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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As is often the case, I purchased the undeniably radical Mr. Squid, sourced from the tiny Bangkok Center Grocery on Mosco Street, primarily because of the packaging, which in this case is perfectly suggestive of the faux-badass decorative t-shirts I favored as a four to eight-year-old. As a committed adult, I’m now forced to settle for four dollar tubes of fun, crispy (but non-fried) squid to show off my gnarlier side. In terms of packaging, Mr. Squid serves well in this regard, with canister art depicting the snacks in a fashion redolent of rigatoni (or bundled hay?) resting in a pile amid a heat-streaked miasma of fire, dust and haze. Yet despite the design bona fides and the decidedly groovy mascot - who sort of resembles a wind-inflated kite mounted with a sunglasses-clad feather duster - these unfortunately tasted a bit like fish food smells. They may also taste like fish food tastes, although I cannot say with any real authority. I’m not the only one who feels this way, but as always, I’m willing to mark this down as a difference of tastes, a cultural gulf between the snacking proclivities of Thai fish fanatics and gormless American potato munchers like myself. In an effort at conciliation, I will be making a real effort to hire Mr. Squid as the official mascot of Snack Semiotics. Imitators beware.
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.
China is a big place, one whose seemingly infinite variety of regional sub-cuisines is further complicated by hastening modernization and circuitous internal emigration. I’m still nowhere near finished working through the ever-expanding options offered at Chinese restaurants in New York, and the growing infusion of Northern and Western immigrants into the city’s composite cuisine only makes attempting to do so more of a fool’s errand. There’s also the additional difficulty that, even if something appears to be unavailable in Flushing or Sunset Park, it may just be under-reported (no one can check every menu, especially when some aren’t even entirely in English) or operating under a different name, which I suspect may be the case with the exotic delicacy sometimes known as Golden Sand. I was put on to this stuff by Carolyn Phillips’ fantastic Madame Huang’s Kitchen; in short, it’s a rich combination of salted egg yolks, garlic and onion, which get wok fried, then joined in the pan by any variety of edible matter, usually vegetables or seafood.
I knew something was amiss when I arrived in Cartagena, the hour nearing midnight, the temperature still in the high nineties. Our hotel was located on the long strip of Avenida San Martin in the Bocagrande resort zone, and I was reasonably confident I could pick up a quick takeout dinner after landing without much fuss. The nearby picado place, however, didn’t do takeout, the hotel restaurant was a casino bar called ‘Masters,’ and the area was otherwise populated by uninspiring fast food options, from El Corral to Burger King to Kokoriko, Still, stubborn despite the late hour and the ridiculous humidity, I was determined not to waste this precious foreign meal on a ordinary burger. I ended up drenched in sweat at around one a.m., having ranged much further down the strip than necessary to land on a tiny Venezuelan takeout spot, where I purchased some mediocre arepas. I was bowed but not defeated.
I’m still not sure the reason, and whether this was just an exceptional period of hellish heat or some climate-changed enhanced nightmare scenario (it was winter, after all), but Cartagena is the hottest place I’ve ever been. Luckily daytime hours afforded many more convenient options, and the next day I was able to scuttle from one shadow to another to La Olla Cartegenera, an old-fashioned restaurant with an impressive, rainforest-themed backroom. Like many spots on the Bocagrande, La Olla seemed to have a Middle Eastern slant to the menu. Middle Eastern immigrants have a long history in Colombia, responsible for contributing dishes like quibbe (which pops up here and across the rest of the Caribbean, often denoted as ‘quipes,’) but I’m not sure why all these places were clustered in this one neighborhood, otherwise dominated by pale white resort towers and pizza places. Whatever the case, I skipped the falafel for a seafood sampler, hoping to get a quick overview of the local offerings. As see above, this included rock lobster, prawns in garlic sauce, some nicely marinated grilled fish and a smattering of shrimp. On a winter visit to Elmhurst’s venerable SriPraPhai, I’d planned to order the Haw Mok, a fish curry custard not commonly found around these parts. It was no longer on the menu, and rather than use MenuPages invaluable ‘Find-a-Food’ function to scare up another version elsewhere, I set down to replicating the dish myself. First, a trip to Bangkok Center Grocery on Mosco Street, where I purchased some Thai essentials, as well as an unfortunate squid snack that’ll be the subject of a future post. Then fresh red snapper from Mermaid’s Garden, and some banana leaves left over from a New Year’s Eve barbacoa, with structuring provided by this recipe. Despite a slightly-too-liquidy broth, which collapsed a few of the wrappers like overfilled backyard pools, the dish came together beautifully, toothsome chunks of fish floating in a curry-flavored custard, the overflow providing perfect seasoning for a side of jasmine rice.
Haw mok (also known as mok / amok / ho mok / hor mok, mok pa, etc.), has roots in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, with plenty of regional quirks distinguishing the different versions. The Cambodian variety utilizes the spice mix Kroeung, while the Lao might involve dill and a different use of banana leaves, although it seems likely that most variations occur from personal preference rather than along strict national lines. All of these preparations, with their baseline of fish mousse simmered in sauce, seem to be derived from the French quenelle (itself rooted in the German knödel), a fine-dining delicacy left behind in Indochina after colonial occupation, then transformed into something entirely new. One important lesson learned too late: kaffir lime leaves should be julienned, not sliced, thus eliminating the need to work through their thick, waxy exteriors. Originating in Veracruz, the coctel is a sort of super shrimp cocktail; instead of four rim-draped crustaceans chilling in a bath of tomato sauce, you get them floating in a thick, flavorful broth of tomato, lime, onion, hot sauce and cilantro. These are often supplemented with other seafood (conch, squid, octopus, oysters), avocado and crushed saltines, eaten from a large glass like an ice cream sundae. On Isla and throughout Mexico, these light dishes are the domain of the cocteleria, casual seafood joints which also serve a variety of other option. Among these are ceviche – the classic preparation of lime-cured raw fish, a bit milder here than in many spicy South American iterations - and aguachile , it’s hotter, crunchier cousin.
Chinatown seafood markets are probably the most visible alternative fish source in New York City, their often-alien, still-wriggling wares splayed out in overflowing streetside cases. Other ethnic variations on the seafood store do pop up here and there in the post-Fulton Fish Market era: old-school neighborhood Italian places scattered around the fringes of the Outer Boroughs, octopus-hawking Greek suppliers in Astoria, tidy little Japanese spots stocked with pre-made sushi containers. Nestled amid the Subcontinental bustle of Jackson Heights, Haat Bazaar is the first Indian shop I’ve seen that deals in fresh fish, several varieties displayed in plastic containers laid out on the floor. Ice was not a feature of this lively establishment, which hosts an adjoining Bengali restaurant and a healthy stock of dry goods in addition to the slippery piles of eels, grouper and flatfish, not to mention an occasional intrusion from the adjacent fruit section.
In honor of the weekend, here’s a clip of the original father of rock and roll, Louis Jordan, cutting it up on ‘60s TV.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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