A man after my own stomach
Jul. 1st, 2004 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacFeeding a Yen by Calvin Trillin
Although I'd enjoyed other work by Calvin Trillin, I'd never paid much attention to his food writings, because he was usually describing in detail something I'd never eaten or some place I'd never been, which I found about as comprehensible as detailed critiques of novels I'd never read. But something clicked when I happened to glance through this, his fourth food book, and found in the last chapter his tribute to something I have eaten, the San Francisco burrito.
The San Francisco burrito, to which I was introduced by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liveavatar and her roomie, is just a burrito: a tortilla filled with rice and beans and salsa, and a choice of meat if you want. It's big, but apart from that it wouldn't seem to be anything other than an ordinary burrito. But it isn't. It's much better. And you can only get it at one of several large tacquerias in San Francisco's Mission district. Even if the tacqueria has a branch outside the city, the burritos there won't be the same as the San Francisco burrito. I don't eat burritos much, but I regularly stop off for one of these. Trillin notes that "serious eaters in San Francisco tend to be loyal to their own burrito purveyor." Like his friend Growler Ed, I am a Tacqueria Pancho Villa person, though I've had good ones elsewhere.
So I read the whole book, and found that while I don't share all of Trillin's tastes - he likes fish tacos, which contain mayonnaise and are therefore an abomination - I do share his principles, which include:
1) The best food is not always at the "best" restaurants, but can be anywhere;
2) Finding local treasures, at home or away, is one of the joys of life;
3) When traveling, eat the local specialties. It'll often be the best food; and if you want something you can as easily get at home, get it when you're home;
4) If you're only going to be in a town for a few meals, make sure they're good ones.
It's interesting that this should come up right when someone on the Potlatch committee is disputing my contention that there aren't many good restaurants near the Ramada Plaza. She seems to be using a much broader definition of the word "good" than I'm comfortable with, and one of the word "many" that doesn't do justice to San Francisco.
Trillin's opposite is defrocked former Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene, who once wrote a column expounding on his motto, "Never Travel for Food." And never worry about food while traveling, either. Greene says, "The first restaurant you enter will be fine." Greene says, order from room service: it's more convenient than the hotel coffee shop. (Yes, he really thinks this.) Greene says, "We are cars, and food is gasoline," a metaphor so icky it suggests he has no sense of taste at all. Greene says, he was once talked into traveling an hour for a great pizza, which turned out to be an ordinary pizza without even pepperoni on it. Greene says, this proves you should never travel for food. I say, this proves Greene needs a better class of friends.
At home, I'm pretty utilitarian. We don't eat out much, and I cook mostly stove casseroles based on rice or pasta, with veggies and seasonings. But I do have a circuit of half-a-dozen grocery stores, because no single one carries all the products I like. And when traveling I have to eat out: there I have learned over the years to follow what I now know to be the way of the Trillin. Now I'll read his books, too.
Although I'd enjoyed other work by Calvin Trillin, I'd never paid much attention to his food writings, because he was usually describing in detail something I'd never eaten or some place I'd never been, which I found about as comprehensible as detailed critiques of novels I'd never read. But something clicked when I happened to glance through this, his fourth food book, and found in the last chapter his tribute to something I have eaten, the San Francisco burrito.
The San Francisco burrito, to which I was introduced by
liveavatar and her roomie, is just a burrito: a tortilla filled with rice and beans and salsa, and a choice of meat if you want. It's big, but apart from that it wouldn't seem to be anything other than an ordinary burrito. But it isn't. It's much better. And you can only get it at one of several large tacquerias in San Francisco's Mission district. Even if the tacqueria has a branch outside the city, the burritos there won't be the same as the San Francisco burrito. I don't eat burritos much, but I regularly stop off for one of these. Trillin notes that "serious eaters in San Francisco tend to be loyal to their own burrito purveyor." Like his friend Growler Ed, I am a Tacqueria Pancho Villa person, though I've had good ones elsewhere.So I read the whole book, and found that while I don't share all of Trillin's tastes - he likes fish tacos, which contain mayonnaise and are therefore an abomination - I do share his principles, which include:
1) The best food is not always at the "best" restaurants, but can be anywhere;
2) Finding local treasures, at home or away, is one of the joys of life;
3) When traveling, eat the local specialties. It'll often be the best food; and if you want something you can as easily get at home, get it when you're home;
4) If you're only going to be in a town for a few meals, make sure they're good ones.
It's interesting that this should come up right when someone on the Potlatch committee is disputing my contention that there aren't many good restaurants near the Ramada Plaza. She seems to be using a much broader definition of the word "good" than I'm comfortable with, and one of the word "many" that doesn't do justice to San Francisco.
Trillin's opposite is defrocked former Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene, who once wrote a column expounding on his motto, "Never Travel for Food." And never worry about food while traveling, either. Greene says, "The first restaurant you enter will be fine." Greene says, order from room service: it's more convenient than the hotel coffee shop. (Yes, he really thinks this.) Greene says, "We are cars, and food is gasoline," a metaphor so icky it suggests he has no sense of taste at all. Greene says, he was once talked into traveling an hour for a great pizza, which turned out to be an ordinary pizza without even pepperoni on it. Greene says, this proves you should never travel for food. I say, this proves Greene needs a better class of friends.
At home, I'm pretty utilitarian. We don't eat out much, and I cook mostly stove casseroles based on rice or pasta, with veggies and seasonings. But I do have a circuit of half-a-dozen grocery stores, because no single one carries all the products I like. And when traveling I have to eat out: there I have learned over the years to follow what I now know to be the way of the Trillin. Now I'll read his books, too.
