Kevin Alexander Preaches to My Choir

Thrillist writer Kevin Alexander has written a big, intense essay that makes me want to stand up and cheer. It's called "Why the 'Hot New Food Town' Must Die" - and though "die" might be a stretch, I agree with pretty much everything he writes.

It appears that at some point, Alexander was planning to write about Pittsburgh's burgeoning food scene - the city is being hailed all over the place as the next big thing in dining. Instead, he applied what he observed about Pittsburgh - and other places - and wrote about a subject I find fascinating: the sameness of the culinary scenes in smaller cities named as hot new places to eat and the culture that has created that monster. (He admits he's part of that culture.)

He calls it the Good Food Revival Movement - a name that's just about perfect, given the religious zeal that people have adopted when it comes to food.

***

I've been thinking about the similarity between food and religion for quite some time now. In 2009, I wrote my first post about food as the new religion. My starting point was an old Tom Wolfe essay about art being the new opiate of the masses. Food, I suggested, had replaced art. In addition to his use of "revival" to describe the current food climate, Alexander calls food the "social currency" of millennials. We're speaking the same language.

In 2009, I expected that the spotlight would shift away from food and that something new would take its place as the social currency of our time. Maybe it still will. But for now, it looks like food is it.

***

Alexander's other big point, about the sameness of the Good Food Towns - and that they're all based on Portland, in one way or another - is also something I've written about a ton.

My first post on that topic was back in 2006, after my sister's college graduation dinner in Lexington, Virginia. At the time, I bemoaned what seemed to be a lack of regionally-specific dishes and flavors.

A couple years later, as the food world's collective gaze shifted to Charleston and southern flavors reigned supreme, I thought that regionalism was back. (This 2012 post summarizes my shift in thinking.)

If Alexander is correct - and I think he is - regionalism might have slightly returned, but it didn't manifest on a grand scale. He talks about cities "doing a 2007 Portland impression" - instead of digging into their own histories, figuring out their roots, and building unique food identities around what was already theirs.

***

It's a good story - thoughtful and thought-provoking. But, of course, I don't live in Pittsburgh. I live in Baltimore. So I wonder...what does this mean for my city?

People in Baltimore complain sometimes because we've been overlooked, frequently in the past, as a food city. I've had a chip on my own shoulder about it. Why does Cleveland get the love, I asked in this 2008 post. Actually, apparently I couldn't shut up about that in 2008.

But maybe we've been overlooked because we haven't hewed so completely to the Portland 2007 model. Not that we've completely rejected it - there's plenty of charcuterie in town. But one of Alexander's points is that before its revival, Pittsburgh "was a crap food town" without a clear existing identity or even strong ethnic communities.

Without an established culinary sense of self, adopting the Portland model made sense. I'm sure Pittsburgh is home to some great food history and stories, but those things can be tough to dig up. Especially for chefs who want to, you know, make money.

Baltimore, on the other hand, has always had its own thing going. In recent years, we've been peddling the "more than crab cakes" message, but the reality is that we are crab cakes - and steamed crabs and muddy oysters and rockfish and Old Bay. We're more than that, but those things that come from the Chesapeake are at the core of who we are.

This is us. (At my house last summer.)

Plus, those roots have champions. Food innovation here is homegrown. Spike Gjerde has put massive amounts of time and energy into rediscovering and spotlighting the foodways of the Chesapeake region. (Related: Jane Marion's recent profile of him is a great read.)

He's not the only one, either. Winston Blick knows the region's farms and waterways - and the historic flavors that come from them - as well as anybody. Tony Conrad stocks his shop full of fish and crabs and oysters that come straight out of the Bay. And programs like True Blue do what they can to ensure that restaurants and diners stay connected to local products.

Not every restaurant has to be local, local, local, of course. Everybody can't be Woodberry. We also need Bottega and La Cuchara and Charleston and Petit Louis (and everybody else). But the dining community as a whole is better off if it includes places and people devoted to hometown food.

***

Alexander ends his article on a moderately upbeat note, saying that ultimately, raising the food game in smaller cities is a good thing, even if there's not as much individuality as he'd like to see. But he also does a little self-flagellating, reminding himself and other food writers that over-celebrating one particular type of food culture - even if it's good food! - discourages innovation, especially in smaller markets.

Based on all of this, here in Baltimore, I think we should just keep on doing what we're doing. Maybe  I could do a little less "why doesn't anybody in the national press love us" whining. But in the kitchen, on the farms, and on the water, as far as I can tell, we're doing it right.

The Local-Global Pendulum Meets Southern Cuisine

A couple weeks ago, my whole family got together at my parents' house to celebrate my dad's birthday. We were talking about food (because what else do you talk about?) when the conversation descended into a  "Who's on first?" style mess. My sister-in-law asked me if I'd ever been to Charleston, commenting that after reading the recent Washington Post article about Woodberry Kitchen, she got the impression that WK is a lot like Husk.

I haven't been to Husk, or to Charleston, but I had read the article and, based on what I've heard about Husk, I told Cail I thought she was right. Then my mom chimed in with a confusing comment about a neighbor who doesn't really care for Charleston because she thinks the food is "too rich" and my brother expressed surprise that I'd never been to Charleston - but I was sure he knew I hadn't been there.

As it turns out, he did know I'd never visited Charleston - the city. Cail and I were talking about the Holy City, while my mom and brother were talking about Cindy Wolf's famously fancy and, yes, rich, restaurant here in Baltimore. (Though I haven't actually been there, either.)

All that talk about Charleston and Husk and low country flavors in Baltimore - topped off by a late-night viewing of Shag - got me thinking. These days, Southern cooking is on quite a pedestal. And Southern flavors are steeped in so much history that it's easy to forget that not so long ago, regional cooking - in the South or anyplace else - wasn't exactly front-page news.

Back in the early days of M&G, I wrote a handful of posts lamenting the demise of regional cuisine (most notably here and here). The first post I wrote was triggered by my sister's college graduation dinner at the Southern Inn in Lexington, Virginia...which, despite its name, was not very southern at all. The dinner was OK, but I was disappointed that it lacked any regional distinction. I could've eaten the same dinner in California, New York, or the Midwest.

I wasn't the only person concerned back then, either. A year after my post,  an essay by Salma Abdelnour called, "The Insidious Rise of Cosmo-Cuisine," appeared in the May 2007 issue of Food & Wine. Abdelnour observed that the best chefs of the day lacked a culinary connection to their hometowns, with menus borrowing from cities all over the world, but not necessarily from their own backyards. That essay got a lot of attention; it also appeared in Best Food Writing 2007.

At that time, eating locally was a hot topic - "locavore" was the OED word of the year for 2007 - but that was more about where to buy ingredients vs. flavor profiles. In those days, the most celebrated food in the world was coming out of Spain (specifically, out of Ferran Adria's head), but it wasn't lauded for its Spanishness so much as its edginess. Technique was king. Top Chef viewers were talking about Hung's knife skills and Blais' wild ideas and careful execution, but not nearly as much about how their backgrounds might have influenced their cooking choices. Local food was on the rise, from a logistical standpoint, but from a creative perspective, we were all thinking global.

And then something shifted.

Today, El Bulli is no more and the Top Chef judges have seen waves of regionally-focused cheftestants. The Southern Inn, which inspired my first post on the subject, touts fried chicken and country ham all over its menu. And Charleston's Husk, described on its own website as "a celebration of Southern ingredients," is widely considered the country's best restaurant.

What happened? Something natural and cyclical, I think - though I don't know that we're experiencing a resurgence of American regionalism so much as a burst of interest in Southern flavors in particular. Here on M&G, the first mention of Charleston - which seems to be at the heart of this Southern food revival - was in April of 2009, when I wrote about Elle Decor's profile of the city.

In July of that year, the Baltimore episode of No Reservations aired and one of the show's (few) bright spots was Bourdain's smart identification of Baltimore's southern culinary roots, on display via lake trout and pit beef.

In November 2009, I considered pimento cheese super trendy and the following month, I sang praises for Kevin Gillespie's mission to cook food that "has a sense of place" (that place being, of course, the South). A rise in Southern flavor profiles was one of my predictions for 2010. By May 2011, when Garden & Gun (which launched in April 2007) won the National Magazine Award, the Southern revival was so firmly in place on a national level, the magazine could launch a semi-regular blog all about finding the South in New York City.

A few days after my father's birthday dinner, Alicia gave me a magazine her parents picked up on a recent trip to Charleston (Alicia's dad, Big G, is a Citadel alum). The magazine, called The Local Palate, bills itself as covering "food culture of the South," though it's mostly about food in Charleston vs. the region as a whole. Either way, its mere existence goes to show that regionalism is alive and well, at least in certain pockets of the country. The cover refers to "The Second Coming of Southern Cuisine" and on the inside, one of the most intriguing pieces, "Southern Revival" by architectural historian W. Barksdale Maynard, carries the lofty subtitle, "Living in the Golden Age of Southern Cuisine."

I can't find the article anywhere online (the rest of the issue is here) and that's really a shame because Maynard does an excellent job tracking the peaks and valleys of popularity experienced by Southern cuisine. His conclusion is that, "the long decline is over: traditional Dixie cuisine is back," and he quotes revered Southern food historian/champion John T. Edge, poo-pooing those who fret that the South has grown less "Southern" thanks to homogenization and Northern migration. Edge insists, "That concern is cyclical and maybe even permanent, this notion that Southern food is in peril." In other words, every generation worries, but the world keeps on spinning.

I suppose I should take those words to heart, too. After all, it was only five or six years ago that I was dramatically mourning regional cooking. And look where we are now: regional cooking, in the South at least, has risen again.

Regionalism: The Map

If you are at all interested in regional foods, the shifts and trends that change consumption and culture, or really cool maps, click right here, right now.

To accompany a review of the book Renewing America's Food Traditions by Gary Paul Nabhan, the New York Times created an interactive map of the US (with a bit of Canada and Mexico thrown in). The country is divided into regions defined by their cuisine, with mouseovers for each area explaining what foods native to the region are in danger of one day disappearing.

No big surprise, I live in Crabcake Nation (though what is a bit of a surprise is that Delaware, which is culturally so like Maryland, is in Clambake Nation).

I found this via Mr. Henry, who reminisces about the different foods he's had that might one day be gone. Sort of sadly, I couldn't really do the same, since the only food on any of the lists that I'm absolutely positive I've eaten is...you guessed it...Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

This so perfectly ties into all of my concerns about the globalization of cuisine and the simultaneous disappearance of regional flavors and dishes.

Even though, as I just mentioned, I've got a mile-high stack of books to read, I just might have to actually buy this one. It just hits too close to home.

Food for Thought

Mr. Henry, of Manolo Food Blog fame, has spent the last month or so wrestling with the ubiquitous Omnivore's Dilemma, deciding what it means to him personally. He's not the only one, but I digress.

During his soul-search, Mr. Henry did some interesting philosophizing about food and culture and what it all means. This hit a nerve with me:

Cuisine marks culture more distinctly than any other lifestyle choice. It’s the most conservative cultural trait. (Japanese-American families keep umeboshi in the fridge no matter what fashions they wear, music they listen to, or ideologies they favor.)

As much time as I (and others) have spent lamenting the rise of global cuisine to the detriment of regionalism, Mr. Henry is right. I can't speak to the pantry contents of the Japanese-American community, but I do know that pretty much every single Marylander ever has some Old Bay stored in a place of reverence in his kitchen. From my 88-year-old grandmother to the bachelor-iest of my guy friends, nobody goes without. It's as much a taste preference as it is a symbol of pride and a core part of who we are.

Food is woven into our personalities and histories in such a complex and fantastic way - I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.

Speaking of Regionalism...

VinePair totally just got me with this map:

Is it totally reliable? No chance. There aren't even any actual sources attached, so even the wine vs. beer attributions are suspect. But still, it's cute. And it made me laugh. And...maps!

Five Years. That's Right: Five.

Today is M&G's fifth birthday, which kind of astounds me, until I think about all the things that have happened in my life since I started blogging. Like having an actual flesh-and-blood child (who will turn four this month), undertaking a major home renovation/addition, and completing somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 work projects.

It's been a pretty busy five years.

It's also been a pretty busy summer, which is why, even though I've known that this anniversary was coming up, I never really planned anything special for it. Last night, when we got home from the beach, tired and cranky, I remembered that today is, well, today, and that I wanted to recognize the anniversary in some way, even if it's a small one. That's when I started reading.

Just clicking through the archives, I ran across tons of posts I barely remember and a ton of meals that I'd have completely forgotten if it weren't for the magic of the internets. Lots of crappy, amateurish photography (especially from the early days) and rambling paragraphs that try to connect art with food.

But some of it, I actually enjoyed rereading. I didn't make it through the whole blog last night - as it turns out, I can write a lot over five years - but I did collect a handful of posts that I still find interesting. Kind of a "best of" collection (except not complete. And maybe not all "best.") And, for your reading pleasure, that's right here:

• How I learned to cook
• How cooking transcends
• On fashion and food
• Matisse doesn't eat
• The food of Hogwarts
• In praise of regionalism
• Happiness is making decisions
• Lamenting the rise of the kiddie foodie
• Dots and food and romance
• Futurism's failure
• Remembering parties past
• I ruin my microwave
• The start of the Grande Diplome project
• Hot dogs and jean shorts at Keuka Lake

One more note: thanks to everyone who reads, whether it's every day or just once. It's nice to know that I'm not just shouting out into the darkness. Really nice.

Blog Birthday Retrospective

My mom made me this angel food cake for Mother's Day, but
it's the cake I always had for my birthday as a kid. So it seems
fitting for today...even if it's the blog's birthday, not mine.

Happy blog birthday to ME! Today is the 11th anniversary of my first post here on Mango & Ginger.

I will be celebrating this evening with dinner at Parts & Labor and I have spent a little time today reminiscing with myself about everything I've learned and all the opportunities I've had over the past decade-plus-one thanks to this blog.

In case you don't have time to go back and actually read the thousands of posts in the blog, here's a quick recap of some of the highlights of each year. Navel-gazing, yes. But it's my blog birthday - if I can't do this today, when can I do it?

2005: In the last few months of 2005, I wrote a lot. I posted crappy food pictures and basic recipes. Wrote about excursions I took (Paris! NYC!). And babbled about how food fits into our lives. It's two of those posts (one, two), both about fashion and food, that I love most from that year. They're so typical of how I was thinking about food back then. Back then, when I was only 29!! I was a baby!

2006: Less than a year into this blog, my posting fell way, way off. Because I was pregnant...and then because I had a little baby. But looking back, what I did write was pretty interesting (to me, anyway). I got into art and food and Harry Potter and food (way before the books were over!) and the importance of regionalism in food (a subject I've revisited often). Also, apparently 2006 is the year I learned that scrapple is a regional food. I thought that was just something I always knew! Apparently not!

2007: Blogging was light again in 2007, as I juggled work, tiny baby Dixon and a massive home renovation, including a brand new kitchen. But when I did write, I was all kinds of philosophical. This is the year I started getting interested in happiness research and began exploring how happiness relates to food. Nine years on, that's still one of my favorite subjects. It's also when I started getting bored with "foodie" culture, which is also, something that has persisted.

2008: In 2008, I made a commitment to myself to post every weekday. And I did. Sometimes more than once. I wrote a lot. Not always strictly about food - there was a lot of "other stuff I love" that year, mostly about art or design. I wrote a lot that year about pop culture and celebrity chef/TV chef culture (something I am not really interested in at all anymore), but it's also when I really started to think about the food scene here in Baltimore and I started casually reviewing restaurants (here on the blog). Also that year: I started drinking rose, I learned a ton about food and I made less money working than any other year since I started freelancing. I think those things are all related.

2009: In 2009, I was writing for Houzz, so a lot of my posts here ended up being about dining rooms and tables. That year, I also started writing for Deep Glamour, so I was looking at pretty much everything through the lens of glamour, which is really a very interesting way to view the world. But if I had to pick one theme for the blog that year, it would be parties. I wrote so much about parties and drinks and wine. Still, obviously, some of my favorite topics.

2010: Looking back, 2010 was a banner year. Parties, cocktails and decor remained top blog themes, with a splash of fashion thrown in. This was also the year I really started to get into vintage cookbooks, which I still love. Our friends hit a lot of major milestones (Kyle and Mary got married, Mike and Alicia's daughter Maggie was born, Alicia and Dixon collaborated on their first birthday cake, the entire Kelly family threw the first major throwdown.) We started to go to Dogwood wine dinners. It's also the year that I "met," via the old Elizabeth Large blog on the Sun website, the son of my parents' favorite waiter ever. Around that time, I started to really understand my family's food and restaurant culture. When I first started blogging, I didn't think we had one. I was wrong. Very wrong, in fact. We had/have a fairly strong culture, really, all built around the Chesapeake, restaurant dining and casual parties. And I'm pretty lucky for that.

2011: Two big - really big - things happened to our family in 2011. First, we got a smoker. That was a game-changer. And second, I got a phone call from Sam Sessa, asking me to write a "cheap eats" piece for the Sun's Weekend LIVE section. Then I got another call from him asking me to review a restaurant. Next thing you know, I spent the next four years - until last fall - reviewing. Again, big.

2012: My New Year's resolution in 2012 was, "More mascara, more parties." And wow, did I stick to that. I'm happy to report that I'm still in the habit of wearing  mascara when I leave the house (it keeps me from looking like a corpse). But really, it was the party thing that I most successfully fulfilled. We had so many parties that year, I can't even count them all. And when we weren't having parties, I was experimenting with cocktails. I tested a lot of recipes that year, too. And I gave a talk about food and art at the BMA. Also, this is also when we probably reached Peak Southern Cuisine. But really, when I think back on 2012, I think of the parties. Man, that year was fun.

2013: My sister got married in 2013 and we, once again, went to or hosted a ton of parties. That year, we also had a fun wine-tasting trip to Keuka Lake, spent a weekend eating our way through Manhattan, and hosted one of my very favorite Pollard house dinners ever, celebrating Kyle and Mary's third wedding anniversary. I got to write a series about crabs for the Sun and, as a result, I spent a whole lot of time thinking about my personal culinary roots, continuing the train of thought that began in 2010. So we did a lot in 2013 and I was very busy. Maybe that's why the blog doesn't seem to have one overarching theme. I was constantly trying to play catch-up and trying to remember to record the stuff I was doing in my real life.

2014: In 2014, I semi-fixed the "forgetting to post it" problem from 2013, by writing a ton of summary posts rounding up stuff I'd done over the previous week or month. It was a solid year, including a short but killer trip to Paris, our tenth wedding anniversary, our first fundraising Fake St. Patrick's Day party, and an unbelievably wild Mock Thanksgiving party (our 12th). It's also the year I first learned about how Baltimore's chefs work together to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and when I started to get really excited about the way the city's chefs work together and the tight community they've formed. Have I mentioned that I love this city and the food people in it? I really do.

2015: In 2015, Cooper and I turned 40. As did many of our friends. Which means the year was pretty much one long party - there were these fall/winter trips and parties and this party in the snow and this trip to Philly to see Swifty and an Alicia-themed Keuka trip I didn't even blog about and these August parties and this wine tasting excursion and, finally, after everything else, our massive Clementine-catered blowout at Church & Company followed by a good old-fashioned McGarvey's meet-up and bar crawl. It was intense, to say the least.

2016: I started out this year with a desire to shine a light on all the cool things happening in and around Baltimore. Unfortunately, too much regular work has thrown me off my posting schedule and focus. But I have had some great experiences, including a vacation-filled summer that started at Keuka Lake, then took us to Ireland, Scotland, to the Delaware beaches and back to Keuka. (Not that I've written much about any of that!) Even with the travel, my favorite post of this year was something close to home - a roundup of what I learned from the Sun series I wrote about international grocery stores. And the year isn't over yet, of course.

Whew. It's been a good run, so far. In the moment, I always feel so busy, but when I look back, it's clear that though my to-do list might be long, it's stacked with incredible parties, memorable meals and event after event that puts me in contact with some of the greatest people around.

This little trip down memory lane has been a great reminder that I have wonderful friends, both in and out of the food world, and that I am lucky, lucky, lucky to have the opportunity to write about food, especially at this time and in this awesome, dynamic city.

More on Regionalism

A while back, I lamented the lack of fantastic regional cooking at the high end of the cooking food chain. I firmly believe that that's still the case - fancy restaurants have a look and feel that resists too much regional customization. But over the course of the summer, with piles of steamed crabs and Old Bay-soaked everything behind me, I decided that maybe that's OK. Maybe it's not so bad to leave the regional cooking to the masses.

Either way, the combination of rednecks and regional cooking makes it's way into the September issue of Food & Wine. Author Benjamin Wallace spends some time with Mario Batali, as he lights up the infield at a Charlotte NASCAR race. I've been to a NASCAR race (and yes, that's why I feel justified in making the "rednecks" comment - I'm not excluding myself, and I'm certainly not excluding Cooper, who's been to many) - and while I don't recall any truly superior cooking, it's not hard for me to believe that Batali's being sincere when he says, "NASCAR represents American regional cooking at its most supreme."

Which brings me to my acceptance. As long as regional flavors continue to reign supreme someplace, I guess I can deal with globalized haute cuisine. I guess.

In Praise of Regionalism

I've done a lot of local traveling over the past few weeks: down to Lexington, Virginia for my sister's graduation, up to the Poconos for our biannual weekend at Sarah's family's house, over to St. Mary's County for a pretty daytime wedding on the water. Nothing more than a few hours away, but all locations with their own distinct characters.

The night of my sister's graduation, my family went to dinner at the Southern Inn, a restaurant in historic Lexington. It holds special significance for my family - we had lunch there when we dropped Erin off at school her freshman year and dinner (and drinks) there a few years later, when she turned 21. It only seemed fitting to round out her four years at W&L with one last visit.

It's a nice restaurant, with good food (but generally horrendous service - though our 21st birthday waiter was pretty spectacular). Despite it's name, though, it's not overly southern. At the graduation dinner, I thoroughly enjoyed my roast duck breast (coated with a crunchy sweet honey glaze and served with savory garlic bread pudding) and savory cheesecake appetizer. The flavor combinations were interesting and the preparation was pretty flawless (delivered by a surly waitress, but I digress). I was more than happy with my meal. But it certainly wasn't anything I couldn't have ordered in a restaurant in Maryland. Or New York. Or Wisconsin.

Which made me think: with all of the emphasis that chefs today place on fresh, local, seasonal ingredients, why is it that even completely interesting dishes turned out by great restaurant kitchens so often lack a real regional feel. When Tony Bourdain visits other countries, why is the food he tries in 5-star restaurants so much less interesting and unique than what he eats on the street? Where is all the high end local food?

The week after we came home from Lexington, Cooper and I went to a family birthday party - a crab feast. Summer is a great time to be from Maryland for exactly one reason: steamed crabs. I can't think of any other food that so perfectly combines taste and ritual on a completely local level (plus, of course, it's totally fun and crabs are delicious. But I'm biased.) But there's certainly nothing high-end about crabs. Sure, just about every restaurant in Maryland, no matter how fancy, has crab cakes on the menu. But that slight nod to local cuisine is a far cry from a truly local menu.

All of this is my very long-winded way of saying that it's too bad that the national adoption of the local produce craze hasn't produced more of a national emphasis on top shelf chefs working with local or regional flavors. That it's more common for higher end restaurants to gravitate toward a certain type of "upscale" repertoire, rather than being really gutsy and going local.

And, yes, I know there are exceptions to this rule. But when the dinner I have at a regionally-named restaurant in Lexington so closely resembles something I'd find on a menu in Minneapolis, I can't help but long for a little differentiation.