New, Links to Food
[this is a work in progress]
Despite the clever (and hostile) name of this barely-read blog, I don't write about food. It's tough, being a vegetarian, and writing about food, especially if you like the taste of meat. So, I don't bother. Besides, for professional reasons, it's better to blow time writing about something relevant. I also don't have a bunch of eating buddies anymore, now that we're all getting decrepit and have dietary restrictions and stuff. It's okay, though -- I'm fat and have eaten plenty of the bad foods to last a lifetime.
What's new these days with food is the internet.
Back in the 90s, and through today, Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly and LA Times created a new category of food writing, reviewing little hole-in-the-wall joints and ethnic restaurants. Now, he didn't really start the practice. Elmer Dills of KABC-7, and I think the LA Herald Examinter, had a great portfolio of reviews of local joints, family restaurants, and so forth. What Gold did was take the reviews to another level, to treat the neighborhood restaurant as a kind of popular gourmet cuisine, and compare these relatively inexpensive dishes up against the $25-a-plate and up dishes at the fancy restaurants. Gold recently received the Pulitzer for his writing.
Now, the internet has made everyone into not only a clone of Gold. The power of mass appeal is turning everyone into a budget gourmet. (Well, if not everyone, then it seems like every other Asian-American is doing it.)
It's also created a new kind of gourmet review, exemplified by EL CHAVO! of Chanfles.com, who writes reviews, primarily, of huevos rancheros. What he does is go to different restaurants and order the same dish, over and over, and compare. He first started it by reviewing the dish torta de camaron, an omelette with shrimp and nopal (cactus), but took it to a new level by reviewing the venerable HR, a more popular dish that is more demanding of the chef, yet is still humble food. What's even better, unlike most food bloggers, he writes bad reviews when the food isn't up to snuff, with specific critiques about the preparation or ingredients.
Similarly, yuppies have been going nuts over sushi, and blogging heavily about raw fish, and innumerable blogs exist about it, detailing the quality of the fish each chef acquires. What's more interesting, however, is the rise of the ramen bloggers. Ramen is, at the same time, one of the most affordable meals, but also one of the most complex to prepare well. Most people are used to the 25 cent packets at the supermarket, but the restaurant stuff is something very different.
Restaurant ramen combines a broth, noodles, meat, and vegetables. Aside from the obscene amount of salt and carbs, and minimal amount of vegetables, it's a complete meal. The trick is making each ingredient perfect. The noodles need to be fresh, the soup must be handmade (and is generally a secret recipe), and the ingredients need to be reasonably delicious. Certain additions, like gyoza or omelette will present their own challenges.
Reviewing ramen, like reviewing huevos rancheros, turns into a celebration of food preparation, rather than merely the celebration of ingredients on the sushi blogs. These blogs celebrate what a snotty intellectual might call "working class pleasures". Indeed, these are blogs about "work" and "pleasure"; these are a celebration of the skill of the cook, at many different levels, and these bloggers are more demanding than restaurant reviewers in the mainstream media, who have recently jumped on the Alice Waters bandwagon extolling locally grown organic foods, in season.