Buttermilk Graffiti

by Edward Lee

  We talk about the food, and I thank him for his commitment to serving fish from the Gulf. He shows me a wall with all the accolades he has received over the years. He tells me he had many more but that those got washed away with Ike. We talk about fishing and life in San Leon. I ask him if he gets along with the Vietnamese shrimpers. Yes, he tells me. He works with them all, and they are his friends.

  “But it’s hard for the old-timers,” he tells me. “Their kids do fine, they become American, but the older ones, they have a hard time letting go. I tell them, ‘This here is America. Why do you want to make this place Vietnam?’ I’ve had my own story, you know, but when I got here, I said to myself, I am going to embrace this country.”

  I ask him what his story is. He lets out a sigh. It’s too long to recount.

  “Anyway,” he says, “I’ll just give you the short version. It was 1940 when the Russians came into Tarnopol. I was five years old at the time. They gave us twenty minutes to pack, mostly clothes, some provisions. They put us on a sled and took us to the railroad station. We were transported for two to three weeks. We had never left Poland before, and here we were, traveling weeks by rail with little food and no medicine and nowhere to sleep. When we got out of the train, we found out we were in Siberia. My parents were forced to work in a labor camp in the forest. We didn’t think we would survive. Some months later, they were transporting us again by train, to another labor camp even deeper into Siberia. The train doors were left open, and my father decided we would jump. He went first and the children went next, and last was my mother. We walked to a nearby village in the snow. A woman, God bless her, allowed us to stay with her.

  “This was 1942, and the Germans were beating up on the Russians. The Germans were recruiting all Polish men to fight with them, and if they did, they promised that their families could return to Poland. So my father joined. They took him away, and we didn’t see him for a long time. We heard he was fighting in Persia. Well, we were still in Siberia thinking we would go back to Poland, but then my mother heard of a group of families that were heading to Iran. We jumped aboard a train in the direction of the Caspian Sea. To this day, I still don’t know how my mother found the strength and will to keep my brother and me safe on that journey. We didn’t have papers; we didn’t have money. My brother and I hid under the seat compartments almost the whole trip. When we got off the train, we took oxcarts and trolleys. We were walking along a deserted road when we saw a military truck drive by. They were Polish soldiers, and when they realized we were from Poland, they let us on the truck and took us to Tashkent. From there we somehow got to a port on the Caspian Sea, where we waited to board a boat for Iran. Well, we finally got to Iran, where we lived in a tent city for many months.”

  I’m writing very fast, trying to get every detail of his story right. I’m not concerned with the facts or the question of how he could know so many details of his life from the age of five. It is clear to me he has told this story before, but that makes it no less fascinating.

  “I saw my father once, for two days, during all that time, and then we didn’t see him again for another seven years after that. We moved to Tehran, where we lived in a refugee camp. They set up Polish schools, and we lived six months there. Then we got on lorries and traveled through some very dangerous parts to get to the Persian Gulf. They put us on a boat to Karachi, which was then India; now it’s Pakistan. We stayed there for four months, then got on another boat, to Mombasa, Africa. Then we boarded a train, first to Nairobi, then to Uganda, where we lived in a Polish settlement camp on Lake Victoria. We stayed here for over five years. They built schools for us, and we were treated well here. When the war ended, we went back to Poland. We heard our father had somehow made his way to England. So we went there to join him. We stayed there for three years, until about 1952, when we decided to make a new life in America. We had a sponsor who lived in Indiana, and we made the long trip, on the Queen Elizabeth, landing on Ellis Island. We took a Greyhound bus to Hammond, Indiana, and my father got a job as a welder. When I got older, I found work as a draftsman for the telephone company. In 1957, I was drafted into the U.S. Army, and I was sent to Washington, D.C., as a tech engineer. I was discharged in 1959, and I went back to work for the telephone company. Back then, the solid-state transistor radio was becoming popular, and my manager allowed me to experiment on the devices. I developed a few patents and got promoted. In 1972, I got a call to come to Houston to work for an oil rig company, doing their electronics systems. I would come down here to San Leon to fish, and I liked it very much. I had a small shrimp boat back then, and I made some money doing it on the side. In 1975, this marina came up for sale, and I bought it. At the time, I was also going to Ecuador for work, so I didn’t focus too much on this property. In 1983, I started to be here more full-time. I bought a fleet of shrimp boats, and we did that business for a while. When I built this restaurant, it was just a small place that served the seafood we would catch from the bay. Then, in 2008, Hurricane Ike took it all away. We rebuilt the restaurant, and now my son runs the show here, and it is doing very well.”

  I’m trying to keep eye contact with him while madly scribbling. I ask him about the gold anchor around his neck. His wife got it for him a long time ago.

  “I’ll tell you a funny story about my wife,” he says. “When I was in the U.S. Army, some friends set us up on a blind date because we were both Polish. We started talking on that first date, and wouldn’t you know it, we had lived in all the same places at the same time. Our families knew each other, and I had actually met her once when she was just eight days old. Her family had been on the same journey as mine. She was in Siberia when I was there, she went across the Caspian Sea to Iran, and she lived in the same camp in Africa when I was there. She came to the United States a year after I did. When we were dating, I showed her a picture I had kept from Africa. There was a man who had killed a great crocodile, and all the kids in the camp surrounded the animal to take pictures. I showed her the picture, and wouldn’t you know it, she was in the picture.”

  He grows quiet for a brief moment. “There was a reason for all this, for meeting my wife. I am blessed. Too many times I should not have made it out alive. Now I have my own family, and I feel like it was all for a purpose. I am eighty-three, and no question I have lived a blessed life.”

  My hand is cramping from writing so fast, my fingers trembling. I ask him where he keeps that picture of the man with the crocodile. He tells me he lost it during Ike. Like everyone here, he lost almost everything.

  “Well, this was much more than I intended on saying,” he tells me. “I think you only wanted to know about my restaurant.”

  I put down my pen and close my notebook. There is nothing more to write. I shake hands with him and wish him a healthy life. He seems tired from talking. His phone rings as he gets up to leave the table. I watch him as he walks around his restaurant, shaking hands with customers and wiping down a stained menu. Through the glass walls of the restaurant, I watch him go back to the marina, where he helps a fisherman bring his boat out of the water. A brown pelican sits perched on a rock, patiently waiting for the scraps to be thrown its way.

  I don’t know what these various cultures have in common other than the bay that provides them work and, I assume, some deeper satisfaction of living. And hot sauce—they all seem to like hot sauce. As Kenny said, when you’re on the water, the rules of the land don’t apply. It’s as if you get to leave the planet for a while. Other problems arise on a boat, but they are mechanical or else involve battles with weather or annoying gulls. For most of the fishermen I talked to, the biggest problem is that the laws of the land have slowly but heavily crept onto the boats in the water, making that sweet journey of escape barely possible anymore.

  In 2017, Hurricane Harvey battered the Gulf Coast, leaving most of the coastal towns in devastating floodwaters. It was the worst storm since Ike. But the folks on the coast will rebuild.
From the shrimp trawlers to the Mexican cooks to Captain Wally, they will return to their bond with the water; they will once again harvest their livelihoods from the bay.

  Shrimpers are squeezed all around by the cost of operating a boat in the United States, the cost of meeting regulations, and competition with low-price, low-quality shrimp from Asia. The price of shrimp has become so cheap that we have devalued the flavor of shrimp. We think of it as an everyday food that we consume without a second thought. But if you like shrimp, you should get your hands on some Galveston Bay white shrimp. The boats never go out for more than a day, so the shrimp don’t get frozen. They come in fresh and are sold right away. They are delicate and taste of the bay. You will find that you don’t need to blacken them or bury them in a blanket of sauce. And you’ll know what the pelican knows: that shrimp are best eaten fresh and simply prepared.

  Vietnamese Crepes with Shrimp, Pork, and Herbs

  (Banh Xeo with Nuoc Cham)

  Banh xeo is a traditional Vietnamese stuffed crepe dish, served with lettuce and herbs on the side. You wrap the crepe in lettuce and dip it into the sauce known as nuoc cham. But for this version, I serve the crepes open-faced, with the lettuce and herbs on top. Serve this as a casual first course along with a crisp light beer.

  Serves 4 as a first course

  batter

  2 cups rice flour

  2 tablespoons plus scant 1 teaspoon cornstarch

  1 teaspoon salt

  ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric

  ½ scallion, thinly sliced

  ⅓ cup coconut milk

  2 cups water

  filling

  1½ teaspoons fish sauce

  ½ teaspoon sugar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  12 ounces pork shoulder, sliced into thin strips

  12 ounces small shrimp, preferably white Gulf shrimp

  ½ small yellow onion, thinly sliced

  ¼ cup vegetable oil

  2 cups bean sprouts, rinsed

  garnish

  1 grapefruit, cut into suprêmes, juice reserved (see Nuoc Cham recipe)

  1 bunch mint, roughly chopped

  1 bunch cilantro

  1 bunch Thai basil, chopped

  1 cup chopped romaine lettuce

  Nuoc Cham

  To make the batter: In a medium bowl, combine the rice flour, cornstarch, salt, turmeric, and scallion. Add the coconut milk and water and whisk well. Set aside at room temperature for 1 hour. The batter will thicken slightly as it sits.

  Meanwhile, marinate the pork for the filling: In a small bowl, combine the fish sauce, sugar, salt, and pepper. Add the pork, tossing to coat, cover, and refrigerate.

  When ready to cook, drain the pork and divide the pork, shrimp, and onion into 4 portions each.

  Heat a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 teaspoons of the oil to the pan, then add one portion each of the pork, shrimp, and onion and sauté for about 1 minute, stirring often, until the pork is slightly browned. Give the batter a good stir with a ladle, pour about⅓ cup of the batter into the center of the skillet, and swirl the skillet to cover the bottom; the batter should sizzle and bubble as you pour it in. After 30 seconds, pile ½ cup of the bean sprouts onto the crepe, lower the heat to medium, and place a lid on the pan. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the sprouts have wilted slightly.

  Remove the lid. Pour 1 teaspoon of the oil around the edges of the crepe and cook for 3 minutes more, or until the crepe is crispy and golden on the bottom. Slide the crepe onto a serving plate. Repeat with the remaining batter and filling, putting each crepe on a serving plate.

  Arrange the grapefruit segments, herbs, and lettuce over the crepe—build the greens nice and high. Drizzle the nuoc cham sauce over the herbs and crepe. Serve immediately, with more nuoc cham on the side if you want.

  Nuoc Cham | This is a great dipping sauce for spring rolls and lettuce wraps. The grapefruit juice is optional, but it really makes the sauce vibrant. Makes about 1½ cups

  ⅔ cup lukewarm water

  3 tablespoons sugar

  ⅓ cup fresh lime juice

  5 to 6 tablespoons fish sauce

  1 or 2 Thai bird chiles, thinly sliced

  2 garlic cloves, minced

  Reserved juices from the grapefruit suprêmes (from the Crepe recipe)

  In a small bowl, whisk together the water and sugar to dissolve the sugar. Add the lime juice, fish sauce, chiles, and garlic and whisk to combine. Add the reserved grapefruit juice.

  Bourbon Nuoc Cham–Roasted Oysters

  Try to get lovely big, fat Gulf oysters for this recipe if you can. They aren’t as briny as some other varieties, but they are juicy and they cook really nicely.

  The oysters are topped with the same basic dipping sauce I serve with the crepes, but I replace the water with bourbon. It adds smokiness and depth to the sauce. When you cook with bourbon, you can’t just substitute it in equal parts for water. You have to cook the alcohol out of the bourbon.

  Serves 6 as a first course

  Rock salt

  12 oysters, preferably from the Gulf, scrubbed clean

  ¼ cup Bourbon Nuoc Cham

  Preheat the oven to 500°F, or as hot as it will go.

  Spread a layer of rock salt on a baking sheet and nestle the oysters in the salt, with the flat sides facing up. Put the oysters in the oven and watch them carefully as they cook, as they will only take 3 to 5 minutes. As soon as the oysters start to open up and you see a small bit of the oyster liquor bubbling around the sides, they are ready. Take the oysters out of the oven. Wearing heatproof gloves, lift each oyster and pop the top shells off; they should come off easily. (I don’t even use an oyster knife for this, just a sturdy paring knife.)

  Arrange the oysters on a serving plate and drizzle the bourbon nuoc cham right over the oysters. Serve immediately.

  Bourbon Nuoc Cham | Makes about 1 cup

  2 cups bourbon, preferably a 5-year-aged one

  3 tablespoons sugar

  ⅓ cup fresh lime juice

  5 to 6 tablespoons fish sauce

  1 or 2 Thai bird chiles, thinly sliced

  2 garlic cloves, minced

  Put the bourbon in a medium pot, bring to a simmer over low heat, and simmer slowly until it has reduced to about ½ cup. The bourbon will ignite, so have a tight-fitting lid next to the stove, and do not ever peek into the pot. When the bourbon ignites, simply put the lid over the pot to put out the fire; remove the lid as soon as the fire is doused. The alcohol may ignite once or twice more; just cover the pot to extinguish the flames.

  When the bourbon has reduced, pour it into a heatproof measuring cup, then add water until you have ⅔ cup reduced bourbon water.

  Pour the bourbon water into a bowl and add the sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, chiles, and garlic. The nuoc cham will keep in your fridge, covered, for up to 2 weeks.

  Chapter 12

  The Immortality of Paterson

  What is it about a waterfall that makes people want to jump? Is it the calm waters suddenly cascading into a collision of violence? Is it the release in that freefall, the churning energy that began long before we were here and that will continue long after we’re gone? I have these thoughts as I’m standing in front of the Great Falls of the Passaic River in Paterson, New Jersey. It is early in the morning and, aside from a few joggers, I’m alone. After staring at the waterfall for a few minutes, I start to see an optical illusion. I see stillness, yet I know there is constant movement. I see an eternity in the patterns of the water.

  A man walking his dogs tells me that someone jumped to his death just last week. It happened in broad daylight, he tells me. A man just jumped off the Wayne Avenue Bridge. It happens a lot, he tells me. There is a footbridge over the falls from where you ca
n see the river up close. The water cascades more than sixty feet in random patterns over the Watchung Mountains to unforgiving rocks below. It is a majestic and frightening thing to behold. I choose not to go across the bridge. No need to tempt my impulsive nature. I’m surprised at how desolate it is here. On a good day, Paterson is a thirty-minute drive from Manhattan, but there appears not to be a single tourist. If this were in Brooklyn, there’d be a throng of visitors all day long. I see a lot of contradictions in this waterfall, tucked inside a city that has seen better days. Stillness and motion, life and death, solitude and connection.

  Because of this waterfall, Paterson was once a center of industrial innovation. The falls gave birth to a once-thriving city of immigrants and laborers. Alexander Hamilton was the first one to laud the potential of the Passaic River, to imagine the harnessing of its raw power to fuel his vision of an America that would lead the world in manufacturing. Paterson became an industrialist’s dream, a land of unregulated factories driven by cheap labor and abundant raw materials. Thomas Edison, Samuel Colt, Rogers Locomotive, engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs congregated in Paterson to shape the future of a relentless America that would meet the demand for everything from guns to textiles. By 1870, the mills of Paterson produced more than 50 percent of the silk made in this country, giving Paterson the nickname Silk City. The first wave of immigrants to work the factories came from Europe and founded new neighborhoods such as Dublin, an Irish American enclave along the east bank of the Passaic River. They were quickly followed by Italian, Polish, Hungarian, and Greek immigrants desperate for jobs. The rise and fall of Paterson traced the greater story of American manufacturing. Strikes, stricter labor laws, and unions made conditions better for these workers but also spurred the industry titans to move their factories elsewhere. The fate of Paterson’s industrial era was doomed by an algorithm of maximum production powered by immigrants working at the lowest possible wages.