Greater Depression Casualties

The New York Times reports: Balducci’s Makes a Quiet Exit From Manhattan.

If social scientists were hunting for recent clues of gastronomical excess, they would need to look no further than the lonely bottles and tins left on the shelves of Balducci’s, the landmark gourmet market that closed its two Manhattan shops on Sunday.

Among the remains at the West 66th location, across from the Juilliard School, at midday Sunday despite discounts of up to 60 percent: Pomodoro Basilico dipping oil. Strawberry Sizzle vinegar. Canned stuffed peppers, regular price $15.99. Goose foie gras, normally $49.99 a tin. Bottles of Tasmanian rainwater “captured from the purest skies on earth” (and a relative bargain at $4.39, before the discount).

“Do you really need chipotle raspberry finishing sauce? What is finishing sauce?” asked Barbara Colasanti, a 45-year-old teacher who lives in the West Village, as she perused the scanty pickings at Balducci’s vaulted, marble-walled and echoingly empty Chelsea store at Eighth Avenue and West 14th Street. “People don’t need all this stuff. It’s a lesson.”

The closing of Balducci’s, the World War II-era gourmet market that was once the foremost pit stop for New York foodies, elicited myriad reactions from its customers, who met news of its last days in the city with surprise, sadness and, in the case of Ms. Colasanti, shrugs. Some viewed the closing as tragic, others as a necessary corrective in these newly pared-back times.

“They priced themselves out of the market, it was hubris,” said Ms. Colasanti, who was a devotee of the flagship Balducci’s at Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, which closed in 2003 and is now the site of a Citarella.

Overrated, overpriced and overhyped - it will not be missed.

Turning Pigeons into Squabs

Many many many moons ago when the CC was but a tender child, his father's friend asked him if he wanted to see a neighbor's pigeons which were on the roof. The CC jumped up instantaneously. There were cages of cages of them on the roof (lots of space and the cages were huge!)

Only recently, in retrospect, did the CC figure out what the pigeons were being bred for!

Nettles

Yes, the stinging nettles are actually edible, and they are delicious.

The sting is a potent mix of formic acid, histamine and serotonin. Remember they are just trying not to get eaten from an evolutionary point of view!

However, if you pick the young leaves (using gloves) and blanch them in hot water, they turn edible. A wonderful illustration of humanity's transformation of a wide range of inedible raw substances into edible ones through the transformative power of heat.

(Which is why the "raw food" movement is a buncha horseshit. Ahem!)

They have a wild green taste with a zingy peppery bite.

The Chez Panisse Cookbooks

This is definitely flat-out heresy but the CC has never actually liked any of them. He still owns most of them, and plans to hold onto them but they are NOT recommended for the average person.

What would be the problem?

For starters, many are just badly edited. You read a recipe, and you end up screaming "No Way!" while everyone looks at if you were a madman. The proportions are clearly wrong. You can't just scale down stuff from a restaurant as explained here.

Then, there's the obvious problem that nobody but nobody can achieve that in an average kitchen. Either it's a question of BTU's, baby, or the cost of ingredients since we're trying to run a tight ship over here. We don't like to eat the same crap the next day either so least counts matter.

Then, there's the Francophilic-lovefest which is soooooooo passé. We don't eat that way any more. Nor do the French, incidentally.

In a world awash in excellent Thai food and and Senegalese food and Sichuan food, the Francophilia sticks out like a cram in your craw.

So suck it, bitch, this ain't no one-dimensional world no more. Even over in Paris, they went ga-ga over Vietnamese four decades ago. Long before the CC was born!

Overall, the CC would just say "Skip it! There be better books out there. Their time and cultural importance has passed."

The Mercado in Florence : Part 3 : Poultry

The tiny birds which are unmarked are quails.

Why "hot dogs" are sold with "poultry" is best left to the imagination.

Pasta all'Arrabbiata

The name translates to "angry pasta".

Anyone who knows the CC knows that that just drives him into paroxysms of delight because that moniker could be applied equally well to the CC.

Fans of the Sopranos will also note that Tony named his bodyguard, Perry Annuziata in a punning gem as "Penne Arrabbiata".

Fiery, we're talking fiery here.

The basic idea of this fiery Roman delight stretches back into the mists of time. Lots of garlic and hot pepper and a dash of anchovies (= umami) for a tasty, tingly delight.

(Traditionally, guanciale is also used for the umami as opposed to the more expensive, anchovies or its ancient equivalent, garum.)

Ingredients

1 lb rigatoni (or penne)

1 lb tomatoes (skinned, cored, coarsely chopped)
1 red onion (finely chopped)
4 cloves garlic (crushed)
5-6 dried red peppers (or more!)
2-3 anchovies
olive oil

1 cup red wine

oregano/parsley (if desired)

salt
black pepper

pecorino romano (grated)

Recipe

It's obvious enough. Fry the onions and garlic at a low heat until golden but not caramelized. Toss in the red peppers and fry for a while. Add the anchovies. Fry till they "dissolve".

Deglaze the pan with the red wine. Scrape with a wooden spoon to get the bits off the pan.

Add the tomatoes, salt and black pepper to taste. Cook for 15 minutes at a low heat. Crush the tomatoes for that "rustic" feel if you are using canned.

Cook the penne till al dente. Mix and serve with the pecorino romano on top.

Cooking with Wine

There are only two simple rules.

1. Don't use wine you wouldn't drink. (e.g. that crap in your fridge sitting for a week is a bad idea.)

2. Don't use expensive wine 'cause it doesn't matter.

Or to review it one more time:

Use a good, very cheap wine to cook.

Some more herb lessons

Well, the afore-mentioned oregano plant has died. The CC is quite sad but c'est la vie.

The CC has decided to persevere and has purchased a second oregano plant along with basil and cilantro plants.

Onwards and upwards.

The rest seem to be flourishing so far. It's been a cold wet spring with not enough sunshine. That might've been the problem.

The Mercado in Florence : Part 2 : Animals

Poultry and rabbits and lambs - oh my!

Herb Lessons

Ever since the CC started growing a window-sill herb garden, he's been buffeted with advice.

Everyone knows that house plants die from overwatering. A little judicious neglect is better than "loving" them too much. (a moral that owners of very fat pets should learn!)

What they don't tell you that oregano needs a lot more water than what is claimed. The CC has managed to make it wilt twice (it has recovered and flourished both times so far.)

Experience v. Theory. It's not even a fair battle.

The Mercado in Florence : Part 1 : Tripe

Courtesy of the same friend, some pictures from Florence.

All the parts of a calf, pig or cow are for sale. Most considered Florentine delicacies. A bit like being at an anatomy lesson said my friend. Special note to be made of the beef nerves and pig lungs.

Shocked animal-eaters and vegetarians should note that this is both eco-friendly and rooted in a culture of respect of the animal by not wasting any of its parts.

Cuts of Beef

Virtually every culture differs on how to cut the cow. Perhaps the most precise (and most anal-retentive, it goes without saying) were the Austrians during the era of the Hapsburg Empire.

The CC presents an excerpt from a classic ("Tafelspitz for the Hofrat") by the great Joseph Wechsberg.

To read it in its entirety, and it's definitely one of the best food tales the CC has ever read, you'll have to go to the source. The apotheosis of the story would be hard pressed to be matched.

Few Americans think of boiled beef as the gastronomic treat it is known for in Central Europe. In Vienna there was a restaurant that was held in high esteem by local epicures for its boiled beef -- twenty-four different varieties of it, to be exact.

The restaurant was Meissl & Schadn, and the boiled beef specialties of the house were called Tafelspitz, Tafeldeckel, Rieddeckel, Beinfleisch, Rippenfleisch, Kavalierspitz, Kruspelspitz, Hieferschwanzl, Schulterschwanzl, Schulterscherzel, Mageres Meisel (or Mäuserl), Fettes Meisel, Zwerchried, Mittleres Kügerl, Dünnes Kügerl, Dickes Kügerl, Bröserlfleisch, Ausgelöstes, Brustkern, Brustfleisch, Weisses Scherzl, Schwarzes Seberzl, Zapfel, and Ortschwanzl.

The terminology was bound to stump anyone who had not spent the first half of his adult life within the city limits of Vienna. It was concise and ambiguous at the same time; even Viennese patriarchs did not always agree exactly where the Weisses Scherzl ended and the Ortschwanzl began. Fellow Austrians from the dark, Alpine hinterlands of Salzburg and Tyrol rarely knew the fine points of distinction between, say, Tafelspitz, Schwarzes Scherzl, and Hieferschwanzl -- all referred to in America, with extreme vagueness, as brisket or plate of beef -- or between the various Kügerls. Old-time Viennese butchers with the self-respect and the steady hand of distinguished surgeons were able to dissect the carcass of a steer into thirty-two different cuts and four grades of meat. Among the first-quality cuts were not only tenderloin, porterhouse, sirloin, and prime rib of beef, as elsewhere, but also fine cuts used exclusively for boiling: two Scherzls, two Schwanzls, and Tafelspitz. In old Vienna, unlike present-day America, where a steer is cut up in a less complicated, altogether different manner, only the very best beef was considered good enough to be boiled.

You had to be a butcher, a veterinarian, or a Meissl & Schadn habitué of long standing to know the exact characteristics of these Gustostückerln. Many Viennese had been born in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy's provinces of Upper Austria, Serbia, Slovakia, South Tyrol, Bohemia, or Moravia. (Even today certain pages of the Vienna telephone directory contain as many Czech-sounding names as the Prague directory.) These ex-provincials were eager to obliterate their un-Viennese past; they tried to veneer their arrivisme; they wanted to be more Viennese than the people born and brought up there. One way to show one's Bodenständigkeit was to display a scholarly knowledge of the technical terms for boiled beef. It was almost like the coded parlance of an exclusive club. In Vienna, a person who couldn't talk learnedly about at least a dozen different cuts of boiled beef, didn't belong, no matter how much money he'd made, or whether the Kaiser had awarded him the title of Hofrat (court councilor) or Kommerzialrat.

The Rialto Market

Pictures from Venice courtesy a friend who's currently visiting. Clearly identifiable are the cuttlefish (seppie), octopus, bronzini, flounder, clams, pilgrim scallop (ventaglio), various kinds of prawns and crabs.

CC, CC, Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?


L to R: mint, parsley, thyme, oregano, chives, sage, tarragon, rosemary

Molecular Gastronomy

A group of influential international chefs have sequestered since yesterday in Alicia, Spain. Their mission has been to find a more palatable term for the dreaded “Molecular Gastronomy”. The consensus seems to be leaning towards ORGASMIC, an acronym for ORganoleptics, Gastronomy, Art, & Science Meet In Cuisine. A final vote on the proposed name change is scheduled for tomorrow morning, followed by the unveiling at a press conference.

The Creative Dinosaur Special

Somebody has an amazing sense of humor.