Fork It Over The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater-Mantesh

by Unknown

  Farrakhan, who has predicted a holy race war in America, is surely the most unlikely restaurateur in America. For that matter, the Nation of Islam is certainly the most unlikely group to be sitting around with whites, breaking bread.

  Founded in 1930 by W. Fard Muhammad, who proclaimed himself Allah reincarnate, the Nation of Islam is committed to the uplifting of the black man, as well as to the separation of blacks from whites. The sect is part religious, part paramilitary, part cult, and part Project Head Start. After Fard Muhammad, the Nation was led by Elijah Muhammad, who called himself the Messenger of Allah. He preached that whites were evil mutants of blacks and that Jews were a “race of evil people,” wrote two books on food (How to Eat to Live, parts one and two), and fathered eight legitimate and thirteen illegitimate children. He died in 1975 and was succeeded by one of his sons, Wallace Deen Muhammad.

  Wallace Deen Muhammad dismantled the Nation of Islam in order to take his followers on a more traditional path. Farrakhan, a formidable leader, rebuilt it. There are now an estimated 6 million Muslims in the United States; 2 million of them are black, and a modest perF O R K I T O V E R

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  centage of those are followers of Farrakhan. So secretive is the Nation of Islam that estimates of its membership range from 2,000 to 200,000.

  The grandiose restaurant Salaam, built in a weary, run-down section of Chicago dominated by storefront churches, unkempt shops, and vacant lots, is by some accounts Farrakhan’s dream—he frequently visited the site during construction. It is a curiously ambitious project, since the only acclaimed food product previously produced by the Nation of Islam is its Salaam Bakery Supreme Bean Pie, prepared with navy beans, a favorite of Elijah Muhammad, whose food fiats carry a lot of weight in the Salaam kitchen. The pie is smooth, rich, slightly spicy, and altogether satisfying, but as good as it is, it is not a commodity to inspire a five-million-dollar investment.

  Salaam is not one restaurant; it is a large, sparkling-white building housing a number of food-service enterprises—a bakery, a buffet, a cafeteria, three banquet rooms, and a “fine dining” section. Towering ninety feet high is a lighted Islamic star and crescent, giving a Vegas air to the undertaking. At the February 1995 opening ceremonies for the restaurant (or, as it is called on a tape available at Nation of Islam bookstores, “The Historic Opening Dedication of the Fabulous Salaam Restaurant—the Palace of the People”), Farrakhan explained how his

  “household name” would attract patrons, much as Michael Jordan’s and Oprah Winfrey’s have attracted customers to their Chicago dining establishments. Thinking of Salaam as a celebrity-owned restaurant with himself as the celebrity seems a profound reversal for a man who is usually intent on secluding himself and his followers from the rest of the world.

  Dining there offers a chance to scrutinize Elijah Muhammad’s diet and Louis Farrakhan’s hospitality. It also provides a rare opportunity to look inside the very closed, very uncommunicative Nation of Islam, which in public presents itself as an angry speaker lashing out from in front of a phalanx of young, unsmiling, neatly groomed security men that Farrakhan calls the Fruit of Islam and I think of as the Bow Ties.

  Salaam is Farrakhan’s calling card, perhaps even a genuine attempt to connect with a society that scorns him even more than he scorns it.

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  I’m seated at a comfortable banquette in the so-called fine dining section of Salaam. My guest and I have just received our appetizers, the Salaam Fondue Supreme for her, the Sultan’s Request for me. When I look up, I see the posse arriving—coming off the elevator are more than a dozen members of the Fruit of Islam dressed in dark suits, white shirts, and bow ties. Four of them are seated by the maître d’ at the table right next to ours. I’m sure this is a coincidence. At least I think it is. I decide not to let it bother me. I tell myself I am not like Farrakhan. I am not the suspicious type.

  Not letting them affect me turns out to be easy because they are so quiet I am able to clock the pauses in their dialogue. Approximately every five to seven minutes, one of them makes a comment and another one answers. Then they lapse into silence. They might be fundamentalists, but they aren’t conversationalists. They’re a little spooky, but at least they’re well behaved.

  So far, we’re enjoying Salaam, although our appetizers aren’t as advertised. The fondue, which is supposed to be served over an open flame with three breads, has no flame, one bread, and no fondue fork.

  Sultan’s Request turns out to be zucchini boats stuffed with peppery ground lamb and floating in a thick “Burgundy sauce.” The sauce tastes like canned brown gravy with some chopped vegetables added in an unsuccessful effort to contribute flavor.

  Although the kitchen staff is not impressing me, everybody else has been cordial. At the front door, we were greeted by a Fruit of Islam security man carrying a walkie-talkie. He politely handed us off to a doorman, a middle-aged man festooned with Farrakhan buttons who escorted us to the elevator while chatting amiably about the likelihood of slaveholders being among our ancestors.

  On the second floor, we stepped into a flamboyant function-room atmosphere: carpeting with madly decorative burgundy, green, beige, and white whorls; burgundy drapes; and innumerable chandeliers set bright enough to blind. Over to welcome us came a young, sweet host-F O R K I T O V E R

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  ess who briefed us on Salaam and passed us on to the maître d’, the sort of quiet, courtly, tuxedoed gentleman who is likely to find employ-ment in hotel dining rooms of a certain age. He seated us, and we were promptly greeted by our waiter, who I am happy to report defied current fashion and did not introduce himself to us. My guest, however, found him so alluring, so Omar Sharif–ish in his dress whites—a tunic with a military collar, gold buttons, ensign stripes, and “Salaam” embroidered over the pocket in gold thread—that she insisted on asking. Noel had her enthralled.

  So here we are, trying not to attract the attention of the nearly mute young men dining beside us, quickly gobbling the unflamed fondue before it cools, hoping for better luck with our main courses, when we suddenly realize something odd: hardly anybody seems to be having a good time.

  Despite sprightly lounge music tinkling from a polished Yamaha baby-grand player piano and a perfectly gracious staff, Salaam has an aura of cheerlessness. Maybe it’s because no alcohol is served and nobody loosens up. Maybe it’s because the message of the Nation of Islam is one of responsibility and discipline, and followers confuse this dictum with having no fun. Maybe it’s the overhead security camera, the kind that rotates to cover all corners of a room. That could dampen any mood.

  I order a glass of nonalcoholic Chardonnay. It is so badly oxidized I send it back, which allows me to find out just how friendly the Nation of Islam wishes to be. “No problem,” Noel says. The second glass, from a freshly opened bottle, is no better than the first, which tells me that wine storage at Salaam is about what you would expect at an establishment that doesn’t approve of wine.

  For her main course, my guest orders the Double Lamb Chops Morocco. I take Noel’s recommendation and select North African Tilapia, which the menu promises will provide “an irresistibly delicious Moth-erland experience.” Because the menu is so diverse, ordering from it is a challenge. It’s impossible to figure out the specialties of Executive Chef Early Primus, who once cooked for Muhammad Ali. At the opening 1 8 2

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  ceremonies for the restaurant, Farrakhan promised “an international menu where people of every part of this earth and culture can see themselves reflected in the menu.” In other words, this is Continental cuisine taken to more continents than one menu has ever gone before.

  There’s Indian tandoori chicken, Jamaican jerk chicken, Italian lemon fettucine, Tex-Mex quesadillas, Chinese spring rolls, Caribbean grouper, and vegetarian barbecued ribs. (No nation would want credit for that.) I don’t b
elieve Farrakhan’s chef can pull off a menu like this.

  I don’t believe Alain Ducasse could pull off a menu like this.

  Although tilapia is not a particularly interesting fish, and I suspect freezing has further blunted the flavor of my entree, I enjoy the dish.

  It isn’t spicy, as it is supposed to be, but the bland white sauce is fine.

  The lamb chops, ordered medium-rare, arrive overcooked and rather cold. What’s worse, they’re accompanied by the same accursed Burgundy sauce that ruined the zucchini boats. It is even more awful this time because it has congealed.

  “Having dessert?” asks Noel.

  We’re tempted not to, since the first two courses have dragged on for two-and-a-half hours. That’s a long time to sit at a dinner table and not drink wine. Still, the Salaam bakery has a good reputation.

  “Of course,” I say.

  He offers us a choice of either bean pie or crème caramel. Well, nobody ever said the Salaam bakery produced a cornucopia of fine products. We select the crème caramel. Wrong choice. It takes fifteen minutes to show up and has a tough, thick crust.

  Afterward, on the way to the Salaam parking lot across the street from the restaurant, I notice the Fruit of Islam with the walkie-talkie watching us. He is making sure we get to our car safely. I don’t know many other restaurants that care about the well-being of patrons once they’ve paid the check.

  At the Respect for Life Bookstore #1, just across the street from Salaam, I pick up a nice selection of items: the two Elijah Muhammad books on eating, a tape of the opening ceremonies for the restaurant, and a F O R K I T O V E R

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  video of Farrakhan’s 1994 speech at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, titled, to be precise, “(The Furor of Farrakhan) ‘The Contro-versy with the Jews: The True History of Slavery in the Americas.’ ” A young man in a bow tie working the cash register studies my selections and singles out the tape featuring Farrakhan berating the Jews. “That’s a good one,” he says.

  Although I inform him that I am from out of town, he says he will accept a check. My guess is that not a lot of customers stiff the Nation of Islam.

  Despite the menacing appearance of some of Farrakhan’s militant followers, I’ve been treated well whenever I’ve dealt with his group. Back in 1985 I attended Farrakhan’s infamous rally at Madison Square Garden. Many other white people who were there expressed horror, while the mainstream press was apoplectic—The New Republic compared the event to the Nuremberg rallies of Nazi Germany. For me, it was hard to take seriously.

  Farrakhan had, Casey Kasem–like, gathered together all sorts of golden oldies. In this case, they were grizzled Jew-bashers from around the nation, everyone from Russell Means to Stokely Carmichael, bit players in a variety show featuring gospel, prayer, militarism, lies, hatred, love, neatness, faith, fascism, paranoia, wit, and megalomania. Farrakhan was his usual self, pointing out that “the germ of murder is sown in the hearts of Jews across the world.” To me, everything sounded staged.

  Widely reported was this exchange:

  Farrakhan: “Who were the enemies of Jesus?” The crowd, excited as kids at a birthday party, gleefully screamed the expected reply: “Jews! Jews! Jews!” What I don’t remember seeing in print was Farrakhan’s own answer to his question: “The scribes.”

  I’m white. I’m Jewish. I write. I don’t think there’s much about me that Farrakhan would like.

  I’m sitting in a booth, reading my morning paper, enjoying fresh but weak coffee and a fresh but bland Danish. It’s just like every other morning, 1 8 4

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  except my breakfast comes from the Salaam bakery and my paper is The Final Call, Farrakhan’s house organ.

  I’ve read newspapers that are more offensive—a number of New York tabloids come to mind. Still, The Final Call has its malevolent moments. The National News Briefs section is reporting the arrest of a Hasidic rabbi for allegedly fondling a teenage girl on an airplane.

  Although the paper comes out only every two weeks and has space for only three national news briefs, the rabbi makes the news. I suspect there are many cries of “Stop the presses!” whenever the editor of The Final Call comes across an item about a wayward Jew.

  It’s quiet here, peaceful. My booth is in a sunny room decorated with cartoon fish on tile walls. I could be in the family restaurant of a mid-priced hotel chain.

  Immediately after such a light breakfast, I decide to have lunch.

  I’ve had my eye on the cafeteria’s rotisserie chicken, which comes with macaroni and cheese, greens, and a roll for $5.95 (white meat) or $5.49

  (dark). There are no greens today, so the white-jacketed server offers a substitute. I ask for a little cabbage and a few candied carrots, and I have to stop her from filling my tray to overflowing. Portions are more than generous at Salaam.

  I take a table in Elijah’s Garden, a glass-walled interior dining area with a marble fountain, patio furniture, and two overhead television sets. The carrots are soft and sweet. The cabbage is limp from sitting too long in water. The macaroni and cheese is nicely flavored but a little dry. My flimsy plastic knife bends double when I try to cut the chicken.

  For that matter, it bends double when I try to cut the carrots.

  The chicken is juicy, meaty, and sweet. I wonder if it was raised in accordance with the principles of Elijah Muhammad, who decreed the superiority of penned-in chickens that eat what you give them to barnyard chickens that eat bugs and worms. Say what you will about Elijah Muhammad, he was Frank Perdue before Frank Perdue.

  Elijah Muhammad’s writings on food, published in the late sixties and early seventies, are inspired by eminently sensible Muslim customs and beliefs and then veer off into the oddball. He recommends fresh F O R K I T O V E R

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  fruit, cooked vegetables, and the food of Orthodox Jews. He also advises against sweets, fats, tobacco, pork, alcohol, and processed, canned, or fried foods. He also recommends butter over margarine, putting him decades before his time.

  His less coherent moments come when he finds fault with freshly baked bread and explicitly endorses small fish over those weighing fifty pounds or more. He warns his followers against eating too much or too quickly, because then the food will not be digested and they will become “small and skinny.”

  I am reminded of one of his more eccentric culinary tenets—“There is no such thing as stale bread”—at the start of my second fine-dining experience: the waiter presents us with a dried-out half-loaf. My guest is reminded of something else—lip gloss—when she tastes the Salaam special butter, which is whipped up with honey, orange, and lemon.

  I decide to make this dinner a true international feast, leaving virtually no cuisine unexplored. After two satisfactory nonalcoholic fruit drinks, greasy vegetarian spring rolls, an order of vegetarian somosas that contain meat, heavy-duty quesadillas good enough to entice Tex-ans to join the Nation of Islam, tandoori chicken topped with that vile Burgundy sauce, a chopped Cobb salad that arrives unchopped, first-rate broccoli with hollandaise, and a couple of fabulous nonalcoholic blender drinks made with Häagen-Dazs ice cream, we decide it is time for dessert.

  “You’re kidding,” exclaims William, our waiter. I like him as much as I liked Noel, maybe more. That’s because he isn’t as good-looking as Noel and doesn’t distract my date.

  William walks away looking over his shoulder, waiting in vain for us to confess that our dessert order is a gag. The bean pie is excellent, as always.

  “I know you’re finished now,” says William.

  We concede that we are.

  “I’m tired,” he says. “I’ve been on my feet since ten o’clock this morning.”

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  him, but he is thinking of stopping on the way for a beer. That answers one of my questions. You don’t have to be Muslim to work at Salaam.

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nbsp; It’s Sunday afternoon, a beautiful day. I return to the cafeteria, eager to try the $5.99 seafood combo plate. Again I carry my tray into Elijah’s Garden, which I’m beginning to think of as my private place. Nobody seems to eat here except me. The BellSouth Senior Classic is on both overhead TV sets. I wonder if anybody is going to believe me when I tell them that I sat at Louis Farrakhan’s restaurant watching old white guys in green pants hit golf balls.

  The broiled perch is frightening. It smells old and spoiled and is the single worst item of the entire Salaam dining complex except perhaps the Burgundy sauce. After lunch I head for the two p.m. meeting at Mosque Maryam, located about four miles from the restaurant. I’ve got on my best blue suit. My shoes are shined. I’ve eaten so many meals at Salaam in the past week I feel like a member of the Nation of Islam, or at least like somebody who deserves to get into services on a guest pass. I’m wondering what will happen when I try to walk in.

  The mosque is not an inviting building. Located across a wide avenue from a strip mall, it’s all stone slabs and sharp angles, an intimidating fundamentalist façade. Electronically operated sliding gates block the entrance to the parking lot, so I leave my car on a side street and approach on foot. It’s 1:55 p.m.

  I walk up the steps behind three women wearing traditional loose Muslim garb. At the front entrance, a young Fruit of Islam stands guard.

  He opens a door for the women. I ask if I can go in.

  “No, sir,” he says courteously.

  I ask why not.

  He says I should go around to the side door. He explains that the front doors are for women only.

  I turn back down the stairs. A black man in a lemon-yellow suit passes me. I look over my shoulder. He’s walking in the front doors.

  I don’t know what’s in store for me at the side doors. I’m not expecting ecumenism.