The Debatable Land

Could You Go A Chicken Supper, Bobby Sands*?

Exciting fast food wars update: faithful reader MT alerts me to something I should have known myself. Not only is the British embassy in Tehran located on Bobby Sands Street, there is a Bobby Sands burger joint in hip and happening Tehran too.

Andrew McKie has also considered the ideological implications - nay, temptations - of the chip shop wars. As he suggests: "Fish supper, chicken supper. A theological and geopolitical minefield. This calls for a book, really."

Quite so.

*Explanatory note: During Bobby Sands' hunger strike fans at Glasgow Rangers and Heart of Midlothian, among, I think, other clubs, would sing, to the tune of "She's Coming Round the Mountain", "Could you go a chicken supper, Bobby Sands?/Could you go a chicken supper, Bobby Sands?/Could you go a chicken supper, you dirty Fenian fucker/Could you go a chicken supper Bobby Sands." That is, would the IRA prisoner care to eat a dinner of fried chicken and french fries? This song was, as you might imagine, particularly popular during matches against Glasgow Celtic. Feelings were, er, running high.

The Best Little Brisket in Texas

One thing I'd like to do next summer (if, that is, we have a summer) is devote some time to doing some proper BBQ. No surprise, then, that I was a sucker for Calvin Trillin's New Yorker piece on the small Lexington BBQ-joint hailed by Texas Monthly as the home of the Best BBQ in the Lone Star state.

As a longtime editor, though, he knew a Cinderella story when he saw one. It wasn’t just that Snow’s had been unknown to a Texas barbecue fancy that is notably mobile. Snow’s proprietor, Kerry Bexley, was a former rodeo clown who worked as a blending-facility operator at a coal mine. Snow’s pit master, Tootsie Tomanetz, was a woman in her early seventies who worked as the custodian of the middle school in Giddings, Texas—the Lee County seat, eighteen miles to the south. After five years of operating Snow’s, both of them still had their day jobs. Also, Snow’s was open only on Saturday mornings, from eight until the meat ran out.

...In the weeks after the Texas Monthly feature was published, Snow’s went from serving three hundred pounds of meat every Saturday to serving more than a thousand pounds. At eight in the morning—six or seven hours after Miss Tootsie had arrived to begin tending the pits—there was already a line of customers, some of whom had left home before dawn. Bexley said that one Saturday morning, when there were ninety people waiting outside, a local resident asked permission to gather signatures along the line for a petition, only to return a few minutes later with the information that there wasn’t one person there from Lee County. Some locals expressed irritation at being shut out of their own barbecue joint. At times, Bexley and Miss Tootsie felt overwhelmed. There were moments, they say, when they wished that the tasters from Texas Monthly had never shown up. Then Bexley added three brisket pits, Miss Tootsie got some help, Snow’s for a time quit taking pre-orders by phone except for locals, and the amount of meat prepared every Saturday levelled off to about eight hundred pounds....

This, folks, is some of the stuff that makes America great. It's the puppyish enthusiasm combined with a manic quest for perfection that's responsible for much of what is wonderful and, fairness demands one acknowledge, some of what is more troublesome about that great, sprawling, messy land.

Elitist Greens

Matt Yglesias reconsiders his position on arugula. Of course, in Britain we call "arugula" "rocket" - a much more homely, substantial, salt-of-the-earth kind of name, you will agree. A ploughman might have rocket in his sandwich, he'd never have "arugula" would he? Names matter!

I can't recall for certain, but I'm pretty sure arugula used to be called rocket in the United States too, but that the name was changed because someone - growers? Supermarkets? - wanted a poncier, more exotic, upscale name for the stuff. If Obama loses in Novemeber this shift will doubtless be seen by historians as a key moment in American political history...

Cooking Bullwinkle

In the light of all the Sarah Palin entertainment, Matt Yglesias asks a good question: how should you cook moose anyway? He links to some recipes (Moose nose in jelly??) some of which confirm my suspicion that you should treat moose as though it were venison or, even, at a pinch, wild boar. Slow and low is almost certainly the way to go. So I'd hazard that this would be a pretty good moose feast:

Marinade your hunk of moosemeat (leg? Loin? Does it matter?) for at least 24 hours in a bottle of country red wine, with plenty of garlic, juniper berries, salt, pepper, thyme, marjoram, bayleaves etc. Rosemary would work fine too. Basically any combination of strong herbs.

Next day, drain your moose (but reserve the marinade liquid) pat dry and stud with lardons, making sure to shove them deep into the meat. Brown your leg/haunch in a hot roasting pan. Add roughly chopped onions, carrots and celery then put in a slow oven. Strain your marinade liquid and add to the pot after half an hour. Leave in the oven for at least two hours (and probably longer) or  until the meat is absurdly tender. Add extra liquid, of course, if the meat looks as though it is becoming too dry.

Serve with redcurrant (or rowan) jelly and a potato-celeriac mash or something of that sort. Chestnuts would work too.

Annals of Modern Life

It had to happen: peanut butter now comes with a warning that, yup, it contains actual peanuts.

On the other hand, perhaps this isn't as absurd as it may seem. Or, to put it another way, it's good to see that peanut butter is, well, peanut butter and not something made using ersatz-peanut-like substances. That this is reassuring is, of course, also depressing.

Tip for the Day

Courtesy of a friend's Facebook status update:

XXX XXXXX advises you not to chop chillies before inserting contact lenses

Good advice!

The Great British Sausage

The news that ASDA is selling sausages that are, alarmingly, just 34% pork for 2p each naturally brought this classic Yes, Minister moment to mind:

[Hat-tip: The Corridor]

Belgian BBQ in Memphis

American breakfasts are pretty good, or at least as fine as can be expected from a meal that doesn't include black pudding. But there's no doubting that the United States' greatest culinary marvel is proper BBQ. It's the finest American food there is. Porcine perfection.

And BBQ is going international, according to this lovely piece in the Washington Post:

It's difficult enough for any new team to compete in the Super Bowl of Swine, which sends smoke wafting over downtown Memphis for three days every year. There are rules (written and unwritten) and traditions aplenty in this 30-year-old contest, which drew 125,000 spectators to one of the cradles of American barbecue culture. But it takes sheer guts to fly over from a part of the world where this way of cooking is fledgling at best and to try to speak the complicated language of barbecue with a French, Estonian or Norwegian accent...

The more, the merrier, says Jim Boland of Memphis, who was helping the Norwegian team. Boland has competed in Ireland and says true barbecue (rather than high-heat grilling) is "embryonic" in Europe, but the spirit is strong. "These guys are the pioneers," Boland said, referring to the foreigners in Memphis. "It's like the Oklahoma land rush."

Indeed it must be. If there's any sunshine this summer, it will soon be time for ribs and brisket and pulled pork here too.

A New Cultural Revolution

I wish this surprised or even shocked me. True, this is Dundee, but even so...

Six young brothers and sisters face being taken from their parents and put into care because they are overweight.

Social workers have warned they will intervene if three of the youngsters – including a 12-year-old boy who weighs 16 stone – do not shed several pounds in three months.

The parents have been told they risk losing all their children if there is no improvement in the 12-year-old or two of his sisters aged 11 and three – who weigh 12 stone and four stone – by June.

The family have also been ordered to send their children to dance and football* lessons to help them lose weight.

The shocking development highlights Britain's childhood obesity crisis, which has already forced those as young as 13 to seek NHS weight-loss surgery.

Emphasis added, of course, since Britain's interfering government crisis would make more sense. Even if you granted the council's interest in monitoring the weight of the three fat kids (which obviously I would not) how can anyone defend removing from their parents the three children who do not appear to be obese?

One has little reason, god help us, to expect much better from moronic local government. But it shouldn't be beyond conservatives to be just a little bit less absurd than these clowns. Sadly that's also more than can be hoped for. To wit:

Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid- Bedfordshire and a former nurse, described the measure as "draconian".

"A far more sensible and cost-effective solution would be for the local authority to provide round-the-clock support within the home, aimed at both assisting the children in attaining a healthier lifestyle and educating the parents," she said.

Words come close to failing me.

*Yeah, well if local government hadn't sold off all the bloody sports pitches perhaps the kids might get some exercise at school. Plus, as the lord knows, we need all the footballers we can get.. Also prop forwards, now that I think of it.

[Hat-tip, David Farrer]

Bad Korma*...

There's plenty of scaremongering about immigration these days but, even allowing for a proper degree of skepticism, this constitutes a clear and present danger to our way of life:

The curry industry will die if action is not taken to address tough new immigration laws, restaurant bosses have warned the Scottish Parliament.

They claim food quality will deteriorate and up to half of the Indian restaurants currently in business could shut.

The comments came as 100 restaurateurs staged a protest at Holyrood over the changes to immigration rules.

They claim a shortage of kitchen staff has been created as a result.

Restaurant owners said legislation which came in at the end of February makes it harder for them to bring in staff from outside the European Union.

Foysol Choudhury, general secretary of the Bangladesh Samity Association in Edinburgh, criticised new rules requiring immigrants to speak English and have an academic qualification.

"Our chefs don't need to speak English. Their curry talks," he said.

*Sorry. No excuse.

Email of the Day

In a whimsical Facebook moment I suggested that life would be more bearable if everything were as fine and reliable as a good pork pie. Too true, you may feel like saying and I wouldn't blame you. Need it really be said that the ready availability of quality pork pies is one of the great benefits of returning to the United Kingdom?

A friend emails:

"Your status update puts it beautifully. There is something about pork and pastry alright. I'm a sausage roll man myself, but there are so many poor versions out there it's always a gamble. The upside of pork pies is that anyone who bothers to make them these days tends to know what they're doing. Ah, the joys of anachronous snacks."

Joy indeed, as this picture demonstrates.

God bless German ingenuity

Next time you're stuck on a mountain...

A Cook's Bookshelf

Megan offers her annual Christmas cooking recommendations. Kit here; manuals here. As usual, there's lots of good stuff. But permit me to offer some supplementary ideas on the matter of cookbooks.

If, as Megan suggests you should, you own several of Julia Child's books you may not think you need another set of classic volumes on French, Italian and Mediterranean food. You'd be wrong. No serious Anglophone cook should be without at least two (if not all three) of Elizabeth David's masterpieces: Mediterranean Food, Italian Food and French Provincial Cooking. These three books alone provide enough inspiration to last a lifetime.

More than just recipe books, however, these old friends offer learned, but lightly-done, excursions into provincial and culinary history, plus achingly romantic (but never in a boastful sense) memories of where and when particular dishes were first encountered. Collectively, David's work stretches the boundaries of her genre; her literary achievement is dwarfed only by her culinary triumphs. Even 50 years on, these books sparkle.

It is no slight upon Ms Child to say that Ms David was there first. Indeed, the handsome Penguin US editions of David's books now enjoy forwards written by Julia Child herself. Then again, their aims were different: David was less concerned with providing a guide for cooks wishing to recreate French cuisine in their own kitchens (though, for sure, this is part of her books) but upon detailling and distilling what it is that makes French food French and, more especially, what makes Burgundian food different from Breton or Provencale cuisine. In this respect too, as well as in her dedication to localism and the spirit of terroir, David anticipated  - and, frankly, helped create - many modern cooking trends.

What Elizabeth David was to the Mediterranean, Madhur Jaffrey has been to the Sub-Continent. More than anyone else she has been responsible for teaching British cooks how to prepare Indian food. Depending upon how one measures these things, curry not roast beef is now the English national dish. Much of this comes from the proliferation of cheerful "Indian" restaurants (often, in fact, run by Bangladeshis) which are, generally speaking, better now than they've ever been. Much of the rest of it is drawn from the popularity of ready made Indian meals bought at the supermarket. But it is also because Madhur Jaffrey explained and demystified Indian cooking. A series of television series and splendid books make her the undisputed Rani of Indian cooking. It is impossible to recommend her books too highly. Like David she doesn't just provide recipes; she offers history, culture and regionalism, all the while celebrating the marvelous diversity of Indian cooking.

The simply titled Indian Cooking is probably the best place for the novice to start. There's no need to be intimidated by lengthy ingredient lists. A modicum of preparation makes Indian cooking much, much simpler for the home cook than, say, classic French regional cuisine (which itself, mercifully, of course is a step or two below fancy cooking.

If you're already familiar with the basics of Indian cooking and have an interest in travel or food history, then you'll love Jaffrey's From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail. This is a wonderful voyage through the history of curried foods as Indian emigrants have spread their cuisine around the world, from Durban to London to Trinidad, Singapore and Tokyo. It would be a fascinating book even if it didn't have a single recipe. But it has loads and they're all good. A more general volume that vegetarians will find especially useful as a source of inspiration is  Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More than 650 Meatless Recipes From Around the World which is every bit as monumental as it sounds.

Finally, and rather differently, Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook is a splendid Christmas present for undergraduate  or other young chaps with aspirations to impressing their would-be girlfriends. It's not so much that these classic bistro recipes are good - though they are - and pretty much foolproof (as they should be given that they are standard interpretations of Boeuf Bourguignon, Choucroute Garnie, Steak Frites, etc etc) it's that Bourdain writes with his characteristic swagger. It's a book that may convince skeptical men that they should get into the kitchen more, because, hell, that's where the action is and chicks dig guys who know their onions. Cooking, after all, is the new rock'n'roll...

Pizza Wars Continued...

Yeah, so Megan can't find New York style pizza in Washington. Well, I can't find Scottish pizza here either. I forgot to ask earlier if any readers know of anywhere on the eastern seaboard that does a good, proper deep-fried pizza*?

*Photos from a fine chippie I used to frequent regularly: Piccante on Broughton Street in Edinburgh.  We were spoilt for choice, in fact, since we also had the Rapido 100 yards down the road. Their traditional - that is, only cooked once - pizzas were better but Piccante took the palm for deep-frying. It's also one of the few places I know where, honoring the spirit of Scottish invention, you can purchase a kebab pizza which is then deep-fried. This, I think, must count as one of the culinary wonders of the modern world.

Also: click here to see superb pictures of what happens when you deep fry a Mars Bar.

PS: FX:Cuisine, from whence these photos are lifted, is a splendid blog well worth your attention too. It chronicles the gastronomical adventures of an adventurous Swiss fellow named Francois-Xavier. Heavy on pictures, light on words too, just the way a blog should be...

In Search of the Perfect Pie

As any newcomer to DC must, Megan McArdle bemoans the relative lack of decent pizza in Washington:

To a lifelong New Yorker, there is no other sort of pizza than the large, thin, New York slice. We may disagree amongst ourselves about the theological details--crispy or floppy, thick border or thin, sweet sauce or spicy, and how much grease is too much? But basically, we're all in the same church, and it's a highly localized one. Chicago pizza may be a fine foodstuff, as long as one consumes it without trying to imagine that it is actual pizza. But it is no substitute for the One True Faith.

Well, sure, the Chicago Deep Pan is a different kettle of poisson indeed, just as the Provencale pissalidiere is a cousin of the classic Neapolitan pizza.

That in turn reminds me that I've long been puzzled by the description of "New York style" pizza (or "New Haven style" for that matter) as though it were some sort of mysterious treasure, only available in the five boroughs or the tri-state area. After all, when you're talking about a good, thin pizza you're not talkin' about "New York" you're talking about the traditional Neapolitan pizza.

There's lots of very good pizza in New York, but to hear north-eastern folk go on about it you'd think that pizza - a cheap, artisan food after all - can't be made properly anywhere else. I don't know if it's controversial or heretical to say this, but the best - and most consistently excellent - pizza I've eaten has been consumed in, well, Italy.