John Thorne

This is somewhat outside my range of experience. It's been awhile since I moved to a place where the foodways were unfamiliar to me. Obviously, the resources available will depend largely on the interest locals have in their own foods. As it happens, I know someone in Delaware who comes from a family who has been there since the Revolutionary War and has spent his life immersed in this subject. Unfortunately, he is old and grumpy and would never speak to me again if I told you his name, but his existence should encourage you to chat up crotchety oldsters, especially those living in ramshackle old houses with big gardens. Mostly, though, I would think there would be food-intensive bulletin boards online that could get you some tips. Good luck!

I do a lot of reading in a lot of areas that have nothing to do with food. (Readers who are curious will find some reviews of the books that have recently been on my bedside table at my website.) For example, a chance remark by Indira Gandhi to Bruce Chatwin was the take-off point for my essay "Kichri / Kushari / Kedgeree"; a comment by Jean-Paul Sartre about a visit to a Naples pizzeria helped bring about "Existential Pizza." When I get a bone between my teeth, my most fruitful source of research is interlibrary loan or book searches (plus purchases) via www.abebooks.com. Laying your hands on hard-to-find books is one of the great unsung aspects of the Internet. What used to take half a year, if it could be done at all, now takes place in minutes. The Internet is, however, better at breadth than depth. I do find things of interest there but more often than not just run aground. And it is absolutely amazing how the same recipe can be replicated endlessly; very frustrating to someone looking for variations on a theme. Some projects require little or no research, others require an amazing amount. One that I'm at work at right now has brought me to buy a stack of books, many of them over a hundred years old. But that's another story.

What you say is true. But I'm not making a study of food writing, I'm doing it, and my way of doing it is to go my own way. In a way, you sound like my editor at North Point, who is always urging me to write a book (instead of just assembling one). I don't know what she imagines when she says this -- something that will sell, I suppose -- but it certainly isn't a book length version of "Cod and Potatoes" or "Desperately Resisting Risotto," to name two of my essays that I shudder to think of being expanded into 250 pages. If you haven't, I recommend you read my essay, published in POT ON THE FIRE, called "Knowing Nothing About Wine." The subtitle isn't "and loving it," as you might expect -- on the contrary. It's about the complicated ways of palate and personality. There's a reason why I'm an essayist and not a book writer; just as there's a reason I write from the isolation of my study instead of tromping off on excursions to Parisian pastry makers. There are plenty of others who can carry that ball, and I truly wish them the joy of it. But it's not me.

You'll find the answer to that in the topic "Paper Bag Method of Cooking Pasta: Please Explain".

The thread of association that connected cooking pasta in a paper bag and chicken in a bladder is that the idea is the same: put the food in the way of absorbing maximum flavor with minimum dilution. By removing the pasta from the cooking water and enclosing it in a bag (actually, the same cooking bags used to cook the chicken are preferable to paper bags these days, which contain God knows what), you finish cooking it in a flavor-intensive, moist atmosphere. In other words, the flavor not only coats the pasta, it penetrates it. That's the idea, anyway.

As far as Italian cooking is concerned, I am constantly tempted to riff from Arthur Schwartz's generous and wise NAPLES AT TABLE. There are others; if I think of them I'll add them. However, if you're wondering about my thoughts about other books, current and classic, you might download the issue of Simple Cooking made available to eGullet participants, which is, at Jonathan Day's request, one of the food book review issues. And you will find literally hundreds of cookbook reviews at my website: for the good, bad, and ugly.

You can read about the method here: http://www.outlawcook.com/Page0222.html The second part of your question is impossible to answer, at least for me. These days, the word traditional seems more of a form of lament than anything else.

Thanks for saying that. I might do it but it's not really ready for prime time. And, believe me, it's not in the same league as "Cuisine Mecanique." But I'll think about unearthing it.

Another hard question to answer. Once I've written an essay it's very hard to get back to the start of it, especially one like "Potatoes and Point," which had such a powerful effect on me when I was writing it...as did, in another way, "Cornbread Nation," in SERIOUS PIG and (obviously) the essay I wrote about the death of my father, "Last Gleaning." In the case of "Potatoes and Point," the focal point became the narratives of an American woman, Arsenath Nicholson, who wrote a first person account of the famine that is one most affecting and amazing books I've ever read. But when did I come across it? Not, I think, before I began the project (although I was incredibly lucky to stumble across the book -- it's not easy to find). And it blocks out what came before. So.... I wrote one essay in response to the famous painting by Van Gogh of his bedroom and I've always wanted to write an essay to be called Cezanne's Apple about whether it would be possible for a cook to look at an apple the same way he did. I have a stack of books on Elvis Presley because I've always been fascinated by his appetite, which was so powerful and feral. And there's another stack of books waiting in case I can ever gear up to answer the question "Why do men cook?" (I actually know the answer to the question, because it came to me in sort of aural hallucination, as if from God: "To tell their mothers something." But what something? Will I ever know? Probably not while my own mother is still alive, and the way she's going she may well outlive me.

Hmm. Is this a loaded question, or what? For the record, let me note that I've printed stinging reviews of just as many male food writers, including (most recently) Christopher Kimball and Clifford Wright. However, to try to answer your question: both the essay about Martha Stewart and the one about Paula Wolfert touched a nerve and it wasn't all that surprising to hear from readers who felt that someone had at last put into words what they actually thought...or realized they thought once they read the piece. The interesting thing to me was that Martha Stewart wrote me a letter in reply whereas Paula Wolfert never spoke or wrote to me again, but I found myself being publically chastised (most memorably by Jeffrey Steingarten in Vogue but by others as well) for treating a public treasure so roughly. The only explanation anyone could come up with was that I must be jealous of her. This accusation still makes no sense to me. Jealous of what? It's like a dog being jealous of a cat. So, you're comment about getting the most attention is more of a two-edged blade than you may realize. Roland Barthes' MYTHOLOGIES had a profound influence on me -- I'm truly delighted that you have observed the connection, as tenuous as it is. (Here it is like comparing steel to tin.)

First of all, just to show how memory fades, I lived one block further east in both instances than I originally wrote above: on East 11th between A and B and on East 9th between Avenue A and First Avenue. Among my memories of the area are the Two Guys From Brooklyn vegetable and fruit store on First Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets, with vegetables spilling out to the curb. Beside it was one of the old indoor pushcart markets which was fading even in 1962. Always half empty. There was also a butter and egg store where the butter was cut from a huge chunk (10 pounds, 25 pounds -- I know an order of a pound hardly made a dent into it). There was also a "used bread store" around the corner that sold day old bread and pastries, including slices of cake. They sold a "Boston brown bread" that was really a black pumpernickel rye loaf that was one of the best breads I ever ate and could never find again. And Polish butchers selling smoked kielbasa that was really SMOKED. So good. I couldn't afford to eat in many restaurants. Also an Italian pastry shop that was still there last time I visited. And Kossar's bialies on 14th Street near a place that sold deep-fried potato knishes. Anyway, no need to apologize. And, finally, yes, I currently have contracts for three tomes, but don't hold your breath.....

In a somewhat related theme, using the paper-bag method of cooking pasta brings out the aroma and flavor of white truffle oil in a spectacular way.

Yes, I lived on East 11th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A and on 9th Street between First and Second Avenue back in the early 1960s. I've written about this experience at some length in my book OUTLAW COOK (there's also another perspective on it in HOME BODY in the essay "The Fire Escape"). I don't know why this is, but once I wrote about it, I found my experiences there falling out of memory, although if I think about it hard enough I can bring some of it back. When you say "share my memories" I realize with a pang that it is getting to the point now where that would be like me asking my grandfather in 1950 to tell me about Boston back in 1900, when he worked as a bank clerk. I think the 2nd Avenue Deli had been open for just two years when I lived there.... I did take Matt to see where I had lived in 1996 or so. I felt like a ghost. Not because it was so different but because it was so much the same, only without me. This probably isn't the response that you're looking for, but it's hard to know what memories are interesting, which are irrelevant, and which simply wouldn't be believed. For example, it used to be a common experience to walk by store-front pizza joints and watch the pizza dough being sput into the air again and again to shape it. Is this still an ordinary sight? Do apartments there still have a row of toilets (one for each apartment on the floor) in a row? Do the hallways still smell of boiled cabbage. Etc.

This question refers to my writing about my adventures poaching chicken, beef, and lamb (mostly) in Reynolds cooking bags, using these as a substitute for the traditional bladder. This allows you to poach meat without worrying about cooking it dry, and so permits you to add little or no liquid if you wish. You put the meat in the bag, tie it, and put it into a pot with water raised to a bare simmer, and leave it there for three (chicken) or four (beef short ribs) hours. The result is very tender meat surrounded by very flavorful juices, with the scum that you would usually skim away adhering to the sides of the bag. My pursuits of this nature have more or less come to an end with the disappearance of the small-size Reynolds cooking bag from my supermarket shelves. (I think the small one are actually called "medium" size.) Obviously, the large size ones can be used but they're much too big and cost too much. I've tried using the microwave-ready food storage bags with some success, but essentially this is something I don't do nearly as much as I used to. I'm not sure this answers your question: if not, prod me some more.

A difficult question to answer. Well, in one way, not difficult: yes, the ability to reach readers over the Internet (plus, I should add, the concommitant ability to process credit card charges) has been a terrific boon for us, because for over a decade now food letters have been relegated to the status of no-interest so far as newspapers and food magazines are concerned. In fact, on the whole, I would say that food writing as an art and not a device for captioning photographs has lost considerable ground since I began writing, and especially as television has gained such an audience for food shows. One of the great things about the Internet -- as it currently is constituted -- is that is a surprisingly print-oriented medium and also, obviously, friendly to self-publication. One way of looking at Simple Cooking, I suppose, is as a blog before its time. Also, the ease of e-mail makes it easier for readers to be in touch, although we have always gotten a lot of mail. Whether that aspect of things has actually increased, though, I don't know. There's only so much you can say to people you don't know, no matter how much you admire their work. This fact has always stymied my responding to questions about which famous people I'd like to invite to dinner. "Gee, you've written some really neat poems, Mr. Keats." Silence. Generally, a majority of communications are of the "where is my issue?" sort, with "do you have a recipe for...." following in close pursuit.

John, good Lord, I devoted an entire essay to restaurants called "How Restaurants Mean" -- is there anything more to be said about them? (I also wrote an essay about restaurant menus but never could get anyone to publish it -- and it seemed too esoteric for Simple Cooking. So it languishes somewhere in a drawer.) This may seem to be a drollery rather than an answer, but it is one: I simply cannot write as a restaurant reviewer. A restaurant meal is just too far removed from Mr. Onion, Ms. Potato and the usual gang I hang around with. I did once propose to Gourmet that they send me to Paris (the theme being aged food writer visits there for the first time since he was a teen -- and then more interested in Jean-Paul Sartre than Simon Arbellot. But they said they had already signed up Jane and Michael Stern for that gig. And, besides, I would have had to have bought some decent clothes.) What would have come of that I simply can't imagine.... Well, what the editors of Gourmet would have gotten from it is what I can't imagine -- I'm sure it would have been quite educational for me. And I could have met you somewhere!

Well, my first choice for a livelihood was to be independently wealthy, but I never managed to pull that off. Writing about food, at least as I do it, is about the next best thing -- you get everything but the money. I hang around at home, read books, think, and eat. I suppose the writing itself could be considered work, but only if you've never had to go out and get a job. It requires effort and practice and some beating of the brain, but nobody's looking over your shoulder. I feel the closest to being at work when I do a freelance piece -- all that nagging: how do you know that? what do you mean by this? aren't you done yet? If you stop and think about it, almost nobody gets to survive in this modern world on these terms. Why this is about food is another part of the equation. One of things you have to understand about me is that I really am a natural home body and the activities that are attendant to that loom large for me. The only nonfood book I've written is called HOME BODY and is a collection of essays about parts of the house: door knobs, floors, bathtubs, electric lights, etc. I find the simplest of dishes awash with meaning and take great pleasure teasing it out. I once devoted a whole issue of Simple Cooking to toast, and I've had to restrain myself from devoting another one to the pleasures of a glass of water. Maybe for my last bow.

Jeeze, this is my first reply and I've just discovered all these emoticons! Scary! But to get to the question -- it must be a matter of temperament but I've never been interested in haute cuisine, either as a cook or as an eater. For instance, I've been to very few (almost no) high-end restaurants in my life and I don't feel a twinge of regret, whereas I do often feel a wish that I could spend a busman's holiday as one of Jim Leff's tastebuds. The same is true of my cooking: I could count on one hand the number of haute dishes I've made, and even those I'm not sure as to how "haute" they actually were. One that comes to mind is a dish that I made following Julia Child's instructions. You boned a chicken leaving the carcass intact and then stuffed it with some sort of pistachio-studded pate... Haute cuisine? or haute vulgare? Dunno. What I do know is that by the time I had finished it I had left myself behind somewhere with the chicken scraps.