Tag Archives: viking.American food

Carlsberg Is Good In Chili But Not With It

9 Dec

Chili is quite interesting. Like pizza, ramen, or hot dogs, it is a traditional food in the sense that it has been eaten for generations and can be passed down like folklore, but it is also non-traditional in that it needn’t imitate some pseudohistorical, platonic ideal. And yet everybody seems to have an idea of how chili should be made, in a way that goes beyond personal preference. Kind of like barbecue, people often maintain that there is a correct way to make chili, and all variations are either wrong, alien, or not chili at all. I think the most contentious single ingredient in chili are beans. The mantra of chili purists is “If you know beans about chili, you know chili ain’t got no beans.” But I know beans about chili, and I can hardly imagine chili without them.

I can also hardly imagine chili without beer, which adds a wonderfully deep, rib-sticking barley sweetness and light hop spice to chili as it cooks off. I first made chili with beer a few years ago using a brilliant recipe from Allagash Brewing in Maine. It calls for Allagash Tripel, a strong Belgian pale ale, but actually the recipe works with almost any kind of beer, so long as it isn’t excessively bitter – a smoked beer, I imagine, would probably be delicious.

When I remade the recipe the other night, I had nothing but expensive/rare/special beer in the house, which frankly would have been a waste to use in chili. So I went to the store and bought some Carlsberg. Carlsberg is a fine beer, not great or even particularly good, but it’s perfect for cooking because its hops are fairly restrained while its malts are savory, grainy, and sweet. Plus there aren’t really any nice nuances that would go to waste in something as dense and robust as chili. To use something like, say, Den Udødelige Hest would probably taste quite nice, but all of its subtleties of dates and port and mocha would be muffled under the sandbags of spices that go into any good chili. (My spice blend, by the way, is top secret. So don’t expect a recipe!)

I used about two-thirds of a Carlsberg in the food, which reduced nicely into a thick, malty mortar to bind together all the beans, meat, and spices. I had the rest of the Carlsberg with my meal – and it wasn’t quite right. I was reminded of why I don’t particularly like mass-produced pilsners with Indian curries – while they do act as nice palate-cleansers to help clear all that ghee off the palate, somehow they seem to abrupt, too cutting, and yet so inconsequential. It was the same pitting Carlsberg against Carlsberg chili – it helped to wash down what was a very rich stew, but it didn’t do anything in terms of flavor. I may as well have been drinking club soda.

Next time, I will try it with something just as crisp and effervescent, but with a stronger malt flavor – possibly a dark German lager or an American pale ale.

A First Taste of the Second City

12 Oct

A snack in New York is a meal in Chicago.

Middle American Proverb

theskyline

The aphorism quoted above doesn’t mean that Chicagoans eat meals so insubstantial that New Yorkers would only consider them snacks. Actually, the meaning is something close to the inverse: Chicago is known for appropriating, embellishing, and augmenting New snack foods to the point that they must be called a meal. I have a theory that Chicago’s “second city” status has driven its citizens to assert themselves against the hegemony of Gotham in sometimes outlandish ways; it’s connected, I think, to the fact that Chicago is the American capital of comedy. I have read somewhere that being in a “second fiddle” cultural position (e.g. being a comparatively small country right next to a much larger country) creates a sort of collective inferiority complex that engenders a good sense of humility and humor. Canada, always drowned out by their loud, angry neighbors to the south, has also produced droves of famous comedians. I hear New Zealand is also famous for comedy, as is Osaka, Japan’s second city.

So, like being funny, perhaps turning ordinary New York food into bold, italicized Chicago food is a way for the Windy City to declare cultural independence. However, in truth I can only think of two foods that substantiate the proverb. The first is pizza. Both first and second city are famous for pizza, but Chicago deep-dish is so much more deserving of that fame. It’s two or three inches high, dense as a black hole, drunk with sauce and toppings, and it achieves a sort of Golden Ratio of crunch-to-chew. Chicago pizza is to New York pizza as a bowl of Ippudo Akamaru ramen is to Cup Noodle.

But of course, the Chicago specialty most distinguished from its New York counterpart is the hot dog. Hot dogs are fundamentally uncomplicated things, and this is exactly what makes people want to complicate them. Hot dog localization isn’t a Chicago-only phenomenon, of course. But as far as I know, the Chicago hot dog is the only variation that has any sort of reputation outside of its own metro area. The words “hot dog” follow “Chicago” as naturally as “cheesesteak” follows “Philly.” It is among a very select group of American local foods that are truly famous on a nationwide level (Wisconsin cheese being another).

Unlike burgers, I think hot dogs actually demand to be festooned with all manner of toppings. Hot dogs, even high-quality, well-prepared ones, are just too bland to eat on their own. The Chicago hot dog addresses this inherent flavor deficiency with the “Chicago Seven,” an arpeggio of tangy, lively fixings that harmonize with the mellow umami of the sausage: onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, a dill pickle spear, sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, and celery salt all piled into a poppy seed bun.* These ingredients alone would actually make a pretty tasty veggie sandwich; the hot dog itself is just a foundation, a meaty gesso onto which crisp, zesty colors are painted.

The Dog

Strangely, I have never had a Chicago hot dog, even though I grew up in Chicagoland and visit the city often. It has long been on my culinary to-do list, but for some reason it has escaped me every time I’m back home. It’s probably because Chicago offers an overwhelming abundance of dining choices, and I’m usually tempted by pizza or Mexican or Chinese or Japanese or vegetarian or Italian or whatever it may be while I’m down there.

But not this time. This time I was determined. I had always thought I would have my first Chicago dog at the Weiner’s Circle, a local institution where they serve a textbook sausage with a hearty side of profanities. Stephen Fry went there when he was touring the United States. But after consulting with local friends and perusing the internet, I settled on Hot Doug’s, consistently named Chicago’s best weinermonger – and it had a block-long line outside to prove it. Lines are always a good sign.

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Hot Doug’s ain’t just a hot dog stand – they are a self-proclaimed “Sausage Superstore,” and much of our 45-minute wait was spent mulling over what to order from the surprisingly exotic and epicurean menu. For me, there was no question that I would have “The Dog” with everything. But I couldn’t leave without trying one of their specialty sausages: I considered the tequila and black bean chicken sausage, the cherry-apple pork sausage, and of course, the Salma Hayek (“Mighty, mighty, mighty hot!”). Ultimately I decided to splurge on the foie gras and Sauternes duck sausage with truffle aioli, foie gras mousse, and sel gris (a recent re-addition to the menu following the repeal of a citywide ban on the king of offal).

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The resultant feast – a Chicago Hot Dog and a Foie Gras Duck Sausage – was like a culinary odd couple, an utterly wrong combination that nevertheless must exist, if only to act as foils to one another. The Dog was brash, spicy, and snappy, but also humble and inviting. It does have something to prove, that’s for sure, but it can’t disguise its Midwestern geniality. The Duck was silken, ripe, and decadent – yet somehow just as loud as the Dog, an ostentatious display of conspicuous consumption. Both sausages were perfection, especially between sips of the perfect accompaniment: old-fashioned birch beer.

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I cannot recommend Doug’s duck fat fries, which sound awesome and smell fantastic, but taste like nothing at all. But the fries are immaterial anyway, since the Dog really is a meal in itself. Certainly, it is one area where Chicago is second to none.

themenuthesign

Hot Doug’s
3324 North California
Chicago, IL 60618
773-279-9550

Rib Fest

16 Sep

Everybody loves a fest – especially Wisconsinites. The muggy, mosquito-ridden Milwaukee summer is filled with fests. Summerfest is the big one, but then there’s also Irish Fest, Pride Fest, Greek Fest, Polish Fest, German Fest and Oktoberfest, African World Fest, Arab World Fest, Asian Moon Fest, Armenian Fest, Serbian Fest, Labor Fest (?), Festa Italiana, Fiesta Mexicana – and those are just the ones with “fest” (or a cognate thereof) in their names! Not to mention the more minor fests in bordering towns and suburbs, like Harbor Fest in Racine. One of Milwaukee’s nicknames is the “City of Festivals,” and although that’s probably just a marketing slogan deployed in recent decades, that doesn’t mean it’s not perfectly fitting.

Not content to passively partake in the rest of the fests, my Uncle Erik and Aunt Sarah have created their own: Rib Fest.

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Rib Fest is exactly what it sounds like: a festival of ribs. Each year, friends and family are invited to enter their barbecue pork ribs in a competition, to be evaluated and ranked by a panel of judges. This year, probably because of my reputation as the family snob, I was chosen as a judge in this epic “Battle of the Bones.”

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Ribs were to be scored in four categories: appearance, bone release, flavor, and overall impression, all weighted equally. Each of the seven ribs I sampled were categorically delicious – to paraphrase a fellow judge, any of the ribs, if eaten in almost any other context, would have been the best meal I’d had that day. It was a tough job, trying to find flaws in really excellent hunks of meat.

But somebody had to do it, and I did my best. Ultimately, my top score went to a saucy, spicy, brawny entry cooked by someone named Juanita; her ribs were intense and satisfying, with well-articulated layers of smoke, cumin, turmeric, and chili powder. But in the end Juanita took second place – the other judges preferred the ribs made by a man named John. Flaky and tender and visibly falling from the bone, John’s ribs were also outstanding, pink and black with fire and smoke and mysteriously fruity from a can’t-put-your-finger-on-it secret ingredient (I later learned it was pineapple juice and sweet tea-infused vodka).

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After the winners were announced, the inevitable debates arose. Most people seemed fairly content with our picks, but the “bone release” category was hotly contested. I was of the opinion (as were the other judges) that rib meat is best when it pulls cleanly from the bone without much effort. However, I also feel that meat can reach a point where it is too loose, or where the tissue connecting meat to bone has become more tender and loose than the meat itself, so that when you bite into it, you tend to pull the entire strip of meat from the bone rather than just the bite you wanted. I marked ribs down for this sort of overly eager bone release.

However, some cooks and diners argued that ribs are best when the meat doesn’t fall from the bone, and requires a little chewing or gnawing to get the meat off. I could not understand this; their explanations were filled with words like “technically” or “officially” – except for my Aunt Lisa’s, who simply said: “I like it when you have to gnaw at ‘em.”

Still, I’m not satisfied to chalk it up to “personal preference.” That’s a cop out. “There’s no accounting for taste” is a terrifically stupid axiom – there are all kinds of ways to account for taste! So this is very vexing to me. I just think there’s something wonderfully satisfying about ribs that lift off the bone with a gentle tug. It is one of life’s greatest small pleasures. Having to gnaw or tear at ribs isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I can’t understand why anyone would prefer it. And yet… people do.

Show of hands: who likes ribs that fall off the bone? And who likes ribs that don’t fall off the bone? And if you’re the latter: for goodness sake, why?

P.S.: Sorry there are no photos of the actual ribs; I didn’t want to clog my camera with sauce.

USA! USA! USA!

4 Jul

Hold your judgement. If you are told ‘they are all this’ or ‘they do this’ or ‘their opinions are these’, withhold your judgement until all the facts are upon you. Because that land they call ‘India’ goes by a thousand names and is populated by millions, and if you think you have found two men the same amongst that multitude, then you are mistaken. It is merely a trick of the moonlight.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

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Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday. Here’s why:

  1. Sunshine.
  2. Pork.
  3. Beer.
  4. Fireworks.

Of course, just about any Japanese summer festival also features this same happy quartet. And Japanese festivals are fun, too, but they just aren’t the same. I like Independence Day partly out of nostalgia, but I also like it because it’s uniquely American. It’s a holiday I can call my own.

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We Americans don’t have a lot we can call our own. Apple pie? Dutch. Hot dogs? Austrian. Mexican food? Mexican. Sure, we have jazz, Pixar, and Mr. T, and as for holidays, we have Labor Day,  Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, and a smattering of other minor holidays. But all of them are pretty lame. When was the last time you threw a party and lit sparklers for Washington’s Birthday?

So it’s nice have an American holiday that’s actually fun. Thanksgiving is fun, too, but it’s in November, a month that burdens the human soul with an inescapable air of doom and melancholy. Thanksgiving food is arguably better (and perhaps less ordinary), but Independence Day is no slouch when it comes to cookery: ribs, burgers, bratwurst, and potato salad are pretty stiff competition for turkey and stuffing.

When I lived in America, it was the specific customs of Independence Day that I enjoyed (like the food and the fireworks – the parade, never really excited me). Its Americanness was immaterial, extraneous, unnecessary – I just liked hanging out with my friends and family, stuffing myself and watching things explode in the sky. But now that I’m a minority in a strange, inscrutable island nation, the fact that the Fourth of July is a distinctly American celebration is suddenly crucial. I feel as though I must assert my culture against the indifferent shrugs of British hegemony!

It’s not like I’m some kind of patriot. Alright, maybe I am some kind of patriot, but I’m not the gun-totin’, Limbaugh-lovin’, “Never Forget” kind of patriot. This bit of Fry and Laurie pretty much sums up how I feel about that sort of thing:

I can’t even really say I’m proud of America, or proud to be American. I can’t take credit for the achievements of other Americans, and my nationality is mostly a geographical accident. I am also not proud of America in any political sense, although the Constitution is pretty brilliant, and this Obama character seems fairly capable. But if I’ve developed a certain affection for America, I think it is a direct consequence of my expatriation. For one thing, I’m just nostalgic for America – I miss it. I miss my friends and family, but I also miss very particular American things, like In-N-Out burgers, enormously wide roads, the LA skyline, honeycrisp apples, and cheap ska shows. So there’s that sort of homesick aspect to my patriotism, but then there’s also a defensive quality to it. America gets picked on a lot – rightly so, in most cases. But sometimes criticisms of American culture are provincially ignorant; I am reminded of those French girls I met who dismissed all American cheese as abhorrent yellow trash. (Then again, I suppose the fact that processed cheese is usually labeled “American cheese” doesn’t help our reputation.) When confronted with attitudes like that, my reaction is “Hey, wait a minute! America isn’t all bad!” But of course, what I’m really saying is “Hey, wait a minute! I like America!” or even “Don’t tread on me!”

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So as I trawled the world wide web for Fourth of July celebrations in London, I was thrilled to discover an event that will let me celebrate American cultural autonomy, indulge in one of my favorite American specialties, and subvert certain misconceptions about said specialty all at the same time! I’m talking about beer, people. American beer. The White Horse, an airy, elegant, ale-centric pub in Parsons Green, is having an American beer festival this weekend, coinciding with Independence Day. They boast the largest selection of American draft beer ever seen in the UK – and while some pubs would be satisfied to fill their lineup with any number of InBev-distributed, mass-produced lagers, the White Horse has corralled an impressive lot of craft beers from across the USA. Some of the featured breweries are Stone, Flying Dog, Victory, Sierra Nevada, Goose Island, and Dogfish Head.

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These are some of America’s finest breweries, and it’s exciting to have them represented in England not only because their beer is delicious, but because it provides an opportunity for Londoners to glimpse the innovation and diversity that have become hallmarks of American craft brewing. Like American cheese and American politics, American beer is misunderestimated abroad – few people are aware that the United States produces anything but Bud, Miller, and Coors. I see this festival as an exposition of beer that has the potential to change perceptions about American gastronomy, at least in some small way. I also see it as a chance to drink dangerous amounts of Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans… mmm.

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American Beer Festival at The White Horse
3 July – 5 July 2009

1-3 Parsons Green
London
SW6 4UL
020 7736 2115

A Good Burger is Hard to Find

21 May pienburger

kewpees

In my mind, there are two kinds of burgers. First there are what I would call “burger joint” burgers, burgers that are basic and uncomplicated, without a lot of fussy toppings or hoo-hah over ingredients. The Californian chain In-N-Out makes a textbook example of a good burger joint burger; secret menu aside, it’s just nice, juicy beef that’s gone just a bit black on the griddle, fresh vegetables, special sauce, and plastic cheese melted intimately into the patty’s every dimple and crevasse. Back in Los Angeles, In-N-Out was my old standard, but I especially loved Pasadena’s Pie ‘N’ Burger (good pie there, too) and Westwood’s Apple Pan (which also has good pie). Of course, my all-time favorite burger joint is probably the venerable and perpetually crowded Kewpee’s, a Racine institution beloved for its simple yet mystifyingly delicious cheeseburgers and bemoaned for its crappy six o’clock closing time.

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The other kind of burger is the gourmet burger. These burgers are complicated, fancy, and often as tasty and flavorful as they are pretentious and difficult to eat, all gussied up with exotic toppings or ingredients. Sometimes gourmet burgers are pretty simple, but they achieve “gourmet” status by using things like aged cheddar from Vermont, aged beef from Scotland or Japan, and ciabatta buns from some local bakery. Others just pile on the fixins: avocados, artisanal bacon, blue cheeses, washed-rind cheeses, weird aiolis, relishes and chutneys, greens and microgreens, pestos, wasabi, herb and spice blends, Spanish and Italian charcuterie, pineapple, ostrich, buffalo, moose, and roasted peppers are the stuff of gourmet burgers. Lately, chefs in Tokyo and New York have been upping the ante by using ridiculously luxurious ingredients like foie gras, black truffles, and gold leaf to make burgers so posh they’re more like absurdist objects of social commentary than actual food.

If I sound cynical about gourmet burgers, it’s because I am. Too often gourmet burger chefs seem to use exciting ingredients as nothing more than razzle dazzle to distract from the fact that they fundamentally do not know how to cook a burger – which is surprisingly difficult. I myself will own up to being a terrible burger chef. My burgers always turn out too dry, or else they are so moist they just fall apart; I have a tendency to choose the wrong bun and cheese; and my topping-to-meat ratio is usually off. The only thing I’m good at is making sauces for my burgers, but that’s cheating. There is a certain alchemy to a good burger that I don’t understand, and that’s part of why I really love I good burger joint burger. I think the secret is in the way the textures come together; the supple meat, the gooey cheese, the crisp lettuce and onions and the crunchy-soft lightly toasted bun have to strike a harmony that’s difficult to orchestrate. Good ingredients are important, but skilled preparation is probably more so.

applepanpienburger

Many gourmet burger restaurants neglect to master the basics of good burger making, and without the basics, no amount of month-old Aussie beef or chipotle salsa will redeem you. The other day I was in Camden with time to kill before a ska show; I was looking for the BYOB Latin American restaurant Guanabana, but I couldn’t find it and eventually stumbled upon Haché, a posh burger restaurant that’s had quite a lot of good buzz. Most reviews I read claimed it was one of the best burgers in London if not the best. This review on TimeOut caught my eye in particular:

What surprised me was the number of rather glam foreigners, including an American couple who we got chatting to. Turned out they were local but the guy, a self-confessed burgerholic was ecstatic about Hache, saying they served the best burgers he’s had anywhere.

Here in England, American endorsements don’t mean much to me, except for when it comes to Mexican food and burgers – I just think Americans have a better frame of reference to judge them by than most Brits. But after eating at Haché, I thought: what a sad, unobserved life this “burgerholic” must have lead back in the States if he never found any burgers better than the unbelievably pretentious offerings at this pathetic wannabe of a restaurant.

I ordered the “All-Day Breakfast Burger,” which is topped with a portobello mushroom, back bacon, and a fried egg. A clever, tasty-sounding idea, I thought. But the beef – the “finest aged 100% prime Scotch hachéd steak” – was dry! This is completely unacceptable. A good burger should be lusciously fatty and juicy even when well-done; mine was medium and it was frankly no juicier than a squeezed-out sponge, and I expected a lot more flavor from the “prime Scotch steak” it was made from.

The toppings didn’t help matters. The mushroom was a nice accent (it was far more moist and flavorful than the actual patty), and the egg was perfectly cooked so that the yolk was creamy but not too runny. But the bacon – usually a sort of Band-Aid for blandness – only made things worse. It was terribly undercooked, all tough and chewy and not even a little bit crispy. The ciabatta roll it was on was soft yet sturdy, but toasting it would have added a much-needed extra dimension of texture.

Service was good and I can’t complain about the vaguely arty bistro-like atmosphere, but what matters is the burger. And for all the pomp and pride in its marketing, the burger was a dire disappointment.

lambmerguez

But I’m not anti-gourmet burger in general. When a gourmet burger is good, it’s really good – I like them just as much as any good burger joint burger. In New York, I had an awesome lamb merguez burger at BLT, drippingly juicy and flavorful, scented with cumin and nicely offset by a mint-cilantro cucumber relish. And here in London, there is perhaps no chain restaurant I enjoy more than GBK – Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

GBK also boasts high-quality beef – “Aberdeen-Angus Scotch beef,” no less – but they actually make good burgers out of it rather than just using it for bragging rights. Many of their burgers are old standards, like the pesto burger, the avocado bacon burger, the Cajun burger, etc., but you don’t need to get too fancy or different to make a great burger. In-N-Out and Pie ‘N’ Burger use basically the exact same formula, but both shops’ end products are delicious and unique in their own subtle way.

My favorite burger at GBK is the relatively simple, very delicious garlic mayo burger. The robust beef throbs with moisture and flavor, matched by a cool, creamy mayo that seethes with the hot, delicious stink of raw garlic. It’s the kind of burger that leaves you wanting more even as you finish your meal feeling unhealthily stuffed – and the smell comes out of your pores for hours afterwards. Sadly, I’ve yet to find a good burger joint burger in London – there must be one out there somewhere – but for now I am quite content befouling my breath and expanding my ass at GBK, truly gourmet not only in name.

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