2009: The leftovers
Food Crypt is still just a little dude with only six months under its belt. I’m glad ya’ll have been sticking with us as we figure out what exactly blogging about food means to us. It seems like there have been a million countless (and awesome) food blogs popping up since we started. There were definitely a few times when we worked on an ambitious meal or concoction only to see it blogged with great detail somewhere else – but that’s never stopped us! I think it’s fair to say that we cooked and thought about the cooking and eating of food more than ever this year. Maybe next year we’ll figure out why exactly that was, but for now we have all these leftovers to deal with.
After the jump, 2009 in photos: incomplete and out of context.
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“Just like regular human food”
Hey! Guess what? You’re treating your cat like a CAT. Feed it human food, already!
Friet Out!
If you’ve ever listened to the car crash that is the WBEZ radio programme called “848″ you probably know that the bar is set pretty low for Richard Steele to considering something “news.” But 848 may have just earned itself a pass for life by reporting on what I consider the most important food story this year:
A REAL DUTCH FRIET STAND IN CHICAGO!
Netherlands-native Jeroen Hasenbos brings Amsterdam’s traditional Frietkoten ‘fry shack’ experience to Chicago for the first time, with hand cut Belgian fries that are served in a paper cone and distinguished by a crisp outside and soft, delicious potato inside.
In keeping with the popular ‘fry shacks’ in Amsterdam, Frietkoten offers these traditional Belgian fries with up to 20 different sauces to choose from every day. Frietkoten also serves up Dutch and Belgian beers and ales to complement these traditional grab-and-go Belgian fries.
Have you ever had Patatje Oorlog (french fries “war style”)? It’s fresh cut fries topped with diced onions, mayo (a special frite mayo, actually), and peanut satay sauce! If that doesn’t give you a total boner i don’t even know.
Although, I have some serious doubts that they’ll have the famous Rotterdam treat “Patatje Kapsalon” (French fries “hair salon” style).
Fritz Maytag and Anchor Distilling
Fritz Maytag is a craftsman after my heart. In 1965 he revived San Fransisco’s Anchor Brewing by saving them from bankruptcy. He knew very little about brewing, but in the course of ten years expanded the classic “steam beer” out to a lineup of five, now classic, beers.
A few months ago I had a chance to taste Maytag’s “Genevieve” – an old recipe gin, or genever, brewed according to pre-war Dutch recipes. The craftsmanship, experimentation, simplicity of scale and historical accuracy of Anchor Distilling are totally inspirational to me.
Check out this video of a very professorial Fritz explaining the process and history behind their rye whiskey.
Also check out this years 2009 Christmas beer. Another beautiful label by Jim Stitt and another unique recipe.
“It’s a handmade beer, so the label should be hand-drawn.”
Latke v. Hamantash
Tonight is burrito night the annual Latke vs. Hamantash Debate at the University of Chicago.
It’s free. At 7:30 p.m. in Mandel Hall, 1137 E. 57th St.
It’s a tradition where the hyper-educated make fun of Jews and Jewish food — but it’s ok cause some of them are Jews too. The set up is: which is better, the placki kartoflane latke, or the kolache hamantash? Professors then commence using their expertise to win the point and some laughs. It’s been going on for a long time and is enormously popular, if anticlimactic — the potato pancake-like latke always wins.
But it’s humorous, in an extremely high brow way.
Psychologists tell us that our states of soul make the world, not the world our states of soul; that, in Plato’s formula, latkes and hamantashen are good because we are Jewish, not that we are Jewish because they are good. You see the relativistic consequences of all that. If you think that economists attribute nasty motives to human beings, wait ’til you find out what psychologists believe.
In truth they all follow their false messiah, Freud, who was secretly in the pay of, yes, the Manischewitz people, who out of economic motives wanted to spread the appeal of their products beyond the Jews and turned to the psychologist for help. So Freud, for popularity’s sake, interpreted the latke, the male, Maccabean food, as in its circular forms symbolic of the male goal—I need not elaborate on this lascivious suggestion; and the hamantash—the joyous token of Esther’s success, the female triumph—he explained by means of its angularity, its pointiness.
Propriety forbids my going further.
— Professor in Social Thought Allan D. Bloom, “Restoring the Jewish Canon” (1981).
The most successful are the profs who jab at academia with the vigor of someone who carries serious doubts about the usefulness of pure scholarship. Austan Goolsbee, the now staff director and chief economist of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, was hilarious two years ago.
Recipes excerpted from “The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate” follow.
Salsafication
I miss the glory days of chain restaurants when you could get hepatitis from a restaurant that’s name translated to Titties.
In 2004, Chi-Chi’s “salsafied” about 660 of its customers with hepatitis A and shortly thereafter shut down for good. And though Outback Steakhouse bought up a bunch of its buildings, it didn’t buy the recipes. So the recipe for the Chilotta — or in Italian, those who struggle, the downtrodden — is lost forever.
And if the rumors were true and Mexican pasta with blue-corn fettucine, Mexican pizza, or Mexican stir fry had made it out of development and onto the menu, who knows, maybe salsafication would have taken hold.
At Chi-Chi’s, Salsafication is more than a word. It’s an attitude. It’s a spirit. It’s a way of life. Salsafication to us is ensuring that our guests are greeted with a smile and that they leave with one. During the Salsafication experience, our guests will enjoy fast friendly service and delicious food and drink served in a fun, festive atmosphere. It’s what we’re all about.
In the end, the salsafication killed four in Pennsylvania from complications from hepatitis A and the federal government closed the doors on anyone else getting salsafied. It took five years, but the U.S. Trademark Office never agreed that the term was sufficiently “fanciful.”
I’m left with image of Volkswagen Beetles in giant sombreros spreading the word about the Declaration of Salsafication.
The Declaration of Salsification
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to solemnly declare the right to be free and salsified: absolved from all connection to the shackles of the bored, the ordinary and bland.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Chi-Chi’s are created to salsify our lives through good food, festive drink and the pursuit of some serious fun.
Further, it is the right of the people to abolish routine. As a free and salsified people, you have the full power to come together, to eat, to drink, to laugh, to be loud, to relax, to goof off, to pause.
On support of this declaration we pledge to you these articles of salsification for as long as the sun does rise. For … “Life always needs a little salsa.”
