Many years before the word “globalization” became a launching point for political debate—not to mention Thomas Friedman’s “flat world” conceit—a shift in the United States, caused by changing demographics and technological innovation, led to the disappearance of the “regional specialty.” This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing—it’s swell to find ripe avocadoes or tomatoes at East Coast supermarkets no matter what season—but it has upset, at least for those Americans over 40, a culinary way of life.
At one time, more than a generation ago, New York (in fact, the entire tri-state region) was rightfully known as the pizza capital of the United States of America. You could walk into an unknown joint in the Village, Long Island or uptown andexpect to see a silent pie twirler by an oven before leaving 10 minutes later with a supreme slice, which tasted just as good folded or flat. Today it’s a different story: there’s no quality control and I’d say that seven out of 10 NYC places offer pizza that’s just as bad as a storefront in Reston, Va.
Last weekend I was in Texas for a wedding, an extended family reunion highlighted by my nephew Caleb exchanging vows with his girlfriend at the swank Alden Hotel in downtown Houston. My wife, the kids and I arrived there shortly after noon on Friday, met up with one of my brothers, his wife and two nieces, and set out on foot to find a Tex-Mex cantina for lunch. We settled in at a sprawling place called Cabo, which featured a menu loaded with standard burritos and tacos, as well as seafood specials that promised a Mexican kick. The food, as it happened, was atrocious: guacamole that was probably pressed out of a tube, stale tortilla chips, salsa so mild a baby could slurp it and microwaved enchiladas.
Not a bottle of Pearl beer, once found only in the Southwest, was visible. Could be that the brand’s now defunct—I haven’t kept track—but it did remind me when Stroh’s was a Detroit brew, Coors was a wonder of Colorado unavailable east of the Rockies and Olympia was reserved for those in the Pacific Northwest. I didn’t finish much of my meal, but still had a bellyache that was only made worse by reading the latest American Prospect—Robert Kuttner is the print equivalent of canned refritos—before taking a siesta.
When I was a freshman in college in the early ’70s my roommate was from Houston and on my first visit to that city I was astounded at the quality of Mexican grub—I hadn’t yet been to California or Arizona—which was a true revelation to someone who grew up on Long Island. Conversely, my friend Mark, after we hitchhiked up to Manhattan from Baltimore in the fall of ’73, was similarly amazed when we had dinner one night in Chinatown. He’d never sampled a single Szechwan dish and even though my pal Elena (a Barnard student) and I tricked him into eating a whole chili pepper, Mark, used to the standard Cantonese glop at strip restaurants in Houston, wrote to his friends at the University of Texas in Austin about the marvels of real Chinese cooking.
It’s only a matter of time, I fear but, at least for the present, Houston hasn’t yet succumbed to the Bloomberg “health” madness that’s spreading around the country. Last Friday night, before the groom’s rehearsal dinner, I was sipping a double espresso while watching an Astros game in the Alden’s ground floor bar, when I told the bartender to hold my seat while I went outside for a smoke. He was befuddled, held up an ashtray and said in a slow, Al Gore sort of voice, “What do you think these are for?” We spoke about the tobacco cops for a minute or two and the fellow laughed and explained that, in Houston at least, there were vague ordinances about smoking bans but no one enforced them. He didn’t seem pleased when I told him to prepare for the inevitable.
I do think it’ll take a lot longer for the trans fat hoopla to even be mentioned in Lone Star State chatter; as for PETA, it’s hard to imagine that goofy group has bothered to hound Texans (except perhaps in liberal Austin), given the enormous crowds chowing down on chopped and slice beef brisket and pork at the fine Goode Co. barbecue destination 14 of us lunched at on Saturday.
(A digression: One of the biggest belly-laughs I had this summer, with the possible exception of A-Rod blabbing in Sports Illustrated about how “bright” and “attractive” he is, came at the Maryland State Fair in August. After spending about 30 bucks on typical carney games of chance and winning several stuffed animals worth about 29 cents apiece, we stopped by the livestock exhibit. While my youngest son admired a huge mama pig feeding her babies, I noticed a sign above a cow that said “Beef,” right next to a bunch of chickens who were called “Poultry.”)
There was a delightful juxtaposition on the Times’ Sept. 30 editorial pages on the subject of trans fats. Op-ed columnist John Tierney was eminently sensible in decrying this latest violation of personal choice in the name of health. He wrote: “You can make a case for a law requiring restaurants to tell people what’s in their food. But [health commissioner Thomas] Frieden’s edict goes well beyond that—and well beyond past public-health measures like the bans on lead paint and smoking in restaurants. This is the biggest step yet in turning the Big Apple into the Big Nanny … [I]f New Yorkers consume trans fat at McDonald’s or Chinese restaurants, it’s because they ordered it themselves.”
Taking the contrary position that Americans are too stupid to know that high-calorie foods, eaten with abandon can lead to obesity, a Times editorialist defended Bloomberg’s nanny persona (to think Mr. Self-Righteous is privately considering a bid for president in 2008), and even invokes Sylvia’s—“a soul food mainstay”—as a good government restaurant because it has banished trans fat. No mention, of course, that regular portions of ribs and mac & cheese, with or without trans fat, doesn’t exactly cleanse clogged arteries, but no matter. The writer concludes, “[Bloomberg’s nannyism] runs contrary to the anything-goes traditions of the city, but with epidemic rates of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, New Yorkers could use more pressure toward healthy behavior.”
If you ask me, New Yorkers “could use more pressure” to vote against Eliot Spitzer, who poses a clear danger to “healthy” business, but that’s as likely as the Tigers taking three straight from the Yanks.
