The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [156]
Mechouia, or Salade Tunisienne Grillée
4 large plum tomatoes (about ½ pound)
2 green bell peppers (about 6 ounces)
1 or 2 fresh poblano chili peppers (about ¼ pound)
1 yellow or red onion, about 2½ inches in diameter (¼ pound), peeled
1 large garlic clove, unpeeled
¼ teaspoon ground caraway seeds (you may need to grind them up yourself with a mortar and pestle or spice grinder)
¼ teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon coarse salt
Juice of ½ lemon
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
12 small green and black olives, cured in oil
½ tablespoon capers
Grill the tomatoes, the bell and poblano peppers, the onion, and the garlic clove on a charcoal grill (or under the broiler or over a gas flame), keeping the vegetables close to the source of heat and turning them often until they are well charred. Remove them as they are done. Put the peppers into a paper bag, close the bag, and let them steam for 10 minutes. (The paper-bag method loosens the peppers’ skins. A common alternative, peeling under running water, dilutes their flavor.)
Meanwhile, peel the grilled tomatoes, chop them into ½-inch pieces, and put them into a 2-quart bowl. Remove the charred outer layer of the onion, chop the rest into ¼-inch pieces, and add them to the bowl. Then peel the peppers, stem them, and seed them. Cut the bell peppers into ½-inch pieces and the poblanos into ¼-inch pieces, and add them all to the tomatoes.
Peel the garlic clove, and crush it with the back of a wooden spoon in a small bowl along with the ground caraway, coriander, and salt. Mix well with the vegetables. Stir in the lemon juice and the olive oil.
Turn out into a shallow bowl for serving. Garnish with the olives and capers. Makes 4 modest servings as a side dish, but the quantities can easily be doubled.
My photos have just come back from the lab. There is a picture of a blinkered camel turning a mill wheel in a cave dwelling high in the Berber town of Chenini. And there is my favorite, a snapshot of my wife, having her hands painted with henna in the manner of a Tunisian bride. Paula is still systematically plowing her way through forty or fifty dishes we brought home from Tunisia. Yesterday she made kadid, preserved mutton thigh, and, for dessert, sweet balls of coarse semolina bread stuffed with nuts and dates. Tonight her family will feast on a lamb’s head with barley grits. I think I’ll make do with mechouia.
March 1994
Variations on a Theme
Trader Vic’s was the first theme restaurant I ever visited, thirty years ago, and it would probably have been the last if I had not recently dedicated myself to deciphering the theme-restaurant tidal wave now on the verge of submerging my home city. Why would tourists come to New York to eat meals they can find in suburban malls? Why would anybody buy a T-shirt, baseball cap, denim jacket, or boxer shorts with somebody else’s name on them? Why visit a Planet Hollywood or a Hard Rock Cafe in New York when you can find its identical twin in Atlanta, Aspen, Phoenix, or Tahoe? New York City is hotter and more humid in summer than Aspen, colder in winter than Atlanta, and dirtier than either. The subways are confusing; the taxis require a working knowledge of Urdu and, in summer, a snorkel for drawing some of the air-conditioning through those three little holes in the thick, bulletproof Plexiglas shield meant to protect the driver from you or vice versa. You can’t beat Aspen for sensible roads, clean streets, pleasant people, and mountain air. You’d have to be crazy to come to New York for a visit to the Hard Rock Cafe.
It is easy to understand the attraction of owning a theme restaurant: earn a small profit on the hamburgers and make a fortune on the T-shirts and other souvenirs. The profit margin on a Buffalo chicken wing or a beef fajita is 10 percent, on a baseball cap with a logo more like 50. Here are the typical numbers for a successful theme restaurant in the heart of a major city: The place costs $5 million to build and