What I'm Eating this Week
Waddling Thunder at 08:52 PM
Mark Madsen at Extended Phenotype responded to my criticism of Richard Olney's Lulu's Provencal Table by noting that I "missed something crucial" in neglecting to laud the book's "tribute to a great winemaking family and their 'extended family' of associations from Olney to Kermit Lynch to Alice Waters and her compatriots". That may well be true, but the thing is that I normally like this kind of book. But there are good tributes, and less good ones, and I just didn't sense Olney's usual sense of superior conviviality here. Tastes will differ, but I offer my penance in the form of this week's main recipe, drawn largely from the disputed book.

Highlights below the fold include a discussion of Meat me in Manhattan, and this week's recipe, pot au feu, langue de boeuf (beef tongue fire pot)

What I'm Reading About Food this Week

Meat me in Manhattan: A carnivore's Guide to New York: Mr. Cutlets

The author of this slim but amusing and useful volume describes himself as a "broad meat-like man" on the back cover. I don't know whether Mr. Cutlets really fits that description, but he has produced a good quick reference for meat, and especially in New York. For those who already have a Zagat's, Mr. Cutlets guides you to those destinations that deserve their rating, and some others that Zagat's misses - fried chicken restaurants, butchers, traditional steakhouses, the whole lot. There's some here too for those just interested in the world of meat, without access to Manhattan - a easy to follow discussion of various viands at the beginning, and little interesting bits of wisdom interspersed throughout. You won't, of course, always agree with the formidable author, but at least he tells you what he thinks. And that's better than most.

What I'm Eating this Week

Pot au Feu, Langue de Boeuf

"Tongue", says the Oxford Companion to Food, is a "fleshy muscular movable organ of the floor of the mouth which bears sensory taste buds, and has special functions in tasting and swallowing food". No kidding, I say. But it's also cheap, and packs a lot of taste.

That taste is why I'm always surprised to find that it's not favored here in America. I only found the tongue I'm planning to cook, in fact, while wandering lost in far flung Allston (across the dreaded Charles), where the supermarket had changed its offerings to accomodate a more heavily hispanic population. In fact, in my house, tongue has a festival connotation - we only eat it, cold, as an appetizer at Christmas.

Pot au feu, a stew like braise of (any) meat, plays perfectly to tongue's strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, the tongue flavours the otherwise bland ingredients, making the meal satisfying and of interest. On the other, braising, and especially three hours of it, renders the powerfully muscular organ tender, allows the inedible skin to be removed, and lets you slice the meat thinly to be eaten lukewarm. Olney recommends potatoes, carrots, and turnips as the vegetables to be added to the tongue, cold water, and white wine after the meat has cooked for two hours, but I doubt they're obligatory - one imagines that other additions would do as well. But what I think is more important is to remember to serve the broth with crusts of stale bread laid in the serving bowl. That's the authentic way most french people eat soups and light braises at home, and I think that starchy base at the bottom adds rather a lot to simple, healthy experience of eating tongue and its delicious stock.