Hungry In Hogtown

Flogging a dead horse: Au Pied de Cochon's foie gras poutine with horse fat fries

Italy boasts one of the richest gastronomic inheritances of any country.  It seems unfair that any place, let alone one tiny corner of that country, Emilia-Romagna, should be home to so much culinary gold: parmigiano, prosciutto di Parma, balsamic vinegar, mortadella, and pasta fresca.  As mouthwatering as that list is, keep in mind that it excludes an even longer list of gastronomic treasures from other parts of the belpaese: Piedmont's white truffles, the risotto of Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Veneto, and Tuscany's olive oils.  And that's just a selection of northern Italian specialties, there's still the south.  And the wine.

Yet I can't help but feeling that Italians cheat themselves.  Don't get me wrong, this italophile wishes he could wake up many mornings in Bologna or Rome, start the day with a cappuccino, and then gorge on local specialties.  But have you ever eaten marvelous foreign food in Italy?  Yes, there exists the occasional Chinese or Indian restaurant, but they are largely an afterthought in a country where gastronomic xenophobia is the norm.  What chance does food from the other side of the world have in a country where food from the other side of the mountain is viewed with disdain? 

Canada -- English Canada, really -- is a different story altogether.  With perhaps the exception of Newfoundland, we have no native cuisine.  The Great White North is a gastronomic Great White Canvas.  Over the past century, we've begun filling that canvas with the smells, tastes, and textures of the countless ethnic groups that weave the fabric of this country.  Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident that in our major urban centres.  Walk the streets of Toronto, for example, and you'll be confronted by a series of delights from around the world.

The Horse Crisperer: horse fat french fries

Those of you that don't already hate me for cooking with horse fat are probably going to hate me for my next statement: McDonald's french fries are perhaps the best fries in the world.  Period.

Before you disregard my last statement as the ravings of a culinary lunatic, hear me out.  I know it's fashionable to dismiss all fast food with a sneer and a wave of the hand, but McDonald's fries deserve a second glance.  Sure, they're about the farthest thing possible from artisanal or slow food, but that alone does not justify ignoring them.  Engineered food -- even fries developed in a lab cum test kitchen -- can be superb.

We can all agree on the fundamentals of a great french fry: a crunchy exterior, lots of salt, and a rich taste without greasiness. The only aspect of the fry that triggers debate is the proper texture of the interior, which is really a debate over which kind of potato -- baking or boiling -- to use in the first place.  Jeffrey Steingarten, in his brilliant piece on horse fat french fries, observes that North Americans tend to prefer their interiors fluffy, whereas Europeans prefer them creamy.  There's no argument that the soft flesh of the fry should act as a contrast to the crispy shell.  Now, visit your local McDonald's and order some fries.  They conform perfectly to this ideal.

Can TV, cookbooks, and a line of signature frozen entrées be far behind? Part II

Oops!... I did it again!

That's right, I have another small piece in the July, 2007 issue of Toronto Life that hit newsstands yesterday. It's a profile of a dish by Chef Andrea Nicholson at Sequel restaurant.  The dish is a 'sous vide' of arctic char with octopus and blood orange.  It's served with a wonderful, palate- and sinus-clearing icicle radish and wild ginger sorbet that starts sweet and finishes fiery, and a green icicle radish gelée that is the focus of the piece.  The seafood is topped with a craveable fish skin 'crisp' -- a salted and fried piece of arctic char skin that calls to mind some sort of potato chip-nori hybrid.

All this is my way of saying, go buy the latest issue of Toronto Life.  For now, at least, it's the only way to read the piece, though I'll post the link when it's up on the Toronto Life website.  I know I said I'd add a link to my piece last time and have yet to do so, but that's not my fault.  Toronto Life has yet to make it available online.  I can only assume it's because they worry the surge in traffic to view the piece would kill their web servers.

But I could be wrong.

I believe I can fry: deep fried Oreos

I'm always amazed when I see a pearl of molecular gastronomy wisdom unintentionally applied to everyday cooking, doubly so when the dish just happens to be something most food snobs would shun, like industrially manufactured cookies.

Last month, I made Heston Blumenthal's fried fish.  In his efforts to build a better batter, Blumenthal uses two secret weapons: alcohol and carbonation.  The bubbles in carbonated liquids such as beer create batters that are lighter and crispier than batters made with water alone.  Blumenthal takes this idea to its logical extreme by not only adding beer to his batter, but by carbonating it all in an iSi siphon.  The use of beer in fish batter is hardly new, but it's exciting to see the underlying principle -- that carbonation enhances the texture of the final product -- applied elsewhere.  Enter Oreos.