We’re sitting pretty in the food world at the start of 2013: gak, is there ever new-found sophistication among millions of American food-lovers! Of course this means that some dishes are going viral on us…and of course this means that many chefs are getting them wrong.
Now, “wrong” ain’t tragic for me—except that many diners are not really getting these hot new foods and dishes at their best. And that’s always my food prayer—the best of the best for everyone!
So here a few of them, now firmly entrenched on the American scene…that I really think could be better in oh so many places.
BURRATA
Discovering burrata in Puglia in 1993 is a highpoint of my gastronomic memories. This orb of sophisticated mozz, filled with the mozz-pot scraps and fat from the day before, was invented only about a century ago in southeast Italy. But up to just a few years ago, burrata was completely unknown to Americans.
Now, it’s everywhere…sort of. Mindless Trend City.
QAnd there are two big burrata problems:
1) If it’s not runny and oozy in the center…it’s really not worth having. And in the U.S., the real thing is practically unavailable. Domestic burrata-makers almost always make it too firm inside. And imported-from-Puglia burrata…starts firming up the day after it’s made. (I’ve tried it in Rome, the day after it has been made in Puglia, just 250 miles away…and it’s not as good!)
2) Ignorant of the real nature of burrata, trendy American restaurants have stormed into the bur rata craze…by cutting up the orb and adding it to stuff. Burrata chunks in salad. On top of pizza. What have you. How can it be anything like Pugliese burrata when it’s cut up in the kitchen? The JOY of burrata is slicing into the full round yourself, and watching the center flow out.
There is a little good news, though I’m sure most chefs will not avail themselves of it. A pioneering cheesemaker in Los Angeles, Di Stefano, is producing a good version of authentic burrata…and can overnight it to you! Find out everything from this web site.
CEVICHE
Like most adventurous diners, I LOVE the concept of ceviche, as invented by the South Americans: raw fish slightly “cooked” by the addition of a little citrus juice, often lime. Ceviche is ubiquitous now in the U.S. in all kinds of restaurants—but, as happens so often, our chefs are often getting it wrong. They are over-“cooking” the fish.
Why? I think a logistic reason stands beside the aesthetic one: not only have our chefs not had the lightly-marinated ceviches of South America, but they find it much easier to hold the pre-made ceviche in a bowl, in a walk-in, steeping in lime juice. The result is ceviche that is no longer translucent, but white—ceviche that really has been “cooked” by the lime juice. I far prefer ceviche, as they do in South America, when it’s just transformed by the lime juice, just past the condition of sashimi or carpaccio, still holding the resiliency of raw fish but turned tangy by citrus.
Happily, there’s a new wave of restaurants serving ceviche in the U.S. now: Peruvian restaurants, reflecting the hottest national cuisine in South America today. If you’re in NYC, don’t fail to try a trio of lightly-marinated ceviches at the great Peruvian cebicheria, La Mar Cebicheria Peruana.
BBQ
Well, what can I say about real BBQ that I haven’t already said? It is the greatest food invention on North American shores, and I worship it. But it has this problem: the very name is confusing and, now that EVERYONE boasts of offering BBQ, the chances of finding real BBQ in a restaurant purporting to serve you real BBQ are low, particularly in the North.
Why? Because real BBQ has nothing to do with grilling. It is, in fact, the opposite: real BBQ is made by cooking meat NOT directly over a low and slow fire. Good Texas brisket takes at least 16 hours to cook—and you can see evidence of the cooking time in the melted-collagen nature of the meat, the red “smoke rings” that develop, the striations of melting fat, meat, fat, meat, etc.
The good news is that many northern cities finally have real BBQ: your job is to find the good ones.
PHO
I am crazy about the big Vietnamese bowl of beef and rice noodle soup called Pho—and, apparently, so is everyone else these days. But once again…with popularization comes bastradization. When I had first had Pho, many years ago at at a really authentic joint in Honolulu, the most exciting thing about it was the forest of herbs served alongside the bowl of soup. You were supposed to submerge those herbs in the hot soup, creating what is perhaps the world’s most compelling version of a soup-and-salad hybrid dish. I can’t even think of another one!
Today, sadly, as I watch Pho-philia grow—and even as I watch more Westerners find their ways to Vietnamese restaurants—I am finding a real diminution in the amount of herbs served. New Pho-ites are getting the idea that the herbs are a garnish, as you’d have on top of many global soups. But they’re not—they are meant to be piled on!
If you are served a Pho with only a modicum of herbs on the side—demand your herbs! And use them!
VINDALOO
This is not exactly a new menu item in the U.S.—but the field of Indian restaurants is growing all the time on these shores, particularly Indian restaurants that purport to be “regional.” And, no matter what the purported region, most every Indian restaurant offers a version of “vindaloo.” We are definitely over-vindalooed in 2013.
The reason they all offer vindaloo is simple: the word is now code. Menu code. It means “the hottest dish on the menu.” It almost never means “a fairly spicy, authentic specialty of Goa.”
For one thing, the chile-gorged monstrosities we endure in our Indian restaurants are almost always “lamb vindaloo,” or “chicken vindaloo,” or “shrimp vindaloo.” But, with the occasional exception of chicken, in Goa you will not see these headlining proteins in vindaloo dishes.
Goan vindaloo is pork vindaloo. Yes. Sweet-and-sour pork, of the highest order. Spicy, yes…but, in Goa, “vindaloo” does NOT signal “our hottest dish.”
The word itself, “vindaloo,” has Portuguese roots; “vinha de alho” was the name of their dish, and it meant “wine with garlic.” Goan chefs today do like to add wine to their vindaloo, sometimes…but the “vin” of vindaloo has come to stand for vinegar much more often than it stands for wine. Wine itself was just not that available in Goa, over the centuries—but the local version of vinegar was. And their version of vinegar is a key element in a true Goan vindaloo—the vinegar derived from tapping the high branches of the coconut palm tree.
Believe it or not, the taste that it lends to vindaloo reminds me of something from my childhood. This is really bizarre—but a good Goan vindaloo has overtones reminiscent of the BBQ Pork Sandwich that they used to serve…at Nathan’s!…a Coney Island institution most famous for its hot dogs! And I know they weren’t using fresh coconut vinegar from Goan trees on Coney Island. But don’t despair; without Goan coconut vinegar, you can still get a good Goan taste in your vindaloo…just as long as you stay away from the “lamb vindaloo” recipes in cookbooks that are just as inauthentic as the “lamb vindaloos” on restaurant menus. If you can’t get Goan coconut vinegar…use malt vinegar as a substitute. And do everything you can to make your vindaloo porky, sweet-sour, and NOT numbingly hot!
Photos: GInny/Flickr Creative Commons, David Rosengarten, BigStockPhoto
