What is also certain is that Alice appreciated the food of France—and what it might mean to us—in a way that few others did at the time. And she applied that passion in ways that no one in America had previously considered. In those days, when the Dream was new and Chez Panisse was just starting up, it was democratic, inclusive, dysfunctional, and ludicrously, admirably, unprofitable. Had someone with any business sense at all attempted to do what Alice was trying to do, it never would have happened. Surely, this was a very fine and good thing.
Alice thinks what we eat is important. So do I. She thinks it’s the most important thing in the world. I do not. But I’m quite sure that we both have made major decisions in our lives, gained and lost friends, based on what’s to eat.
Alice thinks farmers should make more money—growing stuff that’s both good-tasting and good for us. Who could be against that? I like farms. So I don’t want to work on one. I doubt very much that Alice does either. So we have that in common, too.
She thinks, as I do, that we should be aware of what’s good in our own backyards and support those things—by eating them, and growing more of them. I’m with her, to a point. But then I don’t have a backyard.
Strikingly, she is, and always has been, a carnivore. There is no question as to her position on foie gras. For decades, in the middle of Berkeley, she has unapologetically championed the use of animal flesh as food rather than as something that should someday win the right to vote. In this respect, being blissfully out of touch with what’s going on around her has served her well.
In fact, it’s Alice’s very hypocrisy that belies her true virtues. Because what’s truly wonderful about Alice is that she is, first and foremost, a sensualist. When you see Alice preaching about how you should be eating local—while nibbling on sea urchin roe from Hokkaido or foie gras from Gascony—at least you know she really appreciates the good stuff. It may be strategically foolish and inappropriate and bad for her argument to be seen cooking a fresh-laid organic egg over an open fire for Leslie Stahl—but I’ll bet it tasted fucking delicious.
What makes Alice Waters such a compelling character is her infectious enthusiasm for pleasure. She’s made lust, greed, hunger, self-gratification, and fetishism look good. When Alice shows you a bunch of radishes, you fucking want them. Where have those radishes been all my life? I need them!
Who cares if she knows the Heimlich maneuver? Did Gandhi know the Heimlich maneuver? Does Bono?
And skimming over the pages of a recent biography, I see there is the oft-cited charge that Alice has made a career of taking credit for the work of others.
To which I’d reluctantly have to ask: Exactly which chefs—to one extent or another—haven’t done that? How could the batty hippie chick have really been responsible for such an important era in gastronomy, is the implied question. Yet, so many male chefs have climbed or leaped to the top over the smashed bodies of subordinates and peers—without accruing fault or foul. The question lingers—and, along with it, I gather, some animus—because Alice survived and prospered where many of her original hippie contemporaries did not. She had the temerity to make money eventually. To figure out, or at least accept, that the Dream could not grow, much less survive, in a commune.
If you’re still looking to find “the True Genius behind the Whole Thing”—examining old menus at Chez Panisse, pre-Tower and post-Tower, for instance—you may as well be scrutinizing blurry photographs of the grassy knoll. There is, as with the Kennedy assassination, a case to be made for a second shooter. But spend too long looking and, in the end, you miss the point entirely.
Alice Waters is still here. Jeremiah Tower is not.
Alice is widely known—and will probably always be known—as the “Mother of Slow Food.” Jeremiah Tower allowed himself to become a footnote to history.
And history, as they say, will always be written by the victors.
Heroes and Villains
Fergus Henderson is a hero.
In the best heroic tradition, he’d be mortified to hear this. He’s English, for one—and painfully modest about all the adulation. His restaurant, St. John, was intended as an equally modest venture: a plain white room in a former smokehouse, where a few like-minded Englishmen could eat traditional English food and drink French claret. I am quite sure that his aspirations for the book Nose to Tail Eating (aka The Whole Beast in the United States), a collection of recipes and related musings, were even more limited.
Yet Nose to Tail is now considered one of the classic cookbooks of All Time, a collector’s item, a must-have for any chef anywhere in the world wanting cred from his peers, the Bible for the ever-growing “guts mafia,” the opening shot in an ongoing (if slow-motion) battle that’s still, even today, changing the whole world of food. St. John the restaurant, an undecorated white room serving barely garnished English country fare, continues to be lavishly (and, at times, ludicrously) over-praised: frequently named “one of the best restaurants in the world”—ahead of temples of haute gastronomy that are (technically) far more deserving of those kinds of official honors. I believe Fergus has even been honored by the Queen—for his service to the Crown—which is also crazy, if you think about it, for a one-time architect who dropped out and started cooking bistro grub, soon after to specialize in the kind of country-ass stuff his grandmother used to cook.
But he is a hero. That he’s my hero is well documented. Since my first meal at St. John, when I flopped onto my knees in the kitchen, babbling something spectacularly idiotic but heartfelt, like “You RAWK!!!” (Fergus wasn’t even there that evening), I’ve shamelessly basked in his reflected glory at every opportunity. I am a supporter, an acolyte, a devotee, an advocate for all things Henderson. I am a True Believer.
I believe that Fergus Henderson, in a way that very few chefs have ever been, is good for society as a whole. Because, unlike any chef I’ve ever heard of, he has influenced people who’ve never been to St. John, never eaten his food, certainly never read his book, and don’t have any idea who the fuck this Fergus Henderson guy might be. He has, however unwittingly, given permission to generations of chefs and cooks to follow their hearts in ways that were unthinkable only a few years ago. Simply by doing what he’s doing, he’s inspired others to put things on their menus and look at ingredients they might never have thought of had he not done it first—and, as the word spreads, minds and menus change, and no one even knows where it all might have started.
Mario Batali, Chris Cosentino, Martin Picard, April Bloomfield, Gabrielle Hamilton are obvious examples of chefs who felt liberated by Fergus’s early example. I say “obvious,” because they’d be the first to tell you. But it’s all the others…the lone chefs and cooks out there, in the Heartland of America, England, and Australia, who yearned for a Fergus to come along and inspire them, give them courage, long before he actually appeared.
I will never forget the smell of the rooms, years ago, tiny venues in rural England, in working-class cities where Fergus was on book tour. All the kids came out, still stinking of the deep fryer, the chip shop, whatever crappy pub, depressing and wrongheaded “lounge/restaurant” they might have been working at at the time. Many of them had never even been to London. But they knew who Fergus was alright—and what he was all about. And the look on their faces—of ambition and hope—was inspiring.
My most treasured Fergus-related memory—and one of the most moving goddamn things I’ve ever seen—was when he accompanied me to my old alma mater, the CIA.
I was concerned. I knew that the three-hundred-seat auditorium would fill with my fans. It had been my school, after all, the home team—and twenty-year-old slacker male culinary students, freshly tattooed with “Cook Free or Die,” are usually not a tough crowd for me. But I was worried about the reception Fergus might get. He was English—with the kind of upper-class speech patterns filled with Britishisms one would expect of an eccentric country squire. He spoke faintly—and with a pronounced stammer. He was sick. Very sick. He had not y
et had the experimental surgery that would help mitigate the symptoms of his Parkinson’s, and his body jerked around at times, robotically, sending an arm straight out into space. He was funny-looking in the best of circumstances; often described as “owlish” behind round glasses.
Would any of these young louts know who he was, I wondered? More important, would they listen, would they pay attention during his talk—would they give this man the respect he was due—or would they, after a few minutes, start staring off into space, or dribbling off to the exits?
I ended my litany of war stories and dick jokes and handed the floor over to Fergus.
He began to speak, faintly, worryingly flushed, arm wonky…And every fucking kid in that room leaned forward in their seat and held their breath.
For forty-five minutes, no one made a sound. They listened—absolutely rapt—to the master. They knew who he was, alright. Fuckin’-A they did. And at the end of the talk, they asked questions—bright, incisive, enthusiastic ones, too. I stood silently in the rear, trying not to start blubbering like a fucking baby. It was like the end of Pride of the Yankees (and I do start weeping when I see that shit).
I’d never seen anything so…encouraging…in my life.
Which is why I’m putting Gael Greene on my list of villains. Not because she deserves to be vilified for her writing, which was once very important, and is still, more often than not—when she’s not talking about boning Elvis—quite good. I probably couldn’t be doing what I’m doing if she hadn’t done it first. Or for any of the obvious reasons why one would want to make fun of the woman referred to by chefs as Sgt. Pepper for her bizarre, look-at-me, Peter Frampton/Michael Jackson/Gopher-from-Love Boat outfits. Hell—in another context, she’d probably be a hero.
But no. Gael joins the ranks of the damned because she moderated a panel discussion at the 92nd Street Y in New York City a while back—and she was lucky enough to have Fergus Henderson on her panel and she barely acknowledged him. She kept getting his name wrong. She blathered on and on about her favorite subject (herself) while ignoring the most influential chef of the last ten years sitting a few feet away. For abusing this opportunity, for paying insufficient respect to my friend, for treating the Great Man as any less than the titan he is—for this alone—let her join the ranks of the damned.
Jonathan Gold, the food writer for LA Weekly, is a hero.
I’m hardly the first to notice. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his dedicated and pioneering coverage of all those places in the LA area that nobody had ever covered before. (His award was the first for a food writer.) He gave them respect, treating little mom-and-pop noodle shops in strip malls with a degree of importance they hadn’t enjoyed before. He helped give a “legitimacy” to serious critical analyses of Thai, Vietnamese, inexpensive Mexican, and less appreciated regional cuisines, which hadn’t really existed before. He put them on a par with fine dining and wrote about them with as much—if not more—enthusiasm, helping to usher in a (very useful) kind of reverse snobbism, a skepticism about fine dining that has only been helpful and a good thing in the long run.
And the motherfucker can write. Oh, can he write. Good, original sentences on the subject of food are an all-too-rare thing—and Gold pretty much owns his territory. As a writer, as a force for good, as a guy who upped the ante for anyone daring to write about food or simply looking for food to eat, he’s a hero. By writing about food, he’s helped change how and where people eat it. In a near unbroken field of mediocrity, here is a man who makes just about anything or any place he cares to talk about seem like someplace you should care about.
Since we’re in LA, allow me to take the opportunity to put Wolfgang Puck on the villains list. Puck goes on the list precisely because he’s one of the biggest, best, and most important chefs of the last few decades. What you think of his airport pizza is completely beside the point. Puck long ago did enough important, world-changing work to ensure his status as one of the Greats. He was a vital part of the American food revolution. He made serious contributions to changing the whole popular notion of who and what a chef even was—part of the whole tectonic shift away from the idea of the maître d’ being the star—to the new idea: that it was the chef who was important. The chefs and cooks who came up with and graduated from Puck’s kitchens (so many of them) make for a breathtaking lineup. His is a major tree trunk in the genealogy of American cooking.
With God knows how many restaurants and the merch line and everything else going on in PuckLand, presumably, Wolfgang has plenty of money. He is, inarguably, BIG. Maybe the Big Tuna—in a town of big fishes. He is a powerful, influential, and deservedly respected chef and one of the most recognizable names in the business.
So, I was really disappointed, felt…betrayed, when he knuckled under to the anti–foie gras people and announced he’d take it off all his menus in all his businesses.
When more vulnerable, less well-capitalized, less famous peers were standing up—when some chefs were being threatened, their families terrorized, why did Puck go over to the other side? It seemed that of all the chefs in the country, he was best situated to simply say “Fuck you!” to the Forces of Darkness, and tough it through.
Here, I assumed, was a wealthy, powerful, influential man with—one would imagine—many powerful friends.
I figured he looked at the situation and calculated that it would be easier to just give the assholes what they wanted. At the time, I believe, I called it treason. But I’m told the story was a little more complicated than that—and the pressures on Puck more severe than a few protesters out front. He was getting it from all sides, from within and without his organization, it is said. His partners and allies, squeezed themselves, in turn squeezed Puck. Wolfgang is not the only shareholder of Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc., and, apparently, his partners made things very, very hot for him.
So maybe “victim” and “villain” would be more appropriate. I’m not as pissed off as I was. Just really disappointed. Because if not Puck—then who?
Jamie Oliver is a hero.
Before you spit up your gnocchi, turn back to the cover of this book, and make sure you’re reading the right author, let me explain. I hated The Naked Chef, too. And all that matey, mockney bullshit. And the Sainsbury’s business…and the band…and the scooter—all that shit that made Jamie a star.
But I don’t know what I would do if I Googled “I Hate Anthony Bourdain” and saw a million or so hits, like Jamie would find if he Googled the same phrase but with his name. I don’t know what I would do if I woke up one morning, and, like Jamie, found a Web site dedicated to me named FatTonguedCunt.com, where hundreds, if not thousands, of people appeared to be spending half their working hours—and maybe all their leisure time—Photoshopping movie posters and twisting titles to refer, as disparagingly as possible, to me. I’d be afraid to leave the house—seeing that kind of ferocity and loathing.
I do have a pretty good idea what I’d do, however, if I had the kind of big money Jamie’s got. And it would not be the same as what he’s doing with it.
Say what you will about how well, how attractively or advisably, but Jamie Oliver puts his money where his mouth is. The sincerity with which he’s focused on school lunches, educating kids on how to cook—and even how to eat—is largely, I gather, unwelcomed, and, relative to potentially more purely profit-oriented exercises, maybe not the best of options.
Jamie would clearly prefer to be an annoying nag, reminding us that we’re fat and unhealthy, than make more money. You have to admire that. Sure, he’s still bringing down plenty of dough—but you gotta respect a guy who manages to embarrass the whole British government with a show about what their schoolkids are actually eating. That kind of talk will eventually make you unpopular. It’s very rarely a good career move to have a conscience.
If experience teaches us anything, it’s that the very last thing a television audience wants to hear or be reminded of is how bad things are, how unhealthy or how doomed—that we’re
heading off a cliff and dragging our kids after us. (Unless it’s accompanied by bombastic accusations of conspiracy—and a suitable candidate to blame for the problem.) It’s bad business to be saying all sorts of awful, alarmist shit like that—particularly when it’s true. It is much better business, always, to tell people, over and over again, in a reassuring voice (or, better yet, a loud, annoying one) that everything is just fine. It’ll all work out. The kids can keep jamming soda and chips into their neckless maws. They’ll be okay. No need to worry. You’re great! You’re awesome! And here’s a recipe for deep-fried potato pizza!
Jamie Oliver is a hero for doing the harder thing—when he surely doesn’t have to do anything at all. Most chefs I know, were they where Jamie is on the Success-O-Meter? They’d be holed up at a Four Seasons somewhere, shades drawn, watching four tranny hookers snort cocaine off each other.
Brooke Johnson, the head honcho at Food Network, is a villain. That’s an easy one.
But she’s a villain for being right—not for the cynical, fake-ass, soul-destroying, lowest-common-denominator shit-shows she’s nurtured and supported since taking the helm. She’s a villain for being, clearly and demonstrably, right about everything.
On her watch, the network’s audience share has exploded. The number of male viewers most treasured by advertisers expands exponentially every year, demographics of viewers watching Food Network tilting to the good in ways that are the envy of every other network—that prime-quality cut of big-spending, ever-younger male viewers getting larger and larger with each financial quarter. Every clunky, bogus, critically vilified clusterfuck that drops from FN’s hindquarters, still steaming and seemingly dead on arrival, turns out to be an unprecedented ratings success.