Best Food Writing 2011

by Holly Hughes

  It wasn’t to be. Dollars were better spent on Hamburger Helper, Jolly Green Giant, and Shak ‘n’ Bake, a product I thought was the basis for all cooking. And whenever my sister and I found a fast-food favorite, our Catholic upbringing made us feel guilty for coveting it, took it away for 40 days during Lent, or made us say grace to it. “Bless us O Lord, for these most heavenly McNuggets.”

  Sacrifice is a bitch, especially when you’re an 8-year-old Catholic kid and there’s a Fry Girl inside you who wants to ride the McDonald’s merry-go-round.

  I could blame my editor for my year of eating dangerously. After all, it was her idea. But let’s face it, as a fledgling writer whose most recent contribution to the world of journalism was several blog posts about drinking during the day—a series that had been tagged as being too Bukowski-esque (minus the misogyny)—I needed the support and encouragement to try something new. Well, not that new. Writing about fast food at New Times had been done before by Dave Walker, a.k.a. Cap’n Dave, with much success. (If you’ve really been around this town a while, you might recall Cap’n Dave’s run for governor in the ’80s.)

  Now it was my turn at the hamburger helm.

  We came up with Fry Fatale, then Burger Broad, but Fry Girl seemed to click. I thought it was going to be easy. C’mon, fast food? Burgers and fries? How hard could it be?

  My first attempt at a 400-word column sucked. It took a week, and my husband asked me whether I was writing a term paper. I may have thrown the cat at him for that. My second attempt went too far the other way, omitting connecting words and using short, staccato sentences, like in a James Ellroy novel. Gulp.

  It got easier, but it also got weird. The restrictiveness of my youth coupled with my ongoing food obsessions and natural curiosity made the world of fast food mine to devour and conquer. I flooded my e-mail inbox with Google searches and welcome letters from every fast-food loyalty club I could sign up for. I trolled the Internet in search of sites where fast-foodies like me gabbed and gushed about the latest and greatest greasy grub. If I spied a fast-food commercial speeding by on my DVR, I stopped, rewound, and watched intently. During the day, I’d have three or four drive-thru bags playing co-pilot in my passenger seat. By night, I found myself cruising the streets in search of a new burger joint or greasy spoon. “Hey, man, you got any new McShwag?”

  Then there’s the continuous eating. With fried fare no longer a sometimes-treat, I now consumed it the way most people look at Facebook. A cavalcade of burgers, burritos, fries, nuggets, tacos, shakes, dogs, subs, sandwiches, and desserts, not to mention breakfast and, yes, carnival chow. Some I couldn’t wait to try (new hot dogs), others I wasn’t so sure about (anything from Taco Bell), and there were still others that scared the hell out of me (a chocolate-covered scorpion).

  Initially, I approached every greasy meal with delighted anticipation, but like a plumber, when you’ve flushed enough shit through the pipes, sometimes you can barely take the smell. Like anything dangerous in life that’s done willingly, there are consequences. A sweaty soda cup, fragments of fast food strewn across paper wrappings spotted with the same grease that coated my fingers, the knowledge of what I just willingly stuck down my gullet, feelings of denial, regret, and disgust—in some cases, writing the Fry Girl column felt like telling a bad morning-after story after a night with Ronald McDonald.

  And, no, I’m not fat. No one’s ever asked me that outright, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t wondering. I am not overweight. And, for the record, I’m also not anorexic, bulimic, a ghost, or a grizzly bear, nor do I have a hole in the back of my head. Fry Girl’s fast food consumption followed two simple rules: (1) Don’t eat it all, and (2) If you do have to eat everything (you know, when size is the selling point), make it the only meal of the day. Is it the greatest of guidelines? No. Have I done the “Honey, I’m just too full from fast food to join you for a home-cooked dinner. Can I fix you a Hot Pocket?” on many occasions? Yes. Would I rather say I burned everything off thanks to training for an iron man triathlon or that I am indeed a grizzly bear? Yes and hell yes. Grizzly bears are cool.

  My dirty little secret about being Fry Girl? I wasn’t just Fry Girl. I have another job, one that is completely the opposite. I push organic food. That’s right, the good stuff. Natural and nutritious noshings that wouldn’t be caught dead peeking out of a drive-thru window, served atop Styrofoam, or pimping themselves out on a value menu. So while Fry Girl was taking down the latest burger big shot, mild-mannered Organic Girl was singing the praises of fresh, local produce while munching on organic strawberries. Know thy enemy? In my case, that saying goes both ways. And while some may cry, “Foul!” understanding the two opposing sides of the food war has made me something of a dietary diplomat, ’cause let’s face it, folks, few of us walk that straight a nutritional line. Every once in a while, the bad stuff tastes kinda good.

  At least it does for most of us.

  According to the Super Size Me website, one in four Americans visits a fast-food restaurant every day. In the year 2000, we spent over $110 billion dollars in them (that’s up from a mere $3 billion in 1972). Fast food has been a part of American culture since White Castle started slingin’ beef in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. White Castle’s white porcelain enamel and stainless-steel décor, along with the innovation of allowing customers to see their food being prepared, became a purposeful perception changer to what folks then thought of the meatpacking industry (thanks to Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle). Along with the automobile, highvolume, low-cost, and high-speed burgers and fries continue to rank high in the U.S. product popularity contest. Having it our way is the American way.

  Even with the movement for organic food and farming gaining momentum, the fast food giants know that 40 percent of our meals are eaten outside the home, French fries are the most eaten vegetable in the United States, and, though the demands for healthier food may have changed the way they do business, most of us still crave a cheeseburger.

  “____”

  That’s the response I got from a lot of folks when I told them what I did as Fry Girl. Zilch. Sometimes there was a polite smile or a laugh, as if I’d just told them a joke, a punch line akin to saying I was a shrimp blogger or a cake ninja. Some, like the woman I met at a Wendy’s VIP breakfast event, felt the need to impart their negative views of fast food—“I don’t eat it,” “It’s not good for you,” “I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom”—successfully killing any chance of further conversation and moving along to more important topics, like anything else. One woman I introduced myself to at a hot dog joint simply glared at me and said through clenched teeth, “I know who you are and I know what you do.”

  I got a few e-mails, not as many as I would have liked. I could usually count on a few nasty-grams when I gave a joint a bad review, something I’m not fond of doing. I was called unfair, a snob, and an imbecile. I’ve been told that I ask idiotic questions, that I don’t give new places a chance, that I’m cursed, that I reek of grease, and that I think I’m the Queen of Tempe. Passionate people, no doubt, who enjoy fast food. We’re more alike than they may think.

  Occasionally, I was lucky enough to receive an “Atta (Fry)Girl!” via e-mail or comment on a blog post. Some asked questions about who’s got the best this or have I ever tried that. I enjoyed hearing what fellow fast food fans think is good in the Valley and of their own personal experiences with grab ’n’ go grub. It’s good company to keep. One time someone overheard me interviewing a restaurant owner and stopped to ask whether I was Fry Girl. After I hesitated before affirming my identity, he shook my hand—a brief moment of greasy glory.

  “Do you think this would work on my menu?”

  I was asked that question recently from a local fast-food owner and fry guy. We’d struck up a friendship after I’d been there a few times, something I’ve done with several of my local grub-hunting pursuits, almost all of them initially surprised to hear there’s actually some sucker out there who wants to write
about what they do. They’re enthusiastic, dedicated, and usually scared shitless things won’t work out for them. Some have been in the restaurant business since they were kids, others have moved their families across the country to take over a business, and still others have risked it all in the name of “screw the man, this is my goddamn dream.”

  Sure, Fry Girl was essentially a column about fast food, but it’s the people behind the patties that make us feel more connected to our bites in a bag. Maybe, in a weird way, eating fast food is like experiencing music or art; we tend to enjoy it more when we know who its creator is. And let’s face it, when you’re talking about grub served up in less than five minutes, a little life story goes a long way.

  Back in the examining room with my doctor, the question still hangs in the air—where did my food virus that ultimately landed me in the hospital for three days come from?

  Here’s what I know: In my year of eating fast food, of ceasing to follow my past good-eating habits, of consuming untold amounts of calories and crap from a gaggle of grease pits slinging everything from deep-fried butter to monster-size burgers to cheese covered in chicken, it’s anyone’s guess.

  I look up at my doctor whose eyebrows are raised in anticipation and answer, “You know what, Doc?” and then, with a shrug, “Nothin’ comes to mind.”

  CRAVING THE FOOD OF DEPRAVITY

  By Elissa Altman

  From PoorMansFeast.com

  Huffington Post columnist, former Hartford Courant restaurant critic, and prolific feature writer Elissa Altman holds court at her award-winning blog, PoorMansFeast.com. Wielding wry humor like a scalpel, she cuts to the heart of why we love food—including our darkest secret cravings.

  I have, for most of my life, been what one would call a very good girl. But there have been certain instances—mostly in the ’80s—when I wasn’t. On some of those occasions, I was a freshman in college, away from home for the very first time and extremely friendly with a man-boy who lived on the far edge of campus, and who liked to cut classes in favor of listening to Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels while trying not to ignite the gin in his bong.

  In truth, I never went to such great lengths to achieve existential bliss; my youthful experiences were wine-and-just-this-side-of-illegal-hallucinogen-soaked, although I do recall one occasion when, at three in the morning after a night of benign experimentation, I strolled home with a group of friends and walked into a parking meter on the BU bridge. At the university health clinic that night where I received two stitches over my right eyebrow, I insisted that he (I applied sexual gender to it) had gotten in my way.

  Anyway, the food related to such shenanigans is well-known: for me, it was all about Doritos (but only taco flavor). For my friend Beth, only a tuna salad grinder from T. Anthony’s on Commonwealth Avenue would do. Years later, when I moved home to New York, I discovered that after a night at Au Bar, I had a desperate craving for a Gray’s Papaya hotdog, but only from the one on 72nd Street and Broadway. On the morning after my cousin Mishka’s pre-wedding dinner, it was all about a croque madame, as opposed to a monsieur. When I lived in England, only cold Scotch Eggs or spaghetti carbonara would work. Or, if things were really bad, a “burger” from Wimpies.

  So I find myself wondering, in these days of rampant gourmetism—where everybody calls themselves a chef and food is sometimes precioused to within an inch of its life—what people in similar situations find themselves in need of. Sure, if you live in New York, you could easily require a middle of the night bowl of David Chang’s ginger scallion noodles and a half dozen of his pork buns. But does anyone come down from happy land with a mad, insatiable yen for sauternes-poached foie gras? Or a 24 hour, sousvided egg? Or some charred octopus salad, like the one I made a week or so ago? Maybe a few French breakfast radishes on black bread with sweet butter?

  Not so much.

  Because, while it’s all delicious (especially the radishes, which I adore), none of it is the food of depravity.

  In truth, I honestly don’t know if some of you do desire foie gras after a night of debauchery. Maybe you do. But I know that for the last few weeks, and for reasons that I cannot fathom (because the craziest I’ve been since the 80s is wanting to use 100 proof rye in my Manhattan), I’ve been very seriously craving this manna of the corrupt—the stuff that people, chuffed or not, seem to flock to at certain times: last week, I made what amounted to a large bucket of pimiento cheese from Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton’s Canal House Cooking #6. I’d never had this stuff before; Jews just don’t do pimiento cheese—it’s not the food of my people—which, my Southern friends tell me, is best eaten on either plain crackers (not cracked wheat; not gluten free; not multi-grain. Just plain Saltines or Club crackers), or on squishy white bread—the kind that people like me like to write nasty things about. After basically eating a pound of this stuff on Club crackers and then sucking the rest down with a teaspoon, I can say without a doubt that this is definitely, unquestionably, food of depravity.

  Then last night, on what Susan and I have dubbed Hump Night Cocktail and Hors d’Oeuvres, we had some bruschetta that came from Joe Yonan’s book, Serve Yourself, via Domenica Marchetti’s great blog. Even though I love Joe’s work and he’s a super nice guy, I’m not a particularly big fan of bruschetta; the American hand with it took it to extraordinarily distasteful heights back in the 90s, when it showed up on every Bar Mitzvah catering pass-around topped with diced, raw, cottony tomatoes and mozzarella so rubbery you could play squash with it. But this recipe, which Susan unearthed, sounded at the very least interesting, and at the very most, delicious: toasted rounds of rustic bread (we used a baguette) are spread with very ripe avocado (buttery, fatty point), smoked oysters tossed with pimenton (slippery, smoky point), chopped green olives (briny, salty point), and toasted, unsalted pistachios (crunchy, earthy point). All points covered, it had the potential for gustatory greatness. But still, I had some concerns.

  “Don’t know about the smoked oysters—” I said to her, cradling the phone on my shoulder.

  “I practically lived on them when I was a kid,” she said, which I found very hard to believe because Susan has serious texture issues, even now. And although she could Hoover down two dozen Willapa Bay oysters like they were dust bunnies, I couldn’t picture her as a child eating them smoked.

  “When, exactly, would you eat them?” I asked.

  “As a snack—” she said. “Like maybe while I was watching tv with my parents.”

  “Instead of, say, a bowl of Fritos?”

  I was mystified, and imagined her at five, sitting on her mother’s flowered couch on a Sunday night, chowing down with a tiny fork while watching Topo Gigio.

  “Sure—” she said. “Just like that. I also lived on them in my 20s.” And then she hung up. That last bit was a giveaway: Susan was in New York when she was in her 20s, hanging out at places like CBGBs. So, smoked oysters? Ka-ching: Food of depravity, that I’d never, ever tried.

  I love tinned smoked fish: I adore smoked sardines, smoked mackerel—you name it, and the oilier and more odorous, the better. And I also love oysters—the tinier and brinier, the better. But smoking and canning oysters just seemed to me to be a crime against humanity. So I took the conversation to my Facebook page, where I learned that, like pimiento cheese, smoked oysters are just something that my people aren’t aligned with, which is odd given the whole lox thing. Culturally, these particular foods of depravity aren’t, as I like to say, Jew food. (It’s a game: Mallomars? Jew food. Twinkies? Not Jew food. Ritz crackers? Jew food. Club crackers? Not Jew food. Veggie cream cheese? Jew food. Pimiento cheese? Not Jew food.) They were out of my lexicon, and a bit mysterious. And I loved them.

  So we made Joe’s bruschetta last night and after the second one, it was clear: it had it all. The salt, the sweet, the brine, the crunch. It was a culinary car crash of depravity. It screamed empty pantry/bachelor/home at three a.m./starving/nothing in the house but smoked oysters, an avocado, and a jar
of cocktail olives.

  Of course, this is all projection. But I can smell it a mile away, like a hot dog from Gray’s Papaya.

  IN DEFENCE OF SHITE FOOD

  By Bryce Elder

  From Fire & Knives

  London-based Bryce Elder, by day a contributor to the Financial Times, indulged his gastronomic proclivities in this new UK literary food quarterly. Scrutinizing the business model behind fast-food restaurants took financial savvy—but also a cast-iron stomach.

  Consider the Big Mac. Ideally, you should do this by going out and buying one. I’m starting here because, among foodist types, the Big Mac tends to be wielded as an insult. It has become a staple payoff line to restaurant reviews worldwide: ‘We had to stop for a Big Mac on the way home.’ The writer means this as an insult—a criticism of miserly portions, cheffery and over-faff, presentation over content. It’s an answer to the unasked question, ‘where’s the beef?’ Except it isn’t.

  Go buy a Big Mac. Please. Put aside your rounded views on globalisation and factory farming for as long as it takes to bite down without prejudice. Because, once you’re faced by the thing, it’s hard not to conclude that they’re quite pleasant. Squeeze-bottle mustard, mostly. A layer of carbon mulch from the double mince, a sweetish roll and some cool shredded lettuce. All the parts come together to form a plainness that’s comforting, familiar, contrite.

  The Big Mac can be considered a shite food benchmark, the foundation stone on which a $75bn shite food empire was built. Rage against the McDonald’s Corporation if you must, but it’s hard to find any emotion for its signature product. It doesn’t fail because it aims extremely low, like all shite food should. Anyone wanting to preserve brainpower, like Einstein with his identical jackets, could resolve to eat three Happy Meals a day and never be troubled by another thought of food or hunger right up until the day of their myocardial infarction.