2.24.2004
A fois gras fantasy
I was placing a bag of iceberg lettuce into my shopping cart when the raid took place. The officers hungrily stormed the store, heading straight for the butcher counter. Bullets flew, ricocheting off walls and shattering the just-arrived cases of mock Beaujolais -- a pity, as I had yet to pick up a few bottles. Shoppers huddled under carts, clutching children and carob bars, on sale. One never knows what the luxury police will be after next.
The officers surrounded the sole butcher left behind the counter. His hands hung limp at his sides, offering no resistance -- this wasn’t the first time the police had been by this former gourmet food shop. Aiming a revolver at the meat display, piles of pink sausages and brisket, the lead officer grunted at the butcher to lift a gray flank steak. Underneath the meat lay one, solitary, plump liver -- contraband in this state, and worth more than its weight in gold. Not that my children would understand what gold is: that luxury was banned years ago, too.
Since the Ban, fois gras is only found on the black market, or on occasion, in stores with well-connected ties to the Old Country, where they still engage in a practice called “dining.” Our family tries to buy it, of course, for special occasions -- perhaps a gram or two to split between our family of four.
I’ll head to the store around midnight, wearing a wig and my shabby overcoat. Often I’m not the only one wandering the aisles, pretending interest in the instant mashed potatoes, or tofu-flavored gluten balls. When no one’s looking, I’ll steal quickly to the meat counter and ask in a whisper, “Liver. Just a gram will do.” I take my treasure and slip it into the inside pocket of my trench coat -- I usually pay at the counter, in small bills, and I always leave a generous tip for the butcher. Then I’m off into the night, keeping an eye on the young boy delivering the morning’s paper, the homeless woman sleeping in the corner of the parking lot. One never knows who will narc on you next.
The Ban raids are more frequent now, in stores and even in private homes. The fois gras farms were destroyed years ago, confused ducks and geese running mad just before freeway commuters ran them down. Jealous neighbors fibbed on the few among the community who decided to house the frightened birds that survived. There are always rumors: a small farm in the foothills that has bred mute ducks, wandering silently in spacious pens, fresh meat and liver aplenty. Newspapers report stories of real French fois gras seized, hidden in suitcase hollows, or inside stuffed animals carried by unsuspecting children. One local man swallowed a pound of liver, wrapped in balloons, in the style of drug smugglers of decades past. He had a heart attack the moment he got on the plane on the East Coast. Authorities used it as an example of how high-fat foods can kill. We knew better. We knew that man died happy.
A friend gifted me a copy of the magazine Bon Appetit, now out of print, for my birthday last March. It featured a full-color spread on summer feasts in Perigord, with more than a dozen recipes. Since most travel to France has been prohibited on grounds of “culinary contamination,” we can only flip pages, salivate in private.
The authorities didn’t stop with fois gras. Prosciutto disappeared, then shiitake. Truffles, then chocolate. One afternoon cases of champagne were loaded into the square and summarily smashed in an orgy of anti-bubbly sentiment. Some people talked of wine makers setting fire to their own vines to save their families. Most local chefs are under house arrest, or forced to cook in grammar school commissaries as part of their community service. They do make lovely fish sticks, and thankfully, my children adore them. It’s the only fish they’ve ever known.
The authorities say we don’t need these “luxury” food items in order to survive. Food purity is food simplicity; meat is murder, taste is sin. The buzz phrases are everywhere. My children look at me questioningly when I tear up at the meat counter, faced with a choice between frozen tempeh patties or breaded spelt sticks. How will I ever explain to them the richness of goose liver pate on crisp crostini? The mouth feel of Roquefort? The kick of champagne?
I dream of picnics, of cool white wine and summer breezes. I am planning, in private. A black-market visa to Europe is expensive, but not unattainable. If I must live without taste, then really, why live?
I was placing a bag of iceberg lettuce into my shopping cart when the raid took place. The officers hungrily stormed the store, heading straight for the butcher counter. Bullets flew, ricocheting off walls and shattering the just-arrived cases of mock Beaujolais -- a pity, as I had yet to pick up a few bottles. Shoppers huddled under carts, clutching children and carob bars, on sale. One never knows what the luxury police will be after next.
The officers surrounded the sole butcher left behind the counter. His hands hung limp at his sides, offering no resistance -- this wasn’t the first time the police had been by this former gourmet food shop. Aiming a revolver at the meat display, piles of pink sausages and brisket, the lead officer grunted at the butcher to lift a gray flank steak. Underneath the meat lay one, solitary, plump liver -- contraband in this state, and worth more than its weight in gold. Not that my children would understand what gold is: that luxury was banned years ago, too.
Since the Ban, fois gras is only found on the black market, or on occasion, in stores with well-connected ties to the Old Country, where they still engage in a practice called “dining.” Our family tries to buy it, of course, for special occasions -- perhaps a gram or two to split between our family of four.
I’ll head to the store around midnight, wearing a wig and my shabby overcoat. Often I’m not the only one wandering the aisles, pretending interest in the instant mashed potatoes, or tofu-flavored gluten balls. When no one’s looking, I’ll steal quickly to the meat counter and ask in a whisper, “Liver. Just a gram will do.” I take my treasure and slip it into the inside pocket of my trench coat -- I usually pay at the counter, in small bills, and I always leave a generous tip for the butcher. Then I’m off into the night, keeping an eye on the young boy delivering the morning’s paper, the homeless woman sleeping in the corner of the parking lot. One never knows who will narc on you next.
The Ban raids are more frequent now, in stores and even in private homes. The fois gras farms were destroyed years ago, confused ducks and geese running mad just before freeway commuters ran them down. Jealous neighbors fibbed on the few among the community who decided to house the frightened birds that survived. There are always rumors: a small farm in the foothills that has bred mute ducks, wandering silently in spacious pens, fresh meat and liver aplenty. Newspapers report stories of real French fois gras seized, hidden in suitcase hollows, or inside stuffed animals carried by unsuspecting children. One local man swallowed a pound of liver, wrapped in balloons, in the style of drug smugglers of decades past. He had a heart attack the moment he got on the plane on the East Coast. Authorities used it as an example of how high-fat foods can kill. We knew better. We knew that man died happy.
A friend gifted me a copy of the magazine Bon Appetit, now out of print, for my birthday last March. It featured a full-color spread on summer feasts in Perigord, with more than a dozen recipes. Since most travel to France has been prohibited on grounds of “culinary contamination,” we can only flip pages, salivate in private.
The authorities didn’t stop with fois gras. Prosciutto disappeared, then shiitake. Truffles, then chocolate. One afternoon cases of champagne were loaded into the square and summarily smashed in an orgy of anti-bubbly sentiment. Some people talked of wine makers setting fire to their own vines to save their families. Most local chefs are under house arrest, or forced to cook in grammar school commissaries as part of their community service. They do make lovely fish sticks, and thankfully, my children adore them. It’s the only fish they’ve ever known.
The authorities say we don’t need these “luxury” food items in order to survive. Food purity is food simplicity; meat is murder, taste is sin. The buzz phrases are everywhere. My children look at me questioningly when I tear up at the meat counter, faced with a choice between frozen tempeh patties or breaded spelt sticks. How will I ever explain to them the richness of goose liver pate on crisp crostini? The mouth feel of Roquefort? The kick of champagne?
I dream of picnics, of cool white wine and summer breezes. I am planning, in private. A black-market visa to Europe is expensive, but not unattainable. If I must live without taste, then really, why live?
2.17.2004
Raw ingredients
Fernando hobbles up the kitchen steps, slick with dishwater and discarded foodstuffs, carrying a box of Twix candy bars in one hand. His other hand hangs limp and swollen at his side. It’s a Sunday, and as usual, we’re at work--the practice of weekends off a concept unknown to the hospitality industry. Students have to eat, even on weekends. So here we are at the university, at work.
I ask Fernando how he feels, noticing his set jaw, his swollen hand. Apparently he was in a car accident not two days ago. He was driving fast, as many 25-year-olds are wont to do in fast cars, and got clipped going through an intersection. Not 48 hours later and he’s back at work, carrying boxes of Twix bars with his good arm, grimacing through pain not-so-concealed by a too-pale face, a weak smile. I tell him to take it easy and he stumbles off to the cafeteria.
I work with a lot of Fernandos, young people who work ridiculous hours for marginal pay. It is hard work, work that makes you sweat, work that can burn or cut your skin, work that offers more physical hours than tangible rewards. For many it is the job that they can get, simply, to make ends meet. Although we all work in a university, probably less than five percent have attended one. English is often a second or third language. Upward mobility for these people is achieved through an elevator, not a career counselor. I am the only employee, I am sure, who has run away from Corporate America, its perks and job security; most of my coworkers would gladly run to it for a chance to earn more than $10 an hour.
There is Sami, with three children all under the age of 7, who works nights and mornings cleaning up after the thousands of undergraduates we feed daily, most of whom wouldn’t know a garbage can if it was dumped over their heads. He is the responsible one, chastising other employees for their shrugged “I don’t knows” when asked about this spilled soup, that improperly placed chemical. He offers small nuggets of wisdom when he gets a moment to stand still--blue smock greasy with food and dirty dishwater, scratching his forehead. People don’t want responsibility, he says. They would rather play dumb. He wears a waist belt to support his lower back, and plastic gloves to protect scars collected over the years. I often give him cookies to take home to his kids, who are finicky and eat little at school.
Javier works in the dish room and carries books on Dianetics under his right arm, the tomes covered in gift-wrap as grade school kids do to math textbooks. He quizzes me over lunch. Do I know Einstein? Shakespeare? Kant? He hums 70s rock ballads under his breath while breaking down cardboard boxes. His partner in the washroom doesn’t speak English at all except to bum cigarettes, but stares hungrily at every female who walks in the room. He’s never looked at my face, but I can feel his eyes on me as I leave, balancing clean dishes in one hand, utensils clenched in the other.
Virgil sits on milk crates at the loading dock and smokes cheap cigarettes in succession on breaks that make up a whole morning, barking at every passerby a greeting both cheerful and unintelligible. “Sure you’re right! Everything’s just squishy-squashy. Good morning number one!” He eats with gusto and with mouth open, spraying fried chicken in many directions as he attempts to keep a conversation with the three real employees on the dock, the walls, and any available ears perhaps floating in the vicinity. He is never quiet, and never unhappy. He has been an employee of the university for 30 years, and used to wash professors’ cars for extra cash. I have no idea what his job really is. Now he asks me for work “on the side,” and I can’t do much for him. Every day he asks for a pack of matches, and every day, I give him one. He’s gone through five boxes in the months I’ve been employed.
I work with felons and children, mothers and men twice-divorced. We gave a cake to an employee to celebrate his first complete year out of prison, using a cigarette as a candle, since he smokes a pack and a half a day. We clapped and sang, “Happy Anniversary!” and he smiled. One kid’s in AA, and practicing transcendental meditation to kick his drug habit. He’s not old enough to drink, let alone buy cigarettes legally. We are a fabulous, dysfunctional family, and oddly enough, one that works like an oiled machine when put to the task. For all the hysteria, I still don’t miss my desk job.
Fernando hobbles up the kitchen steps, slick with dishwater and discarded foodstuffs, carrying a box of Twix candy bars in one hand. His other hand hangs limp and swollen at his side. It’s a Sunday, and as usual, we’re at work--the practice of weekends off a concept unknown to the hospitality industry. Students have to eat, even on weekends. So here we are at the university, at work.
I ask Fernando how he feels, noticing his set jaw, his swollen hand. Apparently he was in a car accident not two days ago. He was driving fast, as many 25-year-olds are wont to do in fast cars, and got clipped going through an intersection. Not 48 hours later and he’s back at work, carrying boxes of Twix bars with his good arm, grimacing through pain not-so-concealed by a too-pale face, a weak smile. I tell him to take it easy and he stumbles off to the cafeteria.
I work with a lot of Fernandos, young people who work ridiculous hours for marginal pay. It is hard work, work that makes you sweat, work that can burn or cut your skin, work that offers more physical hours than tangible rewards. For many it is the job that they can get, simply, to make ends meet. Although we all work in a university, probably less than five percent have attended one. English is often a second or third language. Upward mobility for these people is achieved through an elevator, not a career counselor. I am the only employee, I am sure, who has run away from Corporate America, its perks and job security; most of my coworkers would gladly run to it for a chance to earn more than $10 an hour.
There is Sami, with three children all under the age of 7, who works nights and mornings cleaning up after the thousands of undergraduates we feed daily, most of whom wouldn’t know a garbage can if it was dumped over their heads. He is the responsible one, chastising other employees for their shrugged “I don’t knows” when asked about this spilled soup, that improperly placed chemical. He offers small nuggets of wisdom when he gets a moment to stand still--blue smock greasy with food and dirty dishwater, scratching his forehead. People don’t want responsibility, he says. They would rather play dumb. He wears a waist belt to support his lower back, and plastic gloves to protect scars collected over the years. I often give him cookies to take home to his kids, who are finicky and eat little at school.
Javier works in the dish room and carries books on Dianetics under his right arm, the tomes covered in gift-wrap as grade school kids do to math textbooks. He quizzes me over lunch. Do I know Einstein? Shakespeare? Kant? He hums 70s rock ballads under his breath while breaking down cardboard boxes. His partner in the washroom doesn’t speak English at all except to bum cigarettes, but stares hungrily at every female who walks in the room. He’s never looked at my face, but I can feel his eyes on me as I leave, balancing clean dishes in one hand, utensils clenched in the other.
Virgil sits on milk crates at the loading dock and smokes cheap cigarettes in succession on breaks that make up a whole morning, barking at every passerby a greeting both cheerful and unintelligible. “Sure you’re right! Everything’s just squishy-squashy. Good morning number one!” He eats with gusto and with mouth open, spraying fried chicken in many directions as he attempts to keep a conversation with the three real employees on the dock, the walls, and any available ears perhaps floating in the vicinity. He is never quiet, and never unhappy. He has been an employee of the university for 30 years, and used to wash professors’ cars for extra cash. I have no idea what his job really is. Now he asks me for work “on the side,” and I can’t do much for him. Every day he asks for a pack of matches, and every day, I give him one. He’s gone through five boxes in the months I’ve been employed.
I work with felons and children, mothers and men twice-divorced. We gave a cake to an employee to celebrate his first complete year out of prison, using a cigarette as a candle, since he smokes a pack and a half a day. We clapped and sang, “Happy Anniversary!” and he smiled. One kid’s in AA, and practicing transcendental meditation to kick his drug habit. He’s not old enough to drink, let alone buy cigarettes legally. We are a fabulous, dysfunctional family, and oddly enough, one that works like an oiled machine when put to the task. For all the hysteria, I still don’t miss my desk job.
