Confession Of A Reformed Foodie - Give Me Pot Roast, Mashed Potatoes, And Gravy

Rene Redzepi is a Danish restaurateur famous for foraging wild things and creating architectural masterpieces on the plates of diners who have waited months for a table.  Images of him waste-deep in North Sea shoals picking periwinkles off rocks and harvesting seaweed and grasses are viral icons. Articles on him are common in Food & Wine, Gourmet, and Wine Spectator. He is a champion of nouvelle nouvelle cuisine, the latest in locally-sourced, organic, field-to-table food, at the top of his game, and an pioneer in the food revolution. 

The American palate, says Redzepi, has been ruined by massive portions, pedestrian imitations of European cuisine, and a whopping amount of salt and sugar.  His preparations point the way to a new age of dining, an elegant, environmentally friendly, unique tasting experience. 

Now, most Americans having spent thousands to travel to Copenhagen and thousands more on Redzepi's food, will come back home singing his praise - 'indescribable...superb...unmatched...worth every penny' - but in reality have no idea what was on their plates and left the table hungry.  If they had been honest, the reaction would have been 'trimmings from my front hedge...barnacles off a boat bottom...whatever floated his way...'

'The American is a boor', said Redzepi when interviewed in a field of wild hayseed. 

Henry Woods had grown up with his mother's pot roast, mashed potatoes, and gravy and loved every morsel. 'Delicious, Ma', he would always say as he licked the platter clean, finished his milk and waited for the apple pie.  In Bolivar, Ohio Amanda Woods was well- known for her cooking - her marvelous bread pudding, casseroles, and pies - and she had the biggest booth at the county fair every October. 

When asked how she did it, she replied, 'With no fuss and bother.  I am a busy woman', and so she was, mother of five, farm housewife with a thousand chores to do every day, not about to waste time gussying up her meals. Besides, she went on to say, this was Ohio, not New Fancy Shmancy New York. 

So, of all the things that Henry Woods missed when he went East for college, was his mother's pot roast. He unlike many of his classmates, was not tempted by dim sum, pho, couscous, or pad Thai. Invited by a classmate to eat at Pho 69 a college favorite, he could only poke around the bible tripe, fatty tendons, gizzards, and hearts - the offal that his father scraped out of the slaughtered animals every Fall. 'Disgusting', Henry said. 

But it wasn't long before he not only got used to these oddities, but came to appreciate them.  By comparison home cooking was a bland, pedestrian affair.  Although he still had fond memories of Sunday dinners in Bolivar, he was increasingly excited about the incredible foods all within a few blocks of his dorm.  By time he graduated and settled in to his new job in San Francisco, he was an aficionado, not quite yet a food sophisticate, but well on his way. 

San Francisco was an eye-opener. Gone were the cheap Asian meals around Harvard Square, and in was Asian fusion - a marvelous blending of California New Age cuisine and the best of Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean foods.  No more unrecognizable body bits in a sodium-laced broth, but the must subtle combinations of ingredients, composition, and presentation.   His ability to savor and appreciate good food, long hidden under piles of mashed potatoes slathered with gravy, was now in the fore.  He simply couldn't wait for his next meal. 

He travelled across the Bay to eat at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse, the first restaurant to launch the now-familiar California cuisine of fresh locally sourced ingredients combined in uniquely original ways; but was more delighted with the newer offerings which, although inspired by Waters, took off into more sophisticated territory.  The dishes were now architectural and painterly.  Not only were the morsels embedded in these elegant towers or arranged with artistic swirls on the edges of the plate tasty, but they added a certain tempting invitation to the courses to follow. 

Yes, Henry was hungry as he left the table, but almost spiritually satisfied.  These elegant preparations were meant more for the palate and the sensitive soul beyond than the stomach.  He became a true San Francisco foodie, and became well-known at the best restaurants in town. 

While he was a bit shamefully supplementing his dinners with cheeseburgers at White Castle and microwaving some mac 'n' cheese once he got home, he never once considered altering what had become a passion. 

Now, epiphanies come in all shapes and sizes, and so it was that one day at Dottie's Lunchery, the ironic name for one of the city's finest, most sophisticated restaurants, and looking at the tower of crispy things with peeks of brown and rosy notions, surrounded by swaths of avocado green, and dotted with berries and nut bits, he laughed, jabbed his fork into the tower, and watched it crumble into a ratty mess. 

'This is ridiculous', he shouted, slapped a hundred on the table, and walked out.

Epiphanies are not the unique, surprising affairs most people think of but slow cooking.  They take time to mature, to formulate before they burst forth; and so it was that for months Henry was thinking niggling, irritating thoughts about the increasingly baroque confections on his plate. They were becoming less food than febrile concoctions of a gay chef in the kitchen - his flouncy version of what an alternative lifestyle would look on a plate,

 

If it hadn't been for the burgers, fries, and mac 'n' cheese, he would have looked like the skeletal bums on Capp Street, but as it was, his blood chemistry was way off kilter. Weird potassium and zinc ion levels his physician had never seen.  'What on earth have you been eating?', the doctor asked; and it was not long afterwards that he experienced the outburst at Dottie's Lunchery. 

'I'm sorry, Ma', Henry said to his mother shortly after the epiphany.

'Sorry for what, sweetheart?', she replied, and Henry confessed all, his food hegira, his turning his back on Bolivar and pot roast, his shameful arrogance, and his pitiful ignorance 

Of course his mother had no idea what he was talking about, but listened patiently and reassured him with 'It's all right, dear' and other motherly caresses, love and kisses which were all he needed to return home to the sheep, the pigs, and the chickens. 

He had moments of exaggerated conflation - California cuisine somehow represented dissolute America (all cultures, once baroque, disassembled and declined) - but righted his ship and led a composed, productive life.