Best Food Writing 2017 Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2017 by Holly Hughes

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Da Capo Press

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  DaCapoPress.com

  @DaCapoPress

  First Edition: October 2017

  Published by Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBNs: 978-0-7382-2018-5 (paperback), 978-0-7382-2019-2 (e-book)

  E3-20170907-JV-NF

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  THE WAY WE EAT NOW The Benefits of Eating Without a Map, From SeriousEats.com

  By Keith Pandolfi

  The Curious Appeal of “Bad” Food, From The Atlantic

  By Irina Dumitrescu

  Let It Bleed (Humanely), From SeriousEats.com

  By J. Kenji López-Alt

  Seaweed Dreaming, From Yankee Magazine

  By Rowan Jacobsen

  Japan’s Cult Food Drama The Lonely Gourmet Is Essentially Pornography, From TheAVClub.com

  By Matthew Amster-Burton

  In New York City, What’s the Difference Between a $240 Sushi Roll and a $6.95 Sushi Roll?, From Pacific Standard

  By Greg Rosalsky

  Noma Co-Founder Claus Meyer’s Next Big Project is In One of Brooklyn’s Poorest Neighborhoods, From GrubStreet.com

  By Jane Black

  The Last European Christmas, From Bon Appetit

  By Marina O’Loughlin

  WHOSE FOOD IS IT ANYWAY? Who Owns Southern Food?, From The Oxford American

  By John T. Edge and Tunde Wey

  Who Has the Right to Capitalize on a Culture’s Cuisine?, From Food52.com

  By Laura Shunk

  Writing About Food at the Intersection of Gayness, Blackness & Faith, From Food52.com

  By Michael Twitty

  Cooking Other People’s Food, From East Bay Express

  By Luke Tsai

  A “Pan-Asian” Restaurant May Seem Dated. In Fact the Trend Is Hotter Than Ever, From the Washington Post

  By Tim Carman

  In Defense of Mexican-American Chefs, From OC Weekly

  By Gustavo Arellano

  FOODWAYS Salt of the Earth, From Victuals

  By Ronni Lundy

  What’s True About Pho, From Lucky Peach

  By Rachel Khong

  Can S.C. Barbecue Family Rise Above Their Father’s History of Racism?, From the Charlotte Observer

  By Kathleen Purvis

  The Art of Boucherie, From The Local Palate

  By Jennifer Kornegay

  Who Really Invented the Reuben?, From Saveur

  By Elizabeth Weil

  HOW MY CITY EATS The Slow and Sad Death of Seattle’s Iconic Teriyaki Scene, From Thrillist.com

  By Naomi Tomky

  The Story of the Mission Burrito, Piled High and Rolled Tight, From Bon Appetit

  By John Birdsall

  I Want Crab. Pure Maryland Crab., From Eater.com

  By Bill Addison

  The Burning Desire for Hot Chicken, From TheRinger.com

  By Danny Chau

  The City That Knows How to Eat, From Eater.com

  By Besha Rodell

  Ballad of a Small-Town Bakery, From 5280 Magazine

  By Scott Mowbray

  UPDATING THE CLASSICS Burritos, Remixed, From the San Francisco Chronicle

  By Anna Roth

  Pimento Cheese in a Parka, From Gravy

  By John Kessler

  Chicken Potpie for the Modern Cook, From the New York Times

  By Julia Moskin

  A Mother’s Lesson in Cooking for a Crowd, From the Washington Post

  By Joe Yonan

  SOMEONE’S IN THE KITCHEN The Genius of Guy Fieri, From Esquire

  By Jason Diamond

  The Chef Loses It, From GQ

  By Brett Martin

  Becoming Janos, From Edible Baja Arizona

  By Debbie Weingarten

  Promised Land, From the San Francisco Chronicle

  By Tienlon Ho

  Michel Richard 1946–2016, From toddkliman.net

  By Todd Kliman

  THEY ALSO SERVE The Chef, the Dishwasher and a Bond, From the Portland Press-Herald

  By Peggy Grodinsky

  The Piano Man of Zuni Café, From Lucky Peach

  By Rachel Levin

  My Dinners with Harold, From California Sunday

  By Daniel Duane

  DOWN THE HATCH The Crown That Sits upon Heady Topper, From GoodBeerHunting.com

  By Michael Kiser

  Strange Brews, From Food & Wine

  By John Wray

  How Much Is Too Much for a Glass of Wine?, From Food & Wine

  By Ray Isle

  Wine Pairing with Jill Mott, From Growlermag.com

  By Steve Hoffman

  The Real Thing, From Gravy

  By Matt Bondurant

  PERSONAL TASTES Wheat Exile, From In Memory of Bread

  By Paul Graham

  Baby Foodie, From TheWeeklings.com

  By Eric LeMay

  My Father, the YouTube Star, From the New York Times Magazine

  By Kevin Pang

  Cooking, From Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw

  By Elissa Altman

  Why You Should Eat All the Asparagus Right Now, From the Seattle Times

  By Bethany Jean Clement

  La Serenata, From Southwest Review

  By Floyd Skloot

  Permissions Acknowledgments

  About the Editor

  Also Edited By Holly Hughes

  Praise for The Best Food Writing Series

  Submissions for Best Food Writing 2017

  Recipe Index

  Introduction

  The showstopper of the evening—the “ta-da!” course—was no doubt meant to be the lobster. The waiter presented it with a flourish, in a shiny copper vessel on a pillow of tangled seaweed, atop gleaming coals. The concept (there’s always a narrative) was an homage to the New England shore dinner. The dainty lobster nuggets that landed on our plates were succulent indeed, and yet… well, I was still marveling over the previous course, the ecstatic silkiness of thin-shaved scallops marinated in leek and potato. Another new wine was being poured, and, perched on our banquette—more like theater seats than the setting for a romantic tête-à-tête—my husband and I were still trying to figure out which of the bevy of servers was officially “our” waiter. We were on gourmet overload.

  Granted, I knew what I was getting into. I asked for this for my Christmas present, after years of jonesing to try out Eleven Madison Park. We’d been saving it for a special event, and then realized the meal itself should be event enough. We lucked out, as it happened; only a couple months later, the restaurant closed for renovations, coincide
ntally (or not?) just after it won the 2017 title of Best Restaurant in the World. And while I secretly hoped that the storied Dream Weaver (see Best Food Writing 2016) would deliver some soupçon of special treatment, I respect the fact that we got NO extra treatment that night. My husband and I had an exquisite meal. We came home with EMP’s trademark jars of granola, just as promised. Done and done.

  And yet…

  I asked myself, am I too jaded to be thrilled by an experience like this? I’m not a professional dining critic; I cook at home more often than I eat out. While I’ve been editing this culinary anthology for eighteen years, I don’t exactly haunt New York City’s dining hotspots. So when I finally do visit a temple of gastronomy, I should be easily wowed, right?

  Or is it because I don’t dine out for a living that I can’t completely enjoy an experience so over-the-top expensive? In today’s politically charged economy, do I really want to embrace the dining habits of the 1 percent?

  Truth to tell, if I could point to one transcendent meal I’ve had this year, it would probably be a one-pot dish I cooked last summer, a real clean-out-the-refrigerator special. That night, I threw together a random bunch of vegetables with the right spices and a long slow simmer—and the result was orgasmic (and alas, irreproducible). I sat in my own kitchen and marveled at how the marriage of ingredients worked. No recipe, no meal kit, no Food Channel video—just a knife and a pot and a low flame. Magic.

  That high-low dialectic—that contrast between gourmet palates and elemental appetites—informs Best Food Writing 2017. Because here we are, in 2017, struggling to define our national food conversation. In some weird way, all bets are off. While restaurants at the culinary forefront generate plenty of buzz, the chatter around artisanal and casual and regional restaurants is more robust than ever. Trophy dining has somehow mutated, with under-the-radar finds scoring more cachet than the entrenched four-stars. Meanwhile, even though home cooking is said to be in serious decline, the domestic kitchen has been cast as a battlefront, with no-fuss convenience warring with the imperative to show off mad culinary skills. After all, if Gwyneth Paltrow can do it so effortlessly, why can’t we?

  In an era where the 24-hour news cycle keeps our heads spinning, culinary trends change so often, and so quickly, it’s hard to keep up. Avocado toast supplants pork belly, which supplanted kale; the meal-in-a-bowl will soon enough go the way of foraging and foams. Consider some of the fringe-ier elements profiled in “The Way We Eat Now” (starting on here): The meatless hamburger (J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, here) and kelp greens (Rowan Jacobsen, here).

  On the other hand, heightened political sensitivities make food justice more relevant than ever, from Jane Black’s profile of a chef bringing whole-food dining to an underprivileged community (here) to Greg Rosalsky’s breakdown of the glaring price gap between the haves and the have-nots of New York City’s restaurants (here). The vexed topic of cultural appropriation has roiled the food world this year, just as it has in the fields of film and literature. In “Whose Food Is It, Anyway?” (beginning on here), the debate over America’s ethnic cuisines ranges far and wide, including African-American cooking (John T. Edge and Tunde Wey, here), Mexican-American cooking (Gustavo Arellano, here), and Asian-American cuisine (Luke Tsai, here, and Tim Carman, here). Sometimes it seems there’s quicksand everywhere.

  Why should things be so tricky? Food, after all, is one of our most basic needs; the simple act of breaking bread together has always bound families, friends, communities. But over the past decade, our food choices have also become a matter of personal identity. From Appalachian down-home meals (Ronni Lundy, here) to Vietnamese pho (Rachel Khong, here) to South Carolina barbecue (Kathleen Purvis, here), several writers in this year’s book drill down on the food traditions they hold dear. And if these foods provide roots, it’s only natural to try to bring them along when we’re transplanted to another time and place. Witness Julia Moskin’s attempt to re-cast the chicken potpie of her childhood (here), or Joe Yonan’s repurposing of his mother’s Texas Salad (here)—and John Kessler’s dogged quest for authentic Southern eats after being uprooted from Atlanta to Chicago (here).

  Not so many years ago, the badge of foodie sophistication was a global outlook, a world traveler’s ease with foreign cuisines. Nowadays, you score bragging rights for how well you’ve navigated the regional American food map, the blue highways of local dining. Several of this year’s writers do a deep dive into the essence of their hometown food culture, trying to pin down why Nashville hot chicken (Danny Chau, here), Maryland crab (Bill Addison, here), the Reuben sandwich (Elizabeth Weil, here), Seattle teriyaki (Naomi Tomsky, here), or San Francisco Mission burritos (John Birdsall, here, and Anna Roth, here) so potently convey an ineffable sense of place.

  Meanwhile, the essays in “Personal Tastes” (beginning on here) focus on the central role food played at crucial points of the writers’ lives. It might be the birth of a child (Eric LeMay, here), the death of a beloved parent (Bethany Jean Clement, here) or grandparent (Elissa Altman, here), or the emotional limbo of a child lost in a family crisis (Floyd Skloot, here). And then there’s Paul Graham’s book excerpt (here), a poignant elegy of sorts for food itself, or at least a certain type of food he can no longer eat.

  Of course, gifted chefs have always been able to buck/drive the trends, as amply demonstrated by the pieces in “Someone’s in the Kitchen” (beginning on here). Here, you’ll read about newcomers like Kyle and Katina Connaughton (profiled by Tienlon Ho, here), scene-setting star chefs like Sean Brock (profiled by Brett Martin, here), and past masters like Michel Richard (memorialized by Todd Kliman, here). But these days, it’s not all about the culinary elite—so why not revise our view of TV personality/chef Guy Fieri (Jason Diamond, here)? In our drinks section, “Down the Hatch” (starting on here), there’s a similar underlying sense that all bets are off, with the craft beer scene getting downright weird (John Wray, here) and the wine scene going off script, with stratospherically priced bottles now being poured by the glass (Ray Isle, here). Anything goes.

  Which brings me back to the gifted chefs and high-end wines of Eleven Madison Park. That evening, I didn’t fully appreciate the ultimate act of hospitality—the fact that the tab had already been paid by credit card weeks ago, tactfully bypassing the awkward ritual of check-paying and gratuities. (We couldn’t have figured out which waiter to tip, anyway.) I also wasn’t aware that the EMP geniuses were also soon to open the much lower-priced Made Nice, a casual counter-service spot with the same creativity and focus on quality. Another act of hospitality.

  So maybe our national food conversation is simply evolving, moving past that contrast between high and low cuisine. Rather than a face-off, perhaps we can see it as a dance. We all eat differently on various days of the week, after all; we each love different foods, for different reasons. Sharing the hospitality of the common table is what’s important, even if we order different dishes. With that in mind, I value the wide range of voices in this year’s book, piping up not only from hefty cookbooks and photo-rich magazines, but from scrappy websites and blogs, from local papers and regional magazines. More and people are finding their voices at the table—let’s welcome them all.

  The Way We Eat Now

  The Benefits of Eating Without a Map

  BY KEITH PANDOLFI

  From SeriousEats.com

  Through various senior editor stints at Saveur and Serious Eats, NYC-based food writer Keith Pandolfi has plenty of “insider” knowledge of elite dining scenes and hyper-connected gourmet trends. But sometimes, as he muses here, it can be liberating to go off the grid.

  A few weeks ago, an old friend who was traveling to New Orleans for the first time emailed to ask me for restaurant and bar recommendations. I sent him my usual list—some personal favorites from the time I lived in the city, pre-Katrina, from 1998 to 2003: Willie Mae’s Scotch House, Restaurant August, Molly’s at the Market, and Dante’s Kitchen—as well as newer places that have opened since I le
ft for New York, like Cochon, La Petite Grocery, and MoPho. I told him to go to Shaya and Domenica, because everyone tells everyone to go to Shaya and Domenica these days, though I haven’t been to either. I strongly advised him to grab a Grasshopper at Tujague’s, and a Sazerac at The Roosevelt, then I reluctantly hit send.

  The reason I say “reluctantly” is because I really didn’t want to send him any recommendations at all. Instead, I wanted to send an email back that read something like this: “Go anywhere that looks good to you. Then let me know what you find.” In other words, discover your own places to eat. Eat without a map.

  It’s something people just don’t do anymore.

  Thanks to social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Yelp—as well as the countless magazines, TV shows, and websites dedicated to food (this one included)—we are constantly being told where to eat. We can find out what the hottest restaurant in San Francisco is by simply Googling “What’s the hottest restaurant in San Francisco?” There are hundreds if not thousands of city guides, top-10 lists, best-restaurants-in-America lists, and best-restaurants-in-Dayton-Ohio lists to abide by, whether we’re traveling to a city for the first time or going out to dinner in our own hometowns. It takes just a click or two to find someone’s take on the best hot chicken joints in Nashville, the best chowder houses in New England, or the best deep-dish pizza in Chicago. It’s all so easy, so convenient. But are we missing out on something?

  I’ve spent a good part of my career working as a writer and editor for various food magazines and websites. Part of my job is to tell people where to eat, and where to eat well. That’s not a bad thing. I take a certain pride in letting people know, for example, that one of the best dishes in Manhattan is the estrella pasta coated with sautéed chicken livers at Justin Smillie’s Upland; that any visitor to New Orleans would be a fool not to tuck into a meat-bomb pho of tripe, pork shoulder, chicken thighs, and smoked greens at MoPho; that one of the best fish dishes in the Boston area is the swordfish pastrami at Puritan & Company.