noodsletter #.0067

Forbidden ramen; back from da Beards

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Book Bit

His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slop of greens. See the animals feed.

Men, men, men.

Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of microbes. A man with an infant’s saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser’s eyes. Bitten off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw. Don’t! O! A bone! That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to Christianity. Couldn’t swallow it all however.

—Roast beef and cabbage.

—One stew.

Smells of men. His gorge rose. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarette smoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men’s beery piss, the stale of ferment.

Couldn’t eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork, to eat all before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it off the plate, man! Get out of this.

He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of his nose.

—Two stouts here.

—One corned and cabbage.

That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a silver knife in his mouth. That’s witty, I think. Or no. Silver means born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost.

From Ulysses, by James Joyce. Happy belated Bloomsday.

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Da Beards

I didn’t win.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Just kidding!

It was of course disappointing to not take home the award for the best single subject cookbook of the year, but, as every other nominee who did not win an award that I spoke to repeatedly said, it was an honor to be nominated at all. And the ceremony and reception were pretty swanky—held at the Art Institute of Chicago, which is quite beautiful—and I met some interesting people; talked to some people I’ve long admired from afar; saw, for the first time in person, people I’ve edited many times. I was surprised by the number of nominees I spoke to who have been nominated multiple times and not won. I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising, but it is a proud club and I’m glad to be a member—the solace of the loser’s solidarity being an argument of strength in numbers: There’s always going to be more of us than there are of them. (One nominated-but-not-awarded writer quipped after, “This was fun. We should all get nominated again next year.”)

For whatever reason, the Beard organizers decided to seat me right next to Yoko Nakazawa, whose book, The Japanese Art of Pickling and Fermenting, crushed both mine and Nicholas Morgenstern’s award dreams. Whatever awkwardness that might have created was ameliorated by the fact that Nakazawa is a lovely person. As it happens, while she lives in Australia, her family is from Fukushima, which is where my family is from. (Her family hails from Koriyama, which is where that chain ramen restaurant I eat at whenever I go visit my family—Kourakuen—has its headquarters.)

I have a copy of the book, and it’s a little hard to be upset about Nakazawa snagging the award because it is a beautiful and fun book, deservedly nominated for the visual design award as well as the single subject award. It’s got beautiful photos and watercolors throughout, and most pages contain illustrations done by Nakazawa herself.

So it’s a charming book, but it’s of course also a practical book. I had wondered how it would compare to something like Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s book Preserving the Japanese Way, and I think they both deserve a spot on your shelf if you’re interested in Japanese cuisine. Singleton Hachisu’s book is a little more broad and, because her sort of brusque style, a little more intense; Nakazawa’s seems to hold your hand a bit more. A nice point of comparison is how the two books treat nukazuke, which is more of a pickling process than a singular pickle—you basically maintain a living pickling substrate of continuously fermenting rice bran, and bury stuff in it and dig that stuff out when it’s sufficiently pickled. This is sort of an old-school pickle, the kind of food that makes you immediately think of grandmas—in my family, my grand-aunt Aya is famous for her nukazuke, and she’s now basically the only one in our family who continues to make it.

Nukazuke, particularly eggplant nukazuke, is one of my favorite things to eat. I had had it growing up, but the finest example I’ve had was served to me by the owners of a pension near Nagano, where I was working for a summer. During one of our midday breaks, which always had some snack and a bottle of beer, the owner laid out a plate of nukazuke—cucumber, daikon, and eggplant. It’s really hard to describe the flavor of nukazuke—it’s recognizably a pickle, but they’re sort of dry (the nuka sort of acts as a humectant?), and they’ve got this crazy umami to them—very good with beer.

Unfortunately, I have a sensitivity to the fermented rice bran, so when I eat nukazuke I immediately look like I’m blushing and I get a little hot in the face—so I tend to avoid it, limiting myself to a single bite whenever it’s available. Otherwise, I might be interested in making it myself, but part of the reason why it’s becoming sort of a lost art is that it’s fairly labor intensive; you have to stir the fermented rice bran, and anything that’s sunk in it, every day (twice a day if it’s hot!), and you have to adjust its seasoning by adding stuff to it and taking that stuff out constantly.

And that’s where Nakazawa’s book differentiates itself a bit from Singleton Hachisu’s; both address nukazuke, but Nakazawa’s has a clearer explanation for the processes that go into maintaining it, as well as the kinds of pickles you can make with it.

For whatever reason, I did not take any photos during the Beard event—I am hopeless at taking pictures of anything other than food.

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Chicago Food

I did eat around a little while in Chicago. I made a little return pilgrimage to Birrieria Zaragoza, and got the cabeza taco, which they didn’t have the last time I was there. It was excellent, but I think the machito I had last time (basically goat intestines) was superior. This place is incredible all around.

My friend Tal insisted that we walk a couple blocks away to sit down for a meal right after grabbing tacos because “Yoo Yee is the best Szechuan restaurant in Chicago.” Is that true? I don’t know, but Yoo Yee was very, very, very good. Beef noodle soup, stir fried lamb, and cucumber salad were all exceptional.

I also got to eat at Akahoshi Ramen again, but it was a dinner with a bunch of people I hadn’t met before, so I just…didn’t take photos? So bizarre. Anyway, Mike is killing it over there, and due to some luck, he apparently can now do multiple specials a day. We got everything on the menu, and the abura soba and the shoyu tsukemen were really good—seems like the ramen is getting better, which is always amazing to witness.

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Forbidden Ramen

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about my crab ramen.

Crab ramen is a rare treat; some of my family are allergic, so it’s just an ingredient non grata in the regular run of things. But I was left alone one recent weekend, after the James Beard nomination was announced, and I decided to treat myself to three blue crabs.

The problem with these crabs is I didn’t know their provenance. To be honest, I did not ask, because I do not really want to know where these crab guys get their crabs, and I don’t even think I’d believe whatever they’d tell me. These guys set up in front of the seafood shops in Brooklyn Chinatown in a quasi-consignment type situation, and they could be getting them from anywhere. My main concern about “anywhere” is that they’re actually getting them from New York City waterways, which would mean, yup, they’re incredibly toxic.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because I tend to think of this ramen as forbidden for two reasons: The stock is made from crab parts, some of which I’ve put my mouth on, and because as a general matter, if you are unsure of the provenance of your crabs/your crabs may have come from New York City waterways, you really don’t want to be eating the inner organs and tomalley and such.

And yet, this is what I did; I steamed these suckers, sucked all their meat out, tossed the lungs, and then simmered all the detritus from my mini crab feast along with some aromatics, then strained it and made a quick ramen broth by stir-frying some aromatics in lard and then boiling the crab stock along with some clams. The last time I did this, I made one of the best bowls of ramen ever—just crab stock, shoyu tare, rendered lard, and some noodles.

This time? It was sort of a let down. I used my lackluster shio tare and added lard, and the noodles were good, but the stock was just kinda…muddy. I think the last time I made it I had more crab shells to work with—my feast wasn’t as mini—and I think the quality of the crabs had to have been better somehow.