Hey everyone,
After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I became aware of many problems that we face with the food we eat in today's society. This brought up a question in my mind: what am I eating? To try to shed some light on this situation, I've decided to create a week long food journal. I'll try to make sure that I record everything I eat as accurately as possible, and I'm very excited to see what a week's worth of food in my life is like!
I probably won't post the results til next Tuesday (I started yesterday) in order to make it easier to see overall.
BJC
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Omnivore's Dilemma: Part Three
"Isn't it natural to give special consideration to one's kind?" asks Pollan. I would reply with yes, making me a speciesist. This is not to say that I disregard animals altogether, as I believe that our coexistence with them on this planet is a necessary balance to maintain. When it comes to getting a meal on my plate, I have no problem with the killing of animals for food. But when it comes to the rights of these animals before they are killed, many problems were presented in The Omnivore's Dilemma.
While many questions went unsolved, one that became answered in my mind was the act of hunting. Prior to reading this book, I viewed hunting as a sort of barbaric and backwoods kind of way to obtain your meat. Most of this comes from my own lack of experience, as no one in my family hunts and that I've never shot a gun before. However, the way that Pollan described his feral pig hunting trip was fascinating to me. A statement that stood out was when his hunting companion, Angelo, described a hunted pig as "some very nice prosciutti!" This statement was remarkable, as the hunter valued the final dish that it would turn into, rather than just killing an animal for the fun of it. While I'm sure that there are some hunters who do just that, this viewpoint gave me insight as to why many still hunt: it is a way that we can become connected to our ancestry, nature, and the animals that we are going to eat. I now have a much greater respect for hunting because of this.
The biggest dilemma (pun intended?) that presented itself was the role of the rights of animals that we eat. While I believe that us humans have the right to give special consideration to our own interests of food, this is not to say that the way we do this is just. Most of the meat we consume today is a byproduct of a capitalist system that separates us from what ends up on our dinner table. Many of us remain happily unaware of how the animals we eat are treated. If you feel that way, then so be it. But I believe that the loss of connection between us and the meat we eat is an insult to both the animals and to ourselves. We fail to acknowledge that the way we are treating animals on farms is not the way that they are supposed to exist. Cows are not supposed to eat corn and stand up to their knees in shit, and hens are not supposed to be caged with no room to spread their wings or graze.
So maybe that's the reason why I appreciate hunting much more than I did before. In a society where factory farms gauge their output on numbers of animals as opposed to quality of meat, the act of seeing an animal and killing it in its natural habitat is very refreshing to me. I realize that hunting is not a viable option for a majority of people to get their meat, so farms like Joel Salatin's are a way in which we can develop this connection without having to do the dirty work of hunting a wild animal. If more Americans were aware of factory farm practices and our separation from the whole process, would small farms like Salatin's catch on with the majority of Americans? I hope to think so.
While many questions went unsolved, one that became answered in my mind was the act of hunting. Prior to reading this book, I viewed hunting as a sort of barbaric and backwoods kind of way to obtain your meat. Most of this comes from my own lack of experience, as no one in my family hunts and that I've never shot a gun before. However, the way that Pollan described his feral pig hunting trip was fascinating to me. A statement that stood out was when his hunting companion, Angelo, described a hunted pig as "some very nice prosciutti!" This statement was remarkable, as the hunter valued the final dish that it would turn into, rather than just killing an animal for the fun of it. While I'm sure that there are some hunters who do just that, this viewpoint gave me insight as to why many still hunt: it is a way that we can become connected to our ancestry, nature, and the animals that we are going to eat. I now have a much greater respect for hunting because of this.
The biggest dilemma (pun intended?) that presented itself was the role of the rights of animals that we eat. While I believe that us humans have the right to give special consideration to our own interests of food, this is not to say that the way we do this is just. Most of the meat we consume today is a byproduct of a capitalist system that separates us from what ends up on our dinner table. Many of us remain happily unaware of how the animals we eat are treated. If you feel that way, then so be it. But I believe that the loss of connection between us and the meat we eat is an insult to both the animals and to ourselves. We fail to acknowledge that the way we are treating animals on farms is not the way that they are supposed to exist. Cows are not supposed to eat corn and stand up to their knees in shit, and hens are not supposed to be caged with no room to spread their wings or graze.
So maybe that's the reason why I appreciate hunting much more than I did before. In a society where factory farms gauge their output on numbers of animals as opposed to quality of meat, the act of seeing an animal and killing it in its natural habitat is very refreshing to me. I realize that hunting is not a viable option for a majority of people to get their meat, so farms like Joel Salatin's are a way in which we can develop this connection without having to do the dirty work of hunting a wild animal. If more Americans were aware of factory farm practices and our separation from the whole process, would small farms like Salatin's catch on with the majority of Americans? I hope to think so.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Corn: America's Addiction
Before reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, my opinion on the role that corn played in society was relatively positive. I saw corn as a staple of American culture, up there with baseball and apple pie. I remembered warm summer evenings sitting on the front porch of my cottage shucking the yellow ears of corn that would be on our plates later that evening. As I’ve grown older, the negative things I heard about corn through the internet and television seemed far removed from me as thoughts of corn on summer dinner plates popped up into my mind. When I heard about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, I simply groaned and submitted to the industrial complex that produced my food. After reading the first part of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I become cognizant of two very important things: how the Americas have survived and thrived through corn, and how prevalent corn is in everything that is around us.
Something that never really occurred to me was the huge importance that corn has played not only in the growth of our country, but in the Americas in general. First domesticated by the native peoples living in Mexico, corn was treated as something that was larger than life. Aside from water, it was the most important food to these people and it spread to South America, North America and the Caribbean. Pollan’s discussion that corn was single reason why the Pilgrims were able to survive was something that I never had thought of previously. Its ability to be picked quickly or to be stored, and the way that every part of the plant can be used, and its tremendous ability to adapt to surrounding conditions are all qualities that helped the Pilgrims tremendously. This was eye-opening to me, as I realized that in this sense, the transcendent Zea mays hasn’t really changed since the white man arrived in the Americas.
But in another sense, corn has completely changed since then. We don’t just eat ears of corn, as virtually every meal we eat contains some sort of corn byproduct. I was shocked to hear Pollan’s description of a chicken nugget, as corn is involved in the entire process. Corn feeds the chicken, corn starch holds the whole thing together, corn flour is used to make the batter, it’s fried in corn oil, and chemical additives derived from corn are used. And aside from being heavily prevalent in our foods, corn is also used in our packaging and even in the construction of our houses! How could one plant dominate our lives so easily and effectively?
When this question popped into my head, I thought of Pollan’s description of corn farming today. In a nutshell, corn yields are measured by how much can be produced in a certain amount of room. In order to produce higher yields, genetic engineers have created hybrid corn varieties that have adapted to “city life,” where they’ve developed thicker, stronger stalks in order to live in a more dense population. Our use of modern science to aid the incredibly adaptive plant in order to produce these higher yields is a sign that corn’s dominance will continue to play a huge role in our lives. As the price of corn continues to fall because of an over-abundant supply, farmers have no choice but to continue to bow down to the plant that controls their lives.
This may sound a scary, because it really is. It is remarkable how corn has played such a strong role in the Americas for thousands of years. For me, it is scary to think that we have emphasized the role of just one plant over all others. As corn prices drop and special interests control the market for agriculture, I have a bad feeling that America’s lust for corn has taken us down a slippery slope that will be difficult to recover from.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Quirky Cuisine at Sakura 2
As the hostess led the way to the sushi bar, two sushi chefs stood behind a glass case that displayed the colorful ingredients that would comprise the ingredients for that evening. Octopus tentacles, tuna, salmon, shrimp, crab and other raw foods sit right at eye-level with the customers as they sit down. Behind them, the sushi chefs are hard at work preparing the sushi with style and flair. The artistry of making each dish was quite remarkable, as the shape of the plates, and the color and order of the food all played equally important parts.
Brought out on a dish in the shape of a fan was the appetizer of four spicy tuna poppers; an odd but intriguing mix of Mexican and Japanese cuisine. Spicy tuna and cream cheese lightly fried with spicy mayo and eel sauce, all stuffed in a small jalapeño. Aptly named, these poppers were easily eaten in two bites and the cool cream cheese and tuna were a nice compliment to the jalapeño with a spicy kick. If the poppers had not been fried, the dish would have been slimy and hard to eat, but the fried texture of the poppers settled the dish and provided a tasty crunch.
This is Sakura 2, Hibachi Grill & Sushi Bar, located on Westnedge Avenue in Portage. Stuck in a typical suburban plaza next to a Target, video game store, and crafts store, one would probably expect the decor of the restaurant to be cheap and funky. This was not the case, as the chic combination of black, brown and beige colors of the restaurant make one feel like they are in a restaurant you might find in downtown Kalamazoo instead of the Target plaza. The restaurant is divided into two large sections: the hibachi section and sushi section. The hibachi section contained many open grills with seats around the grills for the performance-style cooking of hibachi. On the opposite side of the wall sits the sushi section of the restaurant. A black granite counter-top ruins along the wall and square tables run the length of the room. In the back of the restaurant is the kitchen and next to it sits the sushi bar.
Sakura rolls made a single-file line on a long, rectangular plate. They were accompanied on the plate with the order of vegas rolls. The sakura rolls were comprised of shrimp tempura, cream cheese, crab stick, avocado, cucumber and tobiko wrapped in soy bean paper with eel sauce and spicy mayo. A sweet rather than spicy taste of the eel sauce and “spicy” mayo covered the sushi. The light pink soy bean paper wrapped around each piece of sushi in a pretty presentation, but did not add much to the taste of the sushi. The soft consistency of the sushi was paired nicely with a crunchy bite of fried shrimp inside each roll. The most powerful tastes of the dish were the sauce that covered it and the shrimp. The rest of the ingredients in the sakura roll complimented each other nicely, but left me longing for a bit more of a pop to the dish.
Like many of the names of the sushi options on the menu, the name of the vegas roll did not make much sense. Covered in the same tasty sauce as the sakura roll, the salmon, cream cheese, mozzarella cheese and avocado fried in tempura made the vegas roll an excellent choice. While these ingredients may seem rather unconventional for a sushi recipe, these zany choices like mozzarella cheese and avocado resulted in a great sushi roll. However, akin to the sakura roll, the sauce combination covering the rolls lacked the spicy kick that it advertised.
The sushi chefs personally presented the completed dishes over the counter to the customers at the bar. Their precision and artistic flair was accompanied by intermittent speech to each other in Japanese. A middle-aged couple sat at the bar, trying to drum up some conversation with the chefs, asking what the names for certain ingredients were in Japanese. The chefs gladly obliged and answered what they could. The waitress was always there to fill up waning water glasses and oohs and aahs could be heard from the audience sitting in the hibachi section quite frequently. These sounds were much more welcome than the cheesy piano music playing through the speakers that seemed to belong on an episode of Days of Our Lives.
Boasting an extensive menu of more than 30 choices of just sushi rolls, a sushi newcomer may be scared of the prospect of deciding what to order. No need to worry though, as each sushi selection was accompanied by a picture of the dish and a full description, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Sakura 2 also caters to the adventurous, as courses of tuna, eel, sea urchin and salmon roe appear on the menu. Traditional ingredients combined with the infusion of ingredients like mozzarella cheese, cream cheese and avocado added flair to this seemingly Midwestern-style sushi. From the Yummy Yummy Roll to the Playboy Roll to the Rock’N Roll, these names were the only thing more quirky than some of the ingredients in the selections.
The entire meal cost about $30 before tip, so Sakura 2 is definitely a restaurant that is in the price range and style of college students looking for a night of food that is easily shareable and within their budget. Appetizers range from $5 to $10 and entrees vary from $9 to $15. The hours are very flexible as well, open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner.
The stylish decor, the friendly and attentive staff, and great deal of sushi options make Sakura 2 a nice option for college students. While the sushi is not top-notch, you pay for what you receive at Sakura 2, and the quality, variety and taste of the sushi will leave customers willing to come back for more.
Brought out on a dish in the shape of a fan was the appetizer of four spicy tuna poppers; an odd but intriguing mix of Mexican and Japanese cuisine. Spicy tuna and cream cheese lightly fried with spicy mayo and eel sauce, all stuffed in a small jalapeño. Aptly named, these poppers were easily eaten in two bites and the cool cream cheese and tuna were a nice compliment to the jalapeño with a spicy kick. If the poppers had not been fried, the dish would have been slimy and hard to eat, but the fried texture of the poppers settled the dish and provided a tasty crunch.
 |
| Spicy Tuna Poppers |
This is Sakura 2, Hibachi Grill & Sushi Bar, located on Westnedge Avenue in Portage. Stuck in a typical suburban plaza next to a Target, video game store, and crafts store, one would probably expect the decor of the restaurant to be cheap and funky. This was not the case, as the chic combination of black, brown and beige colors of the restaurant make one feel like they are in a restaurant you might find in downtown Kalamazoo instead of the Target plaza. The restaurant is divided into two large sections: the hibachi section and sushi section. The hibachi section contained many open grills with seats around the grills for the performance-style cooking of hibachi. On the opposite side of the wall sits the sushi section of the restaurant. A black granite counter-top ruins along the wall and square tables run the length of the room. In the back of the restaurant is the kitchen and next to it sits the sushi bar.
 |
| Sakura Roll |
Sakura rolls made a single-file line on a long, rectangular plate. They were accompanied on the plate with the order of vegas rolls. The sakura rolls were comprised of shrimp tempura, cream cheese, crab stick, avocado, cucumber and tobiko wrapped in soy bean paper with eel sauce and spicy mayo. A sweet rather than spicy taste of the eel sauce and “spicy” mayo covered the sushi. The light pink soy bean paper wrapped around each piece of sushi in a pretty presentation, but did not add much to the taste of the sushi. The soft consistency of the sushi was paired nicely with a crunchy bite of fried shrimp inside each roll. The most powerful tastes of the dish were the sauce that covered it and the shrimp. The rest of the ingredients in the sakura roll complimented each other nicely, but left me longing for a bit more of a pop to the dish.
Like many of the names of the sushi options on the menu, the name of the vegas roll did not make much sense. Covered in the same tasty sauce as the sakura roll, the salmon, cream cheese, mozzarella cheese and avocado fried in tempura made the vegas roll an excellent choice. While these ingredients may seem rather unconventional for a sushi recipe, these zany choices like mozzarella cheese and avocado resulted in a great sushi roll. However, akin to the sakura roll, the sauce combination covering the rolls lacked the spicy kick that it advertised.
 |
| Vegas Roll |
The sushi chefs personally presented the completed dishes over the counter to the customers at the bar. Their precision and artistic flair was accompanied by intermittent speech to each other in Japanese. A middle-aged couple sat at the bar, trying to drum up some conversation with the chefs, asking what the names for certain ingredients were in Japanese. The chefs gladly obliged and answered what they could. The waitress was always there to fill up waning water glasses and oohs and aahs could be heard from the audience sitting in the hibachi section quite frequently. These sounds were much more welcome than the cheesy piano music playing through the speakers that seemed to belong on an episode of Days of Our Lives.
Boasting an extensive menu of more than 30 choices of just sushi rolls, a sushi newcomer may be scared of the prospect of deciding what to order. No need to worry though, as each sushi selection was accompanied by a picture of the dish and a full description, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Sakura 2 also caters to the adventurous, as courses of tuna, eel, sea urchin and salmon roe appear on the menu. Traditional ingredients combined with the infusion of ingredients like mozzarella cheese, cream cheese and avocado added flair to this seemingly Midwestern-style sushi. From the Yummy Yummy Roll to the Playboy Roll to the Rock’N Roll, these names were the only thing more quirky than some of the ingredients in the selections.
The entire meal cost about $30 before tip, so Sakura 2 is definitely a restaurant that is in the price range and style of college students looking for a night of food that is easily shareable and within their budget. Appetizers range from $5 to $10 and entrees vary from $9 to $15. The hours are very flexible as well, open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner.
The stylish decor, the friendly and attentive staff, and great deal of sushi options make Sakura 2 a nice option for college students. While the sushi is not top-notch, you pay for what you receive at Sakura 2, and the quality, variety and taste of the sushi will leave customers willing to come back for more.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sakura 2, Hibachi Grill & Sushi Bar
“Sushi or hibachi?” asked the hostess, smiling politely. Leading the way to the sushi bar, two sushi chefs stood behind a glass case that displayed the colorful ingredients that would comprise the ingredients for that evening. Octopus tentacles, tuna, salmon, shrimp, crab and other raw foods sit right at eye-level with the customers as they sit down. Behind them, the sushi chefs are hard at work preparing the sushi with style and flair. The artistry of making each dish was quite remarkable, as the shape of the plates, and the color and order of the food all played equally important parts.
Brought out on a dish in the shape of a fan was the appetizer of four spicy tuna poppers; which seemed like an odd but intriguing mix of Mexican and Japanese cuisine. Spicy tuna and cream cheese lightly fried with spicy mayo and eel sauce, all stuffed in a small jalapeño. Aptly named, these poppers were easily eaten in two bites and the cool cream cheese and tuna were a nice compliment to the jalapeño with a spicy kick. If the poppers had not been fried, the dish would have been slimy and hard to eat, but the fried texture of the poppers settled the dish and provided a tasty crunch.
This is Sakura 2, Hibachi Grill & Sushi Bar, located on Westnedge Avenue in Portage. Stuck in a typical suburban plaza next to a Target, video game store, and crafts store, one would probably expect the decor of the restaurant to be cheap and funky. This was not the case, however, as the chic combination of black, brown and beige colors of the restaurant make one feel like they are in a restaurant you might find in downtown Kalamazoo instead of the Target plaza. The restaurant is divided into two large sections: the hibachi section and sushi section. The hibachi section contained many open grills with seats around the grills for the performance-style cooking of hibachi. On the opposite side of the wall sits the sushi section of the restaurant. A black granite counter-top ruins along the wall and square tables run the length of the room. In the back of the restaurant is the kitchen and next to it sits the sushi bar.
Sakura rolls made a single-file line on a long, rectangular plate. They were accompanied on the plate with the order of vegas rolls. Comprised of shrimp tempura, cream cheese, crab stick, avocado, cucumber, and tobiko wrapped in soy bean paper with eel sauce and spicy mayo. A sweet rather than spicy taste of the eel sauce and “spicy” mayo covered the sushi. The light pink soy bean paper wrapped around each piece of sushi in a pretty presentation, but did not add much to the taste of the sushi. The soft consistency of the sushi was paired nicely with a piece of the crunch of a piece fried shrimp inside each roll. The most powerful tastes of the dish were the sauce on the top and the shrimp. The rest of the ingredients in the sakura roll complimented nicely, but left me longing for a bit more of a pop to the dish.
Like many of the names of the sushi options on the menu, the name of the vegas roll did not make much sense. Covered in the same tasty sauce as the sakura roll, the salmon, cream cheese, mozzarella cheese, and avocado fried in tempura made the vegas roll an excellent choice. While these ingredients may seem rather unconventional for a sushi recipe, these zany choices ingredients like mozzarella cheese and avocado resulted in a great sushi roll. However, akin to the sakura roll, the sauce combination covering the rolls lacked the spicy kick that it advertised.
The sushi chefs personally presented the completed dishes over the counter to the customers at the bar. Their precision and artistic flair was accompanied by intermittent speech to each other in Japanese. A middle-aged couple sat down a few seats at the bar, trying to drum up some conversation with the chefs, asking what the names for certain ingredients were in Japanese. The chefs gladly obliged and answered what they could. The waitress was always there to fill up waning water glasses and oohs and aahs could be heard from the audience sitting in the hibachi section quite frequently. These sounds were much more welcome than the cheesy piano music playing through the speakers that seemed to belong on an episode of Days of Our Lives.
The only difficulty in ordering the food was making the final decision. The menu was easily navigable, as each sushi selection was accompanied by a picture of the dish and a full description, leaving no room for misinterpretation. The entire meal cost about $30 before tip, so Sakura 2 is definitely a restaurant that is in the price range and style of college students looking for a night of food that is easily shareable and within their budget. Appetizers range from $5 to $10 and entrees vary from $9 to $15. The hours are very flexible as well, open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner.
If one is looking for sushi in this price range, Sakura 2 is well worth it. The stylish decor, the friendly and attentive staff, and great deal of sushi options (as well as hibachi options) make Sakura 2 a nice option for college students. While the sushi is not top-notch, you pay for what you receive at Sakura 2, and the quality, variety and taste of the sushi will leave restaurant goers willing to come back for more.
Brought out on a dish in the shape of a fan was the appetizer of four spicy tuna poppers; which seemed like an odd but intriguing mix of Mexican and Japanese cuisine. Spicy tuna and cream cheese lightly fried with spicy mayo and eel sauce, all stuffed in a small jalapeño. Aptly named, these poppers were easily eaten in two bites and the cool cream cheese and tuna were a nice compliment to the jalapeño with a spicy kick. If the poppers had not been fried, the dish would have been slimy and hard to eat, but the fried texture of the poppers settled the dish and provided a tasty crunch.
This is Sakura 2, Hibachi Grill & Sushi Bar, located on Westnedge Avenue in Portage. Stuck in a typical suburban plaza next to a Target, video game store, and crafts store, one would probably expect the decor of the restaurant to be cheap and funky. This was not the case, however, as the chic combination of black, brown and beige colors of the restaurant make one feel like they are in a restaurant you might find in downtown Kalamazoo instead of the Target plaza. The restaurant is divided into two large sections: the hibachi section and sushi section. The hibachi section contained many open grills with seats around the grills for the performance-style cooking of hibachi. On the opposite side of the wall sits the sushi section of the restaurant. A black granite counter-top ruins along the wall and square tables run the length of the room. In the back of the restaurant is the kitchen and next to it sits the sushi bar.
Sakura rolls made a single-file line on a long, rectangular plate. They were accompanied on the plate with the order of vegas rolls. Comprised of shrimp tempura, cream cheese, crab stick, avocado, cucumber, and tobiko wrapped in soy bean paper with eel sauce and spicy mayo. A sweet rather than spicy taste of the eel sauce and “spicy” mayo covered the sushi. The light pink soy bean paper wrapped around each piece of sushi in a pretty presentation, but did not add much to the taste of the sushi. The soft consistency of the sushi was paired nicely with a piece of the crunch of a piece fried shrimp inside each roll. The most powerful tastes of the dish were the sauce on the top and the shrimp. The rest of the ingredients in the sakura roll complimented nicely, but left me longing for a bit more of a pop to the dish.
Like many of the names of the sushi options on the menu, the name of the vegas roll did not make much sense. Covered in the same tasty sauce as the sakura roll, the salmon, cream cheese, mozzarella cheese, and avocado fried in tempura made the vegas roll an excellent choice. While these ingredients may seem rather unconventional for a sushi recipe, these zany choices ingredients like mozzarella cheese and avocado resulted in a great sushi roll. However, akin to the sakura roll, the sauce combination covering the rolls lacked the spicy kick that it advertised.
The sushi chefs personally presented the completed dishes over the counter to the customers at the bar. Their precision and artistic flair was accompanied by intermittent speech to each other in Japanese. A middle-aged couple sat down a few seats at the bar, trying to drum up some conversation with the chefs, asking what the names for certain ingredients were in Japanese. The chefs gladly obliged and answered what they could. The waitress was always there to fill up waning water glasses and oohs and aahs could be heard from the audience sitting in the hibachi section quite frequently. These sounds were much more welcome than the cheesy piano music playing through the speakers that seemed to belong on an episode of Days of Our Lives.
The only difficulty in ordering the food was making the final decision. The menu was easily navigable, as each sushi selection was accompanied by a picture of the dish and a full description, leaving no room for misinterpretation. The entire meal cost about $30 before tip, so Sakura 2 is definitely a restaurant that is in the price range and style of college students looking for a night of food that is easily shareable and within their budget. Appetizers range from $5 to $10 and entrees vary from $9 to $15. The hours are very flexible as well, open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner.
If one is looking for sushi in this price range, Sakura 2 is well worth it. The stylish decor, the friendly and attentive staff, and great deal of sushi options (as well as hibachi options) make Sakura 2 a nice option for college students. While the sushi is not top-notch, you pay for what you receive at Sakura 2, and the quality, variety and taste of the sushi will leave restaurant goers willing to come back for more.
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| Spicy Tuna Poppers |
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| Sakura Roll |
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| Vegas Roll |
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| Just a glimpse of the sushi bar counter |
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| Sakura and Vegas Roll |
Monday, February 13, 2012
Sushi Expectations
After reading about Anthony Bourdain’s travels throughout Japan in A Cook’s Tour, the thought of sushi could not get out of my head. The meticulous preparation that is involved in the sushi-making process is something that I’ve only heard of, but never seen. You see, I’ve never had sushi before.
My lack of sushi experience has never been intentional; I’ve just never had the opportunity. I love seafood and have grown more receptive in past years to trying new types of food, so I’m just as befuddled as everyone else who gasps in amazement when I tell them that I’ve never had sushi before. Looking back, it would be safe to assume that the real reason why I’ve never eaten sushi is that the only other person in my family who would eat it is my dad. Throughout my childhood, my Dad was the one who has slowly exposed me to different types of seafood, from mild fish like perch and whitefish, then to shrimp, and then to lobster, crab, tuna and salmon. The rest of family tends to stay away from these foods, so it’s understandable why we never visited a sushi restaurant.
Now, I understand that the different types of seafood I just listed aren’t very extreme, but many of them are ingredients in sushi. So if I like these foods, what’s so adventurous about going to a sushi restaurant? For me, sushi represents a culture that is unknown to me, and my only real way to access it is to go to a sushi restaurant. Looking ahead to my experience, I’m not scared of the food, but I am nervous about knowing what to choose. Many people have told me try this and that when I go to the restaurant. Honestly, I’ve just let their opinion go through one ear and out the other. In order to ensure that I can enter another culture, I need to enter it with as little possible knowledge as possible. That way, my fresh perspective can take in all of the sights, sounds and smells of the restaurant.
But I still have a little knowledge of sushi. I’ve seen cooking shows and read books that talk about the foods that can be used in sushi that are very foreign to me, like octopus, eel and wasabi. So that’s the biggest thing I’m worried about; being adventurous enough to try new foods that are unfamiliar to my usually dining experience. Stepping out of my comfort zone is something that I’ll need to remind myself of when I’m at the sushi restaurant.
I hope that my fresh perspective on sushi can help me to pay more attention to bigger and smaller details that I don’t usually pay attention to when I attend restaurants. I also hope that the unfamiliar taste of sushi will help me to better analyze and judge the food I’m eating. On the other hand, I’m also afraid that my taste buds might be overwhelmed with such new cuisine. It’s a fine line that I’ll have to learn to tread during the experience.
Whenever I experienced an unfamiliar food when I was growing up, my dad would always say: “just try it.” That adage has always stuck with me, and will be one that will be in the front of my mind when I walk through the doors of Sakura 2, Hibachi Grill & Sushi Bar.
My lack of sushi experience has never been intentional; I’ve just never had the opportunity. I love seafood and have grown more receptive in past years to trying new types of food, so I’m just as befuddled as everyone else who gasps in amazement when I tell them that I’ve never had sushi before. Looking back, it would be safe to assume that the real reason why I’ve never eaten sushi is that the only other person in my family who would eat it is my dad. Throughout my childhood, my Dad was the one who has slowly exposed me to different types of seafood, from mild fish like perch and whitefish, then to shrimp, and then to lobster, crab, tuna and salmon. The rest of family tends to stay away from these foods, so it’s understandable why we never visited a sushi restaurant.
Now, I understand that the different types of seafood I just listed aren’t very extreme, but many of them are ingredients in sushi. So if I like these foods, what’s so adventurous about going to a sushi restaurant? For me, sushi represents a culture that is unknown to me, and my only real way to access it is to go to a sushi restaurant. Looking ahead to my experience, I’m not scared of the food, but I am nervous about knowing what to choose. Many people have told me try this and that when I go to the restaurant. Honestly, I’ve just let their opinion go through one ear and out the other. In order to ensure that I can enter another culture, I need to enter it with as little possible knowledge as possible. That way, my fresh perspective can take in all of the sights, sounds and smells of the restaurant.
But I still have a little knowledge of sushi. I’ve seen cooking shows and read books that talk about the foods that can be used in sushi that are very foreign to me, like octopus, eel and wasabi. So that’s the biggest thing I’m worried about; being adventurous enough to try new foods that are unfamiliar to my usually dining experience. Stepping out of my comfort zone is something that I’ll need to remind myself of when I’m at the sushi restaurant.
I hope that my fresh perspective on sushi can help me to pay more attention to bigger and smaller details that I don’t usually pay attention to when I attend restaurants. I also hope that the unfamiliar taste of sushi will help me to better analyze and judge the food I’m eating. On the other hand, I’m also afraid that my taste buds might be overwhelmed with such new cuisine. It’s a fine line that I’ll have to learn to tread during the experience.
Whenever I experienced an unfamiliar food when I was growing up, my dad would always say: “just try it.” That adage has always stuck with me, and will be one that will be in the front of my mind when I walk through the doors of Sakura 2, Hibachi Grill & Sushi Bar.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Culinary Tourism is Everywhere!
When reading Culinary Tourism by Lucy Long, many ideas about culinary tourism were presented that I had never thought of before. The most significant of these examples was Long’s idea that “not only can one stay home and still experience the ‘exotic,’ but one may also stay home and view the familiar and mundane as exotic” (6). She’s presenting two principles: that we don’t need to travel outside of our homes to participate in culinary tourism and that things we are already very familiar with can become exotic. I had always thought of culinary tourism as an adventure someone takes to another region or country that is unlike their own, and tries food that they have never experienced before. The thought that traveling to a Fogo de Chao restaurant (Brazilian steakhouse) to experience something new and exotic really broke my preconceived notions of tourism in general. In the same vein, the thought that culinary tourism exists just from watching cooking shows of another culture or television program focusing on food around the world blew my mind. So I don’t even need to leave my couch?! While I agree that being simple experiences like watching television programs can offer us a great deal of knowledge, I don’t believe that culinary tourism truly exists until you get out there and adventure.
Long explained that these adventures could occur in our backyard or halfway around the world, so I tried to think of times when I was truly a culinary tourist. The fresh fish I ate during a trip I took with my parents to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. Eating pâté de foie gras when I was only 12 years old in Paris (I wasn’t a huge fan, but I don’t think that my twelve year-old taste buds were ready for that type of sophistication yet). Domestically, my biggest tourist experience with food was this past winter break, when I traveled to an Ecuadorian restaurant in Chicago.
My family’s annual winter-break trip to Chicago included a trip to an Ecuadorian restaurant, as we have been hosting an 18 year-old foreign exchange student from Ecuador. The experience was something very new to me, as I had never eaten Ecuadorian food or even heard about it. What resulted was wonderful. Right as we walked into the restaurant, the face of my host brother, Roberto, brightened. I knew we were in for a treat. Playing Ecuadorian tunes, I couldn’t really understand much from the three-member band in the restaurant, but the music was rich and wonderful. I decided to order seco de pollo a chicken dish cooked in beer with peppers, onions, tomatoes and passion fruit. In the past few years, I’ve grown more receptive to trying new dishes, and I was well rewarded by ordering seco de pollo.
I didn’t realize until reading Long’s article that this was a form of culinary tourism. I previously thought of this as something that must require distant travel and extreme bravery. But my trips to Mexico and Paris don’t compare to my trip to La Peña in Chicago. As I continue to travel through the States, I now know that all it takes for me to be a culinary tourist is to be adventurous.
Long explained that these adventures could occur in our backyard or halfway around the world, so I tried to think of times when I was truly a culinary tourist. The fresh fish I ate during a trip I took with my parents to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. Eating pâté de foie gras when I was only 12 years old in Paris (I wasn’t a huge fan, but I don’t think that my twelve year-old taste buds were ready for that type of sophistication yet). Domestically, my biggest tourist experience with food was this past winter break, when I traveled to an Ecuadorian restaurant in Chicago.
My family’s annual winter-break trip to Chicago included a trip to an Ecuadorian restaurant, as we have been hosting an 18 year-old foreign exchange student from Ecuador. The experience was something very new to me, as I had never eaten Ecuadorian food or even heard about it. What resulted was wonderful. Right as we walked into the restaurant, the face of my host brother, Roberto, brightened. I knew we were in for a treat. Playing Ecuadorian tunes, I couldn’t really understand much from the three-member band in the restaurant, but the music was rich and wonderful. I decided to order seco de pollo a chicken dish cooked in beer with peppers, onions, tomatoes and passion fruit. In the past few years, I’ve grown more receptive to trying new dishes, and I was well rewarded by ordering seco de pollo.
I didn’t realize until reading Long’s article that this was a form of culinary tourism. I previously thought of this as something that must require distant travel and extreme bravery. But my trips to Mexico and Paris don’t compare to my trip to La Peña in Chicago. As I continue to travel through the States, I now know that all it takes for me to be a culinary tourist is to be adventurous.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Gingerbread Houses
As inspired by my comments on gingerbread houses today, I present the Philosoraptor's take on this:
Something to philosophize about, dudes.
Something to philosophize about, dudes.
Sifton's Style
I had never read restaurant reviews before, so when I thought of the term “food critic,” I naively thought that they were just about reviewing the food. Sifton talked about many things that I hadn’t thought of a food critic before, like the decor, the staff and the prices. But his pieces also served to help me realize of very acute details that accompany fine dining: the chef’s personality, the wine list, the artistry of the food, what types of people are eating there. I never realize how many times a critic visits a restaurant (once it was five times!) I also found I interesting that Sifton doesn’t always describe the taste, but accurately depicts what it looks like. When he describes the taste, I can really appreciate that food because he doesn’t overuse that device in his criticisms.
My favorite of Sifton’s articles was definitely his review of Kenmare. Kenmare received zero stars, so the jokes that Sifton included really got me cracking. One of my favorites: “You can pick at these for a long time, drinking prosecco and doing red-carpet analysis of this one’s tight dress or that one’s unfortunate hair, laughing gaily until someone remembers how great it was to smoke, and the whole conversation goes nostalgic and sullen,” and “recalling the television program “Jersey Shore,” there was a dish called The Chicken.” Funny quips like these show how engaged Sifton is with his audience and how these jokes can be relatable to all readers, as we’ve all had bad restaurants experiences, even if we’ve rarely visit upscale restaurants. It’s no surprise that he’s the second most followed food critic on Twitter-- people really love him.
Additionally, Sifton’s descriptions on the health of being a food critic were intriguing. I guess I hadn’t thought that being a food critic is a 24/7, 6 days a week kind of job. While he does a good job of exercising, his calorie count made me very aware of how unhealthy it can be to eat at restaurants very frequently. But after reading about this calorie count, I was surprised to see that Sifton remained very upbeat about his job. In order to be the leading food critic for the New York Times, you have to love your job, and he really does. That made me imagine what it would be like if I tried to be a food critic. I don’t think it would work out. Not because of how the calorie intake per se (trust me, I love to indulge in foods with lots of calories), but the sheer amount of food he seems to eat is incredible. I love to eat, but not that much. The hassle of going out to restaurants sound very tiring as well.
I think I enjoyed Sifton so much because of style. It’s hard to describe, but I noticed a vast difference with his writing than that of Jonathan Gold. Gold seems to speak to the audience a lot more directly, using “you” quite often, making suggestions on what one should order rather than summarizing what everything he had was like and allowing the readers to decide for themselves. I don’t mind the style, I just find Sifton’s more enjoyable to read; less of a “how to” and more of a criticism.
I’ll end with my favorite bit of knowledge from Sifton: “Restaurant criticism ought to be about deliciousness and sociology and art. It shouldn’t ultimately be about nutrition, this exchange notwithstanding.”
My favorite of Sifton’s articles was definitely his review of Kenmare. Kenmare received zero stars, so the jokes that Sifton included really got me cracking. One of my favorites: “You can pick at these for a long time, drinking prosecco and doing red-carpet analysis of this one’s tight dress or that one’s unfortunate hair, laughing gaily until someone remembers how great it was to smoke, and the whole conversation goes nostalgic and sullen,” and “recalling the television program “Jersey Shore,” there was a dish called The Chicken.” Funny quips like these show how engaged Sifton is with his audience and how these jokes can be relatable to all readers, as we’ve all had bad restaurants experiences, even if we’ve rarely visit upscale restaurants. It’s no surprise that he’s the second most followed food critic on Twitter-- people really love him.
Additionally, Sifton’s descriptions on the health of being a food critic were intriguing. I guess I hadn’t thought that being a food critic is a 24/7, 6 days a week kind of job. While he does a good job of exercising, his calorie count made me very aware of how unhealthy it can be to eat at restaurants very frequently. But after reading about this calorie count, I was surprised to see that Sifton remained very upbeat about his job. In order to be the leading food critic for the New York Times, you have to love your job, and he really does. That made me imagine what it would be like if I tried to be a food critic. I don’t think it would work out. Not because of how the calorie intake per se (trust me, I love to indulge in foods with lots of calories), but the sheer amount of food he seems to eat is incredible. I love to eat, but not that much. The hassle of going out to restaurants sound very tiring as well.
I think I enjoyed Sifton so much because of style. It’s hard to describe, but I noticed a vast difference with his writing than that of Jonathan Gold. Gold seems to speak to the audience a lot more directly, using “you” quite often, making suggestions on what one should order rather than summarizing what everything he had was like and allowing the readers to decide for themselves. I don’t mind the style, I just find Sifton’s more enjoyable to read; less of a “how to” and more of a criticism.
I’ll end with my favorite bit of knowledge from Sifton: “Restaurant criticism ought to be about deliciousness and sociology and art. It shouldn’t ultimately be about nutrition, this exchange notwithstanding.”
Monday, February 6, 2012
Killarney Cravings, parte dos
The sounds of Kid Cudi blasted from the van’s stereo as all of us remained silent. The eight members of LandSea patrol A2 were headed to Grey Lake for our “solo” portion of our two and half week hiking, canoeing and portaging trip in pristine Canadian wilderness. I tried to keep my mind from worrying about the next 40 hours of loneliness that lie ahead, but there was only one thing I could think about: food. While our LandSea leaders would stop by three times a day to deliver us iodine to refill our water bottles, we would be without food for the 40-something hours of solo.
On the night before solo, we gathered around the campfire to talk about our expectations of solo. Many expressed their hope to learn more about themselves from such a tough experience. Our hope of not having a close encounter with a bear was also common. As LandSea as my first real camping experience, I knew nothing of dealing with a black bear. My only guide to bears was a newspaper from the local town of Sudbury in one of the vans. The newspaper said something like this:
“If a person doesn’t want a black bear to come closer, act aggressively.”
Huh? What was that? You want me to act aggressively toward a 400 pound black bear by myself? The prospects of this happening scared the shit out of me. I decided that the chances of this happening were pretty slim, so I turned the page and tried to forget about it. I found comfort in the next page of the newspaper, an advertisement for the Sudbury RibFest. I would soon regret seeing this.
We got out of the vans, walked for 30 minutes to the aptly named Grey Lake, and waited to be taken to our individual sites by canoe. I decided to let others go ahead of me, hoping that a miracle would appear so that I wouldn’t have to go on solo. No such miracle materialized, so I was taken to my campsite. Darkness soon approached as I set out my things, so I crawled into my sleeping bag underneath the stars, content and confident that solo wasn’t going to be as bad as I had thought the night before. No bears, just myself and my journal to reflect. If Gandhi could fast for weeks, going a little less than two days without food would be apiece of cake breeze.
Boy, was I wrong.
I awoke about an hour later to find that the beautiful sky of stars had changed into a dark mass that became the subject of my scorn for the rest of the night. The rain began to pour down, so I wrapped myself up in my ground tarp (a method called burritoing) and tried to find a dry place under a tree. In hindsight, sitting underneath a tree was a bad idea, but I didn’t really care. Constant rain, rumbles of thunder that seemed to last for minutes on end and my longing for a hot bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese lead to very little sleep that night.
The rain continued on into the late morning and tapered off as the sun was able to finally break through. After the hellish night I had been through, feeling the warm rays of the familiar sun was comforting. I laid my drenched sleeping bag near the shore to dry off as I got my journal out to reflect. As I tried to accurately describe the events of solo experience to that point, I realized one thing: damn was I hungry. My stomach felt like an empty pit, aching relentlessly, crying to be filled. I made a list all of the foods I missed: hamburgers, pizza, ice cream, pasta, anything barbecue, turkey sandwiches, chicken salad, and the list went on. The thought of endless ribs from the Sudbury RibFest tortured me. When the list was not enough, I began to go into detail about every food. Hamburgers turned into two toasted buns with sizzling bacon, sharp cheddar cheese and a half-pound, medium rare burger hot off the grill. I even picked out what kinds of ice cream I wanted on a triple scoop waffle cone at the Bob-In Again custard shop near my summer cottage in Petoskey, Michigan. I felt a lot like Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In order to take my mind away from food, I thought that drawing might do the trick. Instead, I found myself drawing pages upon pages of food, becoming mesmerized like some sort of food zombie.
The day wore on as my stomach ached for food in a way that I had never felt before. But I ached for another thing: company. The wonderful cooking of my Dad and Grandma, thoughts of my Petoskey friends at summer hot dog roasts, my LandSea patrol that gathered around the fire to cook up hot meals after a grueling day of hiking and canoeing; my desire for food was accompanied by all the people I spent eating it with. I didn’t just long for a cheeseburger, I longed to sit around the back porch table of my cottage with all my family. I had been alone for so long that when I closed my eyes, I could picture it perfectly. But when I opened them, all I saw was trees and lake. I just a dot in the vast sea of Canadian wilderness, and I knew it perfectly well.
After another night of thunderstorms, the rain continued as we shivered in the canoes that picked us up from our campsites. After two days of loneliness, seeing and talking to other people was an alien, yet wonderful experience. During our walk back, we were given a red apple. I took a bite. It was small, mealy and somewhat juicy; the antithesis of the huge, juicy, golden delicious apples I had been accustomed to picking every fall at apple orchards 15 minutes away from my home in Kalamazoo. But it didn’t matter, it was one of the most satisfying things to touch my taste buds. We walked back to the vans, which took us to a parking lot with a small convenience store owned by the park. Jim, a Kalamazoo College trustee who was on the trip, met us there and bought each person a can of pop and a candy bar. I picked out a Pepsi and some sort of chocolate bar with peanut butter. I never imagined that my spirits could be lifted from two simple items, but these small luxuries did just that. The only thing better than the sweet taste of the pop and candy bar was that I was eating it with my friends, friends who had just been through the same lonesome experience. Sweets and smiles. I couldn’t have been more content.
While I know that thinking about food for most of my solo experience made me hungrier, it also helped me get through the entire experience. Those hours I spent listing, describing and drawing food helped me to remember the people so close to me and helped me to escape from the boredom. At a time I was so far away from food, I realized that I had never been closer to it.
On the night before solo, we gathered around the campfire to talk about our expectations of solo. Many expressed their hope to learn more about themselves from such a tough experience. Our hope of not having a close encounter with a bear was also common. As LandSea as my first real camping experience, I knew nothing of dealing with a black bear. My only guide to bears was a newspaper from the local town of Sudbury in one of the vans. The newspaper said something like this:
“If a person doesn’t want a black bear to come closer, act aggressively.”
Huh? What was that? You want me to act aggressively toward a 400 pound black bear by myself? The prospects of this happening scared the shit out of me. I decided that the chances of this happening were pretty slim, so I turned the page and tried to forget about it. I found comfort in the next page of the newspaper, an advertisement for the Sudbury RibFest. I would soon regret seeing this.
We got out of the vans, walked for 30 minutes to the aptly named Grey Lake, and waited to be taken to our individual sites by canoe. I decided to let others go ahead of me, hoping that a miracle would appear so that I wouldn’t have to go on solo. No such miracle materialized, so I was taken to my campsite. Darkness soon approached as I set out my things, so I crawled into my sleeping bag underneath the stars, content and confident that solo wasn’t going to be as bad as I had thought the night before. No bears, just myself and my journal to reflect. If Gandhi could fast for weeks, going a little less than two days without food would be a
Boy, was I wrong.
I awoke about an hour later to find that the beautiful sky of stars had changed into a dark mass that became the subject of my scorn for the rest of the night. The rain began to pour down, so I wrapped myself up in my ground tarp (a method called burritoing) and tried to find a dry place under a tree. In hindsight, sitting underneath a tree was a bad idea, but I didn’t really care. Constant rain, rumbles of thunder that seemed to last for minutes on end and my longing for a hot bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese lead to very little sleep that night.
The rain continued on into the late morning and tapered off as the sun was able to finally break through. After the hellish night I had been through, feeling the warm rays of the familiar sun was comforting. I laid my drenched sleeping bag near the shore to dry off as I got my journal out to reflect. As I tried to accurately describe the events of solo experience to that point, I realized one thing: damn was I hungry. My stomach felt like an empty pit, aching relentlessly, crying to be filled. I made a list all of the foods I missed: hamburgers, pizza, ice cream, pasta, anything barbecue, turkey sandwiches, chicken salad, and the list went on. The thought of endless ribs from the Sudbury RibFest tortured me. When the list was not enough, I began to go into detail about every food. Hamburgers turned into two toasted buns with sizzling bacon, sharp cheddar cheese and a half-pound, medium rare burger hot off the grill. I even picked out what kinds of ice cream I wanted on a triple scoop waffle cone at the Bob-In Again custard shop near my summer cottage in Petoskey, Michigan. I felt a lot like Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In order to take my mind away from food, I thought that drawing might do the trick. Instead, I found myself drawing pages upon pages of food, becoming mesmerized like some sort of food zombie.
The day wore on as my stomach ached for food in a way that I had never felt before. But I ached for another thing: company. The wonderful cooking of my Dad and Grandma, thoughts of my Petoskey friends at summer hot dog roasts, my LandSea patrol that gathered around the fire to cook up hot meals after a grueling day of hiking and canoeing; my desire for food was accompanied by all the people I spent eating it with. I didn’t just long for a cheeseburger, I longed to sit around the back porch table of my cottage with all my family. I had been alone for so long that when I closed my eyes, I could picture it perfectly. But when I opened them, all I saw was trees and lake. I just a dot in the vast sea of Canadian wilderness, and I knew it perfectly well.
After another night of thunderstorms, the rain continued as we shivered in the canoes that picked us up from our campsites. After two days of loneliness, seeing and talking to other people was an alien, yet wonderful experience. During our walk back, we were given a red apple. I took a bite. It was small, mealy and somewhat juicy; the antithesis of the huge, juicy, golden delicious apples I had been accustomed to picking every fall at apple orchards 15 minutes away from my home in Kalamazoo. But it didn’t matter, it was one of the most satisfying things to touch my taste buds. We walked back to the vans, which took us to a parking lot with a small convenience store owned by the park. Jim, a Kalamazoo College trustee who was on the trip, met us there and bought each person a can of pop and a candy bar. I picked out a Pepsi and some sort of chocolate bar with peanut butter. I never imagined that my spirits could be lifted from two simple items, but these small luxuries did just that. The only thing better than the sweet taste of the pop and candy bar was that I was eating it with my friends, friends who had just been through the same lonesome experience. Sweets and smiles. I couldn’t have been more content.
While I know that thinking about food for most of my solo experience made me hungrier, it also helped me get through the entire experience. Those hours I spent listing, describing and drawing food helped me to remember the people so close to me and helped me to escape from the boredom. At a time I was so far away from food, I realized that I had never been closer to it.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Lutefisk
Hey everyone,
I've talked a little bit in class about what lutefisk is, so I thought I'd upload a video to show you what it actually is. The video clip pretty much explains it all. (The lutefisk part starts around the :57 mark).
I've talked a little bit in class about what lutefisk is, so I thought I'd upload a video to show you what it actually is. The video clip pretty much explains it all. (The lutefisk part starts around the :57 mark).
Thursday, February 2, 2012
No Frills, Just Food.
Picture a town that seems like a set out of a wild western film. Add cars and electricity, and you have Leadville, Colorado. Leadville is about 100 miles southwest of Denver. I've traveled to Colorado twice to ski in the Frisco area. Part of the ritual of skiing in Colorado has been traveling to Leadville with my Aunt, Uncle and a local friend to visit the town. If you'd like to learn about the lead boom of the 19th century that the city got its name from, there's a small museum you can visit to learn about the rough-and-tough history of a classic wild-west town. But the real reason why we visit this dot on a map is for one reason: Quincy's Steaks and Spirits.
Quincy's is a no frills restaurant. From Sundays through Thursdays, Quincy's offers one item: filet mignon. Friday and Saturday? Prime rib. Along with these items, you get a baked potato, a salad, and bread. That's it. It is no place for a vegetarian. The first time I ate at Quincy's I asked for barbecue sauce with my prime rib. "No barbecue sauce here, the only thing you we have is horseradish." I quickly discovered that even the horseradish was unnecessary, as the prime rib was juicy, tender; a meat lover's dream.
Upon reading about beefsteaks in "All You Can Eat for Five Bucks," thoughts of Quincy's instantly entered my mind. The still pink steaks (the only way to eat a steak), liver and bacon, kidneys and beer sounded like heaven to me. That is my kind of meal! Like Quincy's, these beefsteaks weren't focused on the presentation of the food, they were simply focused on the food itself. For me, that's what the perfect meal is like. Not having to worry about getting messy, using your fingers; you know, all of the things your mother told you not to do when you were a kid. I understand that not everyone enjoys this kind of meal. But for me, this primal meal is the ultimate. And that is why I was so disinterested with the articles on French cooking.
I appreciate the effort that chefs make in order to present their cooking in a beautiful way. This isn't just a French idea either, as American cooks, British cooks, and many other cooks do the same thing. But ultimately, it's all going to be in my stomach at the end of the meal, so why does it matter? It seemed to me that a lot of the focus on French cooking was focused on as much of the presentation as the quality of the food. I only have a small exposure to French cooking, but I think that it's pretty good. But I just don't agree with some of the principles. For example, in "Is There a Crisis in French Cooking?", the author reflects on French cooking: "whenever we make a classic sauce, everybody gathers around and argues about it. Once, we got into a two-hour argument about whether you use chervil as well as tarragon in a true béarnaise" (78). Don't spend two hours arguing about it, just make the damn thing!
I know that I'm still a somewhat-naive 19 year-old who will learn to appreciate the presentation of food later in my life or the importance of long arguments about dishes, but for now, I don't care. Today I hunger for the messy meals like beefsteaks or steaks from Quincy's.
Quincy's is a no frills restaurant. From Sundays through Thursdays, Quincy's offers one item: filet mignon. Friday and Saturday? Prime rib. Along with these items, you get a baked potato, a salad, and bread. That's it. It is no place for a vegetarian. The first time I ate at Quincy's I asked for barbecue sauce with my prime rib. "No barbecue sauce here, the only thing you we have is horseradish." I quickly discovered that even the horseradish was unnecessary, as the prime rib was juicy, tender; a meat lover's dream.
Upon reading about beefsteaks in "All You Can Eat for Five Bucks," thoughts of Quincy's instantly entered my mind. The still pink steaks (the only way to eat a steak), liver and bacon, kidneys and beer sounded like heaven to me. That is my kind of meal! Like Quincy's, these beefsteaks weren't focused on the presentation of the food, they were simply focused on the food itself. For me, that's what the perfect meal is like. Not having to worry about getting messy, using your fingers; you know, all of the things your mother told you not to do when you were a kid. I understand that not everyone enjoys this kind of meal. But for me, this primal meal is the ultimate. And that is why I was so disinterested with the articles on French cooking.
I appreciate the effort that chefs make in order to present their cooking in a beautiful way. This isn't just a French idea either, as American cooks, British cooks, and many other cooks do the same thing. But ultimately, it's all going to be in my stomach at the end of the meal, so why does it matter? It seemed to me that a lot of the focus on French cooking was focused on as much of the presentation as the quality of the food. I only have a small exposure to French cooking, but I think that it's pretty good. But I just don't agree with some of the principles. For example, in "Is There a Crisis in French Cooking?", the author reflects on French cooking: "whenever we make a classic sauce, everybody gathers around and argues about it. Once, we got into a two-hour argument about whether you use chervil as well as tarragon in a true béarnaise" (78). Don't spend two hours arguing about it, just make the damn thing!
I know that I'm still a somewhat-naive 19 year-old who will learn to appreciate the presentation of food later in my life or the importance of long arguments about dishes, but for now, I don't care. Today I hunger for the messy meals like beefsteaks or steaks from Quincy's.
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