New Yorkan Cuisine

[aliénor]

i am coming down from the northern boondocks and will be visiting the met museum one morning. after that i would like to go to a decent japanese noodle restaurant and have a good and filling lunch. i will be wearing my walking shoes and am looking for a place in the walking vicinity. looking forward to some delicious suggestions.

[Jinmyo]

Egad. This has become a terrible thread.

[Elissa]

By the MEt: eAT

or i guess this means

Egad. This has become a terrible thread.

it's over..

Edited March 30, 2003 by lissome (log)

[Elissa]

If you want to eat Japanese food, go to Sugiyama or Sushi Yasuda.

what do you think of sushi on sunday?

[anil]

i am coming down from the northern boondocks and will be visiting the met museum one morning.  after that i would like to go to a decent japanese noodle restaurant and have a good and filling lunch.  i will be wearing my walking shoes  and am looking for a place in the walking vicinity.  looking forward to some delicious suggestions.

MenChekno-Tai between 5th & 6th on 55th is a decent noodle place with good value.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Steve, clearly you havent eaten enough Korean food or have lived among them enough to allow you to make such an unqualified ignorant statement like that. Why don't you just call it a day?

Gee did I say there were no Koreans that have white coller jobs? I don't think so. I said that a large part of the Korean community seem to be merchants and I analogized their pace of assimilation to Jews and Italians who were also merchants. But you know what, not every Jew or Italian was a merchant either. Some were doctors and lawyers and they assimilated at a different pace then the merchants did. My point was that merchant classes, regardless of where they come from, in my experience, assimilate more slowly then people in white collar jobs. But since you raised it, people who live in the suburbs, like Northern New Jersey, assimilate more slowly then people who live in the city. That's because you can segregate yourself into little comunities in thd suburbs in a way that you can't do in the city. .

I could be wrong but haven't Koreans have ripped the top off all the glass elevators across the land? But Stever there seems to be a sense in which you see these theys all on a hierarchy: of we's?

Lissome - I have no idea what you are talking about.

[Fat Guy]

The worst are the suburban merchants. It takes them like 400 years to assimilate. There's one guy, eleventh generation merchant in Paramus, and his son is the first person in the family to go to college.

[Jason Perlow]

That's because you can segregate yourself into little comunities in thd suburbs in a way that you can't do in the city.

You mean like Chinatown? Or the Lower East Side? Or in Brooklyn?

[Fat Guy]

Face it, Jason: you're a merchant.

[Steve Plotnicki]

The worst are the suburban merchants. It takes them like 400 years to assimilate. There's one guy, eleventh generation merchant in Paramus, and his son is the first person in the family to go to college.

That sounds like my family. .

The thing about merchant classes is their businesses are very often family businesses. And it is typical for the parents to encourage the children to come into the business and take it over. So while you are making a joke, and it doesn't take 11 generations, it is a slower process.

You grew up differently Fat Guy, in Manhattan with a highly educated and I am sure erudite father. And I'm sure it's the same for Jason growing up in Great Neck. I'm not sure you know what it is like to come from a family where your parents don't want to send you to the best schools possible, both lower and upper schools, because they fear you will grow too far apart from them. But in the real world, what I am describing is a huge issue for people and it affects them every day.

And I know it sounds like a disconnect between this issue and food, but it's not. It is all wrapped up together. Maybe having grown up with it I see it in a certain way, and clearly. But it's all around you too. There aren't any kosher deli's anymore because we all assimilated. In fact, I would say my own usage of kosher deli foods is not related to my upbringing anymore. Not that I don't feel a special cultural connection to it, but I use it just like I use any other ethnic cuisine. And you know what, I think that's a good thing. It's something that all immigrant groups that come to America should aspire to.

It would have been nice if Jewish cuisine was sophisticated enough that there was a Jewish version of Tabla or Nobu. But I guess the most sophisticated aspects of the cuisine are best expressed in French cuisine, as well as few other western European cuisines.

Edited March 31, 2003 by Steve Plotnicki (log)

[Fat Guy]

My father wanted me to be a corporate lawyer so I wouldn't have a working-class income like my parents -- both teachers -- did. I think he'd be horrified to learn that I became a writer. He'd probably say, "Couldn't you have at least become a fucking merchant?"

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well he might have been horrified about what it pays, but I am sure he would have been proud of your work.

[stefanyb]

The thing about merchant classes is their businesses are very often family businesses. And it is typical for the parents to encourage the children to come into the business and take it over. So while you are making a joke, and it doesn't take 11 generations, it is a slower process.

As unpopular as this is going to sound, I think by and large those merchant families take longer to assimilate because they are good at and often place emphasis on things that are not prized in structured school systems and higher education. By certain standards they might be considered less intelligent but we all know that its just different intelligences that are at work. Those families that ended up in the city proper usually had cultural and intellectual interests and were focused on their children succeeding in those spheres.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I agree with that completely. But as it relates to food, it keeps their ethnic food alive and in plentiful supply. But once the children fight hard enough to break away, the support system for their ethnic restaurants diminishes to a grerat extent.

[Fat Guy]

This is particularly problematic in French families.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well you have a funny variation of this going on in France today with French kids not wanting to be chefs. A sort of non-ethnic version of the phenomenon. This is most apparant in family run bistros. It is unusual these days to see the children of a famous bistro owner take over the place. Yes it happens at Georges Blanc and Troisgros, but you can probably make a great living owning a place like that and it isn't expensive to live in Vonnas or Roane. But how much money can you make from owning a place like Allard?

[Pan]

have you eaten at tenement?

No. Please start a thread about it.

[Elissa]

Wassamada Pan: don't think this thread can be salvaged?

I could be wrong but haven't Koreans have ripped the top off all the glass elevators across the land? But Stever there seems to be a sense in which you see these theys all on a hierarchy: of we's?

Lissome - I have no idea what you are talking about.

If assimiliation means communities of profitable business people who cater to those with cash and needs; or if it means sending your kids to the best schools, then no group coming into the US has done it as fast as Koreans, ever. The Korean markets and salons one finds three to a block here are only a subtle indication of how New KorYorkers have altered the playing field. Not even 25 years ago, Koreans started coming here; today they teem at all the Ivyies. Don't seem to me a merchant class so much as a mobile community: often the same fellow that started out selling batteries and flashlights in the subway in 1987 now has fifteen grandchildren at Stanford or Duke... And all that with relatively little strife as regards other groups or communities including Latino, Afroamerican etc.

I was wondering what kind of transformations one would see tracking haute Korean cuisine because clearly the Koreans, while assimilating so effectively, seem not as ravanous to acculturate gastronomically. Which is indeed a boon for eGulleteers as SF pointed out

And I think there is a tenement thread. haven't been.

Edited March 31, 2003 by lissome (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well all you have said is that there is diversity among that group. I am sure everyone agrees with that and my original point wasn't to suggest otherwise. But aside from that, when you say the following;

The Korean markets and salons one finds three to a block here are only a subtle indication of how New KorYorkers have altered the playing field.

ratifies what I said. There is a large percentage of the Korean community that is a merchant class. That is very similar to the Jewish and Italian merchant classes that immigrated to the U.S. beginning in the 1890's through the late 1940's. My point is that the rate of assimilation as demonstrated by how quickly their food is absorbed in our daily cuisine, should happen at the same rate as other merchant classes, providing that people think the food is similarly delicious.

Having said that, maybe you can tell me why I can think of no non-Korean restaurant, that has absorbed some Korean dishes into their menus? And it might exist and I might just not know about it. But something like Bulgoki is an obvious dish for someone to have Americanized, yet I don't see it on menus anywhere. I can say the same thing about those great Vietnamese Pork Chops. Meanwhile, Indian and Japanese cuisine seems to be moving much more quickly, and you see variations of their cuisines on all types of menus. Why do you think that is?

[Jason Perlow]

Steve, Korean food is wildly popular in Japan. Its assimilated itself into Japanese food in the form of Yakiniku. Just because you dont see bulgogi sandwiches at Subway in the US doesnt mean its not being assimilated.

For the most part, Korean communities are very tight knit and enclavish in the US, and most of them are less (many much less) than 20 years old, which would explain why their cuisine has not been assimilated by american popular culture yet. That doesn't make it any less valid as a complex or well defined cuisine.

Nevertheless, in Northern New Jersey, especially where I live, you might as well be living in Seoul. Its all over the place, in many forms.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Jason - You told me I was wrong and then you told me I was right

Let's try and get on the same page here because I think in large part we agree. I am not making any value judgement about the quality of Korean cuisine. I agree it's a complex cuisine. But when you say the following;

For the most part, Korean communities (you can replace "Korean communities" with merchant classes) are very tight knit and enclavish in the US, and most of them are less (many much less) than 20 years old, which would explain why their cuisine has not been assimilated by american popular culture yet.

That is the point I have been trying to make. But if you compare it to how Japanese cuisine has been assimilated, it isn't difficult to notice that in the U.S., there doesn't seem to be as large a percentage of the Japanese community that is a merchant class. There seems to be some correlation between how tight knit merchant class communities are and how fast their cuisine assimilates.

[Jason Perlow]

Steve, the Japanese have also been here significantly longer than the Koreans have. In Hawaii Japanese cuisine is ubiquitous and totally assimilated, as is korean food. Thats because there a relatively equal concentration of both. In northern new jersey you get a very similiar type of situation, except many of the Japanese are migrant and are here on temporary visas from the host companies that they work for. So you don't get a lot of Japanese merchants. The korean community in Northern New Jersey is 15 years old, tops.

Yes, some of the Koreans in NJ are merchants. Most of them primarilly sell to other Koreans.

[Fat Guy]

There is no significant Japanese population in New York City, merchant or otherwise. In this city of 8 million, the Japanese population is approximately 23 thousand. Ditto for the French. The process of assimilating those cuisines has had nothing whatever to do with the assimilation of members of those demographic groups.

[GordonCooks]

I can't speak for Koreans. They seem to be largely merchants which means they will probably assimilate at the same rate that Jews and Italians did. Japanese and Indians have a large white collar segment to their populations, and as such, a more involved cuisine. They will assimilate more quickly then people from a merchant class. And people from the Caribbean are subject to more prejudice then other immigrants so it's an even slower process for them.

I can speak for them

[Steve Plotnicki]

There is no significant Japanese population in New York City, merchant or otherwise. In this city of 8 million, the Japanese population is approximately 23 thousand. Ditto for the French. The process of assimilating those cuisines has had nothing whatever to do with the assimilation of members of those demographic groups

A testament to their cuisine don't you think?

Gordon - Then why don't you tell us a little about why Korean cuisine seems to not be promoted to non-Koreans the way other cuisines are? And possibly a few reasons why if that is the case? It certainly doesn't seem like Korean cuisine gets the same type of coverage in the NYC food press that say Indian food gets.