THE GURGLING COD

When the (Mayo) spell is broken? Also, where is local?

Evidently, the geographical confusion that has gripped college football has extended into the realm of condiments. Duke's Mayonaise, the beloved cultish secret of Southern cooks, is now available in parts of the South that are north of Canada! They are selling it -- openly -- in Pennsylvania! The new slogan is "the secret of great cooks." As a reasonably serious question, what happens when/if Duke's is available at supermarkets nationwide? What portion of the Duke's mystique lies where you cannot get it? The only intentionally regional brand that went national that comes to mind is Coors,  and that's complicated b/c of Nazis and stuff. 

In other regional news, regional supermarket chain Bi-Lo defines local like so. The Bi-Lo HQ is in Florida, and the chain's reach extends well beyond these states, but there is something reminiscent of the idea of the home counties in this notion. It's not as good as, you know, locally grown food, but better than trucking everything in from California. 

 

Defending the Mexican hamburger

Anchower, yes. But! A jawn yesterday on Mexican food celebrating the glorious inauthenticity of it all with Gustavo Arellano, who just dropped Taco USA: 

 The Mexican hamburger at Chubby’s in Denver, a hamburger patty pressed into a burrito with beans and crisp pork rinds, then drowned with green chile sauce, which he anoints the single greatest Mexican dish in the United States. That burger/burrito mashup is, he says, “the dish that best personifies the Mexican-American experience, a monument to mestizaje.”

It's refreshing to see something other than a prim national culture identified as a source of legitimacy. See also Korean tacos. Skeptical? Well, let's check with Coach Taylor:

One spicy meatball

Good news from Rome, via Lizabeta -- lawn jockeys, who fell into disfavor in the US thanks to the whims of a fickle public, are finding work in the Italian hospitality industry:

Add Echt

Hola. Anchower, and all. I tried to post stuff from the cah, using my mind, like I was Aquaman, and the Internets were a dolphin, but no luck. I filed a trouble ticket, and TypePad has technicians working on it. More soon to come on the intersection of real and tasty, in a porky context, but in the meantime the Cuoz has an interesting discussion of chefs who try too hard to keep it real, and end up getting it wrong, using fresh, rather than canned tuna for a nicoise:

"Salade Nicoise with fresh tuna is a travesty," my friend Mimi Sheraton, the former New York Times critic, cheerfully scolded me after I praised Nicoise made with seared tuna at Time Warner Center's Landmarc last week.

I've yet to nail a nicoise of my own, and it's not something I'm that inclined to order out, but this seems like a fairly easy paradox to resolve. There are a host of foods which are changed and refined by being preserved. Milk, vegetables and pork become cheese, pickles and prosciutto. Canning tuna does not have quite the same artisanal vibe as putting up your own chevre or cornchons, but it does create a distinct product that allows us to enjoy tuna for longer an further away from the ocean than otherwise.
Alex Wichtel's pean to Wonder Bread in last week's DI/DO might seem like the same thing, but I don't think it is. Cheese and pickles and cured meats offer ways to preserve and transform produce, while Wonder Bread is Wonder Bread for the sake of convenience. It is easier to pump white bread full of preservatives than it is to make your own bread daily. I'll admit to a weakness for orange cheese products on very low-functioning days, but Wonder Bread is bullshit, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm in good company.