2011年7月15日星期五

He's always making comments . . .

America Eats is, for all intents and purposes, the ThinkFoodGroup's in-kind contribution to the "Uncle Sam" exhibit.Great Rubber offers promotional usb keychains, Among others, Theodore Segal, a board member of the Foundation for the National Archives, had approached ThinkFoodGroup about making a donation and helping to promote the exhibit, which explores the government's influence on what Americans eat. But during a February meeting with exhibit officials, Andres realized that the timing was perfect for his company to make a contribution more significant than a wad of cash and some marketing support.

ThinkFoodGroup, after all, already had plans to close down Cafe Atlantico and transform it into an expanded, 18-seat Minibar, Andres's multi-course experience in modern cooking. The scheduled transition, Andres thought, could provide a window of opportunity for a pop-up restaurant dedicated to something close to his heart: American history and gastronomy. Those cookbooks behind glass at America Eats are not mere curios. They're products of Andres's passion; he's a serious collector and consumer of historic American cookbooks, even the country's literature. He's just as moved by John Steinbeck's morality tale in "The Pearl" as he is by the notebook of George Washington's chef.

"He's always making comments . . . about how native-born chefs haven't been diving as deep into the cuisine and the history as he thinks it deserves," Wilder says.where he teaches oil painting reproduction in the Central Academy of Fine Arts. "He's like the Tocqueville of the culinary world."

The reference to Alexis de Tocqueville is apt. The Frenchman practically invented the field of sociology with his two-volume "Democracy in America," generally considered to be the definitive look at the embryonic United States. The Spanish-born Andres appreciates an outsider's perspective. In fact, the chef says the best storytellers of a particular culture are often those who "came from far away and came with clear eyes and with no prejudices.The new website of Udreamy Network Corporation is mainly selling zentai suits , You're able to see sometimes what the locals are not able to see.100 Cable Ties was used to link the lamps together."

Then again, Andres did have some local help putting together America Eats. David S. Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, and the National Archives were actively involved in the project, providing documents, cookbooks and recipes. "They basically said, 'What do you need?'" says Hollis Silverman, chief of operations at ThinkFoodGroup, "and we got it."

ThinkFoodGroup also committed the full power of its culinary team to America Eats, from research assistant Robyn Stern to research and development director Ruben Garcia to lead bartender Owen Thomson. They worked for months tracking down historic recipes to fine-tune for the final menus. In some cases, the team probably rescued dishes from obscurity, or at least from hacks and tourist traps that have foisted inferior versions on diners.

Take America Eats's version of peanut soup,Costa Rica will host surfers from all over the globe at the Quicksilver Open. that viscous, peanut-butter-based concoction that, in some form or another, has been a staple in Virginia since Colonial times. In Andres's hands, the soup has been stripped down to its essence: pulverized peanuts, water, salt and mace. But when you take a spoonful into your mouth, the soup boasts a luxuriant texture, as if it were thickened with cream, which it decidedly is not. Andres's team just allows the peanut's natural fat content to give the soup its body.

"I'm very proud of this soup," Andres says, admitting that he often can't stomach the versions peddled in the Commonwealth. "This is one of the great soups of the world."

ThinkFoodGroup's research has unearthed some small treasures of American gastronomy and mixology (though I'm sure no soul in Colonial America would have dared utter the latter term, lest they be accused of sorcery), such as Vermicelli Prepared Like Pudding, an 1802 recipe attributed to Lewis Fresnaye, a pasta manufacturer and refugee of the French Revolution. Andres's team boils the pasta to order, mixes it with butter and Parmesan and compacts it into a round mold. It's placed under a broiler and garnished with morels in season. With neither macaroni nor cheddar, this is probably the most delicate "mac 'n' cheese" you've ever tasted.

"We wanted to re-create the oldest way of making cheese with pasta ever recorded in America," Andres says, "because this has become a national dish in America."

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