Food Writers Dwell Happily in the Past This MonthThe best stories in this month’s crop of food mags are old. Saveur, which leads the year off with the Saveur 100, runs highlights from the WPA’s unpublished 1937 opus, America Eats, a documentary record of American foodways that is only now seeing the light of day; the images excerpted here are evocative and beautiful and make us eager to see the America Eats book to be published (finally) later this year. Gourmet is devoted to southern cooking, with a wonderful, previously unpublished “What Is Southern?” leadoff essay by the late Edna Lewis, formerly of Café Nicholson. Bon Appétit goes with a “Green Issue” with a long piece by Blue Hill’s Dan Barber on vegetables, an ecofriendly meat guide by sausage guru Bruce Aidells, and a moving essay on a vegetarian who returns to the meat wagon because of sausages. Food & Wine is something of a bore, consisting mostly of lists of “Tastes to Try in 2008,” most of which were short on detail and long on obviousness. (Fiamma has a new chef!) Finally, Food Arts, which won’t come out till later this week, has a major service feature on beef, along with an essay by French Culinary Institute techno whiz Dave Arnold on hydrocolloids, a class of gelatins big in molecular-gastronomy circles.
Back of the House
This Year’s ‘Saveur’ 100 Is Thin on the NYC Love
We know another year has gone by in the food world because the Saveur 100 is out. The list “offers a vivid snapshot of the wide … world of food,” says the magazine, so the picks skewed global — licorice from New Zealand, anyone? — but we are, as always, only interested in the New York stuff.
In Other Magazines
The Literary Yule Log Burns Away
The food magazines are all in full-tilt holiday mode this month, but there’s some interesting stuff in there in spite of all the boilerplate. Saveur leads out with a massive roasting package, but the mag also includes an equally useful (if not equally pornographic) service feature on Champagne. There’s also a nice personal essay by Dana Bowen about electric slicers as a totem of holiday feats past. Food & Wine is a big old mess of Yuletide content, but the issue includes their Best Restaurant Dishes of 2007, and the sole New York representative is, you guessed it, the Bo Ssäm. (Sigh.) There’s also the excellent profile of Tailor’s Eben Freemen mentioned here recently and everything you want to know about what chefs are doing in New Orleans and Lake Tahoe. (Which in our case would be nothing.) Gourmet is all recipes and entertaining, as dull as paint, with, amazingly, an article about Padma Lakshmi’s chutneys with no image of the lady herself. (An article on the raising of Kobe cattle, though, fascinated us.) Finally, Food Arts brings their year-end trend piece, on the strange confluence of health consciousness and conspicuous consumption, as well as a piece by Pichet Ong on the rise of the celebrity pastry chef. Not a bad month in all.
In Other Magazines
Escaping the Obligatory Turkey FeatureIt’s November in the food-magazine business, so expect feature after endless feature about Thanksgiving, and every imaginable variation on recipes for turkey and stuffing. Gourmet gives a pretty complete account, including big Turkey Day features on the fancy version, the Asian version, the Italian version, and even the vegetarian version. Bon Appétit is about the same, taking the big-name approach: Bruce Aidells on turkey, and Michael Lamonaco on potatoes, among others. A profile of Aidells and his meat-minded kitchen is in November’s Food & Wine, as well as such year-round delights as domestic cheeses and a new brand of whiskey out of Oregon. Saveur, thankfully, limits itself to a nice article about a West Virginia farm, and then dips in on such disparate topics as kale, heritage chickens, prosciutto from Iowa, and other Saveur-like topics. We’re grateful for the respite; Thanksgiving is early this year but not that early.
In Other Magazines
‘Gourmet’ Hits El Alto; ‘Bon Appétit’ Hails ChangAs we near the end of the month, it’s time to look at the latest batch of food magazines. Gourmet‘s entire October issue is devoted to Latin American cooking and has two big features that New Yorkers will want to check out: a profile of “El Alto,” the Dominican enclave in upper Manhattan, with a focus on the area’s restaurants, and a mouthwatering survey of taco trucks around the USA.
Back of the House
Restaurant Sues Critic and Wins; A Study of Pizza for PesosGood news for Jeffrey Chodorow: A restaurant owner in Ireland has successfully sued a critic’s publication for giving him a bad review. [BBC]
A Texas pizzeria riled anti-immigration types with a pesos-for-pizza stunt. This subsequent essay is part marketing communications, part sociology. [NYT]
Fun interview with Drew Nieporent. Question: Is his favorite low-end restaurant really the random Benito’s II in Little Italy? [NYT]
Back of the House
The 2 Percent of the ‘Saveur’ 100 That Matters
It was with trembling hands that we opened up the Saveur 100, Saveur magazine’s annual roundup of their 100 favorite food-related things and people in the world. We were soon shocked — shocked! — to discover that just two entries cited the New York food scene. And what would they be? A blurb on Wylie Dufresne? A shout-out to Katz’s Deli? Nope. The honors go to a Dominican juice drink in Brooklyn and the Hungry Cabbie, a blogger. We appreciate Famous Fat Dave, as the cabbie misleadingly calls himself, and the Morir Soñando at Reben Luncheonette, at 229 Hevemeyer Street in South Williamsburg, sounds pretty good. But are they really New York’s equivalent of Beijing’s Peking duck as made by celebrated Chinese chef Da Dong? Then again, we understand. This is New York — Saveur has to overcompensate on behalf of the rest of the world.