Comfort food in an uncomfortable world: Food as education and escape
Original art by Tim Teebken.
If you look at the attention and energy devoted to the dining scene, it’s hard to say this isn’t a golden age. It’s not just that people are willing to spend more on their food, though they are. You can get a $75 hamburger topped with caviar at Petrossian in Beverly Hills, or a $150 burger with shaved truffles, wagyu beef, and lobster tail at downtown’s Nick and Stef’s. These might have been put on the menu as gimmicks, but people are actually ordering them.
Novelties such as this aside, there has been an explosion of places that offer wildly experimental dining experiences, often at nosebleed prices. The French Laundry in Napa, where a meal can easily top $500 per person, mainstreamed culinary combinations that never previously existed in any culture, and many others have followed. The creativity is undeniable, and to some people it’s worth it. (I dined there in 2004, and it was worth it to me, but then again somebody else was paying.) I still remember many details of the 21 course meal.
If you have an esoteric meal that you will remember years later, that changes the way you think about food, is that worth the $250 per person that Vespertine charges for dinner without wine? To some people the answer is yes, and they patrol the hot spots looking for peak experiences.
More importantly as a sign of our national evolution, food from cultures all over the world is being treated with respect. This is true at all price levels and in all communities, and it is breaking down barriers in society. When the foodie crowd hears of a great dining experience, they’ll venture into neighborhoods they’d usually avoid to get bragging rights. Some food items such as Russian Osetra Caviar for Sale Online have become more accessible with the help of online shops. Some items have mainstreamed to the point where they’re now just another American food. Twenty years ago the average American had never tasted Pad Thai or Korean-style short ribs, and now you can get both in the frozen section at Costco. Neither is as good as you’d get at a real Thai or Korean restaurant, but the Costco meatballs aren’t as good as an Italian grandmother can make either.
Twenty years ago, if you photographed your meal in a restaurant the entire staff was alerted to the fact that a critic was in the house. Nobody else did that. I bought a small camera and a jacket with large pockets, but sometimes I was still caught at it. Now as soon as your plates arrive, at least one person at the table has a phone camera out. The shot is on the internet seconds later with a pithy comment. Food porn has been a thing since Gourmet Magazine pioneered luscious food photography in the 1940s, but it has become a sport of the masses. I don’t need to mention how food porn and the moving image have combined to create multiple TV channels and untold numbers of video streams about experiences near and far, but I will anyway just to remind people that the term “celebrity culinary explorer” would have been gibberish a decade or so ago. The outpouring of sadness after the recent deaths of Jonathan Gold and Anthony Bourdain show how their endeavors touched both the self-selected elite and the masses.
The obsession, one might even call it a mania, for all things culinary has spread ever more widely. Classic cocktails went from drinks for old men to hipster accessories in an astonishingly short time. Beer became the new wine, and wine became a gold mine for boutique producers. Local draft cider is a thing, and until recently it wasn’t. Farmer’s markets went from natural food enthusiast destinations to tourist attractions with live entertainment and food booths tucked between stalls doing a good business in arcane and beautiful produce. The fact that this could happen in an era when fewer and fewer people actually cook from scratch marks a trend that is almost countercultural. So does the rising interest in food history, both online and in person. Museums are scheduling culinary programs to woo foodies through their doors, and organizations like the Culinary Historians of Southern California are seeing new and younger members.
We’re putting our creative energy, enthusiasm, and intelligence into thinking about food. How could anything possibly be bad about that? As a food writer and food historian I can’t see a problem, but as a citizen I think I do. The obsessive interest looks a lot like a reaction to the strident, brutal, confrontational rhetoric that is all around us. Thoughtful, sensitive, and aware people are so repelled by current events that they tune out and seek something else. They may focus on food, music, sports, or some other passion, and that’s healthy if it’s really a respite from from the daily grind and they reemerge invigorated.
I worry that they won’t. The people who flocked to Berlin cabarets in the 1930s to get away from the brownshirts in the streets, or who attended Dada art shows in the new Bauhaus-style buildings, undoubtedly thought that sanity would return soon. The Romans who debated abstruse philosophy while Caligula declared himself a god were no doubt happy to ignore the crowned buffoon who was sinking deeper into madness. (And if anyone is casting a historical play about that era, I have a great idea for the costuming. It involves a wig in a color and style not found in nature.)
It’s odd for a person who has put over three decades into the study of cuisine to express this concern, but escapism has its dangers. I urge you to explore the cuisines of the world and our country and our neighborhoods, and teach yourself to recreate the items you like at home. While you’re in those restaurants and ethnic grocery stores try to learn about the culture, because while their food is mainstreaming so are their people. Understanding them will be useful in the country we share. Then re-engage with the world outside. And after you do, reward yourself with a good dinner. B