Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [19]
“Well, of course they do. I just meant that, well, even today, it’s not exactly the bastion of haute cuisine. Twenty, thirty years ago, forget it. In fact, can you remember the last time a Pittsburgh restaurant was featured in Bon Appétit?”
Touché. In fact, the only time I can remember a Pittsburgh restaurant being mentioned in a national magazine was several years ago when Gourmet mentioned Primanti Brothers in an interview with Mario Batali (who’d eaten there on a recent trip and enjoyed it). For the uninitiated, the Primanti sandwich is a cheesesteak sub, served on thick slabs of crusty Italian bread and topped with very well-done grease-still-glistening French fries, coleslaw, and, if you’re really a traditionalist, a fried egg. Apparently, it has become the signature food of Pittsburgh. I do not remind Arthur Cole of this fact.
The bread basket is presented to us—warm, crusty, French farmhouse rolls with an herb and goat cheese spread. We study our menus, considering the delights within. I look over at Renata, who I can see is already mapping out how we can best cover the most ground. This, of course, involves sharing.
Some people are funny about that, and I’m betting Arthur Cole is one of them. You can tell a lot about a person by how liberal he is about sharing his food. That was one of the first things that had attracted me to Jake. I first met him when we were both waiting for a table at a little roadside trattoria in Piacenza. We were each overjoyed to find someone who could speak English and decided to share a table. During that first meal together he casually reached over and speared a piece of my calamari, delicately grabbing it by the ring with a single tine of his fork. It was an intimate gesture, and one that might have shocked me had I not already decided to sleep with him—which I did, immediately following dessert and espresso.
“Oh, look,” says Michael, “fresh sardines.”
“I’m looking at the spiny lobster with cepes risotto,” says Renata, her nose buried in the menu.
“Imagine, pairing the most delicate of shellfish with such a strong fungal flavor,” offers Arthur, wrinkling his nose. “Interesting, if he can pull it off.” He sounds doubtful.
The subject of our dinner conversation is the demise of the American restaurant, a not-quite-open forum conducted in sotto voce by Arthur, who has emerged from his research on culinary history finding America’s traditions wanting.
“There simply are no traditions. Everything has been imported. There’s nothing originally American, except perhaps corn.” He waves a hand dismissively. “Not even the hamburger can we claim as our own!” he says with a sneer, as if anyone would want to.
When no one picks up the gauntlet Arthur has so conspicuously thrown, he continues unabashed. “Why then,” he says, suddenly turning to me and folding his arms across his chest, “did your mother study in France? Why did you study in Italy? Which I presume you did because you know as well as I do that no culinary education is considered complete without an international apprenticeship.” His voice is smug, his mouth curled in a half smile.
“Wait a minute,” I say, feeling suddenly compelled to defend American culinary tradition (not to mention my own expensive and, in my opinion, extremely comprehensive education at the Culinary Institute of America). “I studied in Italy because I cook Italian food. My mother studied in France because in the late 1960s there was no other option. But that certainly doesn’t mean that there isn’t a rich and varied culinary tradition in America today. Stop at a roadside barbeque in Texas, eat a lobster roll in Bangor, Maine, order a fried egg on your Primanti sandwich in Pittsburgh, for heaven’s sake!” I look over at Michael, who is humming the national anthem, his right hand on his heart, his left raised in mock salute. The moment dissolves into laughter, all of us, except perhaps Arthur, slightly embarrassed to have taken ourselves so seriously.