my goal is to be a fat American

04Jul07

Since this blog is mostly going to be about Korean food, and since I’m going to be eating mostly Korean food for the next year or so, the main focus (as you might guess) of this entry is going to be American food, specifically: the kind I will miss, more specifically: things you can bake, things you can smoke, things involving cheese. This is a big gluttonous tribute to the past week or so and to my parents’ willingness to make every meal, as my brother puts it, “one giant slice of awesome.”

Note: I bought a copy of one of my favorite food books by one of my favorite food writers, The Man Who Ate Everything, to take with me as inspiration and influence. You won’t, however, see any of that in this entry.

I HAVE EATEN LATELY, LOVE AND WILL MISS

1. half-and-half tea
2. chicken curry
3. thit heo kho
   
4. goi cuon
5. fish tacos
6. eggs Benedict (Tupelo Honey Cafe, Asheville, NC)
7. barbecue
   1. Dixie Barbecue
   1. Ridgewood Barbecue
8. tortilla soup
9. cheesecake
10. meatloaf (really)
11. black bean soup
12. guacamole
13. grilled cheese

A few addenda:

1a. Half-and-half tea is a variant on sweet tea, the iced beverage unique to the American South. Sweet tea must be brewed (i.e. not Nestea or similar) and pre-sweetened. Ideally, it should be sweet enough to serve as hummingbird food on short notice. Half-and-half tea is a way of cutting the sweetness by mixing half unsweet* and half sweet tea, with the unsweet on the bottom, as the sugar makes the sweet tea heavier. There’s a local chain here called Pal’s** that makes an excellent half-and-half peach tea, a beverage which enhances the already fine tea with the addition of peach syrup. You can get a 32 oz cup for about $.75.

*”Unsweet” is the only word I can think of that follows the Orwellian pattern of “ungood.” Granted, this is because it’s a shortened form of the word “unsweetened,” but it’s still neat.

**My brother just started working at Pal’s. Apparently, they have the best health department rating in the state of Tennessee, which is doubly impressive when you consider the massive hot dogs and hamburgers displayed on its lawn and roof.

2a. May or may not be Vietnamese. No one seems to know. Top with slurry of lime, salt, and hot peppers.

3a. Translates to “caramel pork meat.” Definitely Vietnamese; smells like candied red tide for most of the cooking time. That’s what happens when you pour fermented fish juice on top of caramel, I guess, but the end result is salty and sweet and fatty and eggy (if you add hard-boiled eggs), etc. For fun, try making this for a dinner party and inviting the guests over while the dish is still cooking, then try to get them to stay.

 

Ideally, you serve this with pickled mustard greens, but those are filled with small bugs that are v. difficult to wash out entirely, not that this should make you run screaming from the kitchen.

4a. Fresh spring rolls. If you want a recipe for the best peanut sauce ever, let me know.

6a. I cannot recommend this place highly enough. It is SO GOOD and, conveniently, is also really adorable:

Their biscuits are hot and strike a great balance between crunchy and soft and salty and sweet, the spring salad is delicious, the tea really is sweetened with Tupelo honey, and while some of the food is more expensive than others, the sweet potato pancake with cinnamon-pecan butter, at $3.50, is a steal. You can find that money in the change on the floor of your car.

7a. Dixie wins over Ridgewood for several reasons, chief among them being phenomenally greasy smoked chicken, an amazing white barbecue sauce (one of, like, seven choices), and the presence of both Confederate memorabilia and “Obama 08″ stickers. They have lost some of my support with the switch from country-style to St. Louis ribs, however. Ribs are no fun without cartilage. Ridgewood, of Roadfood fame, loses by a hair, although there are quite a few things they do better, including sliced pork, crispy unsalted fries (because they’re served on top of the pork – just eat it all together, trust me) and really awesome beans.

9a. Koreans have neither cheese nor ovens. Discuss.

12a. I have seen people try to adulterate guacamole with onions and/or mayo. Really? Are avocados not quite rich and fatty enough for you? Would you like to add some lard while you’re at it?

13a. I like mine with jam, a habit passed on to me from my mother. Think of it as a poor man’s brie en croute.

Finally, I would like to share an ad I saw on the side of Dixie Barbecue the other day:

Dixie Cola: The flavor that never surrenders.

Oh Johnson City, I will miss you.

Filed under: American South, Asheville, Eason food, Johnson City, Vietnamese, all Vietnamese food smells like fish, barbecue   |  1 Comment