Food, Glorious Food, Or Not

It’s about time I talked about one of my truest passions. Food. I work in food tourism [when I have work☹ ], I am a sort of chef [IMO not a particularly good one], have a lot of knowledge and thirst to learn more about the culinary world and if you see my rotund figure, you’ll know I love to eat. People who dine with me often, know that all my worst characteristics are multiplied a hundred fold when it comes to food. I’m (overly) critical. A (insufferable) know-all. Definitely (unabashedly) opinionated. I’m always right, even when I’m not. Is it any wonder that Susan is so scared to enter MY kitchen? 

And thus, I have lots to say about food in America. 

In the United States there are 169 Michelin starred restaurants, of which 14 have earnt three stars. It would therefore be foolish to say you can’t get good food in America. And yet, the gap between the best and the worst is enormous. From experience, the average, middle-of-the-road restaurant in the US lags way behind the average, middle-of-the-road restaurant in the rest of the world, certainly Israel, Europe and Australia. By a long long way. And the worst is worse than anything I have experienced in all my travels. 

Let’s start at the bottom of the pile. America’s love fast food. Junk food. Instant food. Instant gratification. I have a confession. One of my culinary aims on our recent trip to America was to check out fast food chains. I have always loved KFC but had a terrible experience on our big road trip. I wanted to give them a second chance. I haven’t stepped foot in a McDonalds for over twenty years. Is it still as bad as I remember it to be? I’m enchanted by Chick-fil-a, Sonic, Dominos, Burger King, DQ, Wendy’s, Taco Bell. Could they all be as bad as I imagine them to be? In the end, I chickened out. I just couldn’t do it. Our sum of fast food dining on this trip was zero. Except for very regular visits to Dunkin’ Donuts. But that’s different. One day, I am going to go to America and eat ONLY fast food for the whole trip, or at least eat at a different chain every day. I’ll just make sure I have premium health insurance and will check out beforehand the locations of the best hospitals. Is there such a thing as a BYO portable stomach pump? 

And a few of the less appetizing

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And whilst on the subject of instant, no-cook gratification; TV dinners and packaged frozen food. This is another area where I am a culinary virgin. I need to immerse myself in Stoufers’s, Healthy Choice (should be sued automatically for misleading the public), Banquet, Hungry Man, and Lean Cuisine. How bad can they be? If I’m going to bring that portable stomach pump with me, I may as well put it to good use. 

To make matters worse, the advertising for all these products seems to emphasize that gooey is attractive. Every ad for food in America seems to have melted stringy cheese or mustard and ketchup pouring out of the sides as the bait to get us to buy the product. I was particularly stressed when I saw an ad on TV for some purported “health” bar. An unhappy young boy was moping at ballet class. A very pretty, African-American male instructor pulled this rice bubbles “health” bar from his pocket. So far, ticks all the boxes for woke pc. The now happy young lad bites into the bar and there’s a close-up of this stringy goo between the piece in his mouth and the remainder in the wrapping. Maybe I’m just a culinary reactionary, but all this goo is really unattractive.

Ok. So we’ve decided to give pre-made food a wide berth and we want to cook at home, which in itself, seems like a rarity in America. First place to start for supplies at the local Stop and Shop is the produce department, right? Suddenly I understood why people don’t cook. Supermarket fruit and veg are simply atrocious. They look beautiful. Vibrant colours. Perfect shape. Zero flavour. How many salmonella outbreaks have been linked to lettuce being watered with I hate to think what? Let me tell you a story. In my culinary tourism business, I organise cooking workshops in the homes of host families throughout the Galilee. The majority of my clients are American. So often, customers have bitten into a simple tomato and have exclaimed, with all the excitement usually reserved for a World Series Pennant victory, that they never realised what a real tomato tastes like. Now I understand. And don’t let the mis-named Health Foods, or Trader Joe’s fool you into thinking that supposedly organic guarantees flavour or freshness. 

I was in the sweetened drinks aisle(s) in a supermarket once and discovered a brand that was touting its superior quality by boasting that it was sweetened with REAL SUGAR. Hell, what are the “INFERIOR” brands sweetened with? High fructose corn syrup, acesulfame, saccharin and probably other equally as healthy chemical alternatives. I moved to the bread section and found Wonder Bread. It truly is a wonder. Have you ever tasted it? It’s like eating air. Sweetened air. And so it continues. Row after row of products chock full of chemicals and additives that make the Exxon Valdez look like a health retreat.

Let’s leave the supermarket. I heard the local farmer’s market is open today. Hang on, let me ring my bank manager and see if the second mortgage has been approved. Peace, love and Buddhist patchouli oil doesn’t come cheap.

So we’ll eat out. We have lots of options. Chinese-American? Italian-American? Time for another confession. I’m spoilt. You would never have guessed! If I go to an average restaurant in Israel I expect to get fresh tasty food that may not challenge my culinary limits but is still original and interesting. I will enjoy it. I know it will cost me a lot because air is expensive in Israel. We ate out at a number of average/good restaurants that had no aspirations for fame and glory but should have prided themselves in doing what they do as best as they can. In most cases the menus were uninspired and incredibly similar to each other, as if they were bought online from Menus-R-Us. There was little imagination and flavours were often flat. We didn’t get bad meals. But they weren’t particularly good, either. There were certainly exceptions. The Italian in the North end, especially the fried calamari, was exceptional. Then we walked around the corner and got take out cannoli. I’m certain Mamma had the secret recipe hidden close to her bosom when she emigrated all the way from Palermo. And she hasn’t changed it these past 40 years. This was not Italian-American food. It was real Italian-Italian food

One of my clearest conclusions about eating in America is go local and go diner. In New England that’s lobster pounds, chowders, seafood and local specialties. And you rarely get disappointed from a diner. They too are often a great source for what’s local, including the customers. The food is almost always tasty, unassuming and hearty, using two meanings for the word. Lots of it and filling, and made with heart. Comfort food for the local population. But yes, here and there, you do get some local strange ones. At some joint in midstate New Hampshire I ordered their most famous dish, winner of contests throughout the state; ham and gooey cheese sandwiched between two slices of sweetened (of course) French toast. Everything seems to be sweet in America, whether it’s meant to be savoury or not.

And fried. Fried pickled cucumbers and hot peppers. Fried Hamburgers (Dipped in batter and deep fried after the hamburger is already made). Fried Snickers bars. Chips are double fried, dipped in a light batter between fries. The go-to for all seafood is fried. More than once I’ve seen fries offered with low fat dipping sauces. Is it only me that sees the irony?

As an expat Australian, I like my beer. And you have some adjustments to make when you want a beer in America. Over the past twenty years there’s been an explosion of craft and micro breweries in every corner of the country. This is great, because the mass produced stuff is truly awful. Bud, Miller, Busch, Michelob, Coors and the likes. Tasteless, generic, pale lagers. And then you have the dishwater lite versions of the same beers, that take it all a step down from awful, to atrocious. A lot of the micro brews are really quite good, except they’re all IPA’s. The slightly bitter aftertaste is often very refreshing, but can’t they make anything else?  They’ve lately started to explore new things like American ale, brown ale, amber ale and Scottish ale. Is there a glut of the hops market? A guy can’t get a decent lager anymore, unless it’s a mass produced European one.

And if I’m whinging, then bear with me for just a bit more. I almost forgot. Amongst my already mentioned annoying character traits, I’m a food snob. Worse. A chauvinistic food snob who thinks the Galilee has the best produce anywhere in the world. Nowhere is this more apparent than with olive oil. Ok. Galilean olive oil is great, but yes, so is Spanish Picual or Hojiblanca, Greek Kalamata and Italian Leccina or Coratina. So why, oh why, do you go to very serious olive oil shops in America and have maybe two or three straight varieties, then tens of flavoured, infused, imbued and scented olive oils? If you have good, no…great olive oil, then let its natural flavour shine through. Why mask it with chili, rosemary, garlic, Tibetan mountain tea or yesterday’s smelly socks, unless of course there’s a reason why you want to mask the original flavour. I actually believe that it goes back to my rows in the supermarket. There seems to be a need to constantly add, that artificial is right and natural is somehow imperfect.  

Once upon a time, cow juice came in full cream or if you were on a diet, skim milk. Now? Full, 3%, 1%, the high fat American invention, half and half, lactose free and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. Then an assortment of nuts are sent off to a factory to be tortured and twisted into giving off their versions of milk, marketed as natural. Where in nature can cashew milk be found? Once again, nature doesn’t seem to be able to do it well enough so let’s change it all around. 

So that’s it. I’ve got it all off my chest. I think I’m going to have to chew on another edible to calm me down.

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