russ parsons

that is a very complicated knot to tease apart. i would argue (acknowledging upfront that i may be completely wrong), that there was relatively little "snobbish" food writing before the 1960s. before then, most food writing was written as if it came from the group that was intending to read it. you can hardly fault andre simon's wine and food society stuff as snobbish, since it was written for a closed group which he addressed at its own level. for better or worse, the "snobbish" aspect of food writing probably started when writers felt the need to "uplift" the common man, to help him raise himself above the food he was happy with and to show him the truer path to gourmet-ism. (this ignores the fact that in the early 1960s, much of what the common man was eating was horrible packaged stuff, while even 15 years before that wasn't true). Another distinguishing characteristic of "snobbish" food writing, I would argue, is that it usually seems to come from second-hand information: someone in Chicago telling us commoners that this is what the french do. the tone is one of lecture rather than of sharing an honest enthusiasm. If any of this is true, the lessons for current food writers, it seems to me, are obvious: 1) address your audience at your level rather than talking down to them. 2) know what you're talking about. and 3) don't be afraid to be enthusiastic about the things you honestly love (at the same time, don't be enthusiastic about the things you merely believe you should love).

just back from the great north coast, if you want a splurge, the inn at victorian gardens is perfect. 4-bedroom b&b on the south mendocino coast (between manchester and elk), run by a former fertility doc at ucla and his wife. unimaginably perfect and he's a roman who cooks a pan-italian dinner every night, lots of it from stuff from their property. not incredibly spendy, i think the rooms top out at $250 and dinner for two with wine is $150. i also had to laugh because he's completely over-the-top anti-restaurant, except for one: nancy berry's the broiler near Ukiah.

You're not full of it, but I do think you need to be more specific. What you're talking about is writing for a general audience. The reason I'm so insistent on this is because I am a food wonk. I get enthralled by technical pieces on the history of sardine biomass in the catalina channel, or on moisture retention in the longissimus dorsi muscle, or (and one of my all-time faves) agricultural location theory and the history of the castroville artichoke industry. these are not things that would hold the general reader's interest (to put it mildly). one of my roles as a writer for a general interest publication is to synthesize the material and translate it into a form that will appeal to the general reader and will make them understand why i find this stuff so damned interesting.

i've made it a point of pride that i try to taste everything with an open mind. i've eaten live sushi in korean places, oaxacan crickets and maguey grubs. i've even eaten "snail caviar" that someone was trying to get started several years ago (tiny, as you might expect, with a kind of herbal overtone). i do draw the line between things i'd order again for pleasure, as opposed to sheer research.

i don't think it's quite as simple as "boring writing is boring". there is writing that is informational: where the writer is so fascinated by his subject that he thinks everyone will be equally taken by the facts. in some cases, this is true. but for writing to cross over from that small group to a larger one, it has to appeal on a more general level. in food, that is flavor. and as anyone who has ever tried to write about flavor will attest, that is devilishly hard without resorting to cliche. (i say this with some conviction since the most frequent comment i get from my editors seems to be: "fascinating, can you make it more delicious?"invariably, they are right.)

and as a writer, i'd like to point out that words can do the same thing. i remember when huntley dent's "feast of santa fe" came out at the end of my new mexico tenure, it was a real lightning bolt moment, reading about your own home described in the way usually reserved for exotic locales.

i confess to having very mixed feelings about Michler and "White Trash Cooking." On the one hand, he was a very bright guy and a good writer (i'm old enough to have profiled him when the book came out). and i'm glad someone finally was paying at least some attention to "peasant cuisine" in the us (american foodies tend to love the cooking of all poor people but our own). on the other hand, i wish he had been a better cook, or at least a better writer. i think in the end WTC reflected southern culture about as well as Tobacco Road or Deliverance. which isn't to deny that there is a germ of truth in it. if you're really interested in the cuisine of white southerners (at least not an american gothic take on it), check out the writings of two more johns: john edgerton and john t. edge. i think their pictures are much more reliable, and much more delicious. i'd also like to put in a word for older american cookbooks as well. marjorie rawlings (author of "the yearling") covered much the same territory as michler in her Cross Creek Cookery and you should also read the mid-century authors Sheila Hibbens and Clementine Paddleford.

just two points: 1) most argumentative essays are written as if they contain pure truth (this one included). it's up to the reader to take an active part. what john was doing was playing the part of the reader as a writer. 2) the other end of the spectrum is that the difference between most argumentative essays and recipes is that recipes serve a dual purpose: to be read and also to be used. an extremely well written recipe still fails if it doesn't taste good (wasn't it elliot who said something about the poem failing when it falls to far from the dance?). what i'm finding interesting as a writer is the popularity of stories like john t.'s (which i do also, this isn't a criticism) in which the writer does the work of the comparison for the reader. it's kind of like someone reading a bunch of reviews of a movie and then arguing about the movie's strengths and weaknesses without having actually seen it (none of us do that, do we?).

something i posted in response to one of john's questions triggered something that has bugged me for a long time: the preponderance in food writing of cultures being translated by people who live outside of them. this does fit into the general journalistic model of a good reporter being able to do his homework, visit a place and make sense of it, but i think a lot of nuance can be lost that way. if i have to pose that statement in the form of a question, i guess it would be: are the best translators those who come from outside a culture but who might be better able to address the interests of the "general public", or are they those who come from within the culture and can more fully explain it?

i'd like to point out that--as robb has so ably demonstrated in his writing--culinary exploration doesn't need to involve travel. sometimes the best stuff is in your own backyard. i've got an old friend who's a songwriter who once remarked "some people can go around the world and not see a thing, other people can walk around the block and see a whole world." i learned this too late, much to my regret. in the early '80s when i was just starting to write about food i was in albuquerque new mexico, which then fit the description of "culinary backwater" about as well as anyplace could. no chefs, no fancy food, nothing. now i wish i'd paid a lot more attention to what my friends and my friends' moms were cooking. i missed what might have been the last gasp of traditional northern new mexican hispanic cooking, that which had been developed before the influx of tourists (the population of the state basically quadrupled between 1945 and 1955 and has doubled almost every decade since). in fact, as observers we're much better suited to describe what is going on around us than places we "parachute" into. no amount of reading and research can supply the context that comes from having grown up in a culture. which, i think gives me the topic for my question.

i'm not exactly sure how this rotation is supposed to work, but it's saturday morning, i'm signed on and as the only recipe writer in the group i'm going to go ahead and jump in. i think john's and most people's reactions to recipes comes from the idea that there is pure truth in them: do it this way, it's the right way, and anything else is the wrong way. as a cook, i look at recipes as the starting points in conversations between teh authors and the readers (maybe that's my cantankerous nature again ... when i read chess books i'm always saying "now why in the hell did that idiot grandmaster do that?"). i think the best recipe writers are those who anticipate this reaction and write their recipes to encourage it, including as much description as possible and as much explanation as well. to me, the really well-written recipe is one that says: "here's how i like to do it, here's why i like to do it that way, here's what works for me, now you go try it. and when you're done, make it your own."

jeez, that's a hard question because i have them all the time. nice job, eh? the last one was last weekend at the knights of columbus hall in mendocino. they were doing a fundraising dungeness crab feast for the women's group of the local fishermen. absolutely amazing event. probably a couple of hundred people crammed into an old church hall eating crab, drinking (mostly) local wine. there was a raffle of contributions. one of the rafflers was a priest, the other a local worker who was plainly of mexican origin who would spontaneously break out in acapella ranchera songs. all in the building still known to locals as the portuguese hall.

oooh robb's putting on his cowboy hat. well, i'm sure the folks at the houston opera would be glad to know that y'all don't do haute in texas. and isn't there a little art museum in fort worth some folks might have heard of? and my gosh, what about all those tea-sippers in austin? i think it's a mistake to fall into the high-low trap, and maybe one that's peculiarly american. i think we should look at art as a continuum: maybe the reason the houston opera gets away with so much is that being brought up with a vibrant popular music culture--whether it's tejano, zydeco, blues or country--gives one an open mind (not that that's an accusation taken lightly in texas!). it seems to me to be a peculiarity of this country that we separate the two so rigorously. and that's particularly true in cuisine. it has long been a belief of mine that one of the problems with much of what passes for haute cuisine in this country is that so many of the people who are cooking it aren't operating from a sound base of "low" cuisine. in countries with great cuisines--let's say china, france and italy just for a start, and of course we should add spain too--good eating starts at the home and gradually ascends to lofty heights. but you learn about good food before you move on to great food. here that base level has been pretty bad for the second half of the 20th century, though it is much better with the increase in "ethnic" restaurants in the last 10-15 years. maybe we'll get lucky and the next generation of chefs will know how to eat before they learn how to cook.

i'm certainly old enough to know better, but not as old as john! i'm 48. as for john thorne (the OTHER john for purposes of this discussion), he is a friend and i would definitely agree with the sui generis. well, maybe not. i just got done watching "american splendor", the harvey pekar movie. there are marked similarities there, for sure (said almost entirely admiringly).

since i seem to have (voluntarily) taken on the role of the cantankerous one here, i'll go even further: people are NOT basically the same. there are marked similarities, to be sure, but when you start to assume that similarity is sameness or that it trumps difference, then you're treading on really marshy ground (ask any of the bush foreign policy advisors). i agree wholeheartedly with john in this case that it is the ways in which we are different that are really enlightening and broadening. this is a scary proposition for some (not speaking of ellen here, because i don't know her at all), and this is why the good lord invented hotel dining rooms. indeed, i think it is a writer's duty to investigate these differences, to observe them honestly and without prejudice, and then to report them in a way that a) translates them to his audience and b) would be recognized as fair and accurate by those being described.

hey, i was just quoting john. i'll let him dig his way out of this one on his own. personally, though, i don't like velveeta in enchiladas a mix of grated block cheese is much better (to my palate). and, acknowledging that this will get me smeared all over the place, i once reconstructed an old new mexican enchilada recipe using goat cheese (hey, they didn't have that many cattle in the mountains). it was terrific. white bread with barbecue? sure. if they don't have cornbread. [edit] but this raises an interesting point of reverse snobbism. where do you stand on jello? just because something is popular with the masses, does that by definition make it authentic and above reproach? how about in other countries?

oooh john, i knew i could count on you to get things going. 1) though there are a tremendous number of mediocre food sections in this country (as there is of anything anywhere), i heartily disagree with the notion that there is a shortage of food coverage beyond "lifestyle"--whatever that means. Look at the LAT, the NYT, the Chronicle ... there's a lot of good work being done. 2) I think the statement re: the "ethnic" restaurants is true of almost anyplace and it has hardly gone unnoticed. we've been running weekly reviews of "ethnic" restaurants for 15 years. 3) i would argue that the rejection of sweetness is not "one of the distinguishing charactaristics of the sophisticated palate," but rather of the faux sophisticated palate, or more charitably the palate on the way to becoming sophisticated. pure sweetness makes no more sense than pure saltiness, but that doesn't mean that sweetness is bad. as a wine lover, i'm constantly amazed at how supposedly "sophisticated palates" will reject overtly sweet wine out of hand (yquem anyone? beerenauslese?) and then choose wines that are allegedly dry but fermented with an identifiable amount of sugar (Kendall Jackson ring a bell?). a truly sophisticated palate accepts all flavors in balance with prejudice toward none.

i hope rob didn't misunderstand my comments. i pointedly excluded him two different times. this was not a "french exclusion" (making a pointed inclusion by a specific exclusion), but was honest. really, had other writers in mind.

i've got a japanese friend whose 100-year-old grandmother attributes her longevity to eating sardines un-gutted. i guess only the strong survive.

Note: This should not be read a criticism of Robb Walsh’s work, which I have always thoroughly enjoyed. Nor should it be considered especially well thought out, since I’m writing it pretty much off the top of my head. Rather, in the best spirit of E-Gullet, it is a deliberate attempt to be provocative and, perhaps, inspire some constructive discussion. In Robb Walsh’s wonderfully thoughtful essay on his experience of eating durian, he tries to get to the bottom of why foods that are beloved by some people may disgust others. He asks Paul Rozin, a psychologist, about this paradox and Rozin hypothesizes that it goes back to potty training. He observes that neither infants nor animals have an aversion to their own feces, so our problem with it—and, presumably, by extension, other things that have strong smells—is part of the socialization process. He offers the alternate example of blue cheese. I have to admit that my first reaction was skeptical. In the first place, psychologists cite toilet training about as often as Baptists cite the New Testament. In neither case are things usually that simple. Whatever the cause for that illicit thrill we get for breaking a rule, I do think that our attraction/repulsion to certain foods is culturally based. The appreciation of food (and music, art, literature … well, just about anything that requires use of your brain) is learned. While it is true that children have no aversion to playing with their feces, neither are they particularly epicurean. Furthermore, what we learn to like depends on the culture in which we are raised. We learn to appreciate foods not in isolation but in context with other foods. It is hard to like blue cheese without first having liked mild cheese, and before it butter and salt (I would also add that it’s harder to like blue cheese without also appreciating dried fruit, walnuts and, ideally, a nice Port). In the same way, a prerequisite for loving durian may well be an earlier appreciation for extremely ripe tropical fruits and various grades of fish sauce. But there is no denying that peculiarly transgressive thrill that comes with eating something nobody else will. Whether it’s durian, or tripe or chicken feet, there does seem to be a kind of “double-dawg-dare-ya”, standing-on-the-high-dive jolt to being the first one at the table to dig in. This, of course, has nothing to do with a nuanced appreciation of a dish’s culinary merits. Instead, I think, it has more to do with being the center of attention, kind of like the kid in your first-grade class who ate worms (to which we also have a cultural aversion, despite their lack of a strong scent). Some people (including, I’m afraid certain food writers) never get beyond this stage. In fact, some seem to have based their careers on it. To me, this cheapens both the food and the writer. It perverts a cultural heritage for its sideshow value. This doesn’t mean that you need a doctorate in ethnography before eating food from a different culture, or even having read a book. But it does mean that you approach the food mindful of where it comes from, who made it and why—just as Robb does in his writings. This is a part of someone’s culture, not a tryout for “Jackass” or “Fear Factor.” To you, this may be just another walk on the wild side, but to someone else, it’s mama.

i did a piece on the sardine fishery out of san pedro down here and also on cooking with fresh sardines. i did find that it is best to bone them (you can do it with your fingers, the flesh is very soft. marinating them is nice but not necessary. one of the simplest preparations i found was from michael cimarusti at water grill: bone the sardines and open them out like a book. season lightly on both sides, then lightly sprinkle the skin side with bread crumbs. pat them so they stick. saute skin-side only in a very hot pan. the bread crumbs get crisp without being heavy and the fillets are so thin they cook through just from the one side. he serves it with a tomato-pepper sauce, like a ratatouille without the eggplant. i think they're great with salsa verde as well. if you live in southern california, you can almost always find fresh sardines at japanese markets. under $1 a pound. ridiculously good food.

salted anchovies will last just about forever. which is a good thing because they come in very large tins and are only used 3 or 4 at a time.

i've found waverly root to be fairly unreliable, particularly on italy. my favorite general italian reference is a wonderful thing published by readers digest, of all people, called grande enciclopedia della gastronomia illustrata. it's kind of a french larousse with great color photos and recipes from really good cookbooks. only problem: it's hard to find in this country (and, i should add, it's in italian).

well, this thread is turning into a one-man assault on the copyright laws. but i think technically i have the right to reprint my own stories ... nobody's a tribune corp lawyer, right? anyway, how can i resist a texan named fifi: "bonjour, y'all!" (this is from '96) Avoid fava beans. --Pythagoras * What would a Greek philosopher in the 6th century BC have against one of the most common vegetables of his area and time? This has been the subject of debate almost from the moment Pythagoras completed the sentence. An incredible assortment of explanations has been offered, ranging from reincarnation to sexual symbolism. Only relatively recently have scientists begun to think that Pythagoras may have been on to something. For some people, we now know, fresh fava beans can be poisonous. This fairly common genetically transmitted condition--called, appropriately, favism--was recognized only at the turn of this century and has been explained fully just in the last decade. The condition is especially prevalent in the old Magna Graecia--the region ruled by the ancient Greeks--where as much as 30% of the population in some areas has it. Whether the poisonings were the basis of Pythagoras' pronouncement or not, no one can say for certain. While today's cults seem determined to tell all about their religious beliefs, the Pythagoreans were notoriously close-mouthed. Iamblichus tells of the time a group of Pythagoreans were being pursued by their enemies when they came across a field of favas in bloom. Rather than disobey the master's dictates and flee through the field, they were slaughtered. And when two who were captured were questioned about their beliefs, they refused to answer. The husband chose death and the wife, a Spartan, bit off her tongue and spit it at her captors to avoid spilling the beans. As Mirko Grmek so pithily puts it in her book, "Diseases in the Greek World" (Johns Hopkins, 1991), "The Pythagorean rule of silence explains why the persons in antiquity who dared write on this subject were already in the dark." Of course, that didn't stop them from writing. The state of the debate was pretty well summed up by Aristotle, who says that Pythagoras proscribed fava beans "either because they have the shape of testicles, or because they resemble the gates of hell, for they alone have no hinges, or again because they spoil, or because they resemble the nature of the universe, or because of oligarchy, for they are used for drawing lots." And if you can't find something there you like, there's more. Diogenes proposed that the Pythagoreans rejected favas because they cause thought-disturbing flatulence, saying, "One should abstain from fava beans, since they are full of wind and take part in the soul, and if one abstains from them one's stomach will be less noisy and one's dreams will be less oppressive and calmer." Despite this injunction, it should be noted that fava beans are lower in indigestible sugars--and in fiber--than many other beans. It's just that until the discovery of the Americas, they were the sole representative of beandom in Europe. The later sect known as the Orphics believed that Pythagoras had forbidden the eating of favas because they contain the souls of the dead. "Eating fava beans and gnawing on the heads of one's parents are one and the same," went one of their sayings. Since the Renaissance, scholars have proposed even more solutions. "Humanistic scholarship, with free association as its main guide, has offered explanations that range from the mildly ridiculous to the extremely ridiculous," wrote Robert Brumbaugh and Jessica Schwartz in a 1980 issue of the journal Classical World. Be that as it may, the modern explanation is even more interesting. Around the turn of the century, physicians began to recognize that after eating fresh fava beans, some people began to suffer a sudden illness that, in some cases, led rapidly to death. The cause seems obvious today, but remember that it wasn't until 1904 that Clemens von Pirquet came up with the medical definition for allergies. Before that, it was difficult for scientists to get a handle on the concept that what might be fine for one person might be poison for another. When scientists began to investigate favism, they found a genetically transmitted deficiency in a certain blood enzyme--glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (called, for obvious reasons, G6PD). In about 20% of the people with this deficiency, eating fresh fava beans can trigger a severe hemolytic anemia. Sufferers exhibit symptoms of jaundice and anemia and excrete blood in their urine. Even today, death follows for almost 10% of those who suffer this reaction, usually within a matter of days. The condition is most common in males, by a ratio of almost 3 to 1. Only women who carry the gene from both sides of the family are susceptible. And it is most severe among infants and children; the poison can be passed in mother's milk. We now know that there are three distinct genetic strains of G6PD deficiency. One is centered in the Greek plains, Southern Italy and the islands of the Aegean. That's precisely the area controlled by the ancient Greeks. Crotona, where Pythagoras had his settlement in the modern-day state of Calabria, is one such concentration. Another genetic type is centered in the Mediterranean coast of Africa, particularly Egypt and Morocco. The third is in Central Asia, extending into China--which is perplexing, because the fava bean has no long history there. However, one incident of favism reported in Southern California involved a young Chinese boy who had eaten yewdow--a snack food made from fried and salted fava beans. Although the initial medical question was answered, a more interesting evolutionary issue had been raised: Why would people continue to consume fava beans in an area where a relatively high percentage of them would get sick from eating them? Logically, one would assume that either people would stop eating fava beans or--deprived of a prime foodstuff--people carrying the genetic trait would eventually die off. Yet after more than 3,000 years of fava-eating, neither has happened. A possible explanation began to appear in the 1920s, when scientists found that G6PD deficiency is actually a defense against malaria, historically a major health problem in Greece and Southern Italy. It occurred so often that it was accepted almost as a matter of course (much as we live with the flu). As recently as 1943, 100,000 cases of malaria were reported in one year on the island of Sardinia. The G6PD deficiency, scientists found, helps defend against malaria parasites by reducing the amount of oxygen in red blood cells. Things became even more interesting during World War II, when doctors treating malaria with quinine-based drugs noticed that many people with favism reacted to the medicine in the same way they did to eating fava beans. On further investigation, scientists found that fava beans contain several chemical compounds that resemble those found in quinine-based drugs. After decades of research, in the last few years they have proven that fava beans themselves also fight malaria, and in much the same way as G6PD deficiency: by reducing the amount of oxygen in the blood. Thus, it is now theorized that what keeps the scales in balance in this evolutionary standoff is that when fava beans are consumed by people with G6PD deficiency who don't suffer from favism (the vast majority, remember), the resistance to malaria is raised even further. Therefore, even if favas are dangerous to a certain percentage of people, their benefits to the remainder of the population far outweigh their shortcomings. Is this the secret behind Pythagoras' puzzle? It's hard to say, 26 centuries later. One thing's for certain: He's not talking.

i'm not sure that cannellini beans are actually old world. i think it's just chickpeas and favas. as far as i know, everything else is post-columbian. and if you children are good, someday uncle russ will tell you a story about fava beans and the evolutionary imperative!