasty, quick food at a cheap price with minimal attention paid to the quality of service. More often than not, it's raucous, noisy, and crowded, with some jostling for the har gow lady's attention to be expected because no one's about to settle for anything less than the shrimp dumplings that JUST came out of the kitchen. Even the "nicer" dim sum places (some might say the "gwailo" dim sum places) are still more large than intimate, the previous night's Chinese wedding banquet hall transformed into rows of ten-tops crowded with tea-swilling regulars. Only the glittery foamcore cut-out names hanging on the wall mark any change in experience from week to week.

Suffice it to say, then, that dim sum as I grew up with it, is not a "precious" experience. The Chinese are a feisty bunch, and when delicious delicious bbq pork buns are at stake, there's no time to worry about the teapot that invariably leaks on the tablecloth as you refill your neighbor's cup, or whether the eggs in the custard tarts were free-range.

At least, that's what I thought dim sum was about, until I had "all-you-can-eat" dim sum at the W Hotel at Kowloon Station in Hong Kong. I would venture to say that the W brand tends to be too cool for me on any given day, but the disconnect between this mod boutique hotel line and my clearance Old Navy duds and 4 year old Target sandals seemed especially striking early on a Saturday morning (the all-you-can-eat offer is only available from 9:30-11:00 am). As a twenty-something, there's also nothing to up your cool factor like going out with your parents and young niece and nephew. Much as I adore their company, I think they all needed a giving or taking of about 20 years to make our motley crew fit into the target demographic of the W hotel hip yuppie.

As we entered the lobby through stylishly massive doors, vaguely techno music pulsated around us. Appropriately beautiful people stood behind the registration counter, ready to cater to the whims of the slightly more beautiful people who stay in such places.

Then I turned to the right, expecting to see supermodels and TV celebrities waiting for their fancy cars to be brought round. Instead, I was bemused to find a small gaggle of decidedly plebeian families. Parents crowded anxiously around the closed doors of the Sing Yin restaurant, waiting for the magic hour when the dim sum feast would begin. Meanwhile, their assorted kids frolicked amidst a giant iron horse sculpture, and plastic black boxes that were too sleek to be comfortable seating implements. As my niece and nephew experimented with the utility of cushions on a backless sofa, I was grateful that they might be spared the burden of self-consciousness for another few years at least.

As befit its mod surroundings, far and away, dim sum at the W was the fanciest dim sum I've ever had (at HKD$175 per person, or about USD$23, it was probably also the most expensive dim sum I've ever had). Gone were the claustrophobic arrangements of tables designed for 10 but squeezing in 15. Gone was the bright lighting that makes dim sum a curious Sunday rendezvous for hip and hungover twenty-somethings. Gone was the noise, the chaos, the flat-screen TVs showing Chinese dramas or the football game.

Instead, what followed for the next two and a half hours was a decidedly refined and civilized affair. The five of us occupied what amounted to a semi-private room, surrounded by painted glass panels. Our chairs came with armrests and cushions; no fighting for extra chopstick-maneuvering room here. The interior of the restaurant was dark, and the selective lighting both lent a certain atmosphere to my foodie pictures and made me curse my low ISO settings.

It's interesting what happens when you take familiar food out of its usual context. While other Hong Kong restaurants have expanded beyond the usual har gow, siu mai, char siu bao rotation into more innovative and experimental dishes, the W selection deviated little from the expected list of dim sum staples.

Standard fare in above-standard surroundings

And yet, the setting definitely made a difference vis a vis the eating experience. Even the picture a few paragraphs above, simply capturing our table and assorted dishes, evokes sophistication rather than banality. While other travellers might take pictures of their overcrowded tables in a noisy dim sum hall to say, "I am cool because I travel to exotic places to eat exotic food," this picture draws upon a different kind of a cool, a "W" cool, rather than a "Lonely Planet" cool.

Though chrysanthemum and goji berry jelly generally impresses, the dessert appeared particularly rapturous under the dramatic lighting.

Fried spring rolls, neatly lined up on a white platter, seemed to hold a deeper message.

Shadow -- rarely found in dim sum food photography -- gave these fried taro balls a hefty sense of gravitas.

As the fanciest dim sum I've ever eaten, Sing Yin probably doesn't fit the vision of "authentic" Cantonese dim sum that some travelers or even locals might be looking for. And while $20 and change per person for dim sum is twice the price that I would expect to pay anywhere else, it seems like a reasonable deal when you factor in the calmer, upscale ambience and attentive service. I'm probably still not going to fool anyone into thinking that I can hang with the hip crowd at the W on a Friday or Saturday night. But maybe they'll be kind enough to let me sneak in every now and then on a Saturday morning.

Finishing out Tokyo

2011-09-22T18:10:00.005-04:00

Whew, who knew it could take so long for me to blog about 48 hours in Tokyo? But here I am finally finishing out my posts on my August trip. Clearly the two weeks in Hong Kong that preceded Tokyo will see this blog through the end of the year...

Just some bits and pieces that didn't quite fit in anywhere else or didn't seem to merit a full blog post on their own:

In-flight snack on ANA; I'll take this over stale pretzels and coke any day (thanks again for the deluxe air tickets Mom!)

A big part of the reason I was intimidated about navigating Tokyo on my own.

A manmade stream-like feature running through a park in Ropponggi where people can "rent" a seat:

Further along in the park, a tranquil scene at dusk:

A fairly delicious avocado and "Italian frozen yogurt" shake from the food basement of Mitsukoshi in Ginza. What made it "Italian", I don't know, but the attention to detail with the petite mint leaf tickled my fancy:

Lunch at a delicious Kyoto-style small plates place in the Nakameguro neighborhood. This place was tucked away from the street down a narrow little path with nary a sign (as far as I could tell) to indicate that it was even there. Definitely would never have found it on my own. Thanks for lunch Taro and Christine!

Cold udon was perfect for the 30+ degree Celsius weather

The history of Sensoji temple juxtaposed against the hypermodern Sky Tree broadcasting tower in the background

Cheerful mini-temple

Something about the way this bike was parked outside the restaurant and the black and white photo in the window made me think of an old Japanese film. Maybe channeling the quiet simplicity of an Ozu film?

All the guidebooks talked about the "salarymen" aka government workers who throng Tokyo's izakayas and bars after work. I have no idea if this crowd worked for the government, but this picture captures the faceless anonymity that that term always conjures in my head:

A big reason I was delighted to be navigating Tokyo on my own -- more tonkatsu for me!

This was at Maisen, a well-known tonkatsu establishment. Their special sauce totally made the meal -- none of that thick gloppy sweet stuff you squeeze out of a bottle.

This stuff was fresh, with I have no idea what inside it, but definitely had hints of fresh ginger and maybe even pineapple? I recommend dousing the tonkatsu with it to get that perfect bite:

All in all, not too shabby for a glorified layover methinks!

Sensoji Temple and Carving Out Your Own Fortune

2011-09-12T23:49:00.008-04:00

For some reason, Senso-ji, the major Buddhist temple in Tokyo, was closed when I visited it in early August.

Luckily, my visit to Asakusa, the neighborhood around Senso-ji, was not a complete waste. Not far from the temple is the kitchenwares district, with shops upon shops selling all sorts of food-related implements. Including those awesome plastic food models found outside many a restaurant. I was actually hoping to come away with some kind of plastic food as a souvenir (how cool would it be to have a bowl of udon on my desk, ALWAYS), but the prices seemed exorbitantly high for this unemployed vagabond (USD$20 for a keychain with a plasticized crepe at the end of it at one store!).

There is also a shopping street, the Nakamise, leading up to the temple that was bustling despite the temple’s closure.

In addition to the usual knickknack and souvenir stores selling fans, ninja costumes, and perpetually waving cats, were snack stands selling freshly made rice crackers:

I chose to indulge in a deep fried cake filled with a green tea paste:

Though I didn't get to actually enter the Senso-ji temple, I did participate in one of its popular rituals.

How to get your fortune told at Senso-ji temple:

(My favorite part is the warning at the end against being arrogant or fearful based on your fortune.)

Step 1: Shake the canister (politely!) while thinking of your wish.
[insert picture of tall hexagonal silver canister with a small hole at the top here. I tried to take a picture, but just couldn't get a good photograph out of it.]

Step 2: Note the number on the stick and find the corresponding drawer:

Step 3: Open the drawer to reveal your fortune:

If you get a bad fortune, you might want to do this so as to leave the bad luck behind:

But if you are destined for awesomeness, like me, and draw stick number 78, feel free to carry your fortune with you and go on to rock out in life. Of course, in case you have doubts about your proverb-interpretation skills, you can always consult the handy breakdown of what this all means in layman's terms at the bottom:

No matter what you draw, though, don't forget the final takeaway from those initial instructions: "You can carve out your own fortune."

Sushi Breakfast at Tsukiji

2011-09-08T15:06:00.002-04:00

Of course, no visit to Tsukiji is complete without a sushi breakfast (or so the guidebooks tell me). Although there are several places to eat in the outer market, two places in particular have become the “biggies” that attract all the attention.

This picture doesn’t quite do the crowds justice, as the line breaks off after a certain amount of people, and continues around the corner.

Finding places to eat while travelling can be an interesting process. On the one hand, you want good food, which usually means following some kind of recommendation, whether from friends, friends of friends, guidebooks, online forums, etc. Often a few places rise above the pack and end up getting repeated by everyone – which presumably ends up being a testament to the quality of the place. On the other hand, I often question the real value of going to said "must-visit" places. Is this place REALLY so much better than the others? I have this perpetual instinct to try to find the "undiscovered" gems instead, rather than following the previously trodden path of so many others. At a crossroads, I’ll sometimes err on the side of risking a bad experience for the opportunity to stumble on an undiscovered gem, rather than following the crowdsourced advice of "tried and true".

Thus I was of a mixed mind about where to eat. On the one hand, I only had 48 hours in Tokyo, and precious little time (and stomach space) to waste on a so-so meal. On the other hand, I had heard that most of the places in the market were of fairly comparable quality, which seemed to resonate with me. I mean, they’re all getting their fish (purportedly) from essentially the same source (i.e., 20 yards away) – what could make them so different anyway? Ever the bargain hunter, I decided to eschew the long lines in front of the “biggies” in favor of finding a less-touristy, potentially cheaper option.

The sushi bars must be in collusion, though, as there didn’t seem to be a cheaper option to be had. Apparently using lower prices to draw more customers in isn’t the practice here. Despite the fact that almost every sushi place, save the biggies, was practically empty, they pretty much offered the same options: various set menus starting around 2100 yen (at the time I was traveling, about USD$25-30) and up. Suddenly my options seemed to be 1. wait in line with everyone else to have the iconic experience at Daiwa Sushi or Sushi Dai, or 2. take my chances on one of the other places that seemed essentially deserted.

Standard offerings

Overwhelmed with indecision (as I am wont to do), I finally ducked into Ryu Sushi (i.e., not one of the “biggies”) on a whim.

I wish I could say that my gamble paid off. I wish that I could tell you to head over to this place on your next trip to Japan, rather than those too popular for their own good biggies. I wish I could say that the sushi set I ate made me feel like I had died and gone to heaven, and included the freshest fish I had ever tasted. Lord knows that’s the prescribed formula for most travel writing.

Looks great, but is it tasty?

Like the time I got a free “student” haircut and ended up with much too short bangs instead of shelling out the cash for a real live professional stylist (now that I think about it, actually, I’ve done that twice…), however, my sushi experience was only kind of so-so. Truth be told, aside from the novelty of being in Japan, at Tsukiji, and not entirely able to communicate with my restaurant staff, the sushi I ate was fairly forgettable. While undoubtedly fresh (as in, I couldn’t smell anything off about it), most of the fish I ate was distinctly tough and chewy. Not the end-all, be-all of sushi eating that I had heard legends about.

Much-prized "toro", or high-grade bluefin tuna, on the right

Surprisingly, the most enjoyable parts of my breakfast involved eating things that I don't normally enjoy eating. Like eel.

Whether sliced in rounds and steamed with some soy sauce and ginger, or lathered with sauce and broiled in the form of unagi, I just don't like the texture or the taste of that snakelike sea creature. And yet the eel here was (here’s the travel writing formula kicking in again, though I say this without any exaggeration) a revelation to me. It melted in my mouth with just a hint of sweetness from its accompanying sauce, something slightly thicker and sweeter than soy, but definitely not the usual unagi iteration.

I was taken aback to have actually liked an eel dish. Just to be sure I was actually eating eel, I pointed to the empty dish, then made an undulating motion with my hand. Drawing upon my memory of those visual placards found at almost every sushi restaurant in the States outlining sushi types and their names, I tried to remember the word for eel.

“Ana?” I asked.

“-go” the sushi chef responded, nodding. I had left off a crucial last syllable, but had essentially identified my breakfast species correctly. Who knew that I could like eel?

Wasabi is another thing I can generally do without while eating sushi. Part of that comes from my relatively low tolerance for spicy things. Though, as I've gotten older, and especially in more recent years, I've been starting to enjoy more spicy foods, recognizing that they impart something more than just heat on the tongue, watery eyes and cleared sinuses. I'll usually just put a small dab of wasabi in my soy sauce dish (for some reason it just looks odd to me without the wasabi. Childish, even), and give it a little swirl, though I do cop to swiping off the wasabi-tainted rice that sneaks into my nigiri.

The wasabi at this sushi bar came from a fresh wasabi root, however. Unlike with the industrially produced, reconstituted green paste that one usually associates with sushi, eating this wasabi was like discovering a new side of the sushi world. Though I've had fresh wasabi before, it hadn't been the revelation for me then that it was here. I don’t quite know how to articulate it, but this wasabi was complex and layered, with flavor and piquancy hitting at different parts of my mouth in contrast to the simple, smooth, straightforward sashimi. I was tasting several different things at once, not just a mustardy spiciness that shoots up your nose. For the first time in my life, I actually appreciated wasabi.

Don't mess with the guy with the knife

After finishing my meal at Ryu Sushi and feeling full but not impressed, I did (and still do) wonder if I should have bit the bullet and waited in line with the other tourists for the iconic Sushi Dai or Daiwa Sushi experience. I’ve seen and read various reports by friends that indicated that it was well-worth the experience, and perhaps I missed out on an amazing, life-changing meal. Then again, what’s the fun of travelling if not to take some risks and make your own path, for better or for worse? No regrets, just more reasons to go back.

Tsukiji Fish Market

2011-08-26T12:54:00.007-04:00

*For those people who find images of carved fish heads and bodies disturbing, please note that such images occur within this post.

Almost every account aimed at educating tourists about the famed Tsukji fish market in Tokyo will tell you that the key to a successful visit involves waking up well before the sun rises. The fish and seafood actually start arriving from all over the world before the previous day has ended, and by 5 am the wheeling and dealing is in full swing. This is what most people come to Tsukiji to experience: a glimpse into the nexus of a multi-billion dollar industry unlike any other.

Many of the write-ups, however, also mention how a 2008 incident involving a tourist allegedly licking a tuna head has made what were already wary employees even more disdainful of the unanticipated and unwritten addition of "tourist attraction" to their business cards. As the always considerate, always respectful traveler, and appropriately scared off by warnings that the people who do the real business in Tsukiji hate bumbling tourists getting in their way and taking pictures willy-nilly, I early on decide not to attempt to navigate the wholesale auction aspect of this behemoth. Instead, I reason that I can save the early morning taxi fare (new procedures have tourists lining up hours before the subway trains start running), abstain from participating in the depletion of the world’s stock of tuna, and still soak in the atmosphere of the more tourist-friendly outer market.

After a few delays thanks to the snooze button, I finally drag myself out of bed, hating, as usual, the feeling of having to wake up while it is still dark outside. In this part of the world, however, the sun rises early, and despite the cloaked-in, wee hours of the morning feeling of my hotel room, I draw open the curtains to see that it is full daylight outside.

Or perhaps I simply don’t get up at 6 am enough to realize that this is the norm in the summer, regardless of geographical location.

When I arrive at Tsukiji, I’m immediately thrown for a loop. Thinking that I had missed the height of the wholesale chaos, I nonetheless encounter an endless stream of trucks, mechanized trolleys aka "turret trucks", and scooters that seem destined to mow me down at some point. I can hardly figure out where one is supposed to go, and blindly walk in what seems to be the direction of the center of activity.

I've never seen one of these before, but I'm pretty sure it can take me out in a heartbeat

As I try to make sense of my surroundings, I find myself in the outer market area where auxiliary businesses support the main business of the fish traders: stalls selling all manner of knives, tubs of assorted pickled vegetables, bins upon bins of bonito flakes, ceramicware ranging from the intricately detailed to straightforwardly functional, thick logs of tamago (egg cakes), and, of course, a host of sushi purveyors. I weave through the pathways of this more familiar, consumer rather than wholesale setting, and begin to feel calmer, less overwhelmed, and more able to keep my wits about me.

Finding my safe zone

I've never seen soybean pods still on the branch before

By the time I have explored every nook and cranny of the outer market and filled my belly with a sushi breakfast, I feel reasonably satisfied with my visit, notwithstanding the fact that I have yet to actually see where the real business of Tsukiji takes place. As I walk around considering where to go next, however, I see some tourist-looking people headed towards a large building. In one of the few instances of finding comfort in the presence of other tourists in the context of traveling abroad (as opposed to that, "Oh, man, you're here too?" feeling), I reason that they must know where they are going, and that there is some shielding from the wrath of angry fishmongers to be found in sticking with other tourists. So I take advantage of a momentary lapse in the steady stream of traffic that still surrounds the market, and with the help of TWO crossing guards, finally find myself in the main seafood market.

There's a definite buzz going on, but as I pick my way through puddles and dodge temporary styrofoam aquariums, I come to realize that I have inserted myself into something less than a full-fledged business trading floor. I also learn that if you want to fit in to this place, the key is to invest in some rubber boots.

At around 9:30 in the morning, the height of the activity has long since diminished, but there are still a few hours to go before the market fully shuts down for its daily top-to-bottom cleaning, replete sprinkler trucks. Though the main attraction of Tsukiji is the bluefin tuna auction drawing buyers and sellers from around the world (though most of the fish ends up in regional restaurants), I find a certain magic in this winding down time, in limbo between the real business of the day and the full-shutdown of the market. The wholesalers are standing around, or visiting each other’s stands, and I feel like I am granted a glimpse into the underlying camaraderie that must maintain the social networks of this place above and beyond the wheeling and dealing. A gray-haired gentleman leans in closely as a younger protege slices through a massive hunk of deep red tuna with careful deliberation. Others walk a U-shaped pattern, coming down the narrow walkway between the freezers and trays in front of their stall, briefly joining the public path, then turning to walk up to another stall to greet their friends, competitors, and colleagues with a handshake and perhaps a word on how their accounts went in the hours prior. There is still some business to be had, tourists or other regular consumers taking their bounty away in bags rather than crates or order slips, but for the most part, this seems to be a window of time dedicated more to socializing than to transactions. Not only do I feel distinctly outside of these exclusive social circles, I am also acutely aware of my status as one of the few females in what is clearly a male-dominated industry. Rather than globalized trade routes or international commodities, I think of sociology studies, of the inherent fraternal nature of this place and the business it supports.

Interestingly, this fraternal socialization thrives even amongst the vaguely abattoir setting of a wholesale fresh (and freshly killed) seafood warehouse. There is good reason for the ubiquitous rubber footwear worn by those in the know: against the dark floor, it is difficult to discern spilt water from spilt fish blood. While I am an unabashed omnivore, and reasonably accustomed to confronting the realities of living at the top of the food chain, I find the constant reminders of death intriguing, a candid mix of mortality, the moribund, and the morbid all together. A few styrofoam containers appear stained with a deep garnet hue, while others hold more explicit deep sea entrails. Turret trucks neatly cart off open tubs of fish carcasses, while mounds of fish heads patiently await their due processing on the ground.

I come across a lone fish cutter, hacking away at a giant head. The presence of a few other tourists gathered around him makes me think that taking a picture would be okay, and with my flash turned off, I quickly do so.

Then another man comes up to the fish cutter, says something in Japanese, and they both glance in my direction. "Shit," I think, "so much for being the considerate and respectful traveler." The fish cutter gives a shrug, though, and continues about his business. I've been let off the proverbial hook, it seems, though I wouldn't be surprised if I was unwittingly the subject of some bad words in Japanese.

Though I still would not recommend this place for the squeamish, there is actually a greater sense of sanitization amongst the refuse here than in some of the wet markets that I've walked through in Hong Kong. Perhaps this comes from my knowing that the market completely shuts down every day for the sole purpose of cleaning. Or maybe it is just that, unlike those markets that I visit during regular business hours, here I am seeing people in the active business of cleaning up following a day of work, methodically soaping up and hosing down their stations. I was struck in particular with one stall that had long since packed up for the day. At the very front of the stall, carefully laid out on a wooden chopping block were, literally, the tools of trade. All sorts of knives of varying lengths and sizes, lined up with such precision one might think that Her Majesty the Queen's butlers had stopped by with their rulers. Taken by the latent sense of non-ostentatious pride in the display, this time I seek permission before taking out my camera. Mobilizing my limited Japanese language skills, I tentatively call out to the man smoking at the back of the stall.

"Sumimasen?" I mime taking a picture of the knives.

He doesn't respond at first, and I think, "Shit, I'm that horrible tourist they hate." But then he nods, and without a word or a smile, flicks on the lamps that hang directly over my subject before leaving me to my business. I quickly snap a few photos, and then, having already used up most of my Japanese skills, draw upon the dregs of my vocabulary. "Domoarigato," I say as I do a sort of odd, uncertain bow, which seems both appropriate and totally out of place at the same time. He just nods, cool as a cucumber, and descends to re-extinguish the lamps.

I finally leave the place in awe of some of the amazing things I’ve seen. But I also leave with a conflicted sense of this place’s status as a “must-see” tourist destination in Tokyo. In tourism studies speak, the Tsukiji fish market presents a blurring of the front- and back-stage areas of tourism performance. The massive scale of trade that goes on in this place has made it an international tourist destination. And yet, what makes this place more touristic or less a workplace than any other wholesale distribution warehouse on the outskirts of a major city? What makes these fish tradesmen more “performers” than their lesser photographed and visited counterparts on the docks of New York or outskirts of Paris?

The back of the backstage

A wholesale food distribution warehouse is right up my alley as an interesting diversion, a distinctive experience, and an opportunity to better understand our food supply chain. But I also sympathize with those Tsukiji employees who find the due course of their business impinged on by people looking for something new and novel, people who see a place of work as a playground for leisure, rather than as a livelihood. Perhaps, though, this all reflects the general theme of globalization that underlies modern tourism and trade. Just as globalization renders geo-political borders subservient to commerce and money, the barriers between everyday life, tourism, and performance get blurred as well.

Scotch eggs and tea

2011-07-14T17:30:00.002-04:00

Britain continues to be on the brain, though it's nice to know that we're often on their brains as well, as evidenced by this article which ran in the Independent in May:

Are we winning Americans over to traditional British fare?

It's interesting to see the UK concerned with creating a positive food image amongst Americans who lack the more celebrated food connoisseurship of Italians or Spaniards (we'll chalk up the absence of concern over French impressions of their food to the historical icyness between these two nations). Even I admit to taking a stab at the perceived drearyness of British cuisine.

The way in which patrons of the stall readily embraced British food after trying just one or two things makes me think that reforming one's national food image need not require a sustained, intensive, glossy campaign. Rather, some initial good eating experiences might be enough to overcome prejudices, freeing people to generate their own momentum in embracing food from that culture. Once people stop automatically equating British food with blech, they'll be more open to trying the variety of foods encompassed under the Union Jack. Like tea:

(NSFW on account of some hilarious potty-mouths)

The Authenticity Predicament

2011-07-06T14:05:00.003-04:00

Posole Guerrero from Oaxaca, Mexico. Tasty? Incredibly. Authentic? Up for debate.

Authentic: it's a loaded gun when it comes to food. Especially when referencing food that comes from another culture. So I give props to Michael Bauer, food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, for how he handles the question, What is authentic?, in a recent blog post. The post came in response to a reader challenging the idea that certain restaurants in the Bay Area hailed by Bauer served authentic pozole.

In the months that I spent researching culinary tourists' notion of authenticity in online reviews, a lot of people asked what I meant by "authenticity."

No, no, I said to them. The question is, what do THEY (the reviewers) mean by authenticity?

Ah yes, you know you're in the social sciences when you refuse to make definitive claims about your own views, but instead refer to other people's opinions. You also know that you're in the social sciences when you say, "X is a social construction."

Well, this is what I have to say about authenticity: it's a social construction.

That is, authenticity means different things to different people, and often in different contexts. What is and isn't authentic to any given individual is fluid, rarely conforms to any standardized schema, and often has as much to do with one's audience as with one's own opinions. To muddle things even more, some scholars propose the concept of an experience being authentic to oneself, lending to a certain sense of self-realization, even if the experience or object of consumption is not thought of as "authentic" (for you nerds out there, object-related authenticity vs. existential authenticity).

As for Michael Bauer, he thinks that,

When people say something isn’t authentic, it’s generally to set themselves up as experts. What they’re really saying, in most cases, is that a dish is not like the one they had when they traveled in Mexico, Italy, India or whatever region is under discussion...

There are as many recipes for posole as there are cooks, so what makes one more “authentic” than the other? I think most times the one we deem as “authentic” is the one that is most familiar or appeals to us.

In the context of social construction, I find authenticity fascinating. What people do and don't think of as authentic says a lot about them and how they see the world. The marketing of "authenticity" also plays an integral role in destination branding, creating a sense of limited resources (e.g., one can only get authentic posole in Mexico vs. authenticity as socially constructed whenever and wherever one wants).

When it comes to food, though, my overarching question is, is it tasty? Michael Bauer and I sometimes disagree on what restaurants serve tasty food. But we do seem to agree that the question of authenticity is more about the who rather than the what.

Happy Fourth!

2011-07-04T11:07:00.001-04:00

In honor of the Fourth of July, here's a sampling of America's bounty, procured from the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market:

Approximately clockwise from top: blueberries, corn, milk, eggs, cucumber, garlic scapes, radicchio, red onions, green tomatoes, green beans, apricots, and white onions.

Some macro fun:

This is what gets me excited about food.

Nathan Heller thinks pie is un-American

2011-06-29T10:19:00.003-04:00

Clearly Nathan Heller at Slate hasn't eaten Little Pie Company's apple pie. Or read my blog post about how freakin' delicious this stuff is

Pie: It's gloppy, it's soggy, it's un-American.

Living the Brit life through food

2011-06-27T11:42:00.000-04:00

Being newly graduated and unemployed, I've got a lot of time and potentially unwarranted optimism to think about what kind of life I might be about to embark upon. Like many new graduates, I at times have the sense that the world is my oyster, and I simply have to want a life in order to live it. As if we all have complete control over the process of bringing to fruition the life plans that we so idealistically design in our heads.

Then I remember how many applications I've sent out for, say, food writer/editor positions, and how few responses I've gotten to said applications (to date: zilch).

Nonetheless, humans are a relentlessly optimistic species, and the optimistic daydreams persist. Case in point, a few months ago, I was enamored with the notion of living a simple life in England, just knitting tea cozies and drinking tea all day. Maybe with Chopin nocturnes as the soundtrack to my life.

Somehow the part about being in England was very integral to the satisfaction I imagined I would derive from such a life. Why knitting tea cozies and drinking tea all day in my apartment in DC would not suffice in quite the same way perhaps says something about how objects can capture a sense of culture and association with a place. England completes the trifecta of tea cozies and tea in a way that DC doesn't.

Or maybe England's distance from my present life lends the romanticism of geographical escapism, the sense of "anywhere but here," that makes such a simple life more enticing.

Fast forward a few months, and I come across a recipe for the chocolate biscuit cake that so exemplified a British sensibility at the Royal Wedding. Clearly I needed to recreate this biscuit cake for myself.

In the process, I got to play out another little life fantasy of mine.

Graced with endless hours of free time and some great natural light, I spent the better part of an afternoon positioning my biscuits just so, working the macro function on my trusty little digital camera, and imagining what life might be like to do this every day.

Then I took one of my oh-so-British chocolate biscuit cakes (I ended up making lots of mini-cakes instead of one large one, since I didn't have the requisite size cake pan), sat down with a pot of tea and my newly completed tea cozy, and, after taking a few pictures...

...(okay, taking a lot of pictures), found a quite satisfactory sense of contentment.

Sure, these pictures might be a little sexier if I told you I had taken them while renting a flat in London, or Edinburgh, or staying in a cottage in the Welsh countryside. But, thanks to my stash of chocolate biscuit cakes (which hold up remarkably well in the fridge), I've found a way to "escape" to that simplistic, romantic little vision of life in England just about every other day this week, all while remaining in the good ole US of A.

Clearly I'm not accepting eating a bit of chocolate biscuit cake with some tea and a tea cozy as an acceptable replacement for being in England. But if I'm going to be stuck in DC anyway, there are worst ways to while away a few moments.

Inauthenticity = deliciousness

2011-06-24T19:18:00.003-04:00

From Food and Wine Magazine's July 2011 issue, Karen Leibowitz talks about the evolution of San Francisco's Mission Street Food. I particularly love this quote:

"Deciding to completely redesign our menus twice a week taught us how delicious inauthenticity can be, and gave us the cross-cultural hubris to combine rice noodles, meatballs soaked with Asian fish sauce, Thai basil, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella and call it a Vietnamese Caprese."

When it comes to "authentic" New York Pizza...

2011-06-08T23:46:00.001-04:00

... don't cross Jon Stewart:

The Royal Wedding menu

2011-06-06T19:37:00.004-04:00

So, in case you've been living under a rock unawares, there was this little thing called the Royal Wedding that happened a few weeks ago.

For many, in the weeks building up to the big event the main question centered around the designer of the wedding dress. Brits seemed to nod in approval when it was finally revealed that Sarah Burton, protege of the late British designer Alexander McQueen, was the lucky anointed one. (By contrast, some criticized Michelle Obama for wearing a McQueen frock at the state dinner for Chinese president Hu Jintao, instead of opting for an American couturier).

For me, the big question was, What are they going to eat?

Of course, I'm always curious about what people eat. But I was especially interested in this menu after having researched Prince Charles's promotion of organic, sustainable, non-GMO farming and food production. Would the father of the groom and host of the exclusive evening reception use the occasion to reinforce his own call for sustainably-grown foods that preserve British rural communities and traditions?

Indeed he did. Reports of the evening reception's menu describe a 3-course meal with Welsh seafood to start, Castle of Mey lamb prepared three ways and accompanied by organic spring vegetables from Highgrove (site of Prince Charles's first forays into organic farming) as the featured entree, and mini sherry trifles, chocolate mousse, and honeycomb ice cream in a brandy snap basket to close.

By all accounts, the Royal Wedding seems to have constituted a huge win for Anglophilia both within the country and around the world. Some 2 billion people were estimated to have watched, and the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Cambridge recently announced an American extension of their state visit to Canada in July to capitalize on the royal fervor.

I heard from a few "what's the big deal?" party poopers in the lead-up to the nuptials, and I have to admit that even I was taken aback by pictures of the full-scale military rehearsal ahead of the actual event. All THIS for a wedding? But it seems like much of the pooh-poohing eventually fell to the wayside as the grandeur of British pageantry captivated all but the hardiest of cynics. As British Prime Minister David Cameron put it, "We're quite a reserved lot, the British, but when we go for it we really go for it." (Interesting how American nationalism often comes off as obnoxious at best, and arrogant and insensitive at worst, but when other countries do it, it's cool, eh?).

A wedding for any couple can be an opportunity to present a particular image about themselves to their guests. For the future King and Queen of England, it's an opportunity to reinforce their very British-ness, and hopefully in a way that turns people on to British culture. The oh-so-British touch that sealed the deal for me? It wasn't the dress designer, or the Scottish lamb entree, or the pomp and circumstance of a royal rite of passage. It was the McVities chocolate tea biscuit cake specially requested by Prince William to accompany the more traditional fruitcake wedding cake. A prince who commissions what amounts to "chocolate digestives"* in cake form for his wedding clearly has his culinary priorities in order in my book.

*If you are uninitiated into the wonders that are chocolate digestive biscuits, I promise they taste much better than they sound. If you don't believe me, Cost Plus World Markets often carry these biscuits; though they are generally served at room temperature, I've taken a liking to keeping them cold in the fridge.

Global brownies

2011-05-24T12:27:00.004-04:00

My blogging clearly took a hit as the last month of graduate school saw me constantly chained to paper-writing, editing, and re-writing. Then my family came out for graduation, which passed by in a surreal blur of blue robes and picture-taking. Now, as I settle in to unemployment, I've got to admit that the ole noggin' seems to have taken a hit for the worst. Someone better find me a job soon before I lose all that intellectual nerdspeak that I've been accumulating over the past two years.

In the meantime, I'll let someone else make the insightful statements for me:

"The spiced Black Bean Brownies may not be traditionally Mexican, but since I’m an American eating in a Mexican restaurant in Paris where the chef is Peruvian and the brownie-maker is British, just take a bite and I’m sure you’ll agree that these brownies are a very compelling argument for globalization."

courtesy of David Lebovitz's entry on Candelaria over at his blog.

George Orwell knew something about culinary tourism

2011-03-30T17:22:00.003-04:00

Courtesy of the ASFS listserv:

George Orwell: In Defence of English Cooking

"We are not likely to succeed in attracting tourists while England is thought of as a country of bad food and unintelligible by-laws."

Speaking of airport food

2011-03-25T09:45:00.008-04:00

Following up on my comments on David Lebovitz's proposals for better food at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, this gets me very, very excited for what travellers can look forward to at the new Terminal 2 of San Francisco airport:

SFO Terminal 2 to include sustainable food

Though I'm a sustainable food advocate, it's not just food for hippies (though, befitting for one's aviation gateway to the land of Haight and Ashbury, no?). Famous household names like Tyler Florence and Cat Cora will have their own culinary outposts, and The Burger Joint and Pinkberry will also have a presence.

Being the foodie that I am, though, I'm most excited about Napa Farms Market, a "5,000-square-foot gourmet food emporium designed by BCV, the firm responsible for the Ferry Building Marketplace." The Ferry Building (and even more impressive, the farmer's market that is held there on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), is one of the quintessential San Francisco destinations, along with the Golden Gate Bridge and cable car lines.

Coming to an airport near you?

In fact, to be honest, though the Ferry Building is beautiful and full of unique foodie finds, it's got a bit of a hoity-toity air on non-farmer's market days. But when the outside area around the Ferry Building gets packed in front and in back with stalls selling amazing veggies, fruits, honey, mushrooms, grilled-to-order grass-fed burgers and sausages, and with everyone handing out generous samples of their goodies... well, words just fail me. You have to see it to believe it.

I'm guessing that even the best attempts at improving airport food will still fall short of that magic, though it sure sounds like they're going to try:

"Napa Farms will be studded with familiar names - Acme Bread, Cowgirl Creamery [both of which also have locations at the Ferry Building], Three Twins Ice Cream - as well as a bounty of seasonal produce from local farms. There will also be "picnic boxes" available for takeout, and Vino Volo will open a Bay Area-focused wine bar."

As a San Francisco native, I am thrilled about the image of the city such food options at the airport will project. That said, I know that this kind of food comes at a cost, and the downside is that the prices will turn people off from "San Francisco" food, and reinforce the idea that good, sustainable food is just a project of the elite. Then again, airport food has always suffered from dubious price-gouging -- at least this time it can come with some local flavor and flair?

Culinary Diplomacy in Jerusalem

2011-03-17T06:37:00.004-04:00

From Discovering Secular Jerusalem, writer Daphne Merkin sees some culinary diplomacy potential in the Mahane Yehuda open-air market:

"The smells are enticing, the characters are picturesque, and you come away with a sense that between the eagerness of the multiethnic vendors to cut a deal and the eagerness of the multiethnic shoppers to go home with the freshest wedge of halvah at the best price possible, peace in the Middle East might be forthcoming in the not-too-distant future."

French Culinary Diplomacy Through Stamps and Airport Food

2011-03-14T12:00:00.011-04:00

As an expat American who has lived in Paris for several years, pastry chef and author David Lebovitz blogs about France's coveted gastronomic offerings, his own mouth-watering dessert recipes, and the frustrating inanities of French bureaucracy. With an air of self-deprecation and a healthy sprinkling of wit and beautiful pictures, his blog long ago became part of my daily internet routine. So I'm not entirely surprised that his most recent entries both speak to a type of French culinary diplomacy... or perhaps a missed opportunity for such.

In French Food Stamps, he recounts his surprise discovery of beautiful snail mail stamps featuring artistic renderings of various French regional food specialties. The stamps are works of art in and of themselves, and the fact that they feature food only makes me wish I had some way of getting my own hands on these babies (you can see them here, although Lebovitz's blog has some more appealing close-ups).

Special edition American-cuisine food stamp?

Lebovitz notes, however, that La Poste seems to have missed an opportunity by making these stamps only available for domestic mail. Stamps and snail mail might not represent the cutting edge in information and communication technology, but what a beautiful way to, quite literally, project attractive images of a country through its cuisine to foreign publics.

As for foreign, and even domestic, publics travelling into, out of, and through Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport, Lebovitz poses the question, Why is the food so abysmal at Charles De Gaulle Airport?. In this capital of gastronomy, it seems only fitting that one's first and last impressions should be tempted and reinforced by food options at the airport. Just as Vegas has slot machines in McCarran Airport, as gateways to new places, airports can help reinforce a nation or city brand. Lebovitz lists the airport offerings in my hometown foodie city of San Francisco: "wood-fired oven pizza, teriyaki, traditional Italian pastries, sushi, dim sum, or a pretty decent burrito". (In my own travels, I always pick up a slice of cheesecake from the Just Desserts stand in the United terminal whenever I'm flying in to SFO). Yet the Paris airport offers very little by way of good food in its inner sanctums. Lebovitz expands on several suggestions for how to rectify this situation, which range from the obvious (cheese shop, wine bar, bread bakery), to the innovative (planting a garden in CDG's circular Terminal 1 with its criss-crossing plastic-enclosed escalator tubes).

Pre-flight snack?

It does seem rather a pity that Paris, birthplace of haute cuisine, lacks good airport food, both for practical purposes and culinary diplomacy objectives. Closer to home, it might be asking a bit much to get a Ben's Chili Bowl outlet in Dulles, but surely even we can do better than Wendy's and cold sandwiches?

America’s Food Image Needs to Get a Move On

2011-02-24T09:59:00.006-05:00

(cross-posted from a class assignment to write an op-ed)

As Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative to eliminate obesity within one generation celebrated its one-year anniversary last week, it has yet to shake its critics. Most recently, Rush Limbaugh decried the First Lady as a hypocrite on his radio show Tuesday for indulging in short ribs while in Vail, Colorado for the long weekend. Yet it’s no wonder some have cited the First Lady’s project as an example of “nanny state” interventions; should she finally solve the age-old question of how to get kids to eat their vegetables, parents the world over might pronounce her a modern-day Mary Poppins.

+ = ?

I am not a parent, however, and probably should not conjecture on the role of government in parent-child mealtime struggles. Rather, as an international communication student who looks at the way food represents and constructs messages about culture, I see in the First Lady’s campaign an as-yet unrecognized potential to reform international perceptions of American food, and of Americans themselves.

While critics of Michelle Obama’s initiative deride what they perceive as the elimination of freedom of choice, as a nation we have failed to see that our underinvestment in a healthy food system has larger international implications than our individual eating decisions. America has some of the most talented chefs in the world, some of the most bountiful produce belts, and a whole holiday dedicated to (let’s be honest) stuffing ourselves silly. Yet no American city made it into the top 5 of the Anholt-GFK Roper City Brand index cities for eating in 2009, based on the impressions of 10,000 people representing 20 countries. Ask a foreigner what American food is, and they’ll likely say something about pizza, hamburgers, French fries, etc. They might mention processed foods or fast food, or simply give the one-word answer, “McDonalds.” Some people (probably French) might scoff and say with a sneer, “There is no American cuisine.”

To take one example of how the Let’s Move initiative can change these perceptions, consider the national school lunch program. Founded in 1946, the program provided lunch every day to more than 31.3 million children in 2009. School lunches play an integral role in ensuring that, per Michelle Obama’s vision, government subsidized meals for kids do not contribute to rising rates of childhood obesity. Yet, if the recent Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution TV program is any indication, school lunch administrators currently fail at this task so completely that, as with most things, we apparently need to call in the real experts: the British. With all due respect to the Naked Chef and his countrymen, that foggy grey isle has hardly been known as a historical hotbed of haute or even healthy cuisine, what with its mushy peas, boiled beef, and beans on toast.

Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative is an opportunity to reform not only what the world thinks about American food, but what they, by extension, think about Americans. What message do we send to the world when the most prosperous nation spends less than $1 per eligible child for ingredients for lunch? How little do we value American children that they get the cast-offs of large industrial food companies, not because these foods are nutritious, but because they can’t be sold elsewhere? And who is to take on the patriotic American torch when we are seeing the first generation of kids expected to live shorter lives than their parents due to diet-related disease?

Americans are often criticized for lacking a real culture, and thus for lacking a real cuisine. But a national school lunch program that reinforces the vision of a fit and healthy youth can be a start in building a national food identity that conveys more than just overindulgence, laziness, and convenience. Some might scoff at the idea of increasing America’s international prowess through reformed school lunch programs, but soft power matters. How the rest of the world sees us invest in our children’s health sends a message about who will be leading this country in the future. And though it is a bitter pill to swallow that we have thus far underinvested our energy and resources in properly nourishing our kids, now is the time to demonstrate that we are up to the task, and don’t mind saving that spoonful of sugar for special occasions.

Terroir chips?

2011-01-31T14:16:00.005-05:00

(that's terroir, not Terra chips -- though those are pretty delicious too)

Foodies and agrarians generally use the concept of terroir to refer to the inherent, inextricable and intangible character of raising food in a specific geographical region. We often hear about it in terms of wine, the way the grapes of a particular region process the mineral characteristics of the soil in which it grows. People also talk about it in terms of food, how the cheese of a particular region gets its unique characteristics from the grass mixture eaten by the cows that produce the milk for said cheese. But, given that terroir generally involves growing something on the land itself, specific terroirs are not exactly mobile entities: you can't ship the soil off to some other place in order to replicate terroir.

Or maybe you can? This article about smoking techniques for food in Food & Wine's February issue has got me thinking that maybe terroir can become mobile. Specifically, this quote by chef Jason Alley:

"You can really taste the individual wood, like hickory or apple, without covering up the flavor of the thing you're smoking."

So, to the extent that the individual woods might carry the terroir of the region in which they were grown, perhaps exportable wood chips and smoking techniques provide a novel way to unshackle the concept of terroir from products solely raised on that land? Intriguing for a new way of thinking about globalized cuisine, or terrifying for implying that one could actually encapsulate and commodify the intangible characteristics of a region (though arguably, wine producers who invoke the concept of terroir already do this)?

Or maybe just a bunch of hot air...

Diplomacy on a plate

2011-01-28T13:12:00.002-05:00

Tasting Table's newsletter for today (national edition) notes that chefs have recently been combining the classic French dish, duck confit, with American comfort foods.

A homey French staple cozies up to American classics

If only real diplomatic relations were so easy as combining one's national foods with others... then again, if Tyler Florence's duck confit and waffles dish at Rotisserie and Wine is as good as Tasting Table describes it, I'd probably be ready to sign any treaty you put in front of me.

Chipotle's Asian concept

2010-12-06T12:05:00.003-05:00

I have yet to read details about Chipotle's plans to launch a quick-service Asian concept (perhaps because there aren't many), but I find this article interesting for how it characterizes and generalizes about Mexican and Chinese cuisine.

3 Challenges Chipotle Faces Launching an Asian Chain

I'm guessing that certain figures of Mexican cuisine, including Top Chef Master Rick Bayless, Diana Kennedy, and those who advocated for UNESCO to recognize Michoacan cuisine as a form of intangible cultural heritage might object to the idea that "Mexican food is pretty simple to execute. You throw together beans, tortillas, a few meats and cheeses, guacamole, rice, and you’re pretty set."

Oddly, she contrasts this to Asian food which "involves a lot more chef expertise, more ingredients, different spices, and more complex dishes that are tricky to keep appetizing-looking in a warming tray — just hit your local grocery store’s hot-deli line or a shopping-mall food court and take a look." Rick Bayless's preparation of mole negro for a recent state dinner at the White House included more than 20 different ingredients and took several days to prepare. That's just for the sauce.

Tice also thinks that quick-service Asian food based on local, organic ingredients faces a greater challenge compared to doing the same for Mexican food. But my guess is that Chipotle will choose those Asian dishes that serve their model well, rather than trying to represent the range or depth of Asian cuisine. Sidestepping the PC-minefield of conflating the diversity of Asian cuisines into one concept, I can see a Vietnamese "inspired" (for all you purists out there) menu that could easily work within the Chipotle model:

Banh mi sandwiches
Bun (room temp vermicelli salad-type dish)
Spring/summer/garden rolls (I'm thinking of the fresh ones, rather than the deep fried ones)

All of these draw upon easy to source local ingredients, can be adapted to suit a variety of diets and food preferences, and can be quickly assembled to order. Oh yes, and they're delicious.

You could even throw pho into the mix, though I would only recommend it for eat-in customers (and squeamish eaters probably wouldn't want the raw beef on the side). Takeaway pho is never a good idea...

Mexico

2010-11-23T23:43:00.015-05:00

I've been horrible at updating this blog, and sadly, it's not because I've been eating delicious things instead. Then again, I suppose reading about delicious things (thank you Anthropology of French Food and Culinary Tourism courses!) isn't so bad either.

So, in honor of UNESCO's recent recognition of Mexican food and the Michoacan paradigm as products of intangible cultural heritage,* I take you back to a simpler time, when so much of my everyday experience was focused on food. Rewind five months to my five-week program in Oaxaca, Mexico, birthplace of chocolate and mole:

Posole

Ballpark hot dog, cheering on the minor league Oaxaca Guerreros

Street tacos in the Zocalo

Amazing salsa at the women's weaving cooperative in Teotitlan del Valle

Nieves

This is all that you'll see of the tacos al pastor. Because they were that delicious.

Hot chocolate

Mole coloradito, my favorite of the 7/1,000/7,000 moles of Oaxaca

And of course, the infamous chapulines (grasshoppers). Legend has it that eating chapulines assures that you will return to Oaxaca.

I guess I better start looking for plane tickets:

(photo courtesy of Laura)

*For a more nuanced take on whether this recognition is actually a good thing, see Is 'Culinary Heritage' a Good Idea?.

Why do you go to restaurants?

2010-10-20T12:06:00.009-04:00

In a piece for SFGate's food coverage, Clark Wolf counters "Best Restaurant in the World" chef Rene Redzepi's contention that people go to restaurants only to refuel or to be challenged by listing the myriad other ways that restaurant dining affects him.

On the Purpose of Going to Restaurants

The range of emotions that Wolf describes echo my own attachments to food: "I delight, I remember, I grab comfort, I just smile. Food can make me giggle or get me teary, deeply satisfy or stimulate my desire for more. It can calm me the freak down or really rev me up." But it also speaks to the visceral power that food holds -- which is exactly what makes it a powerful tool for communication generally, and culinary diplomacy more specifically. The range of emotions that food can inspire speaks to the range of ways in which food can be mobilized to reinforce or counter a particular message.

Of course, it also speaks to the stakes in getting food right: "Food gone wrong (or professionally wronged) can get me crabby or leave me sad and empty – all while feeling full. It can confuse and upset, annoy or mildly amuse." Or just inspire uninhibited aggression:

Clark also balks at the constant need, mostly on the part of young male chefs, for food to be a challenge, and the fact that critics and gastronomes consistently associate bold, edgy, revolutionary with "best". To which I say, hear hear! As a visceral, and often times primal, experience, food should be about what it inspires within you, the eater, regardless of the preparation techniques involved. Obviously, surprise and innovation can be compelling. But there is also the risk of alienation that accompanies edgy, revolutionary food, which seems to undercut one of the primary purposes of eating (in my mind): to revel in one's food, to enjoy and savor and be satisfied. Food education, learning to understand and appreciate new foods, might be work, but food itself shouldn't be.

A regional food concept and international inspiration

2010-08-30T21:01:00.004-04:00

I have much to catch up on, but for now, some interesting articles:

More than just eating local: Home Grown
Sean Brock is opening a restaurant in South Carolina called Husk, where the cuisine will be firmly rooted in the South: if it's not grown there, or if it's not historically related to the area, no dice. An interesting twist on the idea of eating local (or, in his case, regional), in the geographical, historical, *and* cultural contexts of the word.

Relatedly, though ironically taken to an international context, Brad Farmerie thinks global cuisine is more than just combining exotic ingredients: World Chefs: Farmerie says global cuisine should be focused
It's only a short Q and A, but he touches upon the idea of using ingredients in the context of the cultures from whence they're derived, rather than just willy nilly throwing things on a plate. Culture matters!

Which is maybe something restaurateurs/chefs should take to heart before considering following QSR's suggestion to shake things up by drawing inspiration from other food cultures: Driving innovation through international inspiration

Then again, Falafoul, a Saudi Arabia-based chain of fast-food restaurants has apparently incorporated "international flavors like Greek, Italian and Mexican" into their falafel sandwiches. Apparently they're looking to expand into the US market; if they succeed, I'd be intrigued to see how such international flavors might get reinterpreted through "traditional Arabic" eyes for an American audience.

Conflict Kitchen

2010-06-18T20:04:00.003-04:00

Super, super intriguing: a group of Pittsburgh artists started a food project selling foods from places that the US has historically been at odds with.

Conflict Kitchen uses food to bridge divide

They're currently serving kubidehs from Iran, encased in a wrapper printed with information about Iran, as well as personal views about Iran from both Pittsburg and Iran. The plan is to focus on Iran for 4 months, and then move on to Afghanistan.

Clearly this is a type of culinary diplomacy playing out on a citizen level, or perhaps a citizen diplomacy playing out on a culinary level. What's also interesting to note is that this is coming from an art angle, with an art professor at Carnegie Mellon University co-founding the project, and the university paying the rent for the space.

Apparently the word is spreading, with people interested in how this idea might be franchised. I, too, am intrigued by how this idea might be expanded beyond an "art" project, or an academic venture, as well as the attendant questions that would accompany such an expansion. For instance, how to incorporate a sense of "cultural authenticity"? The current project drew upon the founders' personal connections in Iran, as well as the input of an Iranian-born professor at Carnegie Mellon. Are such personal connections "enough" to imbue a sense of authenticity? How might future attempts to capture "authenticity", lacking preexisting personal connections, shape iterations of the project?

Or do such questions muddle the process? Perhaps this model should be taken for what it is and what it might achieve in its limited realm, its potential to inspire others beyond its direct influence notwithstanding, rather than trying to scale it up or politicize it. Though it still nonetheless raises the question, will this actually have an impact on people's perceptions of, in this case, Iran?

Of course, others might also say, so long as the food is good, does it matter?

Hong Kong eats (boy, does it ever!)

2010-06-15T19:18:00.019-04:00

One of the great things about having a mom that lives in Hong Kong, is that when I find myself with a free month between the end of semester and the beginning of my summer study abroad program, I can actually say, Hey, why not hit up Hong Kong for a few weeks? While the freedom of a graduate student and the finances of a graduate student sadly don't always match up to make such a proposition possible, the generosity of my mom, aided by her United mileage rewards account, came to the rescue, and I got to spend what turned out to be 2 awesome weeks in the city of my childhood.

How to encapsulate the diversity that is the Hong Kong dining scene? I often tell people that what I love about Hong Kong is that you can have a five minute meal or a 3+ hour meal. You can sit on stools in the street, or in a plush armchair with mile-high windows overlooking the harbor. Your cutlery might consist of chopsticks from the communal container and a roll of toilet paper, or heavy silverware and new plates the second your first one gets the slightest bit dirty. You can cozy up to complete strangers at shared tables, or stick to your known entities at your own table. Interestingly, while Hong Kong and Macau only share 3 Michelin-starred restaurants for the area, that's already enough to encompass this diversity.

Some highlights of my own dining experiences:

Won ton mein (shrimp dumplings and egg noodles) and gai lan (Chinese broccoli) at Mak On's Noodles in Central. The awesome food aside, this restaurant is in what I've now decided is one of my favorites areas of Hong Kong. It's just around the corner from the famed Hong Kong style milk tea place, Lan Fong Yuen, and its neighboring streets are some very cool small alleys filled with fresh produce vendors.
5-minute meal (admittedly, my 5 minute meals -- I went back the next day -- actually lasted a bit longer. I'm a slow eater), shared tables, and chopsticks.

Sunday brunch at Spoon. (Special thanks to my mom's coworker, Charles, and his dad, the manager at Spoon, for pushing our reservation status from waiting list to confirmed). Sunday brunch in Hong Kong is a whole other category of dining in my book, which, for the purposes of this blog entry, might be summed up as fulfilling the 3+ hour, plush armchair and amazing harbor views, heavy silverware, and private table dining categories.

I would also add the category of incredibly good value for the luxury experience. The first glass of champagne and subsequent free-flowing red and white wines are included in the price of brunch; the Thai asparagus with black truffles and amazing beef tartare shown above were but two of the numerous offerings in the appetizer buffet. Cheers to mi madre!

Wet market and seafood lunch at Ap Lei Chau. You buy your produce/ingredients in the wet market downstairs, the fishmonger kills, cleans and bags the fish, and then you bring it upstairs to these "restaurants" that are really nothing more than small storefronts, and tell the cooks how you want it all prepared.

Your fish goes from water to plate in about 30 minutes (depending on how long you browse through the market). Not for the faint of heart, nor those who don't like to think about where their food comes from.
Stools (though not sitting in the street); chopsticks and toilet paper.

Dim sum at Tim Ho Wan. This is where the Michelin star reference comes in, although my family's opinion is that the place is okay, but not anything particularly special, and definitely not worth the wait to try more than once. When I was there with my dad at about 11 AM, the lady gave out numbers for tables saying, We'll honor your ticket any time before 4 pm. We ended up waiting about an hour. Personally, I think the prices and quality would make it a reasonable destination if the wait weren't so long.

Shared tables, slash, tiny tables crammed so close together you might as well be sharing a table. Unfortunately, my dad and I drew the short end of the stick and got seated at the outermost of 3 tables in a row. I had to get up to let people out and in about 4 times throughout my meal.

I've got some other dining experiences to report on, but they don't quite fit into the time/environment dichotomy I've set up here. Which probably just goes to show the danger of thinking in dichotomies...

Kiwiberry

2010-05-28T12:29:00.000-04:00

Following up on foods as cultural ambassadors...

People might already associate New Zealand with kiwis, though they're probably thinking of the birds when they do so.* Yet when I think of kiwis, those bright green fleshy fruits, the first thing I think of is, Gosh darnit those things are a pain to peel! No matter how hard you try, you inevitably get some of that brown peachy fuzz (kiwi fuzz?) in your fruit somewhere. And, unless you're a master kiwi peeler, peeling kiwis generally results in a lot of wasted kiwi flesh clinging to the brown fuzzy skin. Word on the street is that the skin is edible, but I've tried before, and let me tell you, it might be edible, but it doesn't go down easy.

If you've never had the privilege of peeling a kiwi, imagine peeling an apple, where the skin has no natural proclivity for separating from the flesh (like, say, in citrus fruits), but where the flesh is soft and yielding (unless hard and unripe, in which case you probably don't want to bother to eat it at all), like a mango. Over the years, I've variously tried to slice the fruit into rounds, then unpeel each round (brown fuzz penetrates to green flesh; peeling still takes off more flesh than necessary); pare skin off flesh with a knife (brown fuzz penetrates to green flesh; hard to take off skin without taking off extra flesh); and, what is probably the most successful (though least adaptable to various serving purposes) method, cut the kiwi in half, then scoop out the flesh with a spoon.

I hardly think, whether technically accurate or not, synonymously associating one's country with an exotic and delicious yet pain-in-the-ass to peel fruit is appealing to anyone. Come to think of it, though, perhaps it is a rather apropos metaphor for New Zealand itself: exotic and beautiful, but, from most places in the world, a pain in the ass to get to.

Enter the kiwiberry, my package for which proclaimed it a "sweet tasting, healthy super snack that is ready to eat... just like a grape!"

And it's true. These little suckers are just like kiwis, sans fuzzy brown skin inconvenience. Rinse, pop in your mouth (or slice to get the full kiwi beauty effect), and you're good to go! Now, if only getting to New Zealand were so easy...

*Then again, maybe not. I'm inclined to believe that more people are familiar with the kiwi fruit rather than the kiwi bird, though, technically speaking, it's the bird that is the symbol for New Zealand, not the fruit.

As American as Apple Pie

2010-05-16T01:01:00.001-04:00

Around the time of my last post, my friend Amy came down from New York to visit, a trip that happened to coincide with my birthday. Instead of a birthday cake, however, she came with a Sour Cream Apple Walnut Pie from the Little Pie Company.

People. PEOPLE. I cannot fully express how much I love this pie. I cannot tell you, nor can pictures really do justice to just how amazingly delicious this pie is.* The first time I tasted the gloriousness that is this pie, all I could think was, "Holy hell, this pie is GOOD." Science (and the shop's website) tells me that the amalgamation of crisp apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and maybe some nutmeg has something to do with all this, but all I ever think is, "Holy hell this pie is GOOD." I've had good apple pies before -- a now-retired apple pie from San Francisco bakery, Just Desserts is legendary in my family, and I used to be addicted to a cafeteria apple pie in high school that had a great French crumb topping -- but none of them have made me say, "Holy hell this pie is GOOD."

Lest you think this a matter of personal taste, Exhibit A: two additional friends also in town for the weekend, skeptical of my profused love for this pie, but willing to indulge me in the partaking of my birthday deliciousness. Sam requested a small slice, nonchalantly took a bite, and then said, "Wow... this is GOOD." Minutes later, both friends were going back for (larger) seconds.

Okay, I said I couldn't fully express how much I love this pie, but I'll try to be more specific beyond just telling you that it's GOOD. There's no mass of syrupy sweet pie goo drowning everything else. The thinly sliced apples (way preferable to big hunks IMHO) are still firm with a little bite, not mushy like some overripe apple that's been sitting on your counter for too long. I have no idea where the sour cream comes in, but if that's what makes this pie so amazing, then I'm not questioning it. I'm not one to generally like nuts in my baked goods either, but if the absence of walnuts changed this pie in any way, I would have none of it.

Which brings me back to my last post, and the "most unloved" foods. Note that neither apples nor pie appear on the list (nor sour cream nor walnuts for that matter). Clearly, then, if any country was looking for a specific food to be its cultural ambassador to the world this would be it. I think adopting this pie as THE pie as in, "As American as apple pie" could even do wonders for internal patriotism. As it is, I'm sometimes skeptical of being labeled, "American" and its attendant connotations, but if someone ever likened me to the Little Pie Company's Sour Cream Apple Walnut Pie, I'd say, "Heck yes, with an oven and a fork at the ready!"

*Disregard the brick-like quality of the pie in these pictures; unfortunately the heated version wasn't quite as photogenic. That said, make no mistake: pictures or no pictures, this pie is delicious hot or cold.

Food diplomacists beware: The 10 Most Unloved Foods

2010-05-04T11:15:00.001-04:00

A friend forwarded this to me the other day... perhaps something to keep in mind for governments trying to woo foreigners with their food: avoid these!*

The 10 Most Unloved Foods

*I, of course, happen to love almost half of the items on the list, maybe because I root for the underdog...

BBQ Diplomacy?

2010-04-23T10:32:00.001-04:00

I can't decide if I'm further intrigued about this as a case of food diplomacy, or if Reuters just used the catchy title to hook us into what is ultimately a story about one guy's friendship with North Korean diplomats.

Restaurateur wages BBQ diplomacy with N. Korea

I also can't decide if this guy presents an interesting model for citizen diplomacy, or if he just had grandiose visions of being some kind of Cold War-esque spy.

Finally, and I'm only being slightly facetious here, was it the BBQ? And if so, are we talking Texas-style, Carolina mustard, Memphis dry rub, KC Masterpiece, or perhaps some kind of nouveau fashioning (my dad once made some delicious ribs with a blueberry based glaze...)? Or could he just as effectively waged peace with, I don't know... pancakes or pizza or tacos?

Global foodies unite!

2010-04-16T11:08:00.002-04:00

Look, another one!

Great Dining Deals in Paris

I'm actually feeling okay about just posting this link without saying much about it because it pretty much captures most of my thoughts on food and the culture of fine dining in itself. I have yet to read any of David Lebovitz's books, but I visit his blog almost every day for the beautiful pictures, witty self-deprecations, and glimpse into the (sweet) life of an American transplant in Paris.

Coincidentally, I also ran across this interview with "celebrity" chef Thomas Keller, in which he asserts that diners across the country (like NYC vs. Napa valley) don't really differ from one another, "because when you're dealing at that high-end level, it's the same type of client. It's the person that appreciates the quality."

Thomas Keller on Running a Culinary Empire
(you may have to register to read the whole interview)

Which all, I think, speaks to a culture of fine dining and haute cuisine specifically, as well as a culture of foodie-ism more generally, that transcends geographical locations and even national cultures. Keller's empire doesn't yet extend outside the United States, and I'd be intrigued to see if his theory about high-end diners might change once it did. But even though national cultures might value food differently, I think he's onto something. Perhaps we can start thinking of foodies around the world as their own diaspora (can you have a diaspora without an originating homeland?), united in the imagined nation-state of deliciousness.

But only if our (imagined) national dish can be the strawberry ice cream with peanut brittle and brownie from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc, the cookbook for which I, also coincidentally, just received as an early birthday gift yesterday.

*Full disclosure: Thomas Keller has yet to pay me to eat at Ad Hoc, but should he do so one day, I would accept in a heartbeat.

Know Thyself

2010-04-15T23:22:00.000-04:00

When the idea of keeping a blog to track my own explorations of the ways in which food and culture and diplomacy intersect each other (with some identity, branding, and critical analysis thrown in) first germinated in my mind, I knew the biggest challenge was going to be myself. Specifically the part of me that can barely write a one-paragraph e-mail without rewriting each sentence 5+ times, without stopping after a few words to reread the whole thing to make sure the tone and flow are what I want it to be, without typing, then deleting, then retyping the same word several times before finally deciding that that is indeed the word I want to use. You know the idea of "dashing off" an e-mail or a blog post or even a quick text message? Yeah, doesn't happen with me.*

Add to that my desire to live up to the great writing, analysis, and wit of some of my favorite blogs, as well as the intense intimidation of knowing that at least a few of my colleagues who, with the same amount (if not more) of work and commitments and social lives, make this whole blogging thing look incredibly easy are, indeed, reading my blog, and perhaps you can sympathize with the psychological barriers that prevent me from actually, well... blogging.

That said, I also hate to fall into the "starts a blog, posts somewhat regularly for a few weeks, and then falls off the face of the earth" camp. So, here is my compromise: in an attempt to at least keep this blog train going at some sort of speed, I'm going to resign myself to only posting links from time to time, without the full-blown analysis that I would love to accompany said links. I'm still hoping, of course, that some analysis and original thoughts and ruminations can accompany these things from time to time, but if I spread some of these things and leave it up to you to come to your own conclusions (which I'm sure will be brilliant with or without my accompanying commentary), at least I don't have to sacrifice entirely the notion of blogging -- which I still aspire to embody in the full sense of the term at some point in the future.

With that, I would be incredibly remiss not to at least repost this recent blog by Paul Rockower on South Korea's missed opportunity in harnessing the power of the Kogi Taco Truck to further its gastrodiplomacy aims. (And thanks for following me now, Paul!). It would seem that something about LA is particularly conducive to these types of culinary fusions of cultures. The LA Times recently did a piece on the multitude of cultural appropriations of "pizza" on offer in the city of Angels, and while these specimens hardly come close to meeting DOC requirements**, my tastebuds aren't about to quibble with "authenticity". (For Paul's more timely assessment of these offerings, see here).

*Actually, it does happen sometimes, but it often involves me having to talk aloud as I write. Somehow saying things aloud curbs the revisionist in me...

**Link leads to my fave pizza place in DC, which offers both DOC and and non-DOC pizzas, both of which are crazy delicious.

Fast food

2010-03-31T19:57:00.001-04:00

We all know that fast food culture is steadily spreading throughout the world, often to the detriment of native food cultures. While I’m definitely not on the side of replacing or eliminating native food cultures, I’m not wholly against international fast food expansion per se. In much the same way that processed and ready-made foods can offer an accessible introduction into a new food culture, fast food originating in a foreign culture provides a way of expanding people’s food horizons and palates. It’s also interesting to see how different companies have adapted (or not) to the local cultural context and, on a nerdier level, consider the authenticity and terroir implications of such decisions. For instance, does glocalization on the fast food level constitute a type of fusion cuisine?

Here’s a quick look at some recent strategies to overcome cultural barriers in the fast food expansion industry:

Taco Bell recently opened its first store in India with an adapted menu that is beefless and incorporates more vegetarian options.

Novelty Proves a Hit for Taco Bell in India

Though McDonalds is also known for incorporating local flavors and food patterns into its menus, they found success in Australia by integrating the popular cafe culture into its physical location designs.

McDonald’s Down Under

By contrast, Subway has been expanding WITHOUT glocalizing its menu. After a period of letting individual stores have more control over its offerings, they decided it was more fruitful to maintain central control over the global brand of Subway.

How Subway Went Global

Crêpe complète

2010-03-19T00:25:00.000-04:00

Crêpe complète at Crêperie Bretonne, 67 rue de Charonne, Paris 75011

I suppose I could write about the cultural history of Brittany, and the development of the buckwheat crêpe, or galette. I could distinguish between buckwheat savory crêpes and the more common sweet crêpes, or explore the differences between Japanese crêpes and French crêpes. But all I really want to do is post this picture of a delicious crêpe complète I recently consumed at Crêperie Bretonne in Paris.* This tiny restaurant is an ode to Brittany (and ripe for analysis of cultural representation and tourism what with its huge maps and posters and assorted kitsch adorning every inch of wall space), and the older gentleman who prepared my crêpe looked like he could have walked off the fishing boat five minutes ago. Sadly (for this blog, not for my stomach) my dessert crêpe with confiture de lait (akin to dulce de leche) was out of this world, though less photogenic. You'll just have to visit for yourself to know what I mean.

*Thanks to David Lebovitz for the recommendation.

High-fructose corn syrup is okay if it's "ethnic"?

2010-03-16T17:29:00.000-04:00

A recent trip to a neighborhood Japanese market got me thinking about how culture affects our perceptions of food. Specifically how, for a certain group of foodies, the idea of "culture" perhaps inspires us to eat or justify eating foods we wouldn't ordinarily consume.

For instance, I generally try to avoid buying and eating processed foods, i.e. most things that come in a box at the supermarket. Since reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I've also been trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup, more to protest the crazy agricultural policies that allow it to be a cheap "filler" ingredient in lots of food products (do we really need HCFS in our sliced bread?) than the admittedly contested claims to it being less healthy and contributing to obesity rates more than other sugars. Yet, what did I end up buying at the Japanese grocery store? Fried fish cakes (processed fish, sorbitol, MSG, tons of things I can't pronounce), instant yakisoba (MSG), and instant Japanese curry (because, you know, it's so hard to find potatoes and carrots in DC...).

And it's not just Japanese food. I've found myself doing the same thing in foreign supermarkets of every variety. Potato chips rarely earn a second glance from me during my meanderings through Safeway. At Tesco in Britain, though, suddenly Thai curry and ketchup and lemongrass make artificially-flavored crisps more palatable. Instant tapioca tea in Chinese markets, boxed chestnut soup in France, and frozen minced pies in London have all tempted me at one point or another.

It seems I'm trying to eschew American fast/ready-made food culture, only to turn around and buy into its "fill in X culture here" counterparts. Clearly part of the attraction is the novelty factor of either seeing somewhat familiar foods in unexpected forms -- whoa, you can make Thai curry into a potato chip?!? -- or unfamiliar foods in familiar forms, as with instant tapioca tea in the same packaging as instant hot chocolate. By extension, it would seem that these supermarket versions of traditional food cultures might then present an easily accessible introduction into unfamiliar food territory. But how, then to balance cosmopolitan tastes with locavore philosophies? Does interest in foreign foods expressed through the more accessible processed food route undermine attempts to preserve traditional food cultures? Or does it help preserve it by maintaining interest in a more accessible form?