Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [38]
The link between quality and price is axiomatic. For the very best, you must pay a lot. It is a little like drinking grappa or marc—it stings at first, but warmth and a deep satisfaction follow.
At an upscale restaurant in New York, a regular, if unexpected, special on Wednesday nights was spaghetti and meatballs. Pasta was still available, but the old-fashioned meatballs were usually gone by mid-evening. For one customer, the great popularity seemed inexplicable.
“What’s so special about spaghetti and meatballs?” he asked one of the owners.
“The price,” she said simply.
JOHN IRVING
At his house, John Irving does all the cooking, enjoying the relaxation after a day at one of his several typewriters. He’s an excellent cook, easygoing in the kitchen, and likes the company of guests, drinks in hand, as he makes his favorite dishes, though he has the most fun cooking for his children.
“My kids (and my grandchildren now) like my meatballs. Sometimes I make them when there are no kids at home, because I’m missing my kids. Any good bread will do for the bread crumbs; put a chunk of Parmesan in the food processor with the bread crumbs, and a teaspoon each of oregano and basil. I use two raw eggs with a pound of lean hamburger—the meatballs should be golf ball–sized and browned in hot olive oil. Leave the meat scraps in the pan—with garlic and onion and a handful of fresh basil, if you have it. (No dried herbs in the tomato sauce.) My grown boys live in Colorado and California. Often, when I’ve made the meatballs in Vermont, I call them and leave pointless messages on their answering machines. ‘Hi. It’s Dad. Give me a call. I just made some meatballs.’”
PEKING DUCK
There are legendary destinations like Petra and Machu Picchu, as well as fabled dishes like coulibiac and Peking duck, the latter of uncertain origin but well-defined locale. It is said that the ducks fortunate enough to feed to heart’s content on the spillage of grain being brought by barge to the capital designed their own fate, so to speak. In any case, it’s a kind of duck prepared in a singular manner.
The duck restaurant in Peking—now Beijing—was said to be the best. This was 1948. The Red Army was advancing on the city. Inflation was rampant. The restaurant had a dirt floor and a tall brick chimney where the ducks, which had been carefully prepared—scalded, their skin separated from the flesh by compressed air, stuffed with celery, scallions, ginger, and sesame oil, and basted for a long time with honey—were roasted. Only the crisp skin, cut into small rectangles and delicious, was eaten, although—I can’t recall—we may have had some of the meat as well.
We stayed in the Grand Hôtel des Wagons-Lits, owned by a Frenchwoman and doubtlessly now vanished. In the morning, a large dish of fresh strawberries and cream cost five cents, which was a couple of handfuls of money. In the dusty square, rickshaws thick as crows were parked. In the mob of drivers there was a slight agitation, and the one you had hired for fifty cents or a dollar a day would rise and trot his rickshaw up to the front entrance whenever you happened to appear, be it noon or midnight. The drivers slept and lived there in the square. Mao and the revolution freed them from all that.
J.S.
LEMONS
The lemon, rich in vitamin C, may be the only well-known food that is almost never eaten. Normally, only its juice or peel are made use of.
Lemons were important in the prevention of scurvy, probably the first disease known to have been caused by a dietary deficiency. A scourge for centuries, particularly among sailors, scurvy was caused by a lack of vitamin C during long voyages. Its symptoms included bleeding gums, loosened teeth, and often fatal debility. More than half