Editor’s Letter, Winter 2015

from Gastronomica 15:4



















Melissa L. Caldwell
September 2015

Editor’s Letter, Summer 2015

from Gastronomica 15:2

It has become commonplace to think of food in terms of rights, including the right to access basic sustenance, the right to healthy food, and the right to culturally appropriate food. This idea that access to food is a right has been enshrined in the policies of many governments and organizations, ranging from the Constitution of the USSR and US-based programs such as federal food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) to the European Union’s Agricultural Policy and the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25) and its Millennium Development Goals. In each case, the focus on rights to food illuminates ideals about the proper and necessary relationships between states and individuals. In some cases, the emphasis is on the proper actions of states to ensure the health and well-being of individuals, while in others, the emphasis is on the proper behavior of individuals as a condition of accessing food.

This emphasis on proper behavior and proper relationships illuminates another aspect of food: rites. Food and food practices are never neutral but always shaped by rules, values, and cultural logics. Thus to turn food into a right requires following particular rules for what kinds of food are possible, how they are distributed and consumed, and how different actors in the relationship behave. It is by following these rules that food is transformed into something more: a marker of humanity, a facet of citizenship, an incentive or barrier to foreign policy negotiations, or even a solution to global problems. In many ways, this shift from rights to rites reminds us that all food-related activities are performative.

In different ways, the contributors to this issue of Gastronomica are exploring rites and rituals to think through the cultural systems of rules that shape food use. In some cases, the rites and rituals are explicit, such as in the essay by Gary Fine and Christine Simonian Bean on the significance of banquets in American political activity, most notably the partisan nature of food and meals for political campaigns. In his essay on Japanese gastronomy, Scott Haas describes how Japanese chefs seek to educate diners about the uniquely Japanese qualities of this cuisine by illuminating culinary rules and the rationale—the cultural logic—behind these rules. In both essays, national identities become politicized through specific rules and rituals governing food.

Yet food rituals are never static, but always dynamic and in formation, as the essays by Joe Weintraub and Maryann Tebben demonstrate. Focusing on how French culinary practices have come into existence over time, Joe Weintraub uses the writings of nineteenth-century French food critic Eugène-Vincent Briffault to consider the invention of dinner as a social and culinary event. Taking on an even narrower category within the French culinary repertoire, Maryann Tebben examines how the French dessert course was transformed from being a fully edible entity in the seventeenth century to an aesthetic object in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and then to its current form as an object that conveys multiple symbolic messages.

A subtheme running through all of the essays is the tension between practice and discourse: what people do versus what they say or write. In some cases, the rules of rituals are more apparent in discourse because there is a form of documentation. Yet the rules embodied by nonverbal practices are no less real or legible. Legibility in different registers is at the heart of Dylan Gottlieb’s essay on a very contemporary, dynamic, and mobile form of food criticism: the use of Yelp and other forms of social media to evaluate and communicate food experiences. Although the social media format of consumers’ personal accounts of their food and dining encounters suggests a more democratic, even anarchic, form of communication, Yelp reviews are public performances that are highly scripted in the types of information that are presented, the audiences that are anticipated, and the qualities that are evaluated. Social media simply creates a new stage for the enactment of food rituals.

These themes of rites, rules, and performance are critically examined, unmade, and remade in the essay on food hacking by Denisa Kera, Zack Denfeld, and Cat Kramer. Employing a strategy that is part ethnographic case study, part manifesto for alternative ways to view and engage with the underlying structures and rules governing food—from the molecular to the social—Kera, Denfeld, and Kramer not only persuasively challenge prevailing assumptions about the proper ways to engage and think about food, but also offer new approaches for reimagining food.

The contributors to the creative reflections section of this issue also examine topics that remind us of the performative, ritual, rule-bound nature of food. James Nolan presents a profound conundrum familiar to anyone who has ever eaten alone in a restaurant: when is solo dining a publicly shared social experience, and when does it violate cultural norms about who is allowed to eat in a public setting. Similarly playing with questions about appropriate forms of social interaction, Brett Busang uses the case of Southern barbecue to link the micropolitics of family food rituals with larger American socioeconomic events. Through a whimsical account of finding and cooking with weeds in Australia, Tom Celebrezze asks us to think about how recipes are made, unmade, and remade through associational connections among remembered flavors, places, and people.

Finally, both Heather Richie and Corina Zappia reflect on the rules that are embedded in performative rites of identity. In Richie’s case, Cracker Barrel offers a lens for fundamental questions about what it means to be not just a Southerner or an American, but a member of a family. In Zappia’s case, the question is about how authenticity is performed and reified through food rules: namely, how does one demonstrate being authentically Filipino or even authentically Filipino-American when there is a conflict between knowing the cultural norms about the foods one should eat to demonstrate an authentic identity and the personal enjoyment of those foods. By describing an alternative set of food rules, Zappia presents a compelling case for multiple performances of authentic identity.

Searching for Thanksgiving | Andrew Simmons

For most of the past eight or nine years, Thanksgiving has happened at my partner’s parents’ house in Palo Alto, California, where dinner revolves around the frantic preparation of a Julia Child recipe for braised goose. Featuring an overprivileged bird, a sausage stuffing of veal, pork, and chestnuts, and a flavorful bath birthed from the union of goose fat, onions, carrots, stock, and a bottle of white vermouth, the goose is the perennial centerpiece, an opulent showstopper. Usually largely my responsibility, the sides vary. I start planning in September, never repeating a dish, trying to creatively complement the goose, hoping to play faithfully with the Thanksgiving ethos—one that traditionally begs for a symphony of oranges and tans, deep savory notes, and casseroles upon casseroles. One year, we made enoki mushrooms, butter, and black vinegar in parchment pouches, Brussels sprouts with kimchi and bacon, honey-glazed potatoes, and watercress-ginger soup. Another year, we did macaroni and cheese with kabocha squash and porcini powder, whipped sunchokes, and a pickled green bean salad with fried shallots and country ham.

The goose is my father-in-law’s domain. The shock of white hair undulating on his head, he ties on an apron, drinks a little Sapporo, and assaults the goose, skewering the vent, browning the neck, gizzard, and wing tips in a wide pan sizzling with rendered fat. Despite his years of goose-braising experience, he never feels confident taking the goose out of the oven himself. The murky braising liquid sloshes dangerously close to the edge of the pan. He’s always unsure of the goose’s doneness. His mise en place is a disaster. He never remembers to slice the onion and carrot before he needs them. Wrestling with half a dozen other dishes in the small kitchen, I always look up to see him desperately waving me over. “Onion,” he says, uncharacteristically curt in the midst of an emergency. I slice an onion. “Can you?” he suddenly yells an hour later, pointing at the oven door. I’m elbows-deep in sweet potatoes. I dash over to prod the goose. “Where is the vermouth?” he shouts. I stare blankly. The preparation is always a messy whirlwind, and I am caught in its eye. My mother-in-law laughs and slips downstairs to nap or play cello. Their daughters escape to take walks. Despite his self-doubt, the goose is done when he suspects it is. When it hits the table, it is glossy and crisp-skinned. Having exchanged its flavors with the bird’s, the stuffing tumbles out of the cavity in crumbly hunks, rich, slightly sweet, and addictive. The reduced sauce pools luxuriously under fanned goose breast slices. Absurdly satisfying in conclusion, satisfyingly absurd in preparation, the goose sums up the family’s approach to the holiday.

We may not eat it again.

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Sahadi’s: A Family Affair | Jason Leahey

from Gastronomica 12:2

Brooklyn has changed a lot over the past few years. The abandoned East River waterfront in Williamsburg is now filled with fifteen-story condos that are almost entirely glass. The old train yards dividing Park Slope from Fort Greene have been razed to build a stadium for the Nets basketball team. The block of Atlantic Avenue between Court and Clinton, long the home of Middle Eastern hole-in-the-walls, a Chinese fruit market, and a Key Food supermarket, now sports a Trader Joe’s on one corner and a Barney’s of New York next to it. The most famous store on that block, however, isn’t new, nor is it a national name. It’s the Sahadi Importing Company’s retail store, and it’s been on the north side of the street since 1948. It’s old school Downtown Brooklyn. Ask any Brooklynite about Sahadi’s, and if they’ve been there they’ll almost certainly proclaim, “That place is great.” If they don’t know it and you do, you’ll almost certainly proclaim, “You have to go there.” It’s an institution. Its story is a story of love and plenty.

Sahadi’s is a specialty foods outfit, and it’s most famous for its bulk section—a throwback to the America in which your shopkeeper scooped your flour or oats from a fat wooden barrel to weigh on a scale. Sahadi’s switched from barrels to clear plastic bins a few years back, but the aesthetics and customer service remain. In need of, let’s say, bulgur wheat? They have it cut to four different coarsenesses. Dates? Sourced from nine regions of the world, from Pakistan to Jordan to California. Olives? Thirty-two kinds, plus pickled baby red eggplant and excellent giardiniera (and far cheaper than at Whole Foods, by the way). Dried fruit? Every one you can think of, plus kiwis and pears, sulfured or non. Almonds? Twelve kinds, from blanched to cinnamon roasted. Almond flour? Check. Chestnut flour? Check. Pomegranate molasses? Check. This is the kind of place where pistachios are imported from half a dozen countries and exhibit the broad spectrum of color and flavor worthy of the same attention gourmands pay to cheese. Pluck a numbered ticket from the red deli dispenser and wait to be called. While you’re waiting, browse. Don’t know what that herb mloukia, imported from Syria, is used for? Wait for one of the men in blue aprons to call your number: he’ll answer your questions and measure everything you want out for you. Ask for a taste, and he’ll help with that too. Sahadi’s, in short, is paradise.

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A Family Affair: Naha, Chicago, Illinois | Carrie Nahabedian

from Gastronomica 3:1

To open a restaurant takes a strong desire and the willingness to put everything you have on the line—everything. Naha, the restaurant owned by my cousin Michael Nahabedian and me, is the culmination of years of being in the only business I have ever known. The idea of owning a restaurant had crossed my mind many times, but for some time it was just a passing thought. Over the years the thought evolved, until there was no mistaking restaurant ownership as the inevitable, natural progression of a career that had started while I was still in high school.

Michael Nahabedian was a kinesiology major at the University of Illinois when the course of his life suddenly changed. Needing to take some time off after an accident, he spent a few months in Europe. He returned to Chicago healed, refreshed, and definitely not wanting to pursue the career that he had studied so hard for. In a short time, Michael found himself behind the bar at a restaurant whose main clientele were chefs and restaurateurs, and he quickly found his place in the industry. Michael and I spent a lot of time together; my passion for food soon became his.

I had been working in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara as an executive chef for Four Seasons Hotels, but the desire to be involved in a family project and to return to my hometown, Chicago, kept growing. Our large, predominantly Armenian family supported our new venture from the start. It was agreed that the restaurant would be designed by Michael’s brother, architect Tom Nahabedian. Everyone knew my style of cooking and Michael’s expertise in handling the dining room and wine service, but we were all excited to see what Tom would create. Tom left Los Angeles, his job, and his new bride (temporarily), and set about creating our dream.

Michael and I shared the same vision for Naha, and in only one sitting Tom was able to visualize the design and style of the restaurant. We commissioned our good friend and Chicago artist Lora Fosberg to create art especially for Naha. Like Tom, she left all her other projects behind and devoted herself to the restaurant. The focus of Naha would be on the food and on giving our guests excellent service in a great atmosphere. We took over a well-known restaurant site and began the seven-month construction of Naha.

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