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 I'm a fan of the New Yorker's annual food issue. It delivers an intriguing world view, a collection of essays and articles that attempt to lift the domes off gorgeous plates of exotic ingredients married in a way we commoners would not fathom. Cookies, Texas barbecue, chefs, farmers -- it's an issue that's bookshelf-worthy.
In its seven years of existence, the food issue has presented works that led to bigger things, among them Bill Buford's detailed 2002 profile of Mario Batali that blossomed into the wondrous book "Heat" detailing his food adventure in Italy, and, in 2007, the "Jefferson Bottles" that became the counterfeit-wine book "The Billionaire's Vinegar."
This year, the word from the kitchen is fear. Or possibly failure. The food world, the articles drum into the readers, is fraught with enemies and ne'er do-wells -- even the cheese curds of Canada's national dish, poutine, Calvin Trillin learns, may kill you.
There's the shady world of wine importing in China, the horror of trying to cook a Thanksgiving feast in a foreign country and a factory in Cincinnati that develops chemical tastes and smells. This year's compendium is so wrought with indecision and trepidation that Adam Gopnik even asks, when we read a cookbook, are we sure we understand the definition of "chopped"?
New Yorker's 2009 food issue cover: "Pumpkin Cloud"
by Wayne Thiebaud.
"When you start to cook, as when you begin to live," Gopnik writes, "you think that the point is to improve the technique until you end up with something perfect, and that the reason you haven't been able to break the cycle of desire and disillusion is that you haven't yet mastered the rules. Then you grow up, and you learn that that's the game."
The most colorful of the 11 food stories is the first one: John Colapinto's portrait of a Michelin inspector in New York. Author, reviewer and Michelin Guide managing director Jean-Luc Naret share a meal with the journalist at Jean Georges on the south side of Manhattan's Central Park, one of my favorite restaurants in this country, if not the world. As they describe the dishes of peekytoe crab, arctic char and foie gras brulee, one can't help but luxuriate in the memory of a fine meal. (Adventurous-types may well read Jean Georges' ingredient list and head straight to the kitchen to start tinkering with soy sauce and powdered English mustard.)
Ultimately, however, the picture is not one of blissful food celebrations in the nation's culinary capital. The inspector's duties are full of drudgery, schlepping alone to the outer boroughs to order three courses, identifying every ingredient and leaving the plate spotless, followed by filling out a full report, most of which take close to two hours to finish. That's her life 200 nights per year.
The issue is likely weighted by the recession -- stories about gourmet hamburgers, thousand-dollar meals and Ferran Adria wannabes are certainly gauche these days -- but have we reached the point where the joy of eating is gone? Did we all get the big scare this summer when Michael Pollan told us in The New York Times Magazine that we all need a new diet?
New Yorker Executive Editor Dorothy Wickenden, who oversaw this year's food issue, wrote in an email to me: "It started out as something we knew we'd like to work on -- one issue every year devoted entirely to pleasure. Readers turned out to love it, and so did New Yorker writers, who are as opinionated and quirky about food as they are about everything else."
The Michelin story is the only specific-to-New York article. In years past, the New Yorker has made cult heroes out of Gotham chefs such as Momofuku's David Chang and Esca's fisherman-chef David Pasternack. The 2009 issues lacks heroes or visionaries, those people taking unique approaches to the production of food and wine. It implies the food world in 2009 is in a mode averse to risk and invention, a result no doubt of constraints inflicted by the recession. Perhaps, with a few more dollars in our pockets 12 months from now, the perspective will turn toward the positive.
Phil Gallo is an entertainment journalist who writes about music, television, theater and film in addition to food and wine.
Top illustration: Detail from New Yorker by Marc Rosenthal.
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