Best Food Writing 2013 Read online

  Praise for the Best Food Writing series

  “Not just for foodies! This will delight anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a good read and a good meal. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal

  “Hughes once again pulls together the year’s tastiest examples from the growing field of food writing . . . In an era of celebrity chefs and much-hyped restaurants, this collection is thankfully absent the pretentious musings of restaurateurs and TV stars . . . A collection of strong writing on fascinating topics that will appeal to foodies and essay lovers alike.”—Kirkus Reviews

  “There’s a mess of vital, provocative, funny and tender stuff . . . in these pages.”—USA Today

  “An exceptional collection worth revisiting, this will be a surefire hit with epicureans and cooks.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “If you’re looking to find new authors and voices about food, there’s an abundance to chew on here.” —Tampa Tribune

  “Fascinating to read now, this book will also be interesting to pick up a year from now, or ten years from now.”—Popmatters.com

  “Some of these stories can make you burn with a need to taste what they’re writing about.” —Los Angeles Times

  “Reflects not only a well-developed esthetic but also increasingly a perceptive politics that demands attention to agricultural and nutritional policies by both individuals and governments.” —Booklist

  “This is a book worth devouring.” —Sacramento Bee

  “The cream of the crop of food writing compilations.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “The book captures the gastronomic zeitgeist in a broad range of essays.” —San Jose Mercury News

  “There are a few recipes among the stories, but mostly it’s just delicious tales about eating out, cooking at home and even the politics surrounding the food on our plates.” —Spokesman-Review

  “The next best thing to eating there is.” —New York Metro

  “Stories for connoisseurs, celebrations of the specialized, the odd, or simply the excellent.” —Entertainment Weekly

  “Spans the globe and palate.” —Houston Chronicle

  “The perfect gift for the literate food lover.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  ALSO EDITED BY HOLLY HUGHES

  Best Food Writing 2012

  Best Food Writing 2011

  Best Food Writing 2010

  Best Food Writing 2009

  Best Food Writing 2008

  Best Food Writing 2007

  Best Food Writing 2006

  Best Food Writing 2005

  Best Food Writing 2004

  Best Food Writing 2003

  Best Food Writing 2002

  Best Food Writing 2001

  Best Food Writing 2000

  ALSO BY HOLLY HUGHES

  Frommer’s 500 Places for Food and Wine Lovers

  Frommer’s 500 Places to See Before They Disappear

  Frommer’s 500 Places to Take the Kids Before They Grow Up

  Copyright © 2013 by Holly Hughes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

  Set in 10-point Bembo BQ by the Perseus Books Group

  Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

  First Da Capo Press edition 2013

  ISBN: 978-0-7382-1717-8 (e-book)

  Published by Da Capo Press

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  www.dacapopress.com

  Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  THE WAY WE EAT NOW

  Good Food Everywhere, From GQ

  By Brett Martin

  The End of Anonymity, From Seattle Arts & Performance

  By Bethany Jean Clement

  Tyranny: It’s What’s For Dinner, From The Atlantic

  By Corby Kummer

  Is Seasonal Eating Overrated?, From Food & Wine

  By Katherine Wheelock

  The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater, From Northwest Edible Life

  By Erica Strauss

  Slow Cooking, Slow Eating, From The Art of Eating

  By Edward Behr

  Cooking Isn’t Fun, From Slate

  By Tracie McMillan

  The Meaning of Local, From The Washingtonian

  By Todd Kliman

  A CRITICAL PALATE

  Confronting a Masterpiece, From Roads and Kingdoms

  By Matt Goulding

  The View from West 12th, From The New York Times

  By Pete Wells

  Takaya or Leave Ya, From Riverfront Times

  By Ian Froeb

  I Ate My First McRib, and I Regret It, From Houston Press

  By Katherine Shilcutt

  Back When a Chocolate Puck Tasted, Guiltily, Like America, From The New York Times

  By Dan Barry

  FARM TO TABLE

  Forgotten Fruits, From Mother Jones

  By Rowan Jacobsen

  Earth Mothers, From Edible Boston

  By Erin Byers Murray

  The Cheese Artist, From Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine

  By Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl

  A Snail’s Tale, From Edible San Francisco

  By Molly Watson

  Yes, We Can, From EcoCentric

  By Kim O’Donnel

  THE MEAT OF THE MATTER

  Hogonomics, From Gastronomica

  By Barry Estabrook

  The Upstart Cattleman, From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  By John Kessler

  The Ibérico Journey, From The Financial Times

  By Tim Hayward

  Beer and Smoking in Danville, Illinois, From Blood-and-Thunder.com

  By Alan Brouilette

  Chicken of the Trees, From Chicago Reader

  By Mike Sula

  Tasting Notes: Heart, From Meat Eater

  By Steven Rinella

  Awful Mercy, From Honest-Food.net

  By Hank Shaw

  HOME COOKING

  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, From Bon Appétit

  By Gabrielle Hamilton

  How to Make Real New England Clam Chowder, From SeriousEats.com

  By J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

  Step Two: Sauté Onions and Other Aromatic Vegetables, From Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

  By Michael Pollan

  Cooking With Friends, From Tin House

  By Katie Arnold-Ratliff

  The Swedish Chef, From TableMatters.com

  By Joy Manning

  The Gingerbread Cookie Reclamation Project, From The Washington Post

  By Tim Carman

  Hortotiropita and the Five Stages of Restaurant Grief, From FoodForTheThoughtless.com

  By Michael Procopio

  Lobster Lessons, From The Cassoulet Saved My Marriage

  By Aleksandra Crapanzano

  A Bountiful Shore, From Saveur

  By Bernard L. Herman

  TO BE A CHEF

  Empire of the Burning Tongue, From New York Magazine

  By John Swansburg

  The King of the Food Trucks Hits Hawaii, From Food
& Wine

  By Jonathan Gold

  Fish and Game, From Edible Manhattan

  By Peter Barrett

  His Saving Grace, From The Chicago Tribune

  By Kevin Pang

  Spin the Globe, From AFAR

  By Francis Lam

  To Serve and Obey, From Fire & Knives

  By Karen Barichievy

  This Is Tossing, From Make

  By Chris Wiewiora

  PERSONAL TASTES

  Meet the Parents, From Fresh Off the Boat

  By Eddie Huang

  When the Kids Make You Breakfast for Mother’s Day, From Kim-Foster.com

  By Kim Foster

  Coke and Peanuts, From Leite’s Culinaria

  By Carol Penn-Romine

  Eating the Hyphen, From Gastronomica

  By Lily Wong

  Variations on Grace, From Graze

  By Paul Graham

  In Susan’s Kitchen, From Poor Man’s Feast

  By Elissa Altman

  What I Know, From Eating Well

  By Diane Goodman

  When There Was Nothing Left To Do, I Fed Her Ice Cream, From GiltTaste.com

  By Sarah DiGregorio

  Recipe Index

  Permissions Acknowledgments

  About the Editor

  INTRODUCTION

  The vegetables were beautiful this year, fat lush heads of arugula and romaine, gleaming taut-skinned summer squash, lusty round beets, impudently tall leeks with loamy soil still clinging to their hairy roots. Every week there were a few horizon-expanding surprises—who knows what I’d have done with those spiky knobs of kohlrabi if the CSA hadn’t provided recipes? And the fruit! This was the first year I’d bought a fruit share, too, and I was astonished by how sweet and succulent the berries and peaches were, the cherries delicate and tender, not rubbery like supermarket Bings.

  Every week I’d lug home this embarrassment of riches, then panic about using it all. So—what else?—I invested in a mandoline. Each Monday I made a vegetable terrine to cook up the last produce, emptying the crisper drawers for Tuesday’s CSA pick-up. Aside from the evening I nearly sliced off my fingertip (so that’s why they include that finger-guard), I found those meticulous hours of slicing and layering wonderfully meditative. Some combos were better than others, granted, especially before my daughter went full-on vegan and we had to leave out the goat cheese. But making vegetables the main course of our dinner? It seemed like an idea whose time had come.

  So this is where we stand in the year 2013: The season of foam and gels has passed, and the Year of the Pork Belly has given way to the Year of Kale. Over the past several months, combing through bookstores and magazines and websites to compile this year’s edition of Best Food Writing, I’ve seen the ground shift back towards slow food. Today’s true believers are all about farm-to-table sourcing and hand-crafted ingredients, and it’s tempting to join in.

  The mandate to “eat local” has done a lot to level the playing field—as Brett Martin declares in this book’s opening essay (page 2), nowadays there is “Good Food Everywhere,” not just in a few big restaurant cities. It has also inspired some fine writers to dig deep and reaffirm their faith in the elemental act of cooking—as meditation (Michael Pollan, page 223), as a way of living life (Edward Behr, page 41), even as a form of prayer (Paul Graham, page 350). Yet I sense that the locavore dogma is due for a pushback. Other voices in this year’s book view locavorism with skepticism (Katherine Wheelock’s “Is Seasonal Eating Overrated?,” page 32), tongue-in-cheek humor (Erica Strauss, “The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater,” page 36), thoughtful re-examination (Todd Kliman, “The Meaning of Local,” page 52), and clear-eyed socio-economic reaction (Tracie McMillan, “Why Cooking Isn’t Fun,” page 48).

  I hope that one effect of the local-sourcing movement will last: Giving quality food producers some star power, on a level with chefs. In this edition of Best Food Writing, we meet several of them, from all over the country: Erin Byers Murray’s Massachusetts female farmers (page 112), Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl’s Minnesota cheesemaker (page 119), Rowan Jacobsen’s Maine heirloom-apple grower (page 104), Barry Estabrook’s Vermont hog farmer (page 142), John Kessler’s Georgia cattleman (page 150). Any self-respecting carnivore these days should vicariously slaughter an animal just once (see Tim Hayward’s “The Ibérico Journey,” page 160), or even better, go hunting with Mike Sula (page 180), Steven Rinella (page 196), and Hank Shaw (page 199), or snail-gathering with Molly Watson (page 129).

  Scoring ingredients is only the first step, though. In this Golden Age of Foodism, it’s okay to get a wee bit obsessive in the kitchen, especially when a dish carries special significance. Check out culinary mad scientist J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, deconstructing his childhood favorite New England clam chowder (page 212); Tim Carman, resurrecting a lost family cookie recipe (page 240); Michael Procopio, trying to reproduce a favorite restaurant dish that was cut from the menu (page 246); and Bernard L. Herman, lovingly curating a Thanksgiving feast keyed to his family retreat on the Chesapeake shore (page 259).

  Farm-to-table sourcing hasn’t killed off the four-star restaurant—far from it. Witness the current vogue of multi-course chef’s tasting menus, as lamented by Corby Kummer (“Tyranny: It’s What’s For Dinner,” page 19) and played out in real time by Matt Goulding (“Confronting a Masterpiece,” page 74). But the rules seem to have subtly changed for top-flight chefs. Joy Manning’s skeptical review of Magnus Nilsson’s Fäviken cookbook (page 236) holds star chefs to a real-world standard. John Swansburg (page 266) profiles Danny Bowien, whose Mission Chinese started as a pop-up; Peter Barrett (page 281) follows Zak Pelaccio as he re-invents himself for a small-town market; and Kevin Pang (page 289) reveals Curtis Duffy as an ex-delinquent redeemed by cooking in high-end restaurants. Eddie Huang’s memoir Fresh Off the Boat (page 330) credits his family’s passion for Taiwan street food as the root of his restaurant Baohaus.

  Other chefs profiled this year are working all over the place—cooking in a food truck (Jonathan Gold, page 276) or on a small Caribbean island (Francis Lam, page 309), as a private chef (Karen Barichievy, page 314) or a pizza maker (Chris Wiewiora, page 323).

  The line between epicurean ambition and simple home cooking requires constant navigation, as Elissa Altman shows in her memoir Poor Man’s Feast (page 357). Foodies can be just as interested in Low Food as in High Food, which may be why Dan Barry rhapsodizes about Ding Dongs (page 99), Katherine Shilcutt surrenders to the allure of the McRib (page 95), and Sarah DiGregorio marvels at the healing power of Hood ice cream in a cup (page 371). As Katie Arnold-Ratliff confesses (page 230), our favorite cookbooks aren’t always the complicated ones.

  Buzzwords like “local,” “seasonal,” “artisanal,” and so on are bound to fade away, as trends always do; what’s certain is that our national obsession with all things foodie shows no sign of letting up, especially in the 18-to-30 demographic. As publisher Daniel Halpern remarked in a recent New York Times article, “The passion my generation felt about poetry and fiction has gone into food, I think, into making pickles or chocolate or beer.” Another Times article interviewed 20-somethings in entry-level jobs who spend all of their limited disposable income on dining out in trophy restaurants, instead of on rent or clothes or travel. My college-age kids raptly watch Chopped and Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives every night during dinner, not because of me—God forbid!—but because that’s what their friends are talking about. Only a couple of years ago, snapping a photo of your restaurant meal to post on Twitter would instantly brand you as a food obsessive. Nowadays—for better or worse—it’s almost de rigueur. With such an insatiable audience, there are more outlets for food writing than ever, in print and online and on the airwaves. It’s an embarrassment of riches, not unlike those overstuffed CSA bags of produce. Cutting through the chatter to find the really good stuff can be a challenge—and that’s where Best Food Writing 2013 comes in. Curating this year’s collection has been a
bit like assembling a vegetable terrine, building a rich flavor from many different tastes, layered all together. Plunge in and enjoy!

  The Way We Eat Now

  GOOD FOOD EVERYWHERE

  By Brett Martin

  From GQ

  To get a handle on the Big American Food Picture, feature writer and essayist Brett Martin travels coast-to-coast, a roving cultural investigator for publications such as GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Bon Appétit, and Food & Wine. His diagnosis? It’s all good.

  And so here we are, under the arc lights, under the Southern California stars, on a picture-perfect summer evening in America. The kids are arriving, headlights swinging slowly down La Brea, down Beverly. They’re cruising, looking for parking, checking out the scene at the car wash and gas station on the corner.

  I myself am driving a brand-new, bright-red Ford F-150 pickup truck. This feels important. If you’ve never been in one of these monsters, it’s hard to describe how mighty and right it makes you feel. You understand why men who drive trucks drive like assholes: (a) There’s a good chance that, despite mirrors the size of a normal human car’s hubcaps, they simply don’t see other vehicles. (b) In some larger, existential sense, all other vehicles have ceased to exist. Driving an F-150 makes you want to run over smaller, lesser cars. It makes you want to invade smaller, lesser countries.

  So, with all this fine American muscle rumbling underneath me, I roll up to The Truck Stop. Except, for all its American Graffiti trappings, this is no temple to car culture. The pumps are covered. A handwritten sign reads “no gas.” The shiny, souped-up vehicles everybody’s lining up to see aren’t here for a drag race. And those beautiful kids may have youthful hunger in their eyes, but not, it would seem, for young love. A couple, he in black-on-black Yankees cap, she in Snooki sweats and flip-flops, wander arm in arm between the idling trucks. “Ohmigod,” she squeals as they approach one. “Those homemade pierogies are uh-mazing.” They kiss.

  Elsewhere, they’re lining up for lobster rolls at the Lobsta Truck; for artisanal Pittsburgh-style “Sammies” at Steel City Sandwich; for salad, of all things, at the Flatiron Truck: butter lettuce and heirloom carrots sliced mandoline thin, tossed with mustard vinaigrette, and topped with pieces of steak marinated in star anise, cooked sous vide, finished on the grill, and sent off with a puff of shiitake-mushroom dust. If there’s a muse here, an avatar presiding over all this transmutation of energy to young America’s stomach from organs slightly farther south, it’s the mud-flap girl emblazoned on the most popular truck in the lot. She’s a classic: in recline, chest thrust forward, dewy lips lifted and parted to receive—yes, ah yes—a Gruyère and double-cream-Brie grilled cheese sandwich.