MarketStEl

Bad enough my pockets are empty. Now I have to read this. And wait a whole year for the next such opportunity.

Frankly, I thought that the quality of meats in the now-closed Planet Hoagie across the street, which used Hatfield meats, was better than that at the Pac a Deli--though the Pac a Deli's hoagies are certainly good enough. Agreed, BTW, on the degree of distinction between D&W and Boar's Head. To paraphrase their ads from the 1990s, their ham is worth the bread. So is their turkey, and their chicken, and everything else.

Back on my blog, I had made a passing reference to a threat to our way of eating that I wanted to address. I'm finally getting around to addressing it. We all know that, with very few exceptions, the best sandwich shops in town use Dietz & Watson cold cuts for their hoagies. D&W is a high-quality, hometown provisioner, in business since 1939. (Hmmmm. The same year the DiBruno brothers started selling cheese. Coincidence?) And when Philly-area shoppers want something better at their supermarket deli counter, it's usually Dietz & Watson that they ask for. (That also applies to ShopRite customers, for D&W makes the chain's "Black Bear" premium deli line.) At many smaller shops, like my local convenience store, there's no chance of getting an inferior product: But in my meanderings around the city, I've noticed an alien presence cropping up in more and more places. It's invaded Harry Ochs' deli case at the Reading Terminal Market, for instance: I've also spotted it at Old Nelson Food Co. But I got alarmed when I stopped by the Super Fresh, and not only had it moved into the space where the Dietz & Watson meats had been in their deli counter: but they even boasted about the body-snatching! It appears that the century-old Brooklyn provisioner is expanding nationally in a big way, recruiting distributors in cities across the country. I can remember when only a very few places (coughDiBruno'scough) down here carried Boar's Head products--and when they disappeared from DiBruno's, I was told that it was because the company wanted exclusivity wherever its products were sold. I guess they aren't as fastidious about that any more, since they share shelf space with the A&P store brand and a bunch of lesser lights in the deli cases of more than 70 Super Fresh stores--and they are right alongside Dietz & Watson at the five--soon to be six--Freshgrocer locations (the chain will build a new supermarket near 19th and Olney in partnership with La Salle University. And they may add a seventh location, as I've heard rumors that they will become the anchor supermarket in Progress Plaza, the historic strip mall just south of the Temple campus, which lost its anchor tenant when Super Fresh closed its store a few years back). I'm tempted to mount a campaign urging all good Philadelphians to rise up and oppose this latest effort to annex us to New York, except there's one small problem: I've bought Boar's Head meats, and they just taste better. Start hanging the black crepe, folks. We've just taken a giant step towards sixth-borough-hood.

What is a restaurant in Iowa doing calling Kansas City strips "New York strips"?

Never having worked in a kitchen with an island--the kitchens I've used that are big enough to accommodate one, including the 1964 Home Show special that replaced the rear sun porch off our old kitchen in the house I grew up in in Kansas City, usually had the kitchen table where the island would go--my question is: Why is an island so important? Is it the subliminal effect of watching all those TV cooking shows where the cook/instructor works from one in no small part because it allows the rest of the kitchen to be the stage set? Is it because people don't like to work facing walls? Something else?

Approaching Lady T's non-conundrum from another angle: I believe that if you search far enough back on this site, you may find a post in which I referred to myself as a "democratic elitist." By which I mean that I believe some things are better than others, but the standard is not necessarily tied to some arbitrary factor like price or social class. In the context of what other posters have said here: The relationship between price and quality is nonlinear. Depending on what it is you seek, you may find that the best quality item may actually cost less than other items in its class.

A simple test which, if you can pass it, should set those strangers right. I'm going to act like an economist to set up the question: Assume two foodstuffs of identical quality that could be used interchangeably as an ingredient in a dish. One of them is a private-label product priced below most nationally advertised brands and available at an ordinary supermarket. The other is produced by a manufacturer whose brand has a fashionable cachet and hence carries with it a price premium. Which product do you buy?

Well, since this is a major undertaking, I guess we shouldn't wait too long between forays, but May doesn't look good for me right now, so perhaps we should shoot for a June Saturday or Sunday. June 10 is a no-go for me--I have a PGMC performance that evening (maybe I'll see some of you in the audience?). Otherwise, the month's pretty wide open right now. I'll entertain suggestions for a date in June and enter my own personal preference for the 24th or 25th. As for itinerary, we could start with the South Philly place we left off of our first trip, Celebre's, which is a four-time winner, then add another South Philly place (will have to check to see which of Cacia's, Joe-Joe's or Russo's is still in business)--or stop by Bitar's ("best weird pizza," 1979). Hey, an excuse to pick up lahmejune if they have it in stock! Or should we focus on another part of the area (Northeast, 'burbs, Center City...) and return to South Philly later? What say you all?

Anne: Thank you for alerting me to this informative, well-written post. I urge others who have not read it to do so. ← Jamie is an excellent writer and very witty (oops, wasn't supposed to reveal the existence of this mutual admiration society ...), but one sentence in the essay leaped out at me: I think that some time way, way back when, back when Chicago's foie gras ban was just a crazy idea in the fevered brain of some alderman, I posited that much of this activism is actually an expression of class envy or a protest against Gilded Age-like excess, said excess being in abundant supply of late. There are so many conflicting currents in this whole affair that I have a hard time sorting them all out. There is the class resentment angle just mentioned. There is the real issue of humane treatment of animals, for after reading Jamie's post, I too would think twice before ordering foie--and his post demonstrated that there are ways of producing foie that are more respectful of the animals who will be sacrificed for it. There is the slippery-slope argument ("When they came for the foie gras, I did not speak up, for I ate no foie. When they came for the lobster, I did not speak up, for I ate no lobster. When they came for the veal, I did not speak up, for I ate no veal. But when they came for my shoes, there was no one left to speak up for me"). I too believe that this will not work out in practice because the number of people who enjoy cheap chicken and eggs as the result of inhumane practices is far, far greater than the number who enjoy veal or foie thereby. But that doesn't mean that the slope is not there. And there's hypocrisy enough for all of us to feast on the stuff for the rest of the year. Maybe we should just let everyone be and come up with some sort of certification process whereby the buyer is assured that the foie he is about to consume was produced in as humane a manner as possible.

Wow - that's fascinating! If you don't mind revealing your age, how long ago was that? ← That was in the late 1970s (I'm Class of 1980). And it really was horsemeat! I had the opportunity to dine at the Faculty Club with a professor not long afterward and ordered some just to see. Can't say the taste was particularly memorable; however, it most emphatically did not "taste like chicken" -- or like beef (as bison does), for that matter.

This actually ventures into territory covered by Miss Manners herself in one of her columns in the 1980s, reprinted in her first collection, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior." The exchange went more or less like this: Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to eat a potato chip? Gentle Reader: With a knife and fork. A fruit knife and an oyster fork, to be specific. Good Lord, Miss Manners understands the need to educate people in the finer points of etiquette, but anyone who doesn't have the common sense to grab a handful of potato chips and stuff them in their mouths is beyond her help. Edited to add: Then again, Holly, you did say you were eating at Fork, right? Maybe your fellow diners thought that was an instruction on how to eat everything the place serves?

I sense a migraine coming on. Could we please pay some attention to (in no particular order) world hunger, homelessness, lack of access to clean water for billions of people, pollution, education, genocide, cancer, AIDS, etc., first? Argh. ← Or, for that matter, the wage and business privilege taxes? It's not like anyone's lacking for legislation to champion at Broad and Market.

Leave it to Mario. That beautifully captures what RR's up to. Heh, he said heap. ← And there is a place for that sort of thing in this world. As I'm sure several people have said in RR's defense already, if Rachel Ray has gently guided an open-the-box-and-add-water cook into the world of working with real food through her shows, she has done the world a service.

It is impossible to put too much cheese on a salad. Or on anything else that goes with cheese, for that matter. Interesting to see this thread revived after about a nine-month hiatus. It looks like about the only thing that's constant about this restaurant is that the quality and flavor of the food will vary from visit to visit. That's more suggestive to me of a home 'cuer than a bunch of professionals, but then again, I got the sense from the one visit I've made so far that this place was opened by a bunch of people who just plain love barbecue. I'm willing to cut them some slack for that alone.

Glad I'm still able to post a note before the blog closes! Thanks for sharing some wonderful meals with us and giving us a glimpse of Amsterdam. Now I'm going to have to check out your Dutch Cooking guide at last. Even if I can't date the guy who makes the stroopwafels, I definitely want to visit now. Be well, and see you 'round on the boards. Regards, Sandy

actually, no, a very cheap German brand (75 eurocents for 200 gram ) Sorry Sandy ← Oh, no need to apologize to me! I confess that I buy the store brand often. I try to stock up on "Philly" when one of my supermarkets has it on sale, as I prefer its taste, but I'm not that particular on the whole. I'm very price-conscious, as my blog should have made clear.

"Philadelphia," I presume?

Congratulations on delurking, and welcome to eGullet! History, trivia and recipes--what's not to like about your blog? I think you will find a lot of amateurs in the original sense of the word (those who do things for the sheer love of it) here, along with more than a few professionals (at what, I will leave for you to divine). Hope to see you in other conversations as your time allows.

The sale of horsemeat as a human food is banned, apparently for this reason, although it's OK to sell for pet food. ← I'm not certain that all 50 states ban horsemeat. When I was an undergraduate at Harvard, there was a brief news item in The Harvard Independent (for which I wrote for a couple of years) on the fact that the Faculty Club still had horse steak on its menu. As I recall, it had been added during World War II in response to rationing of meat, and remained on the menu from that point on.

It's cloning, I tell ya. That dinner looked fabulous--I was about to ask if that bread was your own until I re-read the post--but my own experience tells me that your friends will have a good time even if you mess up a part of the meal. This has been a load of fun to follow, and I definitely hope to visit Amsterdam someday. BTW, how much beer did you consume on Queensday? And how much stuff did you sell?

I have met a few Netherlanders (in Pennsylvania, "Dutch" is a reserved word describing another ethnic group), and every one I've met so far spoke excellent English. Judging from this display, Dutch-English bilingualism must be widespread in the Netherlands. Is it?

Actually, each of you have a piece of the process. Amendments to the United States Constitution must be approved by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, then ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. (Edited to add: The other way to amend the Constitution is for legislatures in two-thirds of the states to call for a convention for the purpose of considering amendments; any amendments approved by the convention must still be ratified by legislatures or by state conventions in three-fourths of the states--Congress has the power to specify which method will be used. The convention route is considered the "nuclear option" by most in the political class--after all, it was a convention called for the purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation that then scrapped the document entirely and replaced it with the Constitution we have now.) IOW, the moralistic sentiment against alcohol consumption was not just strong in the US in the first decades of this century (the 18th Amendment was implemented with the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919), it was overwhelming. Public disgust with displays of excess on the part of the rich isn't that high right now; besides, between the ongoing Enron trial and the stratospheric price of gas, the public has better targets for its anger over greed than a bunch of stuffed geese. But I agree with the person who drew the parallel to the Roaring Twenties: all this could get ugly if a few things go sour. And where the alcohol analogy breaks down here is in this: Most Americans either drank or knew someone who did. The widespread flouting of the law triggered by Prohibition eventually convinced most of those Americans that an outright ban was not the way to address the problems caused by alcohol consumption. Most Americans know very little about foie gras except that it's a delicacy and it's awfully expensive. Now, thanks to PETA, they know that it's made by rapidly and --yes--unnaturally porking up geese and ducks. Combine these two facts with the third fact that many Americans know nobody who's eaten any, and it's far easier to convince them that this practice ought to be stopped. The widespread flouting of the law triggered by the Chicago foie gras ban will likely be treated somewhat comically by unconcerned observers, like the approach reflected in the Chicago Tribune's headline on its story about the ban.

Perhaps they should emulate their brethren geese, who opened their own chain of convenience stores? And what happens when the Fat Police keep us from eating these? Guess that grease fire in Wisconsin will go national.

Kevin: You've made some striking points here and we all should take them seriously. I too must venture over to NJ to pick up readily available favorites not offered here. I do think, however, that those of us who have lived in PA for over 20, heck even 5 years can attest to the obvious changes instituted by Mr. Newman and some other key people with less recognition (Deidre, are you listening?!) I think besides the Chairmans program and many other non CS buys, the level of employee education and yes, motivation by local lcb stores (at least specialty stores) has been nothing short of incredulous. It wasn't all that long ago that my experience in the Newtown store was reduced to "if it's not on the shelf, we don't have it". I think anyone who shops there now will agree- complete turnaround for the better. To your point, is there more work to do, clearly there is and Jonathan would be the first to tell you this, in fact he told me just that during the RX Chairmans diner last year. One must walk before one runs is my perspective. Anyway, I just ordered 2 cases of the elusive Kaiken Malbec this morning from Harrisburg due to arrive in Newtown next Monday! I won't be reselling any of them. Even with shipping and tax it still comes out to around $9.00 bucks a bottle! ← I'm going to chime in here just to underscore a point I occasionally try to make by calling everyone's attention to New Hampshire. The question "Why is the state in the business of selling booze anyway?" is a legitimate one, and a good case can be made that it should not be. But the defects of the old State Store system were not ipso facto due to state ownership and control as much as they were due to the philosophy underlying the system's operation. In my recently concluded blog, I quoted Steve Lopez's marvelous quote that summed up the old State Store philosophy: "This is horrible stuff. Here, let us sell you some." Historically, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has emphasized the control in its name. It was set up after the end of Prohibition to keep the flow of alcohol through the Commonwealth as restricted as possible. The New Hampshire Liquor Commission (note the absence of the word "control" from its name), on the other hand, has always operated to maximize reveune for the state by selling as much of the stuff as possible, preferably to as many Bay Staters as are willing to drive up to buy it. They also make it very easy for other visitors to grab bottles by putting liquor stores on the turnpikes where one would ordinarily find gas stations and restaurants. Now, I'm not suggesting that the PLCB take over the service plazas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but it is clear that under Newman, the agency has moved a lot closer to New Hampshire's operating philosophy. And it has done so without forcing booze down the throats of Pennsylvanians who'd rather not have much of it--note that almost all of the Premium Collection stores are in the urbanized parts of the state. (Centre County being home to State College, it counts as "urbanized" for purposes of this argument. And even if you won't allow that, the statement still holds.) More could be done, true, but much has been done already, all of it for the good, and it didn't require the state getting out of the liquor business, either. Now if we could just rewrite those laws about beer sales...

Skip all of this and go for the charcoal grills. Never mind the BTUs -- it's about the flavor. And even the best gas grills can't give you the flavor that charcoal grilling does.