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| About Dining in the United States |
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Over a period of seven weeks, as I observed the nation
from Dayton to Dallas, Corte Madera to Columbus, I found
that America and its national appetite remain a mammoth
tangle of contradictions. Yes, supermarkets now boast
fresh bay leaves, wine waiters shoulder a vocabulary
larger than Hugh Johnson's, and chefs will fly fresh
anchovies in from France for a single dinner, just to
do it right. Kansas City boasts some of the world's
best homemade chocolates, and bakers such as Eli Zabar
in New York can proudly place their spectacular sourdough
breads side-by-side with the world's best.
When Americans decide they want to learn, they become
almost overnight experts, and now it's not surprising
to find a man on the street who is as comfortable with
vintage charts as with box scores, and cooks who can
out-whisk, out-bake, out-roast the best.
Yet freshness, intelligence, and attention to detail
are not always on the menu. Every airport reeks of stale
fried food, and plastic utensils have become so commonplace
that even the best establishments serve espresso coffee
in Styrofoam cups. (At one very decent restaurant we
ate off plastic plates, drank from plastic cups, and
the only utensil offered was a fork, albeit metal. A
knife was never an option).
And while, yes, America has made gastronomic advances,
I do worry that it's all just another fad. Chefs barely
old enough to shave consider themselves "world
class" simply because they have won an award or
a rave review. Are they really in it for the long haul?
At Home With Patricia Wells: Reviews Index
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Here, then, are some current observations from
the nation that gulps life as if it might go out
of style:
- Guilt and food remain tops on the agenda. One
prominent restaurant features Seven Deadly Sins
as a dessert, and the menu of a new family restaurant
in Raleigh, North Carolina, places a "GF"
symbol next to items that - you guessed it - are
guilt-free.
- A popular no fuss, no frills, turkey stuffing
this Thanksgiving consisted of 10 White Castle
hamburgers, buns and all.
- Manhattan's new Harley-Davidson Cafe (a sure
rival to the global success of the Hard Rock Cafe)
has a retail store. The other day a friend waited
in line for 30 minutes to buy a T-shirt for a
Harley owner in France and watched a Japanese
couple place an order for a brand new motorcycle.
- McDonald's is experimenting with a new concept:
table service. In Raleigh, residents are awaiting
the opening of the McDonald's cafe. No counter,
no drive-in, just tables, chairs, menus, "waitpersons."
- One restaurant industry magazine quotes a big-city
food consultant as saying: "I see no possible
long-term reason to cook at home, other than perhaps
some psychological need. The oven is a threatened
appliance. We rarely use ours - Thanksgiving,
that's all."
- Jell-O is making a major comeback. Consumption
is up 12 percent in just one year, with 1.7 million
Jell-O cookbooks sold. In an Augusta, Georgia,
mall, a restaurant even serves Jell-O pizza, just
one of 20 items on the changing menu. (I wonder
if it's seasonal.)
- Americans are crazy for coffee: Designer coffees,
espresso coffees (most often burned to a deep
bitterness in the roasting), gourmet (no more
hazelnut, please) coffees all but run in the streets.
One newspaper even rated cars for their coffee
friendliness - smoothness of ride and convenience
of cup holders for those long hauls in traffic.
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