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| Drawing by Lucey Bowen, of the Red Fort, after Christopher Barry's photograph illustrating Louise Nicholson's "Delhi's Cuisine and Craftsmen," Gourmet, September, 1987 |
The 1987 review of San Francisco's China Moon Cafe introduced Barbara Tropp. Tropp interrupted her study of Chinese poetry at Princeton to learn "the meaning of eating to the Chinese." Apprenticed to a Taipe'i gentleman who lived his days in pursuit of flavor, she wrote the Chinese equivalent of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Had she not died at the age of 53, I think her fame would have been equal to Child's. Tropp's The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, like Mastering, ties each culinary procedure to the culture that produced it.
Cecelia Chiang, who founded the Mandarin restaurants, brought the diversity of Chinese cuisine to America. Her journey began in 1942, when the Japanese invasion of China forced her flight from Beijing. First in San Francisco in 1962, and then in Los Angeles, she introduced the diverse foods of Northern China to Americans who had known only watered-down Cantonese dishes. Chiang's son, Philip, is the co-founder of the restaurant chain, P.F. Chang's China Bistro.
1987's Gourmet featured Madhur Jaffrey in her role as food consultant to Dawat restaurant in New York. Delhi-born Jaffrey is a woman of many roles, including cook, cinema and television actress, and writer. Now, for half-a-century she has been the face of India and Indian cooking to the United States and the United Kingdom. Bringing things full circle, her most recent film, "Today's Special," featured Aasif Mandvi, Senior Muslim Correspondent of "The Daily Show," in the now familiar story of immigrant restauranteurs and their assimilated children.
"Cuisine and Craftsmen of Delhi,"was the subject of Louise Nicholson's essay for the September, 1987 issue. In it was the first use I've found of the term foodie. Prior to this, Gourmet called them, among other things, food-niks. Nicholson, like Tropp, immersed herself in a culture that wasn't her own. Then as now, she was an erudite guide to food, but especially the arts and crafts of India.
Like my parents, I found myself drawn into the pre-industrial world of New England through an old house. My father's Sherman, Connecticut house had been sold; no one was using it regularly. In Maine we found a property of a slightly later vintage. "Big house, little house, back house, barn," is the rule of thumb for Maine farms. Most grew by addition from the simple two-room, one-and-a-half story building of the same type as our Sherman house. "Maine House," as it quickly came to be called, had a huge central chimney, with ovens and boilers. The rooms of the "big house" could sleep eight, and the back house held a hefty supply of wood for three woodstoves, as well as a screened porch next to the brook. The house could hold all manner of winter holiday celebrations and summer vacation visitors, all in a setting that could look like Currier and Ives. That the economy and population of the place had been in decline since the Civil War meant to us, only that real-estate prices were low, but schools and grocery stores were far away.
A 2012 update on the restaurants reviewed in the 1987 issues of Gourmet is below:
New York
Tommy Tang's at 323 Greenwich Street is now Gingino Trattoria and Take-Away.
Dawat at 210 East 58th Street is still Dawat.
Nishi NoHo at 380 Lafayette Street is now Chinatown Brasserie.
Bukhara at 148 East 48th Street is no more.
Kom Tang at 32 West 32nd Street is still New York Kom Tang Soot Bul House.
San Francisco
Masa's at 648 Bush Street is still Masa's.
The Golden Turtle at 2211 Van Ness Avenue is now part of the Academy of Art University.
China Moon at 639 Post Street is now Bahn Thai BBQ and Noodles.
Los Angeles
The Mandarin at 430 North Camden Drive, Beverly Hills is now The Camden House. (Note that P.F. Chiang's are everywhere!)
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