Another trip to Florida means, as is the case with a trip to anywhere further than the local corner store, another round of exhaustive investigation and cataloguing of everything stupid thing I stuffed into my bottomless maw. That said, let’s cut to the chase, in the first of a pair of posts dedicated to this voyage to America’s southernmost corners, this one dedicated to the pleasures of traditional old-Florida eating.
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Moon Over Miami is not a great musical. It's not a great food movie either, but it contains enough moments of general culinary weirdness to make it notable, a quality heightened by its lush use of Technicolor shading. Such coloring is, in my opinion, the explanation for the bizarre detail above, in which a jar of pre-made guacamole sauce (pronounced, hilariously, as "gwaca malla") appears in a deep red hue, likely thanks to the fact that the person in charge of the inking had no idea what it was. The odd pronunciation was explained in a recent episode of the linguistics podcast Lexicon Valley, which originally put me on to this cinematic curio; other questions, such as why guacamole is being jarred in the first place, or why the person preparing it describes it as an essential part of her famous hamburger recipe, are a bit harder to answer.
While it may not exactly qualify as royalty, I’m more than willing to classify the Roast Beef and Mutz Sandwich at John’s Deli as the Dark Prince of Italian sandwiches. Ordering from a Brooklyn deli pretty much assures you’re about to face down a monstrosity of zeppelin proportions, but in addition to its essential heft, this one comes slicked with a jet-black gravy, the secret ingredient of which may very well be motor oil. It’s also piled with so many fried onions that I had to scrape some off, out of fear that my stomach would erupt in grease-fueled flames. John’s is an institution, founded in 1968, although from it’s name, neighborhood and the classic Boardwalk-style mural outside (more on this below) you’d guess it was far older. The title seems to stem from the existence of a second John’s spin-off down in Bath Beach (there’s also another in Staten Island, apparently), although the fact that the original location is under new ownership may have voided these associations. Circa 2016, the place seems to be in good hands, now run by a self-professed “kid from the neighborhood” who made the rounds with the locals while I dug into my sandwich. He also tried to sell me on the day’s special (Pulled Pork), which I’m sure is great, but had absolutely nothing to do with why I’d ventured out here.
When I think back to meals eaten in the muggy, mysterious state of Florida, a few crystalline memories come to mind, most of them bubbling up from from the distant past: a Burger King Kids Meal with a vanilla milkshake, enjoyed with relish in the back of a rental car during a torrential downpour; a similarly arrayed, differently proportioned burger at Cosmic Ray’s Cafe in TomorrowLand, where I sat puzzled by the retro-chic conglomeration of past with future; another Burger King meal, eaten 20 years later, this one delayed by a comical series of highway misadventures, most notably my reflux-stricken father forgetting to take his pre-meal acid blockers, forcing us to drive 40 miles down 95 in search of a second Burger King, apparently the only highway restaurant capable of catering to his affliction.
Unearthed at Russ & Daughters during a 40-minute Sunday morning wait for bagel sandwiches: an old-fashioned beverage that was new to me. For the last five years I’ve been intending to recreate this 2010-era New York Times recipe, itself a recreation of a turn-of-the-century cooling beverage. Each year I’m put off by the cost of fresh berries and end up lazily gobbling up any batches I manage to get my hands on. Then, serendipitously, on the first truly cold day of an encroaching winter, I found a ready-made version. Shrub, as it turns out, is just another term for drinking vinegar, with which its sharp bitter notes piercing velvety sweetened vegetable juice proves the perfect complement for the taste of smoked fish. The beet and lemon mixture seems to cement the beverage’s Old World bonafides, apparently isolating its derivation as either the LES itself or one of the Eastern European origin points which once funneled so many new immigrants into this crowded area. This seemingly clear-cut explanation is of course confused by the fact that Russ and Daughters sits squarely at the nexus of genuine old-fashioned conservationism and tongue-in-cheek modernization. The sandwich I ordered, for example, was called the ‘Super Heebster’ and featured wasabi flying fish roe atop baked salmon and whitefish salad.
Spend It All (1972) Some culinary selections from three of Les Blank's wonderfully food-filled films:
Sometimes you find the best things when you’re not even looking. Case in point: the astonishing appearance of this delightful collection of chips as offerings at a recent birthday party, sourced from a Chip of the Month Club with an expansive sense of humor. A quartet of flavors designed to approximate the characteristic snacking tastes of corn-fed ‘American’ eaters, these seem about authentically down-home as Larry, actually the nom-de-shtick of Pawnee City, Nebraska’s Dan Whitney. There was debate at this gathering about whether Whitney is a faux-hick opportunist, a skilled performance artist or just a middle-aged comedian now trapped in character forever, but most agreed that the chips flavors were surprisingly reserved, despite the bag’s claims of screen-door-bustin’ flavor. Arranged randomly for this picture, the order here ended up being a pretty good scale of their quality. The ketchup chips (a puzzling Canadian phenomenon that would probably be fodder for a future post, would I ever deign to purchase a bag) were good for what they were, less assaultive and one-note than the Fire Engine Red Herr’s variety, still bit too aggressive for my tastes. The ‘wings’ were accurate but uninspiring, like powdered Frank’s Red Hot sprinkled over thin chips. BBQ was less oppressively sweet than most varieties, but also not especially compelling. The revelation here was biscuits and gravy, which also somehow had the fewest ingredients of all the flavors, a mere half dozen or so, if you allow for the bag’s decision to bundle ‘seasonings’ together as one. There’s no real hint of biscuit here, but the gravy taste is piquant and subtle. These are only the tip of the iceberg, in addition to a line of bread mixes and, for the inevitable punchline, dog foods. Most of these products do not seem very enticing. As for the Gravy Chips, it’s worth noting that while all snacks roughly approximate some broad cultural taste, few combine folksy aw-shucks simplicity, a balanced flavor profile and corporate mascot grotesquerie so cohesively.
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