MarketStEl

Buenos dias, Sr. Adria: I am glad that the "French hegemony" over Western culinary standards has been dissolved and that as a result, anyone can now experiment with influences from many world cultures. Though this does beg the question of whether people in those other cultures are doing the same thing with their indigenous cuisines. This freedom to experiment, it seems to me, is, like so many other things (materialism, some mental health problems), a byproduct of affluence, which is why I think this question is worth exploring. However, that is not the question I want to ask of you. As a rank amateur when it comes to cooking, and a rank amateur with modest means at his disposal, I wonder whether you believe it possible to achieve "ideal" culinary experiences without the extensive experimentation/invention/design work involved in the creation of meals at establishments such as yours. There is a discussion along these lines already taking place in the General Food Topics section of eGullet; I would like to hear your opinion on the question.

Reading through this topic, I get the idea that New York's wholesale fishmongers are actually a bit behind the curve. There was a time when wholesale and retail food distribution were more closely connected in US cities, both physically and financially, but that time was quite a while ago. The rise of the supermarket severed the tie most dramatically. Ever since then, the wholesale and retail functions have been handled largely by different people, though in cities with strong public food markets such as Seattle, Baltimore and Philadelphia, there is still some overlap. But because the two are largely separate, there has for some time been no really good reason for the wholesale food distribution function to be located in the middle of a dense urban district, where circulation is more difficult. And in most cities, food wholesalers have largely moved to more peripheral locations, just as Philadelphia's main wholesale food market relocated from Dock Street near the Central Philadelphia waterfront to a huge warehouse facility near the South Philadelphia port terminal in 1957. (The latter location was more easily accessible to truck traffic, thanks to the wide Delaware Avenue thoroughfare and the just-completed Walt Whitman Bridge.) Even New York's meat and produce wholesalers had abandoned Manhattan by the mid-1960s, moving to the very part of the Bronx that the FFM will now call home. There will of course be a sense of loss attached to this move, as there is whenever a longstanding institution meets its demise. But from the standpoint of the average food shopper or city dweller, this move should have no effect. Well, maybe there might be some extra-economic effect in Manhattan, which does not have the strong public market tradition of the other old East Coast cities (Boston's Haymarket survives in vestigial form as a retail food market even though it too no longer serves much of a wholesale function; Quincy Market, however, bears almost no trace of its original purpose, sad to say); the removal of the FFM means there is even less of a connection between the food Manhattanites eat and the people who grow or catch it. --Sandy "thank God for the Reading Terminal Market" Smith

There is a local restaurant, The Venture Inn, that serves a fantastic blue cheese dressing--so thick it's almost spreadable, with huge hunks of a fairly tangy blue cheese. Within the past year, they've upgraded their salad to the point where it's worthy of the dressing--iceberg out, looseleaf/spring mix in. On to the cheese itself: I like both Saga and Maytag for making blue cheese dip (when I was a little kid, Kraft used to have a prepackaged blue cheese dip; I've not seen this dip since, so I make my own when I feel like some). I also recently had a French blue whose name I forget; it was a raw milk cheese and extremely salty. Put me down as a Shropshire fan also, and there's not a macaroni and cheese recipe extant that can't be improved by about half a pound of Gorgonzola.

We used to. Nabisco = acronym for NAtional BIScuit COmpany. Its best-selling product at the turn of the last century was the "Uneeda Biscuit." Nabisco's chief rival for most of the century was Sunshine Biscuits, renamed from Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company for the name of its most popular product. (Edited to add: Sunshine Biscuits--whose best-known product today is Cheez-It crackers--is now a subsidiary of the Keebler Company, whose products are baked by elves in magic ovens. ) I believe Nabisco still makes Uneeda Biscuits, but you don't see them too many places these days. More commonly found are Triscuits, those shredded wheat crackers that are great topped with cheese and nuked. Judging from the evidence, though, a US "biscuit" was what we now call a cracker. Which, by the way, is a food-related insult term for a redneck. (A redneck -- the term derives from a common skin characteristic of the people so called, which in turn comes from all the hours they spend outside, either working on their farms or on their cars and trucks -- is a working-class white person, also usually male and of Southern US origin. The term carries with it the pejorative connotation of being prejudiced and/or ignorant.)

I thought I was the only one who eats the lettuce and tomato separate from the burger when it arrives--assuming it arrives open-faced, with the lettuce and tomato on the top half of the bun. Does anyone else ever eat their French fries with ketchup and mustard mixed together? I enjoy that on occasion.

Not that this is exactly germane to the topic, but it just hit me: Is there such a thing as chewy granola?

Ah, I don't go to Costco. I was thinking prices at Safeway or the local butcher/ neighborhood store. ← Whoever said California was expensive is right, I guess. I don't need to go to a wholesale club to get that price. Several poultry shops in the Italian Market in Philly routinely sell Allen's or Perdue whole roasters for that price or $0.89/lb. Even if you don't buy jarred sauce, spaghetti and meatballs usually comes in under $5 for four servings as well. Even with the Parmesan cheese (though you will need to use the domestic variety).

Actually, in the automotive world, "cream puff" is a compliment. A defective car, on the other hand, is also a lemon. And what about a convincing liar? We say that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. And if your work is not up to par, it can't cut the mustard. (So when was mustard ever solid enough to cut? Or mustard seeds large enough? Or were we talking about reducing its strength here?) Not to mention that someone who's just all-around lame is a turkey.

To not quote Walt Whitman: I embarrass myself? Very well then, I embarrass myself. Talk about embodying a definition!

This is exactly the kind of phenomena I am talking about. Misty eyed about the past full of pleasant moments in the kitchen and food as an integral part of your life, I see a fundamental inability to understand just exactly how the other half live. Theres this inability to comprehend how much apparently the Walmart masses care so little about food. And this vein has been running through the entire thread. Either posts sneering about "look, these poor fools, they buy Hamburger Helper! how stupid of them" or "Oh, these poor unfortunate people, they buy Hamburger Helper due to the evil corporations foisting it on them because they never learned how to cook real food. How unfortunate for them". Not anyplace in this thread or even much on the board has the sentiment "These people might know about good food, they might even know exactly how to make it. But, making a rational decision, they choose Hamburger Helper all by themselves because they have different priorities from most egulleteers and they are simply making the most rational choice given their particular priorities. In fact, a lot of this thread reminds me of the spate of political threads (not on this board) pre-election which were basically just a dumping ground for Democrats saying "Gee, these Republicans sure are dumb, they even think Saddam was linked with Osama, HaHa stupid republicans". No effort was made by either side to really connect or understand the other side and the shocked reaction of the Dems clearly highlighted just how out of touch they were with the political mainstream. I think, by forming such an insular community such as egullet, posters can similarly lose touch with the culinary reality and form a distorted world view of the culinary scene. Events happening in the world will seem inexplicable and bewildering from the foodie perspective and there is the tendancy to ascribe trite explainations to phenomena and then hold it as gospel, unable to be questioned. So far, in this thread, I've already heard the "It's the evil marketers" argument and the "It's because people are too poor" argument. I'm not neccesarily saying their wrong, but to be taken as inherently true without discussion or argument can be dangerous. ← I guess I need to come out of the culinary closet here. (I'm already out of that other one.) Yes, I know how to cook, and my friends say I do it well. (I can also do it badly when I'm distracted.) I like trying new foods, experimenting with ingredients, playing around with recipes and all that good stuff. I also can appreciate how much better the Lancaster County raw milk Cheddar I bought at the Reading Terminal Market last week tastes than the Cabot Vermont extra sharp I usually keep on hand for snacking or the America's Choice New York extra sharp I use in cooking. But I also have anywhere from three to five boxes of Hamburger, Tuna or Chicken Helper in my pantry at any given time. There are times when I too don't want to be bothered with too much prep work, and at those times, this product fits in well with my life. It's very simple to fix, it tastes good (my partner especially likes the Cheeseburger Macaroni), and it's inexpensive. Not to mention the packages of Oodles of Noodles that I keep on hand for whatever. (A friend of mine derides these noodles, saying, "Those are for poor people." Well, if college students on a budget are poor people, so be it, but many of them come from affluent families and I don't see them turning up their noses at ramen noodles. They are versatile, after all.) So--to quote Walt Whitman--"I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself." As do many more of us, I suspect.

<loud applause> Your observation brought to mind the cooking class I took in the 9th grade during mini-course period at my high school. It was an introduction to French cooking--the two dishes I remember making were Coquilles St. Jacques (there goes that regional variation stuff--scallops are the primary ingredient, and Kansas City is 1300 miles from the closest ocean (or do scallops grow in the Gulf of Mexico, a mere 600-odd miles away?)) and a dish that involved ground beef--and no, it wasn't Steak Tartare. Both were very easy to prepare, and I could do everything by myself at home (which I did later). Now, I attended the best private school in the city rather than a public school, so that may have made some difference. It probably would have also made a difference had I gone to the best public school in the city instead of the high school I would have attended based on geography.

So there's more than one Pho 75, then? The one I'm familiar with is at 1132 Washington Ave.

Maybe not in the abridged edition, but here's the entry in The American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition: gul-li-ble adj. Easily decieved or duped. [From GULL(2).] At GULL(2) we find the following definition: n. "A person who is easily tricked or cheated; a dupe." tr.v. To decieve or cheat. BTW, in the etymology for this sense of "gull", it also says "See GULLET."

Sort of reprising an argument over on the "Dumbing Down of the Westen Palate" topic. mongo_jones expressed the difference quite well in an earlier post. I happen to think that the $125 my partner and I spent on Sunday brunch at the Swann Lounge at the Four Seasons Philadelphia was an excellent value, and I have similar happy memories of the $160 dinner we had in the Fountain Restaurant there 15 years earlier. I can--and have--used those memories to suggest to anyone visiting Philadelphia that they absolutely should not miss a chance to dine at the Four Seasons if they have the time and money. But it's hard to let the general public know what a Refined/Cultured/Intelligent/Rich/... person you are by showing off your memories of a marvelous meal out. And to the extent that people spend money on expensive things as a way of communicating their social (or perhaps merely economic) status to friends and strangers, spending lots of money on something you can't display produces no real return.

This factoid goes right into my "rampant status anxiety among the middle class" file. Obviously, the very rich are (to quote a memorable ad slogan used by an off-price men's wear retailer that used to do business in Philadelphia) "secure enough to spend less." It's probably the folks making $75k to $175k who are buying all that Ralph Lauren merchandise. But bringing this back to food: So do these same households prefer Costco to Whole Foods Market?

Yes, Fatburger does kick ass. Wait--are you talking about a burger joint?

I hope you didn't hold that against El Paso--although if you are or were a lobster fan, I would consider this an argument against moving there. I assume the point you are trying to make here is not one that disparages remote cities or those in the interior for their relative lack of choice--with about 375,000 inhabitants, El Paso is hardly a small town; add the half million more in next-door neighbor Juarez and you've actually got a fairly sizable community. Keep in mind that it's quite a distance to those parts of the oceans where lobster is found from El Paso (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe lobsters are found in the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico or the southern Atlantic), so any live lobster that survives the 2000-odd mile trip from New England to West Texas would be a hardy creature indeed--and probably air-freighted there to boot, adding to its cost. I grew up in a larger interior city--Kansas City--and live lobsters were far from common there as well (though certainly more easily found, especially at restaurants, than in El Paso). They probably still aren't widespread, even with the likes of Dean and DeLuca doing business in its affluent suburbs. I thought that one of the arguments advocates of honest, good food make is that people need to rely on locally available ingredients, which means that there will be seasonal and regional variations in what is available. Your ability to find a live lobster in El Paso is actually a reflection of the opposite tendency, the same one that gives us gassed Florida or California tomatoes in the off-season anywhere in the country.

Oh my. Would you mind providing a bit more information? It looks as if I probably dreamed the Betty Crocker product, as I can find no information about it on the Betty Crocker web site. But Banquet Crock-Pot Classics definitely exist--they've been advertised on TV and are pictured on the Banquet web site. I'm not completely sure of this, but I believe that Crock-Pot Classics are like those frozen meals-in-a-bag that Birds Eye and Green Giant produce--all the ingredients you need are already in the bag, and all you have to do is dump it in the slow cooker, add liquid and turn it on. Or it may be more like the Helpers--everything you need but the meat is provided; all you do is prepare the meat (chop, brown, etc.), toss it in with the contents of the bag, add liquid and turn it on. I've actually tried one of those frozen meals-in-a-bag; I found the results lacking--the meat was mushy and the vegetables a tad soggy, quite unlike how frozen vegetables usually turn out. But--repeat after me--"they're (relatively) cheap and fast to make." I understand that ketchup was originally much thinner and not as sweet as the sauce we use today. I've seen old wooden Campbell's packing crates from the turn of the century which labeled the product as "Tabasco Ketchup." (No connection, as far as I know, to the Louisiana hot sauce--or the Mexican state which I presume gave the pepper sauce its name.)

I think the issue is a little more complex than presented here, but that your second hypothesis is probably closest to the mark as a general explanation. Like shelter and clothing, food is a basic necessity, but unlike with the other two, people do not seem as willing to spend significantly more for higher quality (or higher status) goods when it comes to filling their stomachs. This may be due to the transitory nature of food. Your house is a status symbol that remains on display permanently for anyone to view, and your fellow human beings can also spot your taste (or lack thereof) in fashion whenever you venture out in public. But who other than your family and maybe the guests you had over will know whether that was a Lancaster County heirloom tomato you had on your salad with dinner last night or an underripe Florida tomato that was gassed before shipping? Another factor that may contribute to the dumbing down of the Western, or at least the American, palate is found in the second part of your description of Kraft macaroni and cheese: "...and fast to make." The overwhelming majority of the products on our supermarket shelves--and the majority of the new products the major food processors roll out each year--are designed to save time over traditionally prepared dishes. One of the latest such examples is a new category that I actually find amusing--slow-cooker helpers (Banquet Crock-Pot Classics/Betty Crocker Slow Cooker Helper). Why is this amusing? Because the slow cooker is, in some ways, the ultimate convenience appliance. All you need to do for most slow cooker dishes is cut up the ingredients, toss them in the pot and add seasonings and liquid. Then you turn the thing on and leave for work. In most cases, the whole process--including browning meat if it's necessary--takes no more than 15 minutes. But apparently we don't even have that much time to stop and do a little work in the kitchen. It's emblematic, if you will, of a whole fast-food mindset. This way of thinking reduces food to its most basic function--fuel for the body--and strips it of most of its aesthetic, gustatory and social content. Why bother spending all that money on food that's at its base no different from a caloric standpoint than the cheaper stuff if all you want to do is get it down you quickly and go on with the rest of your life? If that's not what you feel like at the time, well then, that's what sit-down restaurants are for.

If I might ask, where were you born and raised?

I'm quite prejudiced on this one and will only note that she's up against some formidable competition. On the other had, looking at her photo, I'll accept that she's got Jeffrey's vote all sewn up. ← She will have to earn Ted Allen's vote based solely on the food, though.

I smell a group outing brewing. I'm definitely interested in participating. Whether I actually show up depends on date, time and funds. I'll bring a loaf of private label white. Probably America's Choice, or Richfood if I have to get it at the last minute.

Rosemont! That was the name of the place I was talking about earlier. The one with the vinegar-based (Carolina-style) sauce. That place is good. And not just good-for-Philly-'cue god.

Tony Luke's. I can't imagine anything more essentially Philly. Oh, wait--you wanted a full-blown, pull-out-all-the-stops, memorable, sit-down, full-dress dinner? I'd second Katie on the Four Seasons--all the other places on her list, I'm still waiting to try--and I'd add Susanna Foo to her list. I'd add Striped Bass too if it weren't for the fact that I ate there before it got Starred. I imagine, though, that it's still spectacular.

Actually, if Philadelphia can serve as any guide, the really good, passionate local merchants need not worry, assuming they are in a large enough city. While I understand that the merchants love to gripe about the rent structure, business at the Reading Terminal Market is as good as it's ever been, backed by a strong marketing campaign and an inviting Web site. As the ads on the back of the buses say, it is "Still the most super market in Philadelphia." And that is with Fresh Fields/Whole Foods Market as a competitor for more than a decade. The Italian Market does not benefit from the sort of coordinated marketing that the centrally managed RTM does, and I have noticed that the number of merchants and the extent of the market's core have shrunk (along with the population of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding it) over the past two decades. But--as I believe I have noted elsewhere--new immigrants have brought new life and a changing mix of businesses to the Italian Market, a sure sign of continued vitality. It also helps that the Italian Market has something of a corner on a niche market--that for large amounts of cheap produce, a category where WFM will never compete head-to-head. I think that two things are key: --An educated public that understands and appreciates the value of locally produced food, with all its seasonal variations, and --a rich local supply of fresh foods, such as can be found in the countryside of southeastern and south-central Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and lower Delaware. Denver is situated where the Wheat Belt meets the Rockies. If I'm not mistaken, most of the agriculture of eastern Colorado is geared towards producing staple grains--the climate is not that conducive to producing vegetables, and there are no significant bodies of water to speak of anywhere near the place. That, IMO, may account for the lack of a thriving farmers'/public market in Denver. Please correct me if my understanding of Colorado agriculture and climate is mistaken.