Category: Food & Drink

Today from the Michelin Guide people, presented here without comment or defense.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

NEW YORK, Oct. 9 — Michelin said today that Iowa will never be given its own version of the famed Michelin Guide. Representatives of the venerable institution that is the Michelin Guide said that even though many residents of the state resemble Bibendum(R), better known as the Michelin Man, the food served at most establishments could not be considered cuisine.

“The pork tenderloin hammered flat and deep-fried until it is dry and served on a roll from the local Hy-Vee is not worthy of our attention,” said Jean-Luc Naret, director of the Michelin Guide. “It is always shit, even when the establishment labels the dish ‘our famous’ or ‘world’s largest.'”

It remains to be seen whether any city in this culinary wasteland will ever be graced with a guide outside of, maybe, Chicago. When the results of the Michelin Guide New York City 2008 are being celebrated during a special panel discussion event at 7 p.m., Thurs., Oct. 11 at Borders Books & Music, Time Warner Center, the entire region’s food culture will be mocked by a panel of expert foodies and other Important People.

Points that the panel will likely cover are that it is impossible to delineate Iowa restaurants into different cuisine categories; probably no restaurant would be worthy of even a single star even if any Michelin inspector (shudder) ventured within the state’s borders; and pretty much every restaurant in the state serves a menu with two dishes and a glass of wine or dessert for $40 or less, making the Bib Gourmand category completely superfluous.

Michelin argued that by refusing to print a guide to the any part of the Midwest it was sparing the population there from the elitism of “trophy dining” and related debates that plague true appreciators of food in the United States’ real cities, like New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco.

For more information, visit http://www.michelinguide.com

I’m surprised at the common disgust non-vegetarians have for lard pie crusts. They scrunch up their faces and question why you wouldn’t just use butter.

I’m not advocating slathering lard on toast, but it does make a better, flakier crust.

And now The Oregonian poses the question, via Chow, of whether olive oil produces a better crust.

Come on guys, suck it up, and use the pig fat.

This is a 90-second audio piece about how we relate to food and cooking. Imagine a 1930s-style radio announcer reading the lead-in, which reads:

The abundance of food in America means eating and cooking are no longer things done simply for sustenance. And while cooking game shows can be found across the TV dial — and physically eating at home, instead of on the go, is becoming more common — fewer and fewer meals are being cooked at home from scratch. So what is our relationship with food? We sent reporter Nick Bergus to downtown Iowa City over his lunch hour to find out.

My main course could have been called the Depraved Platter — veal sweetbreads and foie gras. Oh yes, Wild Rice mostly lived up to expectations.

Sweetbreads—which can refer to either the thymus, like the ones I ate, or the pancreas of calves, lambs or pigs—are much meatier than I expected.

These sweetbreads were crusted with almonds and, I assume, baked. They had a much subtler flavor than I expected, too. My mother and I debated the correct pronunciation of the word offal. (She preferred oh-fell while I believed it to be the same as awful.)

Dinner began with an amuse, in this case a cold grilled beef and corn salad with avocado and crème freîche. It had a nice meaty flavor and a mostly chunky texture that contrasted with the fatty smoothness of the avocado and crème freîche.

The first course was a delightful assortment of six different cheeses ranging from a hard sheep-and-goat cheese from to a creamy blue from . Paired with wild rice and nut bread and a cranberry-orange it was divine. But how can you screw up an uncomposed cheese course?

Portions had grown in the four years since we ate at the restaurant and the quality of service declined. Our waitron was a part-timer who admitted she waited tables only part time and seems to think that making a distinction between fungus and mushroom is ludicrous. We also perceived loss of focus on fresh and season ingredients.

Following organs for dinner, I felt I deserved the most clichéd dessert on the menu: crème brulèe.

Propped up by the bucket of a skid loader, the cow was in obvious distress. Her belly was bloated; a blue tongue stuck out of her mouth as she panted and belched; snot and a trickle blood ran from her nostrils. The three men looked at the downed cow much the way the same group might bend over the hood of an ailing pickup truck.

One of the men, a farmer from down the road, saw her lying on her side in the sun as he’d driven by, noted she didn’t look good, and stopped. The second, the first’s second cousin and contractor who owned the cow, had arrived after a quick phone call. The third, a butcher-turned-laborer, arrived a couple minutes later. Each had his own expertise and suggestions.

The 14-year-old cow had fallen in a slight depression in the pasture. It was possibly from the bull trying to mount her, possibly she just collapsed. But with her head slightly down hill and with the sun beating down on her black hide on a 90-degree day, she started to puff up.

Quickly it was clear that the men were too late. Even after they had helped her onto her side with the skid loader, she refused water and wouldn’t stand. The cow could do nothing to beat the flies off her eyes or back. Then she started to low.

For several seconds she let out intermittent, throaty bellows, and then slumped over, her left eye glassy and unblinking.

“She’s gone,” said the butcher.

“She didn’t have a chance, really,” said the farmer.

“Fuck,” said the contractor.

On our just-completed vacation, we spent four days in Maryland with my mom’s side of the family in a beautiful house on the Miles River, which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. (Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, apparently own homes near by. We still had a nice time.) Josh, my retired-chef cousin, steamed two bushels of blue crabs for the 30 people. Lots of fun.

The crabs in this video went into the pot much more willingly than many of the others. It often seemed that for every one that went in, two would escape. It was necessary to chase them down and force them back into the pot. Meanwhile another one would escape and the process would repeat.

Well, back to shoveling pig shit tomorrow.

As a piece on Serious Eats points out:

The U.S. is a country whose national cuisine might as well be the hamburger. How pathetic is it then that such a specimen made with fresh beef and grilled onions is considered ‘gourmet’?

Indeed. Let’s not forget the decline of the peanut butter and jelly (and grilled cheese) sandwich either. Americans choose convenience over quality long ago. Sigh.