My kids tell me I’m a food snob, and it’s
an accusation to which I cheerfully plead guilty. But my snobbishness
isn’t about exotic ingredients or fancy preparations — either
when I’m cooking at home or dining out. Sure, I enjoy those things; I
love Michael Higgins’ carefully crafted dishes containing seasonal
local ingredients at Maldaner’s. But I also love the hamburgers at
Fulgenzi’s and the barbecued ribs at P.T.’s stand on Taylor. I
get satisfaction creating a French chartreuse — an elaborate mosaic
of precisely cut carrot and zucchini batons filled with a broccoli
purée — for a special occasion, but I also have a deep sense
of satisfaction when I make a salad from the first spring greens with the
simplest of dressings. One of my strongest food memories is biting into a
white peach I’d just picked from my grandparents’ tree. It was
perfectly ripe and hot from the sun. I can still taste its intense perfumed
sweetness, the warm, sticky juice running down my chin. Food just
doesn’t get any better than that. I don’t, however, eat at the chain/fast food
restaurants that shout at us from the highways or buy the convenience foods
that seduce us from our TV screens. Their products are made of cheap,
highly processed ingredients made palatable by the addition of artificial
flavorings, excesses of salt, and empty calories of fat and sugar. Their
intensive advertising, aided by the hectic pace of modern life, has
succeeded to the degree that too many people — especially children
— have no idea what real food tastes like anymore. I’m disappointed when chefs feel they can pull a
fast one on unsuspecting diners, as was the case recently when I had lunch
at a local restaurant. The crab-and-artichoke melt sounded good, but
experience has made me a little cynical, so I asked the server whether the
crab was real or fake surimi crab, which is made of various kinds of puréed fish that
is spread into sheets, artificially flavored, rolled into cylinders, and
dyed red. He was new and had to go ask but returned to assure me it was
real crab. Sadly, when it arrived, under the melted cheese I could see the
artificially bright red color and pinwheel shape of surimi crabstick. This was foolish as well as
dishonest; some people are very allergic to red food dye. Four years ago when I started teaching cooking classes
in my home, one of the hardest things was deciding what to call my new
business. I finally settled on “RealCuisine,” but it was pretty
much by default. Since then, however, I’ve come to realize that it
was absolutely the right choice. RealCuisine is what I want my cooking
classes — and this column — to be about: Real food, from the
homiest comfort food to the exotically ethnic. Clean tastes. Preparations
that don’t rely on artificial ingredients or highly processed fillers
for their flavor. Fresh ingredients and the best places to find them. Great
places to eat out and delicious recipes to try at home. News from and about
the food world, especially in the Midwest and central Illinois. I welcome any comments or suggestions.
This article appears in May 25-31, 2006.
