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.

Last night I had the pleasure to dine at the Soul de Cuba Cafe, which recently opened on the corner of Crown and High St.s here in sleepy New Haven. The wait of about 80 minutes was really excessive, but the restaurant has only about a dozen tables and purports not to take reservations. (I say "purports" because despite assuring us over the phone that they did not take them, the waiter apologized for not being able to give us an open table because he was planning to fold it into two more for a reserved part of eight). We happily mulled the time at Richter's after quickly entering and leaving the nefarious BAR.

But the food was quite yummy-- the plaintains were the best part, although my chorizo-stuffed pot roast was appropriately spicy. (It should have been cooked a little longer, though-- pot roast should fall apart at the touch of a fork). Others seemed to enjoy their pork and snapper, although some complained of slightly one-dimensional flavor. A better route next time would be to order lots of stuff and share it, but the vegetarian-friendly offerings are scant.

On a related note, I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean a few nights ago. I know I should not have waited so long to see a swashbuckling flick with Johnny Depp as the star buckle-swasher, and it was better than I had hoped. Depp's jaded, detatched way of saying, "How interesting..." made the movie. My girlfriend inexplicably prefers something called Nate and Hayes, which will now have to go on my Netflix queue.

Vladimir Nabokov, in a note written to himself in his youth:

(Looking up) at the evening star, his favorite, applying to it simile after simile, finding nothing on his evening walk more beautiful. . . . Suddenly it speaks: "Foolish man! What are you excited about? I'm a world too, not like the one on which you live, but noisy and dark like yours. There is sorrow and coarseness here too--and if you want to know at this very moment one of my inhabitants--a poet like you--looks on that star you call 'Earth' and whispers to it: 'O pure, O beautiful.'"