Table of Contents

2015 | No. 95

The Art of Eating Issue No. 95


Coffee in the New Millennium

Will the Flavor of Geisha Change Everything?
by Hanna Neuschwander

From the narrow roads that wind along the steep eastern flanks of the Baru Volcano in the Boquete district of western Panama, nearly every switchback reveals a view of fat, leafy coffee shrubs undulating in the breeze. The long rows, with their strips of shadow between, look like living corduroy. In October, the middle of the growing season, the coffee plants on most farms were so laden with green cherries that their branches bent heavily toward the ground. Some trees had thicker or thinner canopies, glossy new bronze leaves or lime-green ones; most of the cherries were still vivid green, but some were rain-slicker yellow or fire-engine red… Continue reading

Bhopali Cuisine: Worlds Within Worlds
Michael Snyder • Worlds Within Worlds...
The Wines of Etna
Nick Czap • A Rebirth on the Slopes of the Volcano...
A Tale of Two Sausages
Zora O’Neill • Longaniza in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula...
Why This Bottle, Really? Le Clos Vieilles Vignes, Fleurie
Rajat Parr • Le Clos Vieilles Vignes, Fleurie (Beaujolais), from Domaine de la Grand’Cour (Dutraive)...
Restaurants: Tehran (Lunch at the Grand Bazaar)
Kareh Moraba • Lunch at Sharaf-ol-Eslami...
Books: The Land Where Lemons Grow
Edward Behr • The Hidden Citrus of Italy...
Six Addresses: Istanbul
Susannah Horowitz • Mainly Kadıköy...
Books: Shorts
The Hand-Held Pies of Latin America, Uncle Lau's Teochew Recipes, Sorghum's Savor, and The Food Lab...

Letter from the Editor

I believe, strongly, in consensus about the way things taste — ingredients, dishes, wines and other drinks. I mean a consensus among people who know what they’re talking about. Not because I especially care about harmony or community — differences are interesting. And not because taste should be codified like the circa-1900 haute cuisine in Escoffier’s Le Guide culinaire. And not because, with any particular food, it’s easy to find out what the consensus is, if it exists at all. Wine and beer aren’t so difficult, because critics so often place them in context and zero in. Restaurant reviewers, in contrast, hardly ever tell us what raw materials or dishes taste like at their most typical or best, and cookbook and other food writers aren’t often better. When I write, I don’t hesitate to give my opinion, but I’m always acutely conscious of the views of those who over time have tasted and cared the most, when I know what those views are.

That kind of loose consensus creates a point of reference so we understand each other better. It allows chefs to have a sense in advance of how their customers will react to a new dish. It gives a microbrewer an idea of where his or her fresh take on Double IPA or Maibock will fit into customers’ expectations. If a fruit breeder offers a new variety of raspberry and compares it with Taylor, we know (if we’re fruit people) that he thinks it has strong raspberry flavor and quality is near the top. If you write about food and drink and what you say is anchored in an informed consensus, you know you’re giving useful information.

Yet with food you have to dig deep and you may not come up with much. Specific flavor descriptions are almost always recent, inspired especially, I’ve always thought, by the sometimes-florid, late 20th-century wine descriptions of Robert Parker. To get a handle on even a famous Old World cheese is harder than you might think. You almost have to interview a number of makers or affineurs and, if possible, taste with them.

A cheese, a sausage, a dish, is largely defined by a recipe, but how to arrive at a consensus about the taste of a raw material? What exactly does great spinach, great lettuce, or a great carrot taste like? Where is the ur-carrot grown, how sweet is it, how young, how fresh? What are you looking for in a carrot? Surely, like apples or grapes, a great carrot is different things. But we have a long way to go in describing them.

— Edward Behr

Contributors

Edward Behr (Books: The Land Where Lemons Grow) is the publisher of The Art of Eating and the author of 50 Foods.

Nick Czap (“The Wines of Etna”) writes for The New York Times and other publications. He lives in San Francisco.

Susannah Horowitz (Six Addresses in Istanbul) studied fine art in Istanbul. She is a youth worker for a children’s charity in London and organizes her travel around food.

Kareh Moraba (“Lunch at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar”) is a writer from Khuzestan in southern Iran, the land of water buffalo ice cream and citrus blossoms. She divides her time between Iran and the US.

Zora O’Neill (“A Tale of Two Sausages”) writes about food, travel and the flow of culture from her home in Queens, New York. Her new book All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World will appear in 2016.

Hanna Neuschwander (“Coffee in the New Millennium”), since writing this article, has been named communications director of World Coffee Research. Author of the guide Left Coast Roast and a former barista, she lives in Portland, Oregon.

Rajat Parr (Why This Bottle, Really?), born in Calcutta, is wine director for the Mina Group’s restaurants, a partner in the restaurant RN74 (San Francisco and Seattle), co-author of Secrets of the Sommeliers, and a partner in Sandhi wines and Domaine de la Côte, both in the Santa Rita Hills of California.

Michael Snyder (“Bhopali Cuisine”) is a freelance food and culture writer based in Mumbai. He is a frequent contributor to Lucky Peach, and his work has appeared in T Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, including a slew of publications in India.

Lucy Wilson (cover) is a designer and illustrator who works especially in watercolor. She lives in Liverpool.

Poularde-en-Vessie at The Art of Eating

Photo: Owen Franken

Back Cover

Classic poularde de Bresse cuite en vessie (Bresse chicken poached in a pig’s bladder), prepared by the chef Eric Frechon at the restaurant Epicure at the Bristol Hotel in Paris.

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