Hungry In Hogtown

Boysterous: Starfish's oyster po' boy and the quest for sustainability

There's a spot in Toronto's St. Lawrence Market, at the junction of two aisles, from which I sometimes survey all three of the market's fishmongers.  And what I see these days pains me.

Two of the three proudly display Chilean sea bass, and all three usually have some Atlantic cod and grouper, often just a few slots down from the trays of farmed salmon and monkfish.  In other words, these guys sell a lot of unsustainable fish.

I spoke to the manager of one of these shops a few months ago and asked him why so much unsustainable catch makes it into display cases.  His answer was one part cop out, one part foreboding pragmatism.  The obvious reason for selling unsustainably fished species is that customers don't just buy them, they demand them.  But that excuse only stretches so far.  The other reason they do it, according to my piscine Deep Throat, is that there's no longer enough sustainable catch available to fill twenty feet of refrigerated display cases.

More worrisome yet, this trio isn't alone.  I've visited many of Toronto's most reputable fishmongers and they all sell unsustainable seafood.  It's an epidemic.

Now, I'm hardly a saint when it comes to sustainability.  My ignorance of the issue led me down some inexcusable paths.  But I saw the light about a year ago and have since devoted myself to the cause of sustainability with fervour.

I've struggled to educate myself about the issues by reading fantastically helpful books like Bottomfeeder, by Taras Grescoe, and The End of the Line, by Charles Clover.  I carry a wallet-sized copy of SeaChoice's Canada's Seafood Guide with me wherever I go.  I even question servers and fishmongers about the provenance of the seafood they offer.  Most importantly, I've stopped eating unsustainable fish.

But I want to do more.

I got the chance this month thanks to Toronto Life.  I'm in the process of writing a sidebar for the January issue that identifies a handful of sustainable restaurant dishes in Toronto.  It hasn't been easy.  I now understand how difficult it must be to fill a display case with sustainable seafood.  Finding five dishes took hours of digging and led me down a lot of false paths.

Until now, for example, I'd always assumed that McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, made largely of Alaskan pollock, represents one of the best seafood choices available.  The fishery earned Maritime Stewardship Council (MSC) certification and was routinely cited as an exemplar of industry best practices.  This year, according to Greenpeace, catches have plummeted almost fifty percent and a collapse of the fishery, along with the ecosystem it supports, is possible.  Goodbye fish sticks and California rolls.

I can move on, I thought, there are plenty of fish in the sea.  Having digested the lessons of Bottomfeeder, I immediately sought out something small and oily, like anchovies, only to discover that the MSC listed the Atlantic anchovy as a fish to avoid now that the Bay of Biscay fishery has collapsed and stocks in the remaining Portuguese fishery have sunk to critical levels.

Researching this piece was a struggle, but it had its rewards.

First, there are a handful of restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area that care enough to at least make some effort to serve sustainable seafood.  Jamie Kennedy has long been the poster boy for sustainability in this town, but the Vancouver Aquarium's Ocean Wise programme identifies five local restaurants that serve sustainable dishes:

1. Amuse-Bouche
2. C5
3. EPIC
4. Pangaea Restaurant
5. Trios Bistro

I also learned that SeaChoice has worked with a handful of restaurants that "are at least engaged to some degree:"

1. Jamie Kennedy Kitchens
2. Reds Bistro & Wine Bar
3. Scaramouche
4. Cowbell
5. Oliver Bonacini
6. Oyster Boy
7. Niagara Street Café
8. The Drake Hotel
9. Starfish Oyster Bed & Grill

Second, my research connected me with Taina Uitto, the national manager of SeaChoice, Canada's pre-eminent advocacy group for sustainable seafood, and the publisher of Canada's Seafood Guide, a handy wallet-sized card that takes much of the confusion out of buying seafood. 

Uitto's passion for the subject is obvious, and her expertise invaluable.  She also eloquently articulates the sort of perspective we all need to adopt if wild seafood is to survive: "So... things are not that simple.  But, what I always say to people is that is asking the questions really that big of a deal?  If you had a peanut allergy, would you be afraid to ask whether there are nuts in a dish?  I feel the same about seafood.  I have a certain allergy to unsustainability, and don’t want to put that in my body.  Even if you don’t get the answers, and it seems like a bother, and you might even end up making a choice that you are not 100% sure about, even asking the question helps.  We get feedback from the industry that change is really brought on by the consumers asking for answers (and sustainable options), which makes the company go looking.  We may not be there yet, but we need help getting there from consumers."

I owe my third and final discovery to Patrick McMurray, owner of Starfish and elite oyster shucker.  I happened to contact him the day before his restaurant hosted an event for A Good Catch, a new cookbook by Jill Lambert that features recipes for sustainable fish from Canada's best chefs as well as a species by species guide to choosing fish and a list of readily available alternatives to popular but unsustainable species.  It is essential reading for anyone who loves to cook seafood and cares about the fate of the oceans.

So, the minute I cracked the cover, I knew I had to choose one of the recipes from A Good Catch for the leather district gourmet's Teach a Man to Fish 2008 sustainable seafood event.  I didn't have to search that long, either.  Given that Patrick McMurray led me to Jill and the a book, it seemed only fitting that I use his recipe.  Of course, it didn't hurt that his dish is a fantastic oyster po' boy sandwich.

A po' boy is a hot sandwich traditionally made with fried oysters or shrimp on a crusty French-style loaf, often dressed with a little lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise.  It's about as New Orleans as you can get, on a par with jazz and Hurricane cocktails.  Patrick McMurray's version hews pretty closely to New Orleans tradition.  The only difference is in the breading -- he uses Japanese panko bread crumbs. 

Choosing a suitable bread can be tricky, but Rachel and I never really had a doubt.  We live around the corner from The Fish Store & Sandwiches, the very definition of a hole-in-the-wall foodie destination, and they serve their delicious (but, unfortunately, not always sustainable) sandwiches on a wonderfully light, slightly yeasty Portuguese loaf, with a chewy crumb and delicate crust.  That loaf comes from the Golden Wheat bakery across the street, so we asked around and learned that the rolls in question are called Pão de Mafra, and picked up a couple for our po' boys.

They are "POW!" awesome with this sandwich, especially slathered with a little homemade tartar sauce and gilded with a half dozen oysters straight out of the frying pan.  I loved mine so much that I ate it with a suspicious glare and hunched shoulders, as if I were wary of some interloper dashing into my home and stealing my po' boy out from under my nose.

Oh yeah, aside from tasting incredible, few seafood options are more sustainable than a farmed oyster, the world's greatest bivalve.  Farmed properly, that little Malpeque actually cleans the water it inhabits.  Raw or cooked, we should be eating more of them. 

I've already described this city's need for a sustainable fishmonger, and I'm convinced that the first person to do it will make a lot of money.  Toronto foodies have already shown a willingness to pay exorbitant prices for their organic, responsibly farmed meat at Cumbrae's and The Healthy Butcher.  It's a winning business model.  I know, because every few weeks Rachel and I visit one or both places and wait our turn to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a free range chicken, a slab of smokey bacon, or a tender short rib.  Above all else, however, we do it for the chance to vote with our dollars for a food choice that mitigates suffering and ecological damage.

I just want the same option when buying seafood.

Seducktion: an afternoon at The Fat Duck

"Nooooo!"

We were in the middle of the fifth course of our tasting menu at The Fat Duck when I earned the dreaded "Napkin of Shame."

My face contorted in a spasm of dread, but it was too late.  Moments before, half a quenelle of foie clung to the bottom of my spoon, fighting a losing battle against gravity before plummeting to the table, its langoustine cream and quail jelly oozing brownly onto what was once an immaculate white tablecloth.

There I was, in one of the world's greatest restaurants, having just marked myself as a yokel while trying to savour every last bite of chef Heston Blumenthal's landmark cuisine.  And to make matters worse, I'd lost half of my foie. 

I blamed my spoon.  I blamed the hollowed-out sphere-on-a-pedestal serving bowl.  The damn thing resembles a ball chair, for crying out loud, and aren't they designed to deliberately obscure what's in them?  In short, I blamed everything but me.

Ah, the Napkin of Shame, that bane of every fine diner's existence and perhaps the most peculiar creation of the rarefied world of Michelin-starred dining.  In that realm, perfection is the goal.  That means more than just flawless food; it includes polished silver, service that anticipates needs, and, of course, lily-white tablecloths.

To that end, high-end restaurants keep any number of arrows in their quiver.  The most obvious tool is a table crumber, or, as we yokels like to call them, "table swiffers."  But it's just a curved piece of metal that scoops up stray crumbs and bits.  That's kids' stuff.

For really big messes only the Napkin of Shame will do.

Our first run in with the Napkin of Shame occurred last year at New York's Jean-Georges during a dinner with Sue and Ryan, coincidentally the same friends who joined us on our visit to The Fat Duck.  Sue was eager to share a delicious ravioli dressed in a vibrant green herb pesto. Unfortunately, while exchanging forkfuls with me, a piece of ravioli fell, and, given the size of the resulting stain, apparently somersaulted across the table.

We were mortified.  "J'accuse!" was its powerful, silent message. "These people don't know how to use a fork and knife!"  At moments like this, I feel like I can hear the unvoiced judgments of fellow diners: "Taco Bell is around the corner, buddy.  Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."

And yet there I was, in the middle of a dazzling meal at The Fat Duck, staring down at yet another stain.

Ah, but what a meal:

Setting foot inside The Fat Duck is a thrill.  The minuscule dining room sits on the ground floor of a classic English cottage, so the ceilings are low and exposed wood beams frame the space.  Sunday lunch means a naturally lit dining room and, for our visit, the chance to wile away a typically overcast, and at times rainy, British day.  The room looks remarkably normal (well, "three star normal") for the scene of a decidedly not normal meal, one that plays with preparations, flavours, and presentations.

The meal began with drama: a small cart arrived at our table, a dense contrail of vapour marking its path.  Before turning his attention to the liquid nitrogen, our server spritzed the air with lemon essence, prompting each of us to spontaneously close our eyes, tilt our heads skyward, and grin in that way comforting smells compel us to do.  The connection between smell and emotion is obvious, but only recently have daring chefs like Blumenthal begun exploiting that link.  Our server then 'poached' dollops of light and refreshing green tea and lime mousse, turning them over and over in the liquid nitrogen, before presenting each of us with a 'meringue' sprinkled with a dash of finely powdered green tea.

Palates cleansed, we moved on to that rarest of courses: deception on a plate.  For our second dish we were each given two unadorned squares of jelly, one red and one orange.  Our server told us that if we chose the red, we would learn the answer to the question, What is The Matrix?, if we chose the orange, our lives would carry on as before but with no memory of our dining experience.  Of course, I could be misremembering the whole thing.  It could be that our server, grinning like a Cheshire cat, told us to "start with the orange then switch to the beetroot."  Thanks to a lifetime of conditioning, we all reached for the orange-coloured square first and were shocked to taste something slightly sweet and a bit vegetal.  I, for one, was unsure what I'd just tasted.  Then we tried the red jelly, which tasted powerfully acidic, like... a blood orange.  Aha!  So the first square was actually golden beet.  This was the dining equivalent of taking that discombobulating first step on an escalator that's not moving (who knew the Japanese have a name for it?).

Two other dishes stand out for the way they tinker with expectations, though neither relies on outright deceit.  Pommery grain mustard ice cream with red cabbage gazpacho straddles the line between savoury and sweet.  I liked it, though I don't think it was a winner at our table.  The gazpacho had a lovely acidity and hearty texture that contrasted the creamy, grainy ice cream and the crunchy brunoise of cucumber.  Likewise, hot and cold iced tea made us laugh out loud with delight.  The tea itself tasted much like the lemony sweet tea I remember from our barbeque trip to Memphis, but this was way more fun.  The drink starts off very warm but then as you near the end of the glass it suddenly gets very cold.  It goes from soothing to refreshing in the blink of an eye, and it tastes great the whole time.

Blumenthal's greatest talent, in my opinion, is his ability to turn his diners' nostalgia into the centrepiece of his meals.  Almost every dish on the tasting menu features childhood faves groomed to the level of haute cuisine, though sometimes the efforts go a little too far.  No one expects an ice cream cone in such a setting, but there was Mrs. Marshall's Margaret cornet: apple ice cream with ginger granita in a dainty little cone.  It's my nominee for most disappointing course, but only soulless automatons don't smile when handed an ice cream cone.  Two other trips down memory lane fell short: the pine sherbet fountain, a novel palate cleanser that substitutes a vanilla pod for the traditional licorice stick, just doesn''t impress; and a plate of petit fours featuring a promising mandarin aerated chocolate that sounded like a sybaritic cross between a Jaffa Cake and an Aero that left me hankering for, well, a Jaffa Cake or an Aero instead.

I did write, however, that Blumenthal's ability to tweak our nostalgia is his greatest talent because there were far more masterpieces than flops.  Take parsnip cereal.  It's presented in one of those single serving-sized cereal boxes that calls to mind childhood trips to the grocery store.  I remember pestering my father for six-packs of them as we wandered the aisles of our neighbourhood Loblaws, devouring the good cereals (you know, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Corn Pops) within days, then waiting for the healthy, "bad" cereals to die a slow death in our cupboard.  Parsnip cereal merits inclusion in the pantheon of good cereals.  It reminds me of Frosted Flakes both in shape and texture, and though the sweetness is tame by comparison, the mild parsnip flavour and crunchiness are lovely.  This is a marvelous trip down memory lane.

Just like The Fat Duck's signature snail porridge.  Now we know why people discuss it in reverential tones.  The porridge has the look and texture of a risotto, but with a wonderfully grainy, oaty flavour that works perfectly with the herb pesto, snails, and thin shavings of fennel that accompany it.  The texture is dreamy as well -- the creamy, risotto-like mouthfeel of the oats offers a little chew that complements the delicacy of the snails and the almost imperceptible crunch of the fennel.  It's the porridge I wish I could wake up to every morning.

If manipulating two breakfast dishes works so well, why not try a third, right?  Nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream with pain perdu, stands out for me as one of my two favourite courses.  This dish is finished tableside, with the server wheeling a copper bowl to the table, cracking some eggs stored in a Fat Duck egg carton into it, then pouring in liquid nitrogen and stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon.  The eggs are actually filled with an ice cream base, and the egg ice cream is served a little over-frozen, so the finished ice cream clumps into little clusters that resemble overcooked scrambled eggs.  As good as the ice cream and micro-thin strip of crispy bacon were, the best part of this dish is the unforgettable pain perdu.  This French toast is actually given a thin, burnt sugar top, like a crème brûlée.  It is awesome, and the flavours mingle wonderfully together.

If the faux egg "packaging" and mini-cereal box represent Exhibits A and B in the case for The Fat Duck's exceptional use of presentation, Exhibit C is a no-brainer: I may have railed against the foie's ball-on-a-pedestal serving dish, but the first part of this course made our jaws drop: oak-flavoured breath strips (they even arrive in those flip-lid containers used for Listerine pocket packs) served on a wooden box-cum-platform packed with lush moss.  After depositing the wooden rectangle in front of us, our server poured hot water on the moss, unleashing a wave of vapour that cascaded onto the table.  I can't think of a more impressive presentation. 

If only the entire course were as unequivocally dazzling.  The oak moss strip has a very faint, very pleasant woodsy taste, and we devoured the toast points topped with black truffle and tiny little half moons of radish.  Both were awesome.  Pairing truffle and oak is a stroke of genius; it's another one of those circumstances where two organisms that share a close relationship in nature just happen to complement each other on the plate as well.  Where this course struggled -- and not just because it made me sully my space -- was the jelly of quail, which sits beneath the langoustine cream and a quenelle of foie parfait.  We were instructed to try and get a little bit of each element in every bite, and I did, but the Marmite notes of the jelly overwhelm everything else.

The quail jelly was the first and last time I didn't enjoy the taste of a dish, though there were a couple of instances where I was underwhelmed by texture.  An oyster on the half shell is always a good start to a dish, except when a passion fruit jelly traps that oyster in much the same way carbonite imprisoned Han Solo.  The acidity of the passion fruit complements the oysters nicely, as do two small shards of caramel and a bud or two of lavender, but overall the jelly detracts from the dish.  There's no textural contrast between the two main elements, just the same squooshy texture.  As for the roast foie gras "benzaldehyde,"  it was topped with a sprinkling of parmesan and accompanied by a smear of creamy almond gel and thick, luscious cherry gel, a small cherry, and three tiny cubes of amaretto jelly.  I enjoyed it, but I thought the texture of the foie was a little too wobbly like jello when it should have been buttery, though the amaretto jelly was superb and all the elements worked nicely with the main component.

One last complaint before I heap fawning praise on the whole experience: I know many consider the salmon poached in liquorice gel with artichoke, vanilla mayonaisse and 'Manni' olive oil a signature dish, but it doesn't quite work for me.  I love the mix of flavours -- I've had vanilla and salmon before, and I think vanilla pairs beautifully with most seafood -- but there's just too much fat in this dish.  The salmon, for one, feels like it's been poached in low temperature oil, which adds a certain fatty mouthfeel.  Beyond that, the vanilla mayo, though marvelous, adds yet another layer of fat to the dish, as does the generous swirl of olive oil.  The only real acidity on the plate are little flecks of grapefruit (these are the individual components of the fruit, and I think they're extracted by freezing segments in liquid nitrogen, then breaking them down using a rolling pin), but that's just nowhere near enough to create the balance inherent in any great dish.

Enough nitpicking, however, too much went too well for that.  Like an astonishing ballotine of Anjou pigeon with black pudding 'Made to Order,' pickling brine and spiced juices.  The pigeon was cooked blue and required only the barest flick of the knife to slice.  What makes this dish a masterpiece, however, is the black pudding, which resembles a perfect hollandaise in texture, but adds a concentrated, gamey note that complements the flavour profile of the pigeon perfectly.

Good as the pigeon may be, 'Sound of the Sea' defies superlatives. A mini-seascape of edible foam and sand strewn with shellfish and seaweed resting on a glass platform set atop a sandbox, this dish is presented alongside a conch shell with an iPod nestled inside it.  Diners listen to a soundtrack of ocean waves lapping against the shore and seagulls squawking while devouring the habitat set before them (if only eating this dish weren't a metaphor for what we're actually doing to the oceans!).  I can take or leave the soundtrack (seagulls sound rather harsh to me), but the dish itself ranks among the best I've ever eaten.  I love the tapioca maltodextrin sand and the soy lecithin sea foam, but a couple of elements really stood out: the 'sand' includes wonderfully crunchy bits of deep fried baby eels, and there are wonderfully salty tendrils of seaweed in the dish that add umami and a wonderfully subtle hint of the sea.  This dish really is unforgettable and the hype is justified.  We scraped our plates clean on that course.

Actually, we scraped our plates clean on every course.  And drained our glasses, too.  After four hours at the table we stumbled out of The Fat Duck and wandered just a few doors down to size up the experience over a pint at Heston Blumenthal's pub, the Hinds Head (try the Devils on Horseback).  Two months earlier, I'd forced myself out of bed at five in the morning on a statutory holiday and, exhausted, juggled two cell phones and a landline in an effort to be one of the lucky few to spend an exorbitant amount of money on one meal.  It worked, and, yes, it was worth it.

As for the Napkin of Shame, it never emerged.  But there will be other opportunities, I'm sure.  Why just last week I requested a reservation at el Bulli for the 2009 season, thus raising the possibility that I may yet earn my second Napkin of Shame at the best restaurant in the world.

Now that would be embarrassing.

Our Fat Duck tasting menu:

Foaming at the mouth, Part II: el Bulli's tortilla de patatas Marc Singla foam

For the longest time, I was convinced that only the French know how to make a good omelette.  Rachel and I had eaten our share of Spanish tortillas and Italian frittatas, and found them wanting: thick rounds of leaden, overcooked eggs with a consistency more reminiscent of a custard forgotten in the oven than an old world culinary classic.  The French insist an omelette should be thin, light, and cooked just long enough to firm one side while leaving the other creamy.

The French are right.

Then we visited Cal Pep, one of Barcelona's most famous tapas joints, and discovered a tortilla that puts omelettes to shame.  There, cooks scoop a mixture of potato, chorizo, onion and golden, creamy eggs into sizzling hot, high-sided small pans. One flip and a minute or two later, they slide a thick, lightly caramelized disc about the size of a large hamburger patty onto a plate, slather the top with allioli, a garlicky mayonnaise better known by its French name, aïoli, and await the delighted squeals of ravenous customers.

What makes this tortilla so special is that, unlike its Iberian and Italian cousins, it offers that magical mix of cooked and creamy egg that makes a French omelette superior.  Cut open Cal Pep's tortilla, and, underneath the lightly caramelized crust, lies a core of warm, not-quite-set egg.  Allioli complements the unctuousness of the interior while nuggets of spicy chorizo and potato add body and flavour.  It's enough to make me forget France forever.

The tortilla's iconic stature in Spanish gastronomy means that Ferran Adria can't resist riffing on it,  even if he's got to crib from another chef to do it.  El Bulli's evolution of the hot 'tortilla de patatas Marc Singla' foam from el Bulli: 1998-2002 deliciously deconstructs the standard dish.  Raw yolks and a barely cooked sabayon mean the egg portion of this tortilla is a golden syrup that flows on the palate, and Adria opts for a tangle of caramelized onions for their complex savoury-sweet bite.

Yet it's the potatoes that grab your attention.  Gone are the chunks of spud, replaced instead by an almost overwhelmingly rich foam made by boiling potatoes, enriching them with cream and olive oil, then blending and pouring the mixture into an iSi Gourmet Whip charged with nitrous oxide.  The Gourmet Whip is unique because it can be heated, so after spooning caramelized onion into the bottom of a martini glass and gilding it with some raw egg yolk and sabayon, the dish is crowned by a layer of piping hot potato.

Despite my misgivings -- blending potatoes is normally a recipe for glue, not haute cuisine -- the foam is spectacular.  It has a noticeably buttery taste even though it has no butter, and the texture is, not unexpectedly, light but still substantive enough to form the backbone of the dish.  My only complaint, and here, yes, I'm trying to have it both ways, is that I miss some of the complexity of flavour and texture that comes from the caramelized exterior of Cal Pep's tortilla.

I've tried to reproduce Cal Pep's tortilla at home, but I'm not quite there yet.  Problem number one is that my non-existent Catalan makes translating the recipe difficult (someone help me, please).  Problem number two is that I have yet to find a pan suitable for the job.  My results so far have been good but not stellar: a respectable crust, but a slightly overcooked centre.  No matter, I can always turn to el Bulli's version, or, failing that, Rachel assures me I prepare a mean French omelette.

For the halibut: the search for Toronto's best fish and chips

It's a sad day for fried food when the advertising cards on the tables of one of Toronto's most reputable fish and chips joints extol the health benefits of the frying oil.  I must know more, so I dig a little deeper and find a website.  "Fry-On," it brags, "is a uniquely processed, nutritional, 100% vegetable corn and canola oil blend."  Digesting the list of Fry-On's virtues, which apparently include anti-oxidants, no cholesterol, and zero trans fats "per serving," makes me wonder: what demented imbecile chooses their fish and chips based on the nutritional qualities of the bubbling cauldron of fat in which they're made?

Not this one.  After searching high and low, we've come to one very important conclusion: frying in vegetable oil is, without doubt, the wrong way to make fish and chips.  The best way is the old-fashioned way: with beef drippings.  The problem is that chippies that use drippings are a dying breed.  In fact, as far as I can tell, there remain but two who hew to tradition in Toronto: Penrose and Caz's.  Everyone else has turned to the dark side, favouring vegetable shortening or composite oils, like Fry-On, that offer convenience to the restaurant and somewhat less guilt to the diner –- at the expense of flavour.

In order to identify Toronto's best fish and chips, Rachel and I visited nine of Toronto's best loved chippies.  Our friends Jill and Rob, who also joined us on our donut quest and our excursion to Montreal, accompanied us to seven of them on one glorious day.  The strategy was to divide one serving among four people -- we're not completely insane.

We were unanimous in our first choice: Penrose Fish & Chips.  Their halibut and chips may not be flawless -- frankly, I think the fish tends towards a touch of greasiness sometimes -- but the batter is light and crispy, the fries have a crunchy exterior and tender interior, and the flavour of both is exceptional, rich and deep without being obtrusive.  On our most recent visit to Penrose, I asked Dave Johnston, who now tends the fryers while his mother, Marion, deals with customers, how they produce Barbra Streisand's favourite fish and chips.  It's no surprise to learn that they refuse to take shortcuts.  That means not only using beef fat, it also means hand-cutting and par-frying their chips before crisping them up in a final bath of scorching hot fat.  I only wish some of Toronto's finer restaurants approached their dishes with the same diligence with which the Johnstons approach a plate of fast food.

For me, at least, Caz's placed a close second.  Like Penrose, they fry in beef fat.  They also serve the biggest plate of fish and chips in the city.  For those eager to eat responsibly, Caz's serves only wild caught fish.  There are but three drawbacks: first, the fish was a little greasy; second, the calm of our meal was consistently breached by the loud argument the fry lady was having with a supplier; and, third, the decor screams fast food.  In short: good food, bad environment.

If you do happen to be one of those people who insist on vegetable oil, there is hope for you yet.  You can find a very good plate of fish and chips in Toronto (just know there are better).  The two best places to enjoy vegetable oil-fried fish and chips are Reliable and Harbord, in that order.  Both turn out crispy, delicious meals, but Reliable gets the nod for its exceptionally light batter.  Reliable had better get it right, because it occupies a crowded chunk of fish and chips real estate, what with two other chippies plying their trade along the same strip of Queen Street East.  It's enjoyed a renaissance of late thanks to the publicity showered upon it by an appearance on Restaurant Makeover.  Not that you'll find any of the dishes Lynn Crawford developed on the menu -- the owner, George Hung, freely admits the move was a smartly conceived publicity stunt.  The decor is stylish, however, though I have to admit to having a soft spot for Penrose, which looks like a fifties relic with its tiny booths, sea blue walls, and a pièce de résistance swordfish mounted on the north wall.

I hate to speak negatively of any restaurant, but there are some chippies that just don't cut the tartar sauce.  Chippy's is a perennial favourite among some Toronto aficionados, and at its best it can be excellent.  But that's rarely the case.  For what it's worth, the problem isn't necessarily the food; the wretched oversized Chinese takeout containers contribute too.  The food is piled high in a narrow box, and in order to seal it, the fish and chips must be crammed in so tight that they turn into a moist, greasy mess.  In Chippy's defense, they are the only joint in town that makes legitimate mushy peas, and they offer a superb tartar sauce.

Steven Davey, the restaurant critic at Now Magazine, recently named Deep Blue the best chippy in town.  Steven Davey is wrong.  Deep Blue makes a solid halibut and chips, but their adventures in flavoured batter fail miserably.  On a recent visit, Rachel and I vied for her halibut after we discovered how leaden and obscenely thick the Jamaican jerk batter is.  The mushy peas, coyly described as 'hummus,' taste too powerfully of garlic, and the french fries were tough and chewy.

I have to admit to bitter disappointment upon discovering that the chippy of my youth, Woodgreen, makes horrifically bad food.  To add insult to injury, I even had to endure the torture of knowing our meal wasn't going to meet expectations while it was being cooked.  Rather than fizzing and springing to life at the addition of the haddock and potatoes, as hot oil should, Woodgreen's frying oil acknowledged the raw ingredients with the faintest sequence of listless bubbles.  Sure enough, the fish was pallid and limp and everything swam in a puddle of grease.  So much for sentimentality.

The only other truly awful experience was at British Style Fish & Chips, which offers a product so vile we couldn't finish a plate of it between the four of us.  Puddles of grease aside, the french fries were perhaps the worst we've ever had.  Please explain to me how fried potatoes can be so tough and chewy that jaws ache after eating them, because I can't figure it out.

Somethin's Fishy may be Toronto's newest fish and chip shop.  Tucked into cozy quarters in the heart of the Kensington, this joint distinguishes itself with its fries -- thin shoestrings laced with spice -- and tasty condiments.  Unfortunately both the fries and the fish suffer from cooking in oil that's too cold.  Our meal here was greasy and went unfinished.  My hunch, however, is that turning up the heat would make a world of difference, and raise this chippy to the level of Harbord or Reliable.

Torontonians are passionate about their fish and chips.  I drew inspiration for this quest from Chowhound, which hosts no fewer than two boards with a combined total of almost two hundred comments from hogtowners eager to share their picks and pans.  I know there are places I have yet to try, and I am certain I will.  Just as long they don't try to sell me on the quality of their vegetable oil.

The 'Lona Rangers: four wondrous days in Barcelona

It's seven in the evening, too early even for locals with babies to consider supper.  They will show up, but not for an hour or so.  For now it's just me, Rachel, and another couple drinking at the bar.  I'm wearing my usual natty attire: khakis, a t-shirt, and a backpack that confirms, if confirmation were needed, that I am a tourist.

So be it.  It's the price we pay for visiting Barcelona and ensuring our meal at Bar Inopia, Albert Adria's tapas bar, lives up to expectations.  Sure, we could visit two or three hours later, dressed to the nines (okay, maybe I can't do that), for the more authentic experience: fighting with the Saturday night crowd for someone, anyone's attention.  But to hell with that.  We want the chance to interact with the bartender, to get a feel for what we're eating.

In that sense, our gambit pays off.  Our barkeep's brown hair and beard convince me we're being looked after by Kenny Loggins' Catalan doppelganger.  But I'm not complaining.  For the next ninety minutes this man tolerates my many questions with the patience of Job, and even greets my queries with a few wonderful recommendations.

Eating in Barcelona ranks as one of life's greatest pleasures -- actually, given the wonders of the city, so does starving in Barcelona -- and Bar Inopia's no exception.  We whet our appetites with a few simple plates:  "Air" bread with tomato and baccala, impossibly light toast with a rich tomato confit and cod so juicy it's hard to believe it was ever dried; ventresca de atun, tuna belly with a wonderfully meaty taste, more tomato confit, and a generous, but perfectly balanced dusting of sea salt; and a handful of anchovy dishes, including a boqueron topped with more anchovy, a preparation that is really just fishy fish garnished with a little more fishy fish.  Of course, if I could buy preserved fish as succulent as the salt-packed varieties regularly served in tapas bars across the Iberian peninsula, I'd do the same thing, too.  The only dish we don't enjoy is the mixed olive plate, as none of the olives strike our fancy, and one of which amazes me for its distinctly root beer-like taste.

Why stop when you're on a roll, right?  The second wave of dishes includes an ensaladilla rusa, a tuna, mayo, and potato salad with a little red pepper.  More anchovies arrive, but this time perched atop preserved artichokes.  Then, the dish for which I will beg on my deathbed: tiny deep fried fish.  Pelaya, to be exact, which, if my research is correct, is Atlantic spotted flounder.  These little fish remind me of potato chips, only better. Given their oval shape, very generous dose of sea salt, and not-quite-paper-thinness, the comparison is apt.  They have a wonderfully light crunch.  After devouring a plate of them while polishing off a beer, I immediately order another.

"Are you sure you don't want to try a different fish?" asks the bartender.  "Salmoneta, is a little thicker and has slightly fishier taste."  What else could I do but accept?  I don't want to suggest I now regret that decision, but let's just say when I think of the one that got away, it will be a dozen pelaya.  Which is not to say that salmoneta isn't good -- though given it's orangey-pink colouring and shape, these finger-sized red mullet strongly resemble a goldfish -- it just fails to meet the standard of its predecessor.

Our meal at Bar Inopia was a wonderful experience, but it's just the tip of the iceberg in a city emerging as one of the world's great culinary destinations.  The quality of the tapas justifies the line of customers patiently sipping cañas, tiny glasses of beer, while waiting an hour for a seat at Cal Pep's diner-style counter.  Our meal begins with a pile of salty, deep fried pebrots de padron, slightly sweet, mini-green peppers; the most perfect clams cooked with morsels of ham; and a dish that must be inspired by a typical North American breakfast: foie gras sausage and white beans drizzled with a maple syrup reduction.  Cal Pep's fried pelaya fail to meet the standard set by Bar Inopia -- too greasy, not enough salt -- but all is forgiven after one bite of their mesmerizing tortilla, truita trempera (click here for the recipe in Catalan), a thick, golden pillow filled with chorizo, potato, onion, and still runny egg.  What sets this omelette apart is the slather of allioli, garlic mayonnaise, that crowns it, and transforms an already superb omelette into something ethereal.  We finish our meal with the dense, silky custard of crema catalana, the region's nutmeg-inflected answer to crème brûlée.  For photos of the sausage, clam, and tortilla dishes, click here.

Of course, one need not set foot in Barcelona's bars and restaurants to capture glimpses of the city's vibrant food culture.  The city is home to one of the world's great food markets, La Boqueria.  Rachel and I spent the better part of a morning wandering past rows of vendors hawking the most beautiful fruits, meats, and fish, though only after enjoying second helpings of the most addictive chick pea dish ever at Bar Pinotxo -- a delightful muddle, cigrons butifarra, that includes crumbled black sausage, raisins, onions, pine nuts, and parsley -- one of the tapas stands scattered throughout the premises.  Beyond breakfast, my memories of our market visit are crowded with visions of countless types of dirt-caked mushrooms, containers overflowing with yards of tripe, and fishmongers chatting casually while gutting and cleaning the day's catch with impossibly large blades.

Then there's the chocolate.  On our first trip to Barcelona, we stumbled upon Cacao Sampaka, another Albert Adria venture, but one more closely related to his roots as el Bulli's pioneering pastry chef.  This small chain of artisanal chocolate shops showcases many of the chocolate creations Adria developed at the restaurant, including some of the flavours we featured in our el Bulli chocolate sampler post.  Adria's bonbons are good, but they fail to match the intense flavours and luscious textures achieved by Oriol Balaguer, a man quickly emerging as one of the world's great pastry chefs.  This is actually a case of the student overtaking the master, because Balaguer spent seven years at el Bulli before venturing out on his own.  His tiny shop, with its sleek automatic doors and ultra-modern displays, seems better suited to haute couture than ganache, but Balaguer (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Bond henchman, Emile Locque) has a magical ability to distill flavours and textures into his chocolates-- be it passion fruit, yuzu, or even corn nuts -- that Adria cannot match.

Barcelona's attractiveness extends well beyond food.  I was first drawn to the city by a love for the architecture of Antoni Gaudí, whose most brilliant creations -- for me, at least, the Casa Batlló and the Sagrada Familia -- twist natural forms into awe inspiring spaces bathed in light.  There's more, of course: the charm of La Rambla, the bustling, tree-lined mall, choked with pedestrians, vendors, and street performers; strolling the boardwalk in Barceloneta; and Montjuïc, the enormous park that looks out over the city while simultaneously offering a green refuge from its excesses.  Well, at least to some.  I know we haven't enjoyed any part of Barcelona -- not the architecture, nor the chocolate,  and certainly not the tiny deep fried fish -- to excess yet. 

Foaming at the mouth: Wylie Dufresne, Guy Rubino, and the future of molecular gastronomy

Had enough yet?  Can't wait to see the last of foams, spheres, airs, and the countless other "gimmicks" at the heart of molecular gastronomy?

If you answered 'Yes' to those questions, you're not alone.

Chris Nuttall-Smith, outgoing food editor of Toronto Life, knows his food and has eaten more than his fair share of great and ghastly meals, and he's fed up.  During a conversation earlier this summer, he professed to being "tired of molecular gastronomy."  When I asked him recently if I could use his quote for this post, he not only agreed, he elaborated:

If you really got me on a roll, I'd say:

'I find it so tedious, and wankerish and precious. I used to roll my eyes when food writers said this kind of thing. C'mon, I'd think. Give the newbies a chance. But then two years passed and every hack chef on the continent discovered foams. Enough, fuck. And how is it "cutting edge" when chefs use transglutaminase to glue pieces of meat together? Weren't they doing that at Tyson Foods in 1986?  Really. Can I just get something that tastes good and was made with a bit of integrity instead?'

Yes. I'd love it if you'd use that.

Me too.  Agree or disagree, the man writes good copy.

I'm glad he didn't mince words, because his comment provides some context for two other experiences I enjoyed this summer.  The first, dinner at wd-50, Wylie Dufresne's landmark molecular gastronomy restaurant on Manhattan's Lower East Side, offers a taste of what many naysayers loathe most about this new approach to food: unconventional flavour pairings, oodles of obscure chemicals, and a penchant for deconstructing traditional dishes.

Rachel and I visited with another couple, our friends Ryan and Sue, and, for the most part, the meal was a hit.  The best dish of the night was Dufresne's take on french onion soup: two spheres of gruyere-flavoured liquid floating in a pool of beef broth -- it's comfort food with flair and imagination.  What impresses most about this dish aren't the spheres, however, it's that delectable broth, a staple of classic Western cuisine crafted with obvious skill.  Dufresne may no longer work in Jean-Georges' kitchen, but he brings those same standards to his own.

The delicious riffs on comfort food don't stop there.  Pizza pebbles with pepperoni and shiitake dazzle while eliciting laughs of joy and amazement.  Pop one of these balls into your mouth, and it immediately crumbles into a sandy powder with a texture and taste eerily similar to that of Combos, the pretzel snack that "cheeses your hunger away."  This is no accident. Some may find it absurd, even offensive, to pay good money for the taste of Combos on a tasting menu, but I think it's a stroke of genius -- laughter's a reaction I wish chefs would encourage more often, especially in fine dining restaurants that intimidate some diners as much as they delight others.

Not every dish on the twelve-course tasting menu tickled us as much as these two -- one in particular, a combination of surf clam, watermelon, and fermented black bean leaves me a little cold, mainly because I dislike the vaguely raunchy flavour of fermented beans paired with fresh clam -- but most of the rest combine form and flavour exceptionally well, two others especially: I'm not sure if lamb belly, black chick pea, and cherried cucumber is a great take on lamb or bacon, but the unexpected taste of cured meat mixed with the mild gaminess of lamb makes for an unforgettable dish.  Dufresne plays with Jewish deli food (or a BLT, apparently) in a dish of thinly sliced pickled beef tongue with fried mayonnaise and tomato molasses.  wd-50 refines tongue to such an extent that the dish conjures images of pastrami, not offal (click here for the recipe).  And, yes, fried mayo is as delicious as it sounds, though I must confess to expecting a slightly thinner texture from the mayo.

Pastry chef Alex Stupak's desserts were every bit as good as the savoury courses they followed, with fried butterscotch pudding, mango, taro ice cream, and smoked macadamia the best of the lot.  This dish deftly balances hot and cold, and sweet, salty, and smoky.   Like mayo, pudding just gets better after a brief sojourn in hot fat.

To read someone else's take on our wd-50's tasting menu, and to see pictures of the dishes discussed above, click here.

Chris and Wylie approach food from two very different places: Wylie pushes boundaries and buttons; Chris yearns for quality ingredients cooked simply.  On the surface, it appears the stage has been set for a messy divorce between molecular gastronomy and traditional (dare I call it Slow?) food.  But are they really incompatible?

My experience writing The Dish for the October 2007 Toronto Life makes me think not.  Guy Rubino has carved a reputation as an elite chef by creating gorgeous, complex dishes that mingle Asian and Western techniques and ingredients at his Toronto restaurant, rain.  He's best known for his TV show, Made to Order, which focuses on the sumptuous dining experiences he and his brother, Michael, tailor to the desires of special clients.

What I find most fascinating about Rubino's style is that he frequently dips into the molecular toolbox to tweak his food.  I arrived curious to see how and why Rubino integrates this emerging culinary outlook into his dishes.  What I found left me convinced that Guy Rubino is a role model for the future of this cooking revolution.

I profiled a trio of preparations featuring bluefin tuna, wagyu beef, and tangerine.  Nuttall-Smith assigned me the piece specifically because Rubino uses transglutaminase in one element of the dish.  Transglutaminase -- also known as "meat glue" or "trans glam" amongst chefs -- is a naturally occurring enzyme that literally glues proteins together.  Take a chunk of beef, for example, spread a tiny bit of trans glam powder on it, and set another piece of meat, let's say chicken, on top.  Wrap the pieces in cling film, and let them rest briefly in the fridge.  When you pull them out, cow and clucker will be fused together in a permanent embrace.  If a tiny voice in your head is saying "Cool" right now, you're like me.

Rubino's trio is deceptively simple.  It includes a wagyu and bluefin tartare with tangerine gelée and tangerine foam; a strip of tangerine fruit leather encased in a coil of bluefin sashimi and dressed with tamari veal reduction, dehydrated ginger and wasabi; and a thick disc of seared, wagyu fat-encased bluefin loin finished with a tangerine teriyaki miso froth and a thin line of cilantro oil.  What struck me most is that transglutaminase is just the tip of the iceberg with this dish.  By my count, there are no fewer than six molecular gastronomy techniques in the three preparations: agar jellies the tangerine gelee; methylcellulose thickens the tangerine mousse; sodium alginate binds the fruit leather; soy lecithin emulsifies the teriyaki froth; xanthan gum stabilizes the cilantro oil; and, lest we forget the reason for my visit in the first place, transglutaminase binds the wagyu fat to the loin to add a little moisture and flavour.

The kicker, of course, is that Guy Rubino is not a molecular gastronomer.  He's simply a chef who recognizes that the methods refined by the likes of Homaro Cantu, Grant Achatz, and Wylie Dufresne can be put to use in any kitchen to improve the taste and texture of many dishes.  We've come to expect a restaurant to be "molecular gastronomy" in much the same way we used to insist restaurants be French, Japanese, or Italian, until a new generation of chefs blew that conceit to smithereens.  Molecular gastronomy is undergoing a similar transformation, shedding its niche status and emerging as a broadly used set of tools that help cooks enhance and reinterpret the foods they prepare regardless of their background.

As I see it, Nuttall-Smith, Dufresne, and Rubino -- or, put in more political terms, the conservative, the revolutionary, and the moderate -- are proxies for a broader debate in the culinary world over the role of molecular gastronomy in modern cuisine.  Each position has value, too.  I am constantly fascinated and amazed by culinary innovation, but I'm not blind to its excesses.  To the contrary, I've been forced to eat a few of them.  Some passionate, knowledgeable foodies, like Chris Nuttall-Smith, offer necessary resistance.  By challenging the relentless quest for innovation for innovation's sake, skeptics force chefs to ask the most important question of the dishes they produce, not merely "Is it good?" but "Is it better?"  The answer, sometimes, is "No."  Wylie Dufresne, on the other hand, pushes boundaries and buttons, forges new techniques, and discovers the ingredients of tomorrow.  He, and chefs like him, provide the necessary imagination that propels any creative venture such as cooking forward. 

Innovators must remember to ask one simple question:  "Can I make it better?"  And they often do.  Guy Rubino is the product of this dialectic, synthesizing the techniques he learns from chefs like Dufresne with incredible raw materials and his own culinary vision to produce a richer, juicier tuna loin or a more intense tangerine foam.  His food is by no means simple, but by probing the area between the extremes he promotes compromise and a promising future.

Vive le Québec livre! Au Pied de Cochon's pouding chomeur and our Montreal road trip

Choosing travel destinations based on cookbooks can seem foolish -- until you find the right cookbook, that is.  For me, one of those cookbooks is Au Pied de Cochon -- The Album.  After ogling it for a month and preparing the wonderful foie gras poutine recipe, Rachel and I decided to make the pilgrimage to la belle province for a meal at the source.  We just needed to find the opportunity.  So when it found us, in the form of our friends Jill and Rob, we packed our bags and thanked The Fates for giving us friends who are perpetually willing to venture near and far for good food.

For a restaurant praised by the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Gourmet, Au Pied de Cochon's dishes are surprisingly unrefined, and gratifyingly so.  Most reflect the traditions of pure laine quebecois and their descendants:  rustic and bold, devoid of pretension, yet elevated by the quality of the ingredients and the care taken in their preparation.  As an Album junkie, I arrived with a list as long as my arm of things I wanted to try.

Brain food: Mario Batali's lamb's brains ravioli

My first exposure to the glories of lamb offal was entirely accidental.  "Abbacchio con funghi," read the chef's recommendations at one of Rome's oldest restaurants, La Campana, and a succulent lamb chop or tender braised shank did seem like a perfect fall supper in the Eternal City.  Moreover, because of my almost non-existent knowledge of Italian at the time, I was tickled about having understood the Roman dialect word for lamb.

"Pride goes before a fall," they say, and I was about to learn my lesson.

The full name of the dish is actually "animelle di abbacchio con funghi."  I naively ignored that first word, dismissing it as nothing more than a minor detail.  This is Rome, however, a city that prides itself on its culinary artistry with the "quinto quarto," or "fifth quarter" of the animal, the collection of snouts, guts, brains, and tails that have been staples of the city's working class cuisine for millenia.

When my meal finally arrived, I couldn't help but notice the extensive network of ridges and crenelations running through my piece of lamb.  "Rachel," I muttered, "I think I've ordered brain."  Not quite, it turns out, but nestled within my pool of rich brown gravy and mushrooms lay a tender, plump lamb sweetbread.  I had a decision to make: suck it up, try it, and then reach an informed opinion, or take a mulligan and order something new.  My decision: eat first, ask questions later.  So I screwed up my courage and took a bite.  Not bad, really.  The texture was smooth and rich, pillowy like a dumpling, and the meat gravy superb.

Having finally eaten a sizable portion of my meal, I tried to ask our waiter what I was eating by tapping my temple while asking, "Dove?" -- the Italian word for "where" -- hoping he would understand the implication, which he did.  "Si," he confirmed.

I continued to eat more, though I didn't attack supper with my usual gusto.  Yes, even I -- gobbler of rabbit ears and glutton for horse fat --  get culinary cold feet.  I'd like to rationalize my anxiety by claiming fear of mad cow disease, but no lamb has ever been diagnosed with BSE and no case of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, the human equivalent, has ever been linked back to sheep.  No, my fears about eating lamb brains aren't about what's in the lamb's head.  It's about what's in mine.

Brain presents a big culinary problem for most of us.  It's squishy; when cooked, it's grey.  Both factors are a huge turn off.  But the bigger issue with brain, I think, stems from the unmistakable resemblance of an animal's brain to our own, and from the immense symbolic weight we place on that organ as the locus of thought and as the seat of the soul.  We rather easily disassociate ourselves from animal flesh, but we've all taken enough high school science classes or watched enough sci-fi and monster movies to recognize that a lamb's brain looks almost exactly like a miniaturized version of our own.  We recognize a little too much of ourselves in a brain.

I first tasted actual lamb's brains a few years ago at Babbo, Mario Batali's flagship New York restaurant.  Batali actively promotes cooking with offal, and his menus reflect his passion.  At Babbo, our server urged us to try the lamb brains francobolli -- postage stamps of fresh pasta stuffed with a mixture of poached brain, ricotta, sauteed onions, and a little seasoning, dressed with gently heated butter, some fresh sage, and a sprinkling of parmesan -- so I took the plunge.  I'm glad I did.  The brain's contribution is more texture -- a slightly creamy lusciousness -- then flavour, but the dish really does taste marvelous.

Of course, Batali does his best to make "the nasty bits" palatable to his patrons.  As others have already pointed out, he usually mixes offal into his dishes in small quantities, and it's probably no coincidence that the lamb's brains are hidden within a pasta envelope.  As they say: out of sight, out of mind.

It's an entirely different story when you're both diner and chef.  Any illusions are forgotten the instant you hold a chilled, slick brain in the palm of your hand.  No easy task given how difficult it is to find naturally raised lamb in Toronto.  The most pleasant surprise I received when preparing lamb brains is price -- they were free.  According to my butcher at Cumbrae's, no market exists for the product in Canada.  The next step, cleaning the brains, can hardly be described as pleasant.  For one, there were a few small chunks of skull wedged into the brains -- a by-product, no doubt, of extracting the brains from the skull using a saw -- and, for two, there's the pain-in-the-ass task of removing the outer membrane and blotches of congealed blood.

After soaking the brains overnight in a couple of changes of water to drain any remaining blood, the recipe, which I adapted from an identical recipe for calf's brains in The Babbo Cookbook, is entirely straightforward.  Rather than fuss over the pasta envelope, I prepared basic, square ravioli, not postage stamps with fancy edges.  The homemade dish, though less artfully presented, is every bit as good as the restaurant version.  The richness of the filling marries artfully with butter, flavours complemented by the sharp herbal note of sage and the zing of lemon zest.  We even found one friend eager to taste the dish, and he enjoyed it too.

Having come this far, we must now decide if we want to explore brains further.  Where Batali uses brains as just one note in a broader harmony, Fergus Henderson features them front and centre.  The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating includes a small section of lamb brains recipes, everything from deep fried brains to a terrine.  There's even a recipe for cold lamb's brains on toast, "for those who particularly enjoy the texture of brain."  Hmmm.  I'm not sure we're there yet, Fergus.

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.

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.