THE GURGLING COD

Scoop!

I'd been planning to  write something about the b3wbs w00t article thoughtful cultural analysis of what female TV chefs
wear in yesterday's DI/DO. I might have pointed out that owning 300 cashmere twinsets seems a bit obscene, (Nigella), and that much of  this business seems to rely upon a misapprehension that these ladies will not be using their hands to feed you, (Cora, Giadia), and that I worry about all the talented chefs out there who won't ever get to be on the Food Network because their tits aren't big enough. (tk) Or that running an article about the sexy outfits TV chefs wear warrants, nay, demands running sexy pictures of TV chefs. Or that the cashmere scoopneck seems to be about as conducive to being taken seriously as tight orange shorts. But then Peter H. Cropes gets to the heart of the matter.

Biting The Pearl's Style

In the wake of the Vigneron contretemps, I've already gotten a couple emails this morning referring to the Pearl Oyster/Ed's Lobster dustup. Rebecca Charles, Pearl's owner, is suing a former employee for opening a place that is too similar to hers. I am not a lawyer, and am not familiar with intellectual property law, but it is hard for me to see exactly how the color of the wainscoating is something in which a distinct proprietary right inheres. If the places are as similar as the article, which seems pretty firmly in the Pearl corner, asserts, it is lame, but I would argue lame rather than morally wrong. There is no attempt to deceive, as would be the operative concern if this were a realm where the idea of plagiarism applied. If Charles wins, it opens up a whole can of worms -- no more mullet for the singer in Quarterflash, no more bowl cuts for the Monkees. From here, it looks like a case of bitch stole my look, which I do not think is illegal. Yet.

Tha Cuoz & The Cod -- brothers in arms

Steve Cuzzo, food critic for the print flagship of the Murdochocracy* takes time out to rail against something I am fond of railing against, which is the idea that a culinary education teaches you how to separate signifiers and signifieds -- in other words, serve what you like, call it what you like, and caveat emptor:

Terms that once meant something barely hint at what the kitchen is up to. I’ve had boiled rice described as “risotto” and dry shellfish masquerading as “bouillabaisse.” A “Caesar salad” can mean anything with leaves and cheese. Places still blatantly list “Kobe” beef even when it’s inferior American Wagyu.

It is worth noting that there are several kinds of bullshit going on here. 1) There are words deployed inaccurately because they sound cool, like "risotto." 2) There are words that become magnets for imprecision like Caesar Salad. (See as always, Heidi Pollock's Might essay on the devolution of this term.) But these two habits of mind clear the way for the third, which is out-and-out untruths. Unfortunately, more of these lies are becoming laws, as in the Camembert story in DI/DO last week, and the recent push to expand the list of non-organic organics, fomented by clownshoes like John Foraker, CEO of Annie's Homegrown:

"Organic annatto is not readily available and does not deliver the same cheese color. Making orange colored macaroni and cheese is an important element of our offering. Without annatto, our macaroni-and-cheese products would be white"**

The mind fucking reels, but whatevs. I guess "possibly marginally better for you than Kraft" did not test well as the new slogan, so they are sticking with the organic shtick. But I digress. Tha Cuoz also details a completely different semantic breakdown:

Certain other menus assume too much knowledge on the customer’s part. If you spend much time at Vietnamese snack bars - virtually nonexistent in New York - you’ll know that banh mi of braised pork is a sandwich.
If not, you’ll be surprised when you order it at delightful French-colonial FR.OG on Spring Street, where it’s listed under “lunch plates.”
Denizens of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” country might know “tequila sunrise salad” at new ribs joint Hill Country is neither liquor nor salad, but something like orange Jell-O. Because it’s buffet service, at least you get to see it first.

If you are expecting something else, and complain about a sandwich, that's the diner's fault for not asking. This question of "assuming too much knowledge on the customer's part" is tricky It don't get much more "French-colonial"than Viet cold cuts on a baguette, and it would seem reasonable to presume patrons would know that. However, presuming too little knowledge on the part of diners can be fatal. If the menu at Esquina had one of those little charts that says Burrito: Pronounced Buh-ree-toe - a flour tortilla, etc.... the effect would be ruined. I'll leave the Texas Chainsaw Massacre thing to one side, but the question of what must be explained/translated and what must not is an interesting one. Who is obliged to explain what to whom? Certainly, if this denizen ordred an egg cream, she would be expected to know it contained neither. But does a ribs joint need to explain to New Yorkers that salad can mean many many things, some of which involve Jell-O, rather than mizuna?

*The NYT article is worth reading -- it's like one of those crazy rants about the various conspiracies to control the media, except it's true.

**Confidential to Parents -- if your kids think cheese is orange,  you've fucked up.

The Frogmore Caper

While a headline like "Prune provides an East Village Kind of Clambake" might have you thinking of some kind of Meow Mix hommage going down on 1st Street, the truth is far more insidious. As you may know, there is not, actually, beach convenient to Prune, so instead, Hamilton combined the traditional elements in a pot, and cooked them on a regular stove:

Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune ... came up with tonight’s special, a dish of steamed Manila clams, merguez sausage, and corn (for $23) meant to summon the experience, if not the setting. “I think it’s like a clambake,” she says, “just not in a pit of sand in the ground.

In other words,  this East Village Clambake is, in fact, Frogmore stew, minus shrimp, plus clams.  And yet, those who harpooned Marcel Vigneron for a similar appropriation are silent. Where is the outrage? Certainly no one had cooked corn, seafood and sausage in the same pot until Acheson did it. Hamilton = Sherman? Developing!

Setagaya - Protect ya Neck!

David Chang, bless his heart, gives us all a little gift that's bound to cure the Mondays -- a full scale noodle feud! This is just getting started, but it has the Cod PTP/SMP.* Round one: Setagaya manager calls out Momofuku:

“They get mostly American customers. Japanese people do not go to that place. They’re pretty good — but we can do much, much better.”

Chang steps into the arena and posts the sign at right in the window of Momofuku. One has to admire a chef who is blowing up like a turkey fryer accident inside one of those fireworks places on I-85 taking time out to engage with the new kid on the block. This is the same establishment with a  “Strike First, Strike Hard, Show No Mercy,” policy, and a "full comp for Larry Bird" policy, but it is still good to see that Chang is able to take time out from sitting for the bust of him that will be in the lobby of the new NY Times HQ to engage with his rivals. Considering that Chang and his crew can form like Voltron, and get deep like a Navy SEAL, it should be interesting to watch this one unfold. Also, the Setagaya swipe seems to miss the point, as it suggests that the point of Momofuku is a slavish recreation of a Japanese idiom. It would seem like the Pavement soundtrack, etc, would make it clear that that is not the point. It is a little bit like if the manager of Hawaiian Tropic Zone asserted that his servers are hotter than the servers at Per Se.

*PTP/SMP: Pounding the Plexiglas, Spilling My Popcorn. Watch the fans in the background of virtually any hockey fight video.

Two things

Still reeling from a week of living off the land, trying to forage sustenance from the fine dining establishments of Hanover, NH. But two non-food items while I get my sea legs back:
1) Someone should totally make a lowrider Prius. The ghastly quiet would be so good.
2) Feelies and LCD Soundsystem -- twins, born 20 years apart, and fed different drugs?

Volunteer mice binge on foie

Posting stuff on Fridays in the summer always feels as if one is chasing the folks hastening to the jitney or whatever down the street, but I am confident that the new Tenneesse foie story will get twisted like a pretzel, so I thought I might at least encourage folks to read more than the first graf of the press release about the research.  Too busy? Here is presumptive summary of the mainstream/blogosphere coverage of this story:

FOIE GRAS WILL GIVE YOU A BRAAAINN DIZZEEZ! AAAAH! MAD COW! BRAINS!*

Epilog, usually surefooted, leans in this direction. I am not a medical doctor, but I can read at or near grade level, and the actual summary of the research from the actual flacks at UT suggests that the research is not quite that smoking gun-like:

In their study, mice prone to develop AA amyloidosis were injected or fed amyloid extracted from foie gras. Within eight weeks, a majority of the animals developed extensive amyloid deposits in the liver, spleen, intestine and other organs.

Call me a Pollyanna, but it seems as if there is a considerable difference between toying with a terrine and injecting extracts. Alan Solomon, the lead researcher, offers the following caveat:

"It is not known if there is an increase of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes or other amyloid-related disease in people who have eaten foie gras," cautioned Solomon. "Our study looked at the existence of amyloid fibrils in foie gras and showed that it could accelerate the development of AA amyloidosis in susceptible mice. Perhaps people with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or other amyloid-associated diseases should avoid consuming foie gras and other foods that may be contaminated with fibrils."

Setting aside the ethical questions for a moment,  this  research in and of itself, does not seem to change the conversation about foie too much. We had not, prior to this research, thought of the stuff as a health food. But

FOIE! BRAINS! ZOMBIES! AAAAAH!

makes a better lede.

*Conversely, the bad boy bloggers will poo-poo the whole thing, and announce plans to float a whole lobe of foie in a seal cub bolito misto.

Snobs

A perusal of the latest in the David Kamp snob franchise has me thinking about snobs, and not just The Upper Crust. The Food Snob's Dictionary, which drops on 9 October, does the same things as the preceding Rock Snob's Dictionary and the Film Snob's Dictionary, but the similarities of the books points out some of the differences of these various snob constituencies. To put it in egghead terms, the media ecologies of these fields are configured differently. To put it in more immediate terms, why is there no pitchfork.com for food? And speak to me not of the eGully or the Hound. Not the same thing.

The Great Helmsman

Not only does Thomas Keller have six Michelin stars, but he is also apparently the offspring of Successories and Jenny Holzer, with a little Kim Jong Il thrown in:

Belts

Are you a pastry chef? Are you also rad? Are you interested in an item that will  immediately communicate this rad-ness to the world while also preventing your pants from falling down? Look no further than Rockabilia.com, which has this handsome Rolling Stones logo belt buckle -- on sale.