2000: Not Lost in Translation

Mutton Curry, rice pancakes and cashew rice in Kochi, drawn by Lucey Bowen from Ann Williams photograph, Gourmet, 2000.

    Gourmet's writers and readers always strove to be cosmopolitan, knowledgable of and comfortable in many countries and cultures.  In the new millenium, Ruth Reichl's writers transformed cosmopolitism with further explorations of the Asian diaspora, and hybrid voices which arise from it.
     In "A Cook and His Castle,"  Chicago's Chinatown-raised-chef Ken Hom, told why he made his home near Cahors, France.  His daily life is Asian fusion.
      The author of "Pilgram's Progress," was American-born Leslie Chang whose Beyond the Narrow Gate,explored "the bond of immigration and what an American identity is."  In the 21st century Gourmet, it follows that she wrote a moving account of the culinary transitions English settlers made in the Plymouth and Jamestown colonies.  The other side of the immigrant coin was the moving piece "My Dragon-Dancing Years," Fae Myenne Ng's story of being re-introduced to her mother's Chinese-food-as-medicine ways in order to please a dying Caucasian friend.
    Those pieces give us a hint of Gourmet for the new millenium.  The magazine's layout and table of contents reflected a new spirit.  The restaurant reviews are unchained from their bi-coastal tethers.  Fine dining is to be found in between, in places like Las Vegas and Phoenix, Arizona.  Of significance is that these featured restaurants, featuring everything from Northern Thai specialties to unfussy Asian fusion.  And as in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, some of the best places are found in strip-malls and suburbs, reflecting the changed demographics of Asian immigration.
     Some things remained constant.  Jane and Michael Stern's endless quest for America rolled on, chronicled in their road-food section, "Two for the Road." Road-food, the name for what's served in the homiest local places says much about American culture and contrasted to the street-food that was featured in a Jonathan Gold's "The World's Greatest Street Food."  In the United States we approach the local by car; in Singapore, pedestrians can, in the same hawker center, sample food from every one of the half-dozen ethnic or cultural groups that make up Singapore's population.
     There's also a sense of rewriting the familiar.  "The Spice Route" could have been the title of an article on pepper in Gourmet of the 1940s.  In 2000, it's an in depth account traveling and eating in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, about as far from the Taj Mahal as you can get and still be in India.


     My preoccupations that year had a lot to do with my sense that I was growing old.  No doubt some of that concern arose from knowing that my children were growing up and consequently away.  Those years would probably be the last that they would happily vacation with us.  So when school was out for the summer, we planned a trip which took us to France, naturellement.  We rented a house with a swimming pool in the south, near walled cities like Carcassone.  Once again I imposed the no-fast-food rule.  In fact, each child would be expected to shop and cook.  Before departure each selected and practiced a recipe.  Connor chose pissaladiere  from Julia, the Provencal version of the teen-ager's staple, pizza, but made with mille-fuille pastry dough onions and olives,  anchovy on the side, please.  Fiona chose Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic.
     Our well-trained travelers adhered to the no-fast-food rule as we travelled south by train from Paris and picked up our hired car.  Paraza, the village where we rented, is on the Canal du Midi, once an important artery between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic port of Bordeaux.  No more.  Only yachts and barges, sleeping and feeding tourists, traverse its peaceful waters,  The village itself is almost deserted for nine months of the year.  A family from Sweden uses the former home of the mayor as a summer house.  Once a week a travelling butcher sets up shop.  When he appeared, Fiona and I went to purchase the chicken for her dish.  What an education for her to see the complete  chicken, head, feet and all, and to reply "non" when asked if she wanted those parts.  The chicken dish was a huge success. For his pizza dinner,  Connor elected to invite our landlord, an eccentric Welsh painter, who lived summers in his studio next door. A trip back towards Narbonne to the nearest supermarche was required.  How civilized to find pre-made  mille-fuille.  The painter arrived with a large jug of the wine which is still dispensed from the caves of the local Commune.  Another suces fou.
     Back home, I plunged into the compensatory physical activity of triathlon: swimming, biking and running. While my husband was at work and the children at school, I trained.   My extremely slow pace meant that for hours I was alone, on the bike or on the running trail.  I had hours to meditate.  
     Where was I going? What was I going to do for the rest of my life, after  the children departed for college.  Except for the limitations of age, I could do anything I wanted.  I didn't yet know what that was.

New York:
Sono at 106 57th Street is now BLT Steak.
Thalia at 828 Eight Avenue is still Thalia, but with a different focus.

Phoenix:
Hapa is closed.

Las Vegas:
Lotus of Siam, 953 East Sahara Avenue, Suite A5 is still Lotus of Siam.


San Francisco:
Firecrackers at 1007 1/2 Valencia is closed.
Angkor Borei at 3471 Mission is still Angkor Borei.