Attention foodies: this is the blog post you have been
waiting to read. The other day I
was watching three plus size guys ladling some creation onto hotdogs and eating
them with great gusto. While I
prefer my waste meat tubes adorned more traditionally, the show inspired me to
share with my five and one-half regular readers some of the culinary insights I
have gleaned over the last half century.
I want to assure you that I am not some inexperienced boob
trying to put something over on you.
It was during my corporate career that I demonstrated my originality and
daring flair for gastric concoction.
A committee charged with boosting the staff’s morale, decided to create
a cookbook made up of recipes submitted by the department members themselves. As you might imagine, most of the
contributions were family favorites like Gary’s Faux Chicken Appendages and
Granny’s Polish Flank Steak. These
submissions were nice, as far as they went, but I decided the cookbook needed
something more groundbreaking if it was to truly lift the morale of the
department members.
With that charge in mind, I spent many a long hour
experimenting in the kitchen.
Finally, after numerous false starts, I created a tasty treat that would
become the measure of good taste at Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s better dinner
parties. Utilizing orange circus
peanuts, pretzel sticks and m&m candies the Peanut Man was born (send me
your email address in the comments section and I will gladly send you the
complete recipe). The reaction to
The Peanut Man was, at first, shock, and then enthusiastic acceptance. I recite this story not to toot my own
horn, but to establish my bona fides and now that I have done so, I will not
bore you any further with my triumph.
The remainder of this post will attempt to synthesize many of the
lessons I’ve learned regarding food and the dining experience itself.
Who knows how or when life will provide the experiences that
will influence your thinking over your lifetime? For me, many of my early insights into food occurred during
a mid-seventies trip to Ecuador.
It was during this trip that I learned, what I like to call, “The Four
Legs of the Food Table:” Presentation, Atmosphere, Preparation, and Experimentation.
So let us begin our discourse with a short discussion of
Presentation. Many of us have been
to an upscale restaurant and ordered an entrée because we were dazzled by the
waiter’s description of the meal.
The recitation of ingredients include things you didn’t even know were
food and everything is drizzled in something. When your meal is delivered to your table you’re not sure
whether you should eat it or frame it.
Usually, this gastronomical masterpiece consists of very little actual
food and you pay $49 a plate for a postage stamp size piece of beef or
fish with all kinds of unknown things that make it beautiful. That’s the power of Presentation.
The $49 dollar plate is the upper part of the scale. I learned about presentation from the
lower depths of that very same scale. One day while walking the streets of Quito with my companions, Gary and
Pat, we saw a man who was running a little sidewalk operation that consisted of
two small hibachi style grills. On
each grill was an entire varmint including head and teeth. He was grilling guinea pigs. Being from the U.S., I was a little
more comfortable with petting a guinea pig than I was eating the darn
thing. I’ve been around enough and
have learned not to make fun of what various cultures around the world
eat. And, had this guinea pig been
on the grill in the shape of pig nuggets or tiny drumsticks, I probably would
have given it a try. But that head
and those teeth made it feel like there was an open question as to who was
going to bite into whom. On this
occasion, not surprisingly, presentation prevented me from trying a local
delicacy enjoyed by many, many Ecuadorians.
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| “Available at your finer kindergartens” |
Now let’s focus on Atmosphere. Most everyone has been to a restaurant where it is too noisy
to carry on a conversation. The atmosphere in such a place goes a long way
toward ruining an essential part of sharing a meal. On the other hand, you have probably been to a place that
makes you feel at home, or is particularly romantic and though the food is not
the greatest, the atmosphere makes up for it and you find yourself returning
for the ambiance.
Once again, I turn to Ecuador, to make a few simple points
about atmosphere. One late
afternoon, the three of us went into a small restaurant for dinner. Not long after ordering something to
drink, I got up to use the restroom.
Like many of these small restaurants, it was necessary to pass through
the kitchen on the way to the facilities.
As I started through the kitchen, I noticed a very large black rat
sitting on the stove. I hurried to
the restroom and when I returned to our table, I began to tell Pat and Gary
what I had seen in the kitchen.
Just as I was telling them about spotting the rat, we heard screams and
saw the cook run into the dining room with a broom raised above her head,
chasing the rat. The rat ran under
a few tables, scattering diners, with the cook in hot pursuit. Finally, the rat headed out the open
door and the cook went back to preparing food. We finished our drinks and left. It would not be an exaggeration to say the atmosphere in
that particular restaurant was a primary factor in our decision to leave.
Another of the major elements driving the dining experience
is Preparation. Let’s face it, if
the food stinks, you're going to need tons of atmosphere and presentation to make
up for bad food.
Once more, our trip to Ecuador is informative. This restaurant was doing well with
atmosphere, as there were colorful, well-spaced tables and interesting works of
art on the walls. As we settled
in, I, after a careful perusal of the menu, chose a chicken stew. When the stew was brought to the table
I was impressed with the generous portion, served in a large bowl. As I dug in, I discovered a whole, raw,
totally frozen chicken leg in the bottom of the bowl. You don’t have to have a particularly well-developed pallet
to know this is not up to the standards of your finer dining establishments. As a result, we left the restaurant and
were unable to recommend the place to fellow travelers.
That brings us to the final leg of the dining table,
Experimentation. I never
thought I would live to see the day when bartenders, who create cocktails,
would become sought after and celebrated personages. For $12 a pop, they will whip up something unique to the
taste buds and beautiful to the eye.
There are so many choices that there is a menu for cocktails alone. Experimentation is the key element
driving this phenomenon.
Once again, Ecuador is illustrative when it come to beverage
experimentation. One fine day we found ourselves on a yellow school bus type
vehicle heading to the southeast corner of Ecuador and into the Amazon
Basin. The ride was beautiful
along a red clay road. The grass
was almost as high as the bottom of the bus windows and swayed hypnotically
with the breeze. There were trees
with red, yellow, and green foliage and primitive homes on stilts along the
riverbanks.
As we made our way, the bus suddenly lurched to a stop and
the engine died. All the
passengers piled off into the tropical heat and I made my way to the front of
the bus where the driver and his assistant were discussing what to do. Soon
they opened the hood and the assistant climbed inside the space around the
engine and removed the air filter.
The driver then handed the assistant a gas can and got behind the
wheel. The assistant took a huge
mouthful of gasoline and while the driver cranked the ignition, he spit the gas
directly into the carburetor. And
it worked. The engine roared back
to life and we all got back on the bus.
Once we were all seated, the assistant walked down the aisle asking if
anyone had any Chiclets.
About two weeks ago, I read in the Star Tribune about a
fellow in some Central American country who tried the same method to start a
bus and ended up suffering severe burns on his face, head and chest.
So, if you are ever at a cocktail lounge and see a drink
called a “Gasoline Mist” on the menu, I recommend you not order it unless you
have a pocketful of Chiclets and can enjoy your cocktail away from any sparks
or open flames.
This concludes our discussion of the “Four Legs of the Food
Table.” The information imparted
here should go a long way to assisting you in becoming a full fledged foodie
and give you the confidence you will need to invite other foodies over to the
house for dinner.
In constructing this post, I didn’t want to appeal solely to
the food sophisticate. So for the
folks who like food but look at it as fuel and are brown liquor and beer
people, I have slipped in a few helpful hints. To sum it up, I suggest, if you find a rat in your kitchen,
chase it out the back door and away from the dining area. When serving chicken, it is never all
right to serve it frozen and raw.
And last but not least, if you are barbequing some critter that used to
run around on all fours, remove the head.
There is an exception to this rule. When you are feeding relatives, who
usually eat whatever they can hit with their car, leave the head attached. They will expect nothing less. If you follow
these simple hints, your next dinner party or barbeque is likely to be a smash
hit.
