HUNGRY GERALD

BSK describes her culinary history while growing up in the Midwest as: The Good, the Bad, the Very Bad and the Ugly.

THE GOOD: A foot long chili dog at Porky’s, Galion. Ohio. Lemon meringue pie (in fact, all Midwestern pies especially those cooked by church ladies for socials).  Scalloped potatoes (but, only if made by BSK’s Mom). Milk punch and ham and biscuits at a neighbor’s New Year’s Day party. Roast pork and sauerkraut served at the end of the Christmas/New Year’s holiday season (supposed to have a salutary effect on the digestive system of overindulgers). Seckel pears from a neighbor’s garden. Canned baked beans enhanced by molasses, brown sugar and bacon. Church social ice cream. Root beer floats served at the A & W stand in frosty mugs. Hot and spicy deviled eggs. Concord grapes in Mansfield, Ohio (an intense flavored grape which made the best jam). Tin Roof dessert (vanilla ice cream, Hershey’s syrup. Planter’s salty canned cocktail peanuts). Super yummy lunch: Peanut butter, lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich served with a bowl of hot tomato soup.

THE BAD: A wedge of iceberg lettuce,with orange supermarket dressing glop. 

THE VERY BAD:  Chinese food in Mansfield, Ohio. (Brown glop with brown glop on top served on a bed of glop). 

THE UGLY:  Big frog’s legs from frog “gigging” expeditions. Schoolmates devoured the legs. BSK found it too horrible to even contemplate.  Many years later, BSK wouldn’t even eat tasty, buttery frog legs meuniere at Le Dome in Paris (despite urging from HG).  

HAPPY MEMORY:  BSK’s first bagel with cream cheese at Charbart’s, the coffee house hangout of the cool set at Ohio State University. Fledgling actress BSK drank black coffee, smoked many cigarettes and inhaled the second hand marijuana fumes from the “hip” apartments above Charbart’s. Even then BSK knew her destiny was New York. The bagels sealed her fate.

New York newspaper days in the 1950’s. A different world. First of all there were seven dailies — News and Mirror (tabloids); Post, World-Telegram and Journal-American (afternoons); Times and Herald-Tribune (quality mornings). There were three wire services: AP, UP and INS (International News Service).  Lots of foreign papers with big readerships  (The Jewish Daily Forward, the Italian Il Popolo, the Spanish language El Diario, etc.)  Plus the African-American New Amsterdam News. There was also the Communist Daily Worker (With the Super Bowl upon us, let’s give those subversives some credit. The Worker was the only newspaper that called consistently for desegregation in sports). 

In those pre-computer days newsrooms were noisy (HG’s beloved Remington sounded like a prop plane) and smoky and politically incorrect. Newsmen drank a lot. They did not go home after work. They went to bars. Unsentimental HG finds today’s journalists smarter, better educated, much less venal and sharper, better writers than HG’s journalistic contemporaries. But, HG doubts if they had as much fun as HG and his now deceased (or ancient) pals. There were many joyous newsman hangouts, and, surprisingly, the food was good.

HG’s favorite was Artists & Writers on W. 40th Street, adjacent to the Herald-Trib and three blocks from the Times. Nobody ever called it Artists & Writers. Too pretentious. It was “Bleeck’s” (pronounced Blakes) to everyone. A great mahogany bar which was alive with feverish gamblers. The big game was the “match game” played with six matches  (HG is a bit hazy on the details.  Forgive.  It was a long time ago). Lucius Beebe, the Trib’s foppish, super elegant columnist, loved the game so much that he had gold matches fashioned which he kept in an alligator case. The Times and Trib guys were competitive. The Times was a better paper, of course, but the Trib had better writers (Red Smith, Joe Palmer, Homer Bigart were just a few). And what did the journos and litterateurs eat at Bleeck’s? Good grilled sausages with the usual German accompaniments. A generous wiener schnitzel. And, HG’s favorite dish: Konigsberger klops. These were meatballs served on top of a bed of rice. The dish was doused in a creamy dill and caper sauce. HG hasn’t had it in scores of years. Never appears on a menu. Never mind: I’ve got a story that will bust this town wide open !! Hold the presses!!

Perfect name: Little Chunky. This was a chunk  (thus the name)  of silver foil-covered milk chocolate (some nuts in the sweet treat). HG thought it better than Hershey or Nestle bars .  Right up there with Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews.  It was on the counter of every New York candy store.  Then it disappeared. Has anyone seen the little guy?  Little Chunky is missed.

Catfish has been much maligned. HG will admit that some of the bottom feeders used to have a taste of Mississippi mud. But, today’s farm raised catfish are just firm fleshed and tasty. Here’s how HG does it:  Soak catfish in buttermilk.  Dust with flour.  Dip in beaten egg.  Roll in Zatarain’s Fish Fry.   Sizzle in hot oil.  Serve with a dollop of mayonnaise mixed with sriracha (plus a lemon squeeze). Down home Southern goodness. Goes good with beer and the  Super Bowl.

Snow in Santa Fe.  An occasion for BSK to do some comfort food.  And, what is more comforting than a burger?  HG’s idea of a comforting burger is a lamb meatball prepared a la BSK.  Here’s how BSK does it.  Ingredients:  Ground lamb, finely chopped onion and garlic; chopped parsley (or mint); cumin, Goya Adobo seasoning (no proper household should be without this magic stuff); salt, pepper.  BSK has a secret: BSK saves water from canned Italian tomatoes and adds a bit to lamb mixture to enhance juiciness.  BSK pan broils the meatballs leaving them pink in the middle.  Last night BSK accompanied the meatballs with Israeli couscous and a lush eggplant curry (adapted from Vij’s, the spectacular Indian-fusion restaurant in Vancouver). There was a bowl of Greek yogurt on the table and some harissa, the spicy Moroccan condiment. It all made for a toasty evening.

HG’s Mom made a version of comfort burgers called karnezelach.  Ground chuck was the base. Mom added chopped onion, chopped garlic (enough to defuse Dracula and a platoon of vampires), salt, pepper. Shaped the mixture into a series of fat cigars. Dusted them with hot Hungarian paprika. Broiled them in the oven.  Served them with fried onions, boiled potatoes and sour cream.  Beat the hell out of a Big Mac.  You can devour karnezelach at Sammy’s Roumanian Restauarant on New York’s Lower East Side. Sammy’s is a good place to visit it you wish to raise your cholesterol level and create heartburn of searing intensity.

More than a half century ago, HG’s very late night (and after hours) hangout was Dubiner’s, a saloon in New York’s Lower East Side (located on Stanton Street east of Allen).  It was a hangout of night crawling journalists (like HG) and Jewish tough guys.  The tough guys included “shys”  (loan sharks);  the simian looking fellows who interviewed, so to speak, recalcitrant clients of the “shys’; bail bondsmen; bookies.  Beer, whiskey and vodka were served.  The only food HG recalls was excellent gefilte fish (with powerful horse radish) and chopped liver with raw onion and chicken fat. No juke box.  No TV.  The clientele provided the entertainment.  A gentle fellow, Natie O., was a mob driver among other trades.  Surprisingly, he had an Irish tenor voice and a vast stockpile of  Irish songs.  For some reason this went over big with the 100% Jewish customers  (he also did splendid versions of  “Roumania, Roumania!!” and “Beltz, Mein Shtetele Beltz” for the nostalgia addicts in the room).

The unquestioned star of  Dubiner’s was my companion,  Alice C., a pretty  (but bedraggled)  Broadway press agent with a beautiful voice (she had been a Las Vegas entertainer when she was in her teens). Miss C .had a very serious alcohol abuse problem.  At some point in the early ayem  (after numerous vodkas), Alice would do a super schmaltzy (choking back the tears and other bits of shtick) version of  “My Yiddishe Mama”, that thoroughly phony exaltation of Jewish mothers.  In the patois of stand-up comedians: She Killed.  Tears rolled down the faces of the tough guys.  Encores were demanded. Best of all, we were showered with free drinks and had to, almost literally, crawl to a taxi at closing. There are scores of recorded versions of “My Yiddishe Mama”  (good ones are by Sophie Tucker, Al Jolson, Billie Holliday, Billy Daniels, Tom Jones…the best is by Charles Aznavour).  But, none can touch the Alice C. version.

So, what happened to Alice C.?   Here’s the kicker.   She gave up booze.  Cleaned up. Somehow got a college degree. Went to medical school. Became a doctor specializing in pediatrics. Married (happily) with two children. That’s HG’s Yiddishe Mama tale. Happy ending.

HG loves Chicago (despite the weather). The architecture. The wonderful art museum. And, of course, the food. HG’s favorite restaurant in Chi is the venerable Gene & Georgetti Steak House  in the River North neighborhood.  BSK may have invented  Garbage Soup but Garbage Salad has been on the G & G menu since BSK was a wee babe.  HG always starts his meal at G & G with the salad.  Okay, what is it?  Here are the ingredients: Shredded iceberg lettuce, julienned  Genoa salami, diced mozzarella, sliced red onion, minced garlic, thinly sliced radish, chopped celery. grated Parmesan cheese.  Dressing is quality olive oil, wine vinegar and lots of freshly ground pepper.  G & G serves each portion with a large, cold steamed shrimp on top. For home architects of Garbage Salad the proportions of the ingredients can vary with individual taste  (garlic tolerance, for example).  The guys who run G & G aren’t exactly philanthropists. They don’t give their food away.  The salad costs $18.75.   Garbage Salad.  Very large rare sirloin ($41.75).  Onion rings. Broiled mushrooms.  Bottle of robust red (Zinfandel).   Dessert (cheesecake).  Cognac and coffee. With tip, this meal for a growing boy costs about $170  (HG usually shared this repast with a companion to keep the expenditure within reason).  Ah.  City of Bg Shoulders and Big Meals.

BSK announced she was going to make “garbage soup.” “What’s this?,” thought suspicious HG. “An homage to the Manson family?” BSK emptied the refrigerator and vegetable larder: broccoli (raw and cooked); zucchini; onions (raw and cooked); string beans; tomatoes; mache; romaine, spinach,kale.   BSK sauteed some garlic with olive oil in a big stockpot.  In went all the vegetables plus chicken broth.  Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper  (actually, a great deal of cayenne).  Simmered for a long time and then pureed.  BSK served it with a bit of Greek yogurt.  Sublime.  Healthy. Spicy. Economical.  And, the perfect antidote for winter chills. All it needs is a better name. Let’s just call it Beautiful Soup.  (BSK called to HG’s attention the Lewis Caroll poem,”Soup of the Evening.” It begins: “Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, waiting in a hot tureen!  Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening,Beautiful Soup.”)

In HG’s recent post, “Anti-Clerical Pasta,”  HG ventured that the pasta shape, “strozzapreti”  (Priest Strangler) was linked (especially in the Italian province of Romagna) to the reluctance of farmers  to pay land rent to the Church. HG’s principal source was Wikipedia which stated: “Wives would customarily make the pasta (strozzapreti)  for churchmen as partial payment for rent (in Romagna).  Husbands would be so angered by venal priests stuffing their mouths with their wives’  food they would wish the priests would choke as they stuffed their mouths with it.”  (HG’s mom’s sentiment concerning rent paid to Bronx landlords). Well,  controversy has erupted.  Daughter Lesley, authoritative in all things Italian, questions this legend: “Traditional image of priests as gluttons is central in Italian imagination. Stems from fat, well fed priests in a landscape of starving peasants. Never heard it linked with rent.”  Son-in-law Profesore R. casts further doubt on the Romagna legend. Il  Profesore traces the phrase to 17th century Neapolitan dialect: “strangula previti.” And this, he states has its origin from a Greek phrase meaning “round.”  HG bows to the judgment of these authorities on the phrase’s origins. HG holds to his opinion that it’s mighty tasty with the appropriate meat based sauce.

Sauerkraut isn’t used enough, in HG’s opinion.  Most folks only eat it when it’s on top of a ball park hot dog.  That acid, briny, sour stuff is okay on top of the frank.  But, that’s not the whole kraut story.  It’s the ideal companion of pork chops, pork roasts, kielbasa and every type of sausage  (especially knockwurst and weisswurst).  But, do sauerkraut the BSK way.  BSK washes the brine off the kraut  (Bubbie’s is a good brand but most canned kraut will work) and cooks it with white wine, sliced onions, slices of apple and a splash of olive oil.  Some caraway seeds if they’re in the pantry. Not essential.  Flank the kraut with pork chops  (Trader Joe has the best), boiled or home fried potatoes.  Hot mustard and Bubbie’s pickles on the table. Beer.  Winter comfort food…and if the weather reports are right, you New Yorkers and Northeasterners need plenty of comfort.