food fads

You know how it is.  Car­rot cake, “Shake ‘n Bake” and tofu in my child­hood in the 1970s, cold pas­ta sal­ad and stuffed pota­to skins in the 1980s, “nou­velle cui­sine” in the 1990s with every por­tion cut in half and every sauce reduced to a sticky spoon­ful, and any­thing fat-free in the noughties (appro­pri­ate­ly enough!).  These trends pop up every­where, and overnight every­one is eat­ing them and maybe even cook­ing them.  Some of them even take up a per­ma­nent place in our diets, like arugu­la — my per­son­al favorite.

Like every­thing else in the super-mod­ern world, food fads are speed­ing up.  Espe­cial­ly in a big inter­na­tion­al city like Lon­don, every year it seems some­thing new takes the food world by storm.  I’m not  much of one for going out to restau­rants as you know — pre­fer­ring the com­fort of my own kitchen.  But it’s impor­tant to go out now and then just to see what inno­v­a­tive, mad trend has tak­en hold for the moment.

Two years ago, it was “sous-vide,” a French tech­nique for cook­ing every­thing under the sun vac­u­um-packed in a hot-water bath.  I’ll admit it: we bought a vac­u­um pack­er and filled an enor­mous stock­pot with hot water, cook­ing a leg of lamb for 150 hours or some such non­sense.  It was fun­ny to try, but in the end a bit sil­ly.  That was that for sous-vide and moi.

Last year saw an atro­cious devel­op­ment called “foam,” or “espuma,” known in our house­hold as “spit.”  Every love­ly piece of meat in a trendy restau­rant was topped with a spoon­ful of Emper­or’s New Clothes in the form of bub­bly spit.  “Basil foam,” “cele­ri­ac foam.”  It was spit.

This year, from what I can see, the fad is every­thing turned into “dirt.”  I am cau­tious­ly opti­mistic and even tempt­ed to make some dirt of my own.  The con­cept is this: you cook an ingre­di­ent to the point of dehy­dra­tion, then you crum­ble it into a crunchy hand­ful and scat­ter it over the dish.  For exam­ple, the pho­to­graph at the top of this post is from our absolute favorite new restau­rant, The Cor­ner Room at the Town Hall of Beth­nal Green.  It’s squid topped with chori­zo dirt.  Savoury, sim­ple, unex­pect­ed, crunchy and strange­ly exciting.

This same restau­rant serves a dish of veni­son loin cov­ered in ash, sprin­kled with… dirt made from rye bread­crumbs soaked in squid ink and dehy­drat­ed.  Heaven!

The oth­er new fad I see all around is poach­ing.  This can be done in a sous-vide man­ner, or as I like to do, poached in a shal­low amount of olive oil.  The Cor­ner Room offers this com­plete­ly inno­v­a­tive dish of poached cod in a clam por­ridge, driz­zled with a corian­der pesto.  I know, it sounds MAD.  But in the right hands, these new, daft, jol­ly tech­niques can raise food to a lev­el where every mouth­ful is a delight­ful surprise.

The old­er I get, the less tol­er­ant I am of pay­ing any­one to cook for me some­thing I could cook for myself.  That’s what makes the Cor­ner Room and restau­rants like it - l’E­tranger in Kens­ing­ton, for exam­ple — such fun to patron­ize.  Ingre­di­ents you might not think to pair at home (foie gras and tuna tartare!), cooked in a way you would nev­er imag­ine, tech­niques beyond my skill!

I’m hot on the trend here in Eng­land for nose-to-tail eat­ing.  The idea behind this rather felic­i­tous phrase is that if we’re going to kill ani­mals to eat them, we should eat ALL of them.  It’s just too bad that the term for all the parts of the ani­mal that Amer­i­cans don’t want to eat is “offal.”  Liv­er, kid­neys, sweet­breads, hearts: the butcher­ing term sim­ply means any part of the ani­mal that is inte­ri­or, inside oth­er parts.  And my new hands-down favorite: beef cheeks.

Sad­ly I can­not give you a pho­to­graph of this dish because like so many of my home­ly, cozy, slow-cooked dish­es, it is just awful to look at.  But do give it a try.

Beef Cheeks Slow-Braised with Mushrooms

(serves 4)

2 beef cheeks, trimmed of sinew (but don’t go crazy trimming)

2 tbsps veg­etable oil

1 white onion, diced

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

2 car­rots, diced

6 large-ish mush­rooms, quar­tered or cut in eighths depend­ing on size

2 tbsps chopped thyme leaves

1/2 bot­tle good red wine

chick­en or veal stock to cover

Slice the beef cheeks in half to make a por­tion per per­son.  In a heavy oven­proof dish with a lid, heat the oil and saute the beef cheeks just briefly on all sides and remove to a dish.  In the remain­ing oil, saute all veg­eta­bles till soft.  Add the thyme, cheeks and the wine, then add enough chick­en stock for the meat and veg­eta­bles to be com­plete­ly, gen­er­ous­ly cov­ered.  Place in a low oven, 300F/160C, cov­ered.  Cook for at least four hours and serve with noo­dles or mashed potatoes.

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Now this is a food fad I can get behind.  It’s moral­ly upright, it’s the most inex­pen­sive cut of beef on earth, it’s fun to say.  It’s also fool­proof, cooks itself and falls apart on your fork.  You will nev­er eat a more heart­warm­ing, com­fort­ing cut of beef.

Get out then, out of the kitchen and pop into a trendy but not sil­ly restau­rant.  Sus­pend dis­be­lief and order some dirt, or an innard.  Even an innard topped with dirt.  See if you’re not inspired.