No prizes for guessing why I had to satisfy my curiosity with a read of
Edward Lee's 'Buttermilk Graffiti — A Chef's Journey to Discover America's New Melting-Pot Cuisine' (2018).
In 'Culinary Class Wars', while Chef Edward Kyun Lee was impressive with his steadiness in churning out innovative food with different textures and flavors, I couldn't get over how in the show's Round 4's Mixed Teams Restaurant Challenge, he didn't realize it was chuck that was used and not a tenderloin or a ribeye. How? You use these cuts and meats all the time?! Especially when you're a Korean-American chef based in Kentucky, and you don't actually cook Korean cuisine. SERIOUSLY. But he did rectify that as best as he could, in that unassuming humble manner when speaking with the customers.
There're recipes in here, but this isn't a recipe book per se. The author-chef stated that he expressly didn't include illustrations or photos, and pointed us to his instagram page for these. It's a book about food, about how a food comes about, what it means for the person cooking it, and all the memories they stir.
The title of this book, Buttermilk Graffiti, is poetic shorthand for my life. Buttermilk is the iconic ingredient of the American South, one that I not only learned to cook with but grew to love. Graffiti is the art form that first inspired my identity, the thing that connects me to the memories of my youth in Brooklyn in the 1980s. Each word by itself is important but one-dimensional. When they come together, though, they become the full story of who I am. If my food were just one or the other, it would be fine, but it wouldn't be as uniquely layered.
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It is in those stories that you will find the flavors and textures of who you are, and where you will find your story. If you really want to know someone, you have to eat what he has eaten. The story of your favorite foods is your culinary memoir, not a nameless collection of recipes. And that story will be part of the bigger story we all tell every time we turn on the gas and put on a pot to boil. It is the story of American food.
I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book so much. But I did. It isn't just about the recipes. It's about Chef Edward Kyun Lee's stories of his life in America, his experiences and what shaped his recipes. He was thoughtful, and mused much over his memories, his youth and what he has done so far.
Here's the content page and the chapters in the book, and the foods that he talked about. He began his musings with his part-time job at a diner in New York City while attending NYU, a college trip to New Orleans where he learnt about beignets and those at Café du Monde, a cafe of which almost all the waitstaff were from Vietnam in 2016 and 2017. He also had the calas from the cafe, which vaguely reminded him of Korean hoedduck/hotteok. That became a recipe for Korean Doughnuts and Matcha Beignets.
Then we moved on to Lowell, Massachusetts where the author-chef reminisced about boxers, famous boxers and met retired boxer Jack Brady (he passed on 1 September 2018), understood more about Cambodian food at Simply Khmer owned by Sam and his wife Denise. This trip produced Amok Trey and Pork Laab with Fried Egg on Popcorn Bread.
I honestly am not interested in trying any of these foods he listed. Maybe Chanterelle Hummus in 'Chapter 4: The Accidental Fast' in Dearborn Michigan. Okaaaay, the caveat is, I have tried them. I'm just not keen to revisit any of them. Not desserts and not fried foods. Even when tradition and immigrant cultures intersect, American food has a ton of fried things, and burgers and pizza, fried dough, fried chicken, fried meat and more fried things. :PPppPPP
I'm mildly interested in the food 'Chapter 7: A Kibbeh in Clarksdale'. The author-chef went to Clarksdale in Mississippi. He went to Chamoun's Rest Haven run by Paula. It's a Lebanese restaurant, but it also offers Italian food on its menu. It's the food of Clarksdale, of which it is "Italian, Lebanese, barbecue, Mexican, soul food, Chinese—some of it authentic, some not; it all bends to serve the community." He ate kibbeh (one could eat this raw or fried) and cabbage rolls. This stop produced two recipes, Cabbage Rolls with Nasturtim Leaf Kimchi and Beef Tartare-Stuffed Deviled Eggs with Caviar.
'Chapter 14: German Mustard' killed me. He talked about German food, some made by his wife Dianne (who's German) and his mother-in-law. He talked about how he and Dianne would search for German restaurants while on vacation and finding them scarce. LOL I dunno, I don't particularly care for German food. Do you? He offered five misconceptions about German food. Well. Never mind. At least German mustard is good. And this is the one chapter that he dedicates to his wife, unofficially perhaps. It's the one that we see the fatherly and husband-ish side of him. The recipes offer Hasenpfeffer (German rabbit stew), and Roast Butternut Squash Schnitzel with Squash Kraut in a Mustard Cream Sauce.
In the Epilogue, the chef-author said that in this book, he wanted to give a voice to the people who seldom get one, and to investigate cultures he didn't know a lot about. he also tried to cook food that he was previously unfamiliar with, and might still be. He still wanted tell stories, to be respectful of people's words and craft.
Maybe cooking the food of others is appropriation; maybe it is learning. Often I ended up with more confusion and more questions than answers. A question such as "What is Nigerian food?" never has a simple answer. In fact, even Nigerians will debate the answer endlessly. In the face of so many uncertainties, how can any of us be authorities on anything? It is disheartening at times, but it is also the reason I still yearn to learn and discover new cultures and foods I know are out there.
We go to Shapiro's Delicatessen in Indianapolis in 'Chapter 15: The Palace of Pastrami'. The Jewish deli has been open since 1905 and is currently run by fourth-generation owner Brian Shapiro and his wife Sally. Then he went to watch the races at Brownstown Speedway, and talked about racing, and the legendary African-American mechanic and race-car driver Charlie Wiggins (1897-1979). I grinned at the recipes. I understand these recipes. Pastrami and beef tongue. I already cure beef tongues, which are getting really pricey in Singapore. I'll skip the pastrami though. These three recipes are for Beef Tongue Pastrami, Beef Tongue Sandwich on Everything-Spice Sally Lunn Bread, and Beef Tongue on Johnnycakes with Thousand Island Dressing.
The book ends with 'Chapter 16: A Tale of Two Cornbreads'. We go to Hosanna's Kitchen in west Louisville that apparently has one of the best soul food in town, and owner Janice's cornbread is tops. We also go to Shirley Mae's cafe and bar eight and a half miles away Smoketown. Shirley Mae's cornbread tasted different too, and this woman rejects the term 'soul food'. So we have a recipe for Lacy Cornbread with Rhubarb Jam.
I looked at Janice and Shirley Mae and assumed they were cooking the same things—because they were black, because they were women, because they cooked in Louisville. And though there are similarities between them, the differences were much more significant. Those differences define who they are and how they've made the choices they've made in their cuisine. Their two approaches to cornbread are not simply a variation in technique. They represent a rift in their upbringing: one rural and the other urban. I never would have made that distinction if I had not talked to them at length. I would simply have assumed that they made different cornbreads for reasons that were random. It took me a long time to understand that their choices in their cornbread recipes tell an intimate story of their past.
There was nothing terribly difficult or noble about my coming to this relaxation. I just the time to get to know Janice and Shirly Mae. They made me realize that recipes can be an incredibly personal expression. A simple conversation about the origin of a recipe can lead to an entire afternoon talking about one's childhood in Tennessee. There is nothing terribly difficult about making cornbread, either. I could give you Shirley Mae's recipe in one paragraph. But you'd be missing the point.
