Over the past year I have become addicted to Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel. In case you are not familiar with it, Bourdain is a chef from New York of French heritage who travels the world and the USA. He is the ultimate hipster chef, so hip and so cool he doesn’t need to wear the narrow brimmed Sinatra hat lesser hipsters wear all the time to let you know they are hip. He was the long time head chef at New York’s Les Halles, about as authentic a French Bistro as exists this side of the Atlantic.
Bourdain is always quirky, often cranky, more so since he quit smoking. He has many sudden violent prejudices that surface at the oddest times. Right now his bete noirs are Gwenith Paltrow, a lovely actress who says she morally cannot eat anything with four legs and Rachel Ray who Bourdain savages for not being a real chef -- something that the perky charming one time cheerleader from up state New York takes pains to point out on almost every interview. Like many pretty actresses Paltrow can be stupied when babbling without a script. Her vapid views on the barbarous unhip reality of the USA are a favorite spiel of hers. Bourdain had a long feud with Emeril Lagasse, but he has made peace with the restauranteur. A good thing since Emeril is one of the few really famous Portuguese Americans, right behind march king John Philip Souza and ahead of Teresa Heinz Kerry.
On most of his travel adventures Bourdain appears jet lagged and when not mildly hung over. What is fascinating is his admiration and praise for truly exalted haut cuisine of almost every major school while also loving and recommending authentic highly ethnic and local street food and late night and early morning items that are usually eat with your hands standing up or sitting on a stool with a cold beer in the other paw. Bourdain is worshipful at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and the great temples of high skill creative gastronomy -- French places with a lot of Michelin stars and great very serious Basque and Spanish restaurants that shoot for the stars.
Yet he also loves straight forward authentic local places that know what they are and make no apologies for it. These include unexpected establishments like San Francisco’s House of Prime Rib which continues to serve traditional American birthday and aniversary dishes from the the 1940’s with no apologies. He liked it because it is what it is and what is always was. Huge slabs of blood rare prime rib are served with creamed spinach, yorkshire pudding, au jus, creamed horse radish and a reliable cabernet and classic gin martinis. The same goes for really wierd joints in Chicago, the venerable Katz’s deli in New York, the Polonia Cafe in Detroit, big spartan rural Texas steakhouses and family run Mexican cafes in small southwestern towns.
OK, what doesn’t Bourdain like. First of all, he hates all chain and mega corporation restaurants and fast food outlets. He particularly find Chili’s odious because they seem to be debasing honest American, Tex Mex and Mexican dishes into cute not too spicy or salty platters for suburbanites. I am sure he hates plenty of other chains, but that is given to the point he doesn’t even have to sneer at Denny’s or Home Town Buffet among many many others.
He champions the off the wall eccentric even weird local joints when they are serious about what they cook and serve. Clam shacks in New England, Chicago hot dog stands, gumbo cafes and oyster houses in Louisiana, the plain diners where locals eat in Hawaii, and a grubby looking working class hamburger joint in San Francisco that serves a real American burger on sliced sour down bread. He also likes diners in the South that serve up the traditional regional dishes breakfast lunch and dinner, dishes with names like Hoppin’ John, Country Captain, Burnswick Stew and ham bisquits. Same for BBQ stands that serve up the regional styles -- pulled pork in the Carolinas, ribs in Memphis and St Louis and slow cooked dry rubbed brisket that never is touched with any BBQ sauce in Texas.
Bourdain also enjoys the lesser cuts of meat and innards that were the food of the poor for so long that they learned to make them wonderful. This would include beef tripe soups, ox tail braises, tongue sandwiches or tacos, kidneys fried in bacon, brains scrambled quickly, head cheese and Philadelphia scrapple, pigs feet in a dozen different ways and even more exotic items.
In another ways, while he very open and tolerant to almost every cuisine round the world, Bourdain’s slamming Gwenith Paltrow is actually a social and political not a gastronomic tantrum. Bourdain has few or no reservations about eating vegan and lacto vegetarian cooking, so long as it is authentic and local. He has often praised what Hindu and Buddhist cooks have set before him from street stalls or in homes or formal restaurants. What fried him about Ms. Paltrow was how she could travel around Spain with Mario Batali and friends and never ever let Jamon Serrano pass her lips. I suspect he classifies her eccentric semi-vegetarianism as a willful sort of secular fundamentalism, not as a real authentic local and traditional inheritance. While I don’t know for sure, I assume Bourdain is Franco American “Jack Catholic.” He seems to think like one and have little or no patience for lesser religious and secular sects.
My favorite Bourdain episode is his hour touring the Açores, where the meals he was eating literally brought me to tears. I could smell and recall the taste of the dishes on the table that my Grandmother and her sisters cooked when I was young. Other singular and enduring episodes are his hour touring Rajistran, where some Indian friends have assured me he “Caught the spirit and feel of the place” and his visits to Texas and to Mexico.
The same for his drive across the southwest from LA to Texas and his bombing around San Francisco in a brand new Ford recreation of the Black Mustang hatch back that Steve McQueen drove in Bullett. Another wonderful hour was his tour of the surviving old time places in New York City. This was a wonderful salute to those institutions strong and authentic and full of life enough to survive over the decades. Things that he especially liked were late night street food in Mexico and from the street stalls in Singapore, in Berlin a huge and vast delicatessen that seemed to offer the whole world for lunch and a Basque restaurant that was meticulous in every detail and yet full of authentic local live.
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Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Food Blog: On Hamburgers
To kick off my food blog, let me begin with the hamburger. It is one of the most important icons of American cooking. It is a sandwich consisting of a beef patty cooked and served in some form of bread. Let me set a series of terms to make this discussion move along clearly.
The principal species of hamburger:
Simple hamburger: Ground beef on a bun of some kind with a minimum of condiments. Examples include the century old original White Castle burger, the basic McDonalds hamburger. While it may be seasoned with onions --raw or grilled -- and with pickle slices it will have no more additions than mustard and/or catsup.
Dressed hamburger: Taking the term “dressed” from the local jargon in New Orleans for presenting Po’Boy and other sandwiches, this means a hamburger “dressed” with the basic seasonings plus leaf or shredded lettuce, fresh tomato slices, raw onions and mayonnaise or a mayonnaise based dressing like 1000 island and other condiments that fit local taste: in LA a medium heat bean less chili is usual, in the southwest sliced jalapeños or other chili peppers, in Chicago a ferocious “hot gardenera" olive & chili relish, in California and Arizona sliced avocado is common, and in up market establishments various “gourmet” items are sometimes put on burgers -- pate de fois gras, truffles, sauté mushrooms, caviar and so on. In general I disapprove of these costly and esteemed ingredients as clear cut lily gilding.
Double grilled burgers: Here the cooked meat patty is placed between slices of bread and then the sandwich is grilled again to brown the bread and melt the cheese. The Patty melt is the most common example of this. Here the patty is put between slices of rye bread with onions and cheese and then the resulting sandwich is grilled. It combines the classic burger with the grilled ham and cheese or grilled cheese sandwich. Other common examples of the double grilled variety are the common “Sour Dough” or “Frisco” burgers. In this variation on the Patty Melt, sour dough replaces the rye bread and provolone replaces the swiss cheese. The are many other variations on this hybrid sandwich.
Double decker burgers: Two patties are used and the bun is sliced into three layers: top, middle and bottom. The classic example of this is Bob’s “Big Boy.” The “Big Mac” is ubiquitous and is the one example of a hamburger gone very very wrong. (I have always thought it was a gooey mess and a disgrace to the hamburger family. The Tartar Sauce based glob it wallows in has no business in a real burger.)
Exotic Burgers: In this case elements of another cuisine recast the standard hamburger. The textbook classic example is the Hawaiian Burger where the patty is topped with a grilled pineapple slice and the principal condiment is a savory teriyaki sauce. It is interesting, but like its cousin Hawaiian Pizza which uses canadian bacon nd pineapple as an Asian riff on pizza that would horrify even the most hard case pizza eater in Napoli or New York.
The essence of this exotic category is clothing an otherwise standard burger in the style of another cuisine. For example, using lamb or a mix of ground lamb and beef is the basis for a “Greek” or “Armenian” burger. It could be served in Pita bread of lavash or between two Lamtmajune or small Armenian pizza’s. An English spin would serve a patty between english muffin slices with sharp mustard and a cheddar based “Welsh Rabbit.” A French variation would be served with mushrooms in a Madeira Sauce with or without Roquefort cheese.
Other exotic burgers substitute the beef patty with another meat or even a meatless patty such as a breaded fish, pork or chicken or turkey cutlet. Also a Hawaiian “Moko Loko” which is two patties on buns smothered in a brown beef gravy or a “Chili Size” where two patties are served on a open faced bun with chili poured over every thing and seasoned with grated cheese and onions.
Having established the various types of Burgers I will offer a set of categories.
Fast Food Burgers meaning those served by large regional national or international chains such as McDonalds, Burger King, Carl’s Junior/Hardee’s, In’n Out, Sonic, etc., etc.
Local or diner burgers are those adapted to local taste. Here in California this would be burgers from places like The Apple Pan, Tommy’s, Pie ‘n Burger, Oinkster, Astro Burgers and so on and so forth to include local establishments or small chains like Farm Brothers, Hoff’s Hut and you can fill in the blanks.
Up Scale or Yuppie Burgers are relatively new and served by a new breed of “haute” burger joints like The Counter, The Office and many others. These are heavy burgers of half to a full pound of beef and usually range from the ten to twenty dollar in cost with or without fries. Often the extra fuss and pretense of these currently faddish joints misses the mark and delivers something not as good as the best local or diner places at double to triple the price. The deadly serious pretentiousness of these is actually part of their charm.
Restaurant or Steak House Burgers. These are available at middle and up market steak houses, always at lunch and on the Bar menu although rarely on the dinner card. What is important about these very high grade burgers is that they are made from prime and choice meat trimmed from the restaurants showcase steaks. They are usually half a pound or heavier and when cooked medium are very appealing. Most of these places serve them very unadorned with a steak house sauce and usually grilled onions. In the San Francisco Bay area the many “Joe’s” restaurants serve their burgers in a long length of hollowed out sour dough battard loaf, with grilled onion or with the onions embedded in the oblong beef patties.
Regional oddities: In Sacramento there is a well known local joint that more or less drowns its large burgers in cheese that melts over then browns around the burger. In the Twin Cities many local places embed cheese inside the middle of the patty before they cook it resulting in a molten core to the patty.
Cooking methods: Most hamburgers are cooked directly on the steel flat top grill. This results in characteristic greasy taste that most people seem to like. The second most common method it to broil the patty under a gas flame broiler or to actually cook it over live coals. This give you a seared juicy but not greasy burger when done correctly. When don badly you get a very dry and leather burger. When live coals are used a slightly smoky flavor comes with the meat that I personally prefer to flat grilled burgers. Some places in New England cook their patties in special high pressure steam lockers that melt away all the fat. Odd but popular with the locals.
Finally here are some personal biases and prejudices on hamburgers.
1. Even the best flagship burgers of national chains stall out at a C+ and a few make it to a B-.
2. Piling on patty after patty to create the currently faddish gross pig out burgers is decadent if not disgusting. If you want a big burger, then cook one.
3. Fancy breads detract or get in the way of the burger taste. While Kings Hawaiian Sweet Bread buns and little brioche work fine for sliders, they don’t cut it for a real full size burger.
4. At home, I believe the best bun is an onion roll. Second best is a sour dough roll with a crispy crust.
5. The ideal patty size is one third of a pound and no more than one inch thick. Anytime the patty is more than one half pound you are talking about a Hamburg Steak and you should ditch the bun or bread all together. In the anti-German hysteria of 1917 sauerkraut was renamed Liberty Cabbage and Hamburger Steak transformed to Salisbury Steak. Salisbury was chosen for some unknown reason. In the 1920’s Americans returned to the original German names for most food items except for Salisbury Steak. By then Hamburger had come to mean the beef sandwich and the pseudo English name stuck to what had been Hamburger Steak in order to clearly differentiate it from the now ubiquitous burger.
6. As a consumer I urge you to patronize local independent burger joints and local mini chains. For example there is great joint called Burger Central in Glendale that char broils a wonderful one third pound burger. On 6th Street in what is now Korea Town Cassell’s still serves the standard one third of pound flame broiled by which all other burgers are judged. In every neighborhood there are good quirky burger stands and joints like the Guacamole Burger in Culver City and so on around Los Angeles including but not limited to the ancient pool hall in North Long Beach that has long been a favorite with local cops, firemen and CHP’s. If you do not support your worthy local burger joint you’ll be stuck with Mickey D’s or nothing.
- xxx -
The principal species of hamburger:
Simple hamburger: Ground beef on a bun of some kind with a minimum of condiments. Examples include the century old original White Castle burger, the basic McDonalds hamburger. While it may be seasoned with onions --raw or grilled -- and with pickle slices it will have no more additions than mustard and/or catsup.
Dressed hamburger: Taking the term “dressed” from the local jargon in New Orleans for presenting Po’Boy and other sandwiches, this means a hamburger “dressed” with the basic seasonings plus leaf or shredded lettuce, fresh tomato slices, raw onions and mayonnaise or a mayonnaise based dressing like 1000 island and other condiments that fit local taste: in LA a medium heat bean less chili is usual, in the southwest sliced jalapeños or other chili peppers, in Chicago a ferocious “hot gardenera" olive & chili relish, in California and Arizona sliced avocado is common, and in up market establishments various “gourmet” items are sometimes put on burgers -- pate de fois gras, truffles, sauté mushrooms, caviar and so on. In general I disapprove of these costly and esteemed ingredients as clear cut lily gilding.
Double grilled burgers: Here the cooked meat patty is placed between slices of bread and then the sandwich is grilled again to brown the bread and melt the cheese. The Patty melt is the most common example of this. Here the patty is put between slices of rye bread with onions and cheese and then the resulting sandwich is grilled. It combines the classic burger with the grilled ham and cheese or grilled cheese sandwich. Other common examples of the double grilled variety are the common “Sour Dough” or “Frisco” burgers. In this variation on the Patty Melt, sour dough replaces the rye bread and provolone replaces the swiss cheese. The are many other variations on this hybrid sandwich.
Double decker burgers: Two patties are used and the bun is sliced into three layers: top, middle and bottom. The classic example of this is Bob’s “Big Boy.” The “Big Mac” is ubiquitous and is the one example of a hamburger gone very very wrong. (I have always thought it was a gooey mess and a disgrace to the hamburger family. The Tartar Sauce based glob it wallows in has no business in a real burger.)
Exotic Burgers: In this case elements of another cuisine recast the standard hamburger. The textbook classic example is the Hawaiian Burger where the patty is topped with a grilled pineapple slice and the principal condiment is a savory teriyaki sauce. It is interesting, but like its cousin Hawaiian Pizza which uses canadian bacon nd pineapple as an Asian riff on pizza that would horrify even the most hard case pizza eater in Napoli or New York.
The essence of this exotic category is clothing an otherwise standard burger in the style of another cuisine. For example, using lamb or a mix of ground lamb and beef is the basis for a “Greek” or “Armenian” burger. It could be served in Pita bread of lavash or between two Lamtmajune or small Armenian pizza’s. An English spin would serve a patty between english muffin slices with sharp mustard and a cheddar based “Welsh Rabbit.” A French variation would be served with mushrooms in a Madeira Sauce with or without Roquefort cheese.
Other exotic burgers substitute the beef patty with another meat or even a meatless patty such as a breaded fish, pork or chicken or turkey cutlet. Also a Hawaiian “Moko Loko” which is two patties on buns smothered in a brown beef gravy or a “Chili Size” where two patties are served on a open faced bun with chili poured over every thing and seasoned with grated cheese and onions.
Having established the various types of Burgers I will offer a set of categories.
Fast Food Burgers meaning those served by large regional national or international chains such as McDonalds, Burger King, Carl’s Junior/Hardee’s, In’n Out, Sonic, etc., etc.
Local or diner burgers are those adapted to local taste. Here in California this would be burgers from places like The Apple Pan, Tommy’s, Pie ‘n Burger, Oinkster, Astro Burgers and so on and so forth to include local establishments or small chains like Farm Brothers, Hoff’s Hut and you can fill in the blanks.
Up Scale or Yuppie Burgers are relatively new and served by a new breed of “haute” burger joints like The Counter, The Office and many others. These are heavy burgers of half to a full pound of beef and usually range from the ten to twenty dollar in cost with or without fries. Often the extra fuss and pretense of these currently faddish joints misses the mark and delivers something not as good as the best local or diner places at double to triple the price. The deadly serious pretentiousness of these is actually part of their charm.
Restaurant or Steak House Burgers. These are available at middle and up market steak houses, always at lunch and on the Bar menu although rarely on the dinner card. What is important about these very high grade burgers is that they are made from prime and choice meat trimmed from the restaurants showcase steaks. They are usually half a pound or heavier and when cooked medium are very appealing. Most of these places serve them very unadorned with a steak house sauce and usually grilled onions. In the San Francisco Bay area the many “Joe’s” restaurants serve their burgers in a long length of hollowed out sour dough battard loaf, with grilled onion or with the onions embedded in the oblong beef patties.
Regional oddities: In Sacramento there is a well known local joint that more or less drowns its large burgers in cheese that melts over then browns around the burger. In the Twin Cities many local places embed cheese inside the middle of the patty before they cook it resulting in a molten core to the patty.
Cooking methods: Most hamburgers are cooked directly on the steel flat top grill. This results in characteristic greasy taste that most people seem to like. The second most common method it to broil the patty under a gas flame broiler or to actually cook it over live coals. This give you a seared juicy but not greasy burger when done correctly. When don badly you get a very dry and leather burger. When live coals are used a slightly smoky flavor comes with the meat that I personally prefer to flat grilled burgers. Some places in New England cook their patties in special high pressure steam lockers that melt away all the fat. Odd but popular with the locals.
Finally here are some personal biases and prejudices on hamburgers.
1. Even the best flagship burgers of national chains stall out at a C+ and a few make it to a B-.
2. Piling on patty after patty to create the currently faddish gross pig out burgers is decadent if not disgusting. If you want a big burger, then cook one.
3. Fancy breads detract or get in the way of the burger taste. While Kings Hawaiian Sweet Bread buns and little brioche work fine for sliders, they don’t cut it for a real full size burger.
4. At home, I believe the best bun is an onion roll. Second best is a sour dough roll with a crispy crust.
5. The ideal patty size is one third of a pound and no more than one inch thick. Anytime the patty is more than one half pound you are talking about a Hamburg Steak and you should ditch the bun or bread all together. In the anti-German hysteria of 1917 sauerkraut was renamed Liberty Cabbage and Hamburger Steak transformed to Salisbury Steak. Salisbury was chosen for some unknown reason. In the 1920’s Americans returned to the original German names for most food items except for Salisbury Steak. By then Hamburger had come to mean the beef sandwich and the pseudo English name stuck to what had been Hamburger Steak in order to clearly differentiate it from the now ubiquitous burger.
6. As a consumer I urge you to patronize local independent burger joints and local mini chains. For example there is great joint called Burger Central in Glendale that char broils a wonderful one third pound burger. On 6th Street in what is now Korea Town Cassell’s still serves the standard one third of pound flame broiled by which all other burgers are judged. In every neighborhood there are good quirky burger stands and joints like the Guacamole Burger in Culver City and so on around Los Angeles including but not limited to the ancient pool hall in North Long Beach that has long been a favorite with local cops, firemen and CHP’s. If you do not support your worthy local burger joint you’ll be stuck with Mickey D’s or nothing.
- xxx -
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