noodsletter #.0021
noodsletter #.0021
Squidz, a braai in grief, guns and coffee.
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Book Bit
And at the farm, at this moment, a braai is just beginning. On the way back from the meeting with those people this morning, Pa felt the need to slaughter some living thing. Now a table has been set up at the bottom of the lawn, while the sun sinks bloodily over the veld, not unlike the chunks of meat marinating in bowls. At the fire itself, Ockie tends to his coals. This is his contribution! Chops on a grid, beer in hand, then a man can be at peace. Salads are a woman’s job and if you listen you’ll hear Marina’s voice giving orders in the kitchen, Wash this, Slice that. Who put her in charge of the world?
Here, too, somebody has opened a bottle of red and almost all the adults are partaking. A curious scene, t his low-key festivity just a day after Ma has died, but on the other hand people have to eat, life goes on. They’ll be drinking and making bawdy jokes soon after you go too.
—From The Promise by Damon Galgut.
Gun Culture
Everyone is thinking about guns at the moment. I ran across something that was both related to the general food-and-beverage theme of this newsletter and the conversation about the deranged culture of guns in this country, so I’ll set it apart here. It’s an open letter by some very angry lawyers to the Black Rifle Coffee Company, a company that sells coffee at sporting goods stores to people who really like guns. The company’s appeal appears to me to be that they a) are veterans, b) they like guns, and c) they sell coffee. People support them because they are a) veterans, b) they like guns, and c) they buy coffee. Somehow, this magic combination led to the company being valued at $7 billion dollars (?!), which in turn allowed the owners of the company to allegedly engage in a massive grift operation that defrauded investors (many of them veterans) and enriched themselves to the tune of 100s of millions of dollars.
If you get to the end of the letter, there’s a surprise twist where the lawyers attribute the whole grift to left-wingers. I think the whole thing is fascinating, and, of course, utterly depressing, a glimpse into the intersection of hyper-capitalism and gun worship.
“News”
One of my greatest fears is getting bit by the meat-allergy inducing tick.
A noodsletter reader sent in this YouTube channel for consideration: Cooking with Granny.
Rising food costs globally raises the risk of global unrest.
I’ve already said how much I like Tammie Teclemariam’s The Year I Ate New York newsletter (they should extend her tenure!), but I wanted to highlight this specific installment: “Is This Really the ‘Worst Steak in NYC’?” I just don’t understand why the restaurant/chef insists on serving an old, tough cow’s meat rare of all things. It’s going to be even tougher. This is basic food preparation/food science! Cook that thing a bit more, let it’s collagen convert to gelatin, and people will probably not call it “the worst steak in NYC.” It’s like they’re serving beef round in raw 2-inch chunks.
I can’t help but feel this article about social media followers and cookbook deals is the product of general social media fear of missing out. Obviously, I’m in an oddly privileged position, since I have a cookbook deal (without, I should note, the kind of follower counts some people think are necessary), but it seems to me the calculation publishers make when signing up cookbook authors is pretty straightforward: Is there an easily graspable idea, can you reasonably expect the author to complete the work, will there be an audience for that completed work. Although the article does explicitly state what everyone basically knows: No one knows what sells books, it’s all a crapshoot, but past trends can offer some guidelines for future performance.
Good article: “L.A. RESTAURANTS ARE EXPANDING TO SAUDI ARABIA, BUT THEY DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT”
Been thinking a lot about smoking recently, remembered this old Sedaris piece, which has this line in it: “My hands were at one with their labor, the way a cook’s might be, or a knitter’s.”
A welcome column about accessibility issues in the kitchen.
I guess any effort to reduce the devastation plastic has wrought on our environment should be welcomed, so, sure, great job Coke on this new bottle cap. But plastic recycling is a scam; better to get rid of plastics wherever possible. (Did you know aluminum cans have a plastic liner on the inside? I didn’t! It’s awful!)
Ancient poop reveals what the builders of Stonehenge liked to eat
Guy has eaten a Big Mac every day—every day!—since 1972.
This guy’s restaurants always seem to get good reviews even though the critics seem to say the food isn’t very good? His yakitori parody restaurant is not good (but got great reviews!).
Climate change is killing the good mangoes.
Alewives return to Maine lake for first time since the Revolutionary War.
Seems to me like a terrible thing that the ice cream cone market has been cornered by a single company that can buy out any competition. Maybe that’s why all ice cream cones are bad?
The bottle of Tabasco at the Last Supper? Yeah, that’s real.
You all sign up for HellGate? The new NYC-focused news site? It’s great. This article about the people (mostly Asian) who get summons for illegal fishing is fantastic.
We took a turbolift to the Crown of Corellia Dining Room, a vast hall flanked by a stage and a lunch buffet. Half a dozen Lukes, Obi-Wans, and Han Solos sat beneath iridescent light fixtures. At the buffet, a Luke attired in a white karate gi grabbed a plate of salmon as other passengers poured cups of blue milk, a delicacy on Tatooine. There were also people in Earth clothes. “I got this space food,” a man in a black T-shirt at a banquette said to himself. “I’m about to space-eat. Just like a space fool.”
Fascinating look at aristocratic dining clubs in England, and eating grouse. Vittles really is the best food publication.
I barely eat foie gras, but the NYC ban was bad policy, based on bad, emotional views of animal husbandry.
Swedish hospitality? Does it exist?!?!?!
Never eaten at a HoJo’s, but it looms large in my culinary imagination because of Jacques Pepin’s memoir, which is literally the best culinary memoir ever written. Pepin can write! And he’s lived a completely fascinating life.
Really good article about the abusive and toxic restaurant culture that allows restaurants like Noma to exist. This paragraph I think deftly exposes the brazen and absurd way star chefs launder their reputations, with the help of a compliant, often complicit media:
Redzepi, by several people’s accounts, tries to keep a lid on his temper these days. In 2015, he wrote an op-ed for a food magazine called Lucky Peach in which he admitted to yelling and pushing people, and vowed to change his ways. His spokesperson said Redzepi had been open about the issue and participated in “hundreds of hours of counselling”. In 2020, he published a book titled I Know This to Be True: René Redzepi: On Teamwork, Creativity and Kindness that was dedicated to “the memory and legacy of Nelson Mandela”. In his acceptance speech at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards in 2021, Redzepi said his next goal was that he wanted Noma to “be the best in terms of workplace”.
Entirely risible, and yet Redzepi is still viewed as some kind of saint, rather than just a cutthroat businessman whose business is selling very rich people very small portions of very precious food produced by an army of underpaid and abused workers, and happens to be the godfather of an entire mini galaxy of similarly run operations in Copenhagen.
Recipe
Stir-Fried Squid
I might write up a longer, dedicated post to E-Fish, this mail order outfit I’ve been using, but for now, let me just say all the products I’ve gotten are incredibly high quality. You pay a premium, of course, mostly in terms of shipping but also for the product itself. Case in point, I bought 2lbs of whole squid from a seller in Maine called True Fin, and while $40 for two pounds of squid may seem ridiculous, the quality is off the charts—sweet as can be. (The reason I picked up the squid was I was ordering 4 lbs of mackerel anyway, and since E-Fish has the sellers ship direct to you, you can cut down on shipping costs by ordering multiple items from the same seller).
With excellent seafood, you don’t have to do all that much to it. I just cleaned the bodies, cut them up into rings and leg pieces, and stir-fried half and made a kind of Italian-ish salad with the other half. I don’t think I wrote down quantities for the salad, but it was just very briefly poached squid (~less than a minute in a big pot of salted water at a rolling oil) tossed with minced garlic, shallot, lemon juice, marjoram, parsley, green chiles, celery, and a lot of good olive oil and flaky salt.
As everyone always says with squid, you have to cook it very hot very fast or very low and slow. What’s often unsaid is you can, of course, eat squid raw. I think the hot and fast approach is far easier to accomplish if you keep this in mind; even if you undercook it, it is not only edible, it’s delicious. (That being said, it is very, very hard to undercook squid, so if you’re squeamish about raw stuff, just ignore the above.)
By the way, I didn’t take pics of the squid cleaning process, but it is very straightforward, and easily searched for on the internet. However, I don’t understand why people remove the skin on squid; it’s a hassle, and I like the look of skin-on squid. Also, I like to really get in there on the squid body and clean out all the mucus-y stuff, which most tutorials don’t go into. Really, get in there!
If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, this recipe will not be as good.
Ingredients
2 teaspoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
2 garlic cloves
Small handful of cilantro stems
2-3 chilies
2 whole squid, cleaned, cut into rings and tentacles separate into clusters of two or three, patted completely dry, then tossed in a bowl with a pinch of salt and a little neutral oil.
Handful of cilantro leaves
Lime wedges for serving
Combine oyster sauce, soy sauce, and fish sauce in a small bowl and whisk with a fork to thoroughly combine. You want the oyster sauce dissolved in the other sauces.
Combine garlic cloves, cilantro stems, and chilies in a mortar and pestle and pound to rough paste, about 3 minutes.
Heat a wok over high heat until smoking. Add 1 tablespoon cold oil, swirl to coat, and add the squid; try to quickly get the squid into a single layer along the bottom of the wok. Cook without touching for just shy of a minute.
Toss the squid, add paste, toss again, and cook until paste smells amazing, about 15 seconds. Pour the sauce around the edges of the wok, toss to combine, then turn off heat and toss in the cilantro leaves. Serve immediately with lime wedges alongside and white rice.