MIAMI EGGS AND I

I was in Miami last weekend, and I know that Miami is a hotbed of good eatin’, but I was there for a book fair and I knew my opportunities would be limited.  There in the book fair’s hospitality lounge I ate whatever this is: 

some kind of vaguely Cubanish vegetarian sandwich on the right and devilled eggs on the left.  I’m pretty sure the gourmet powers that be have decided that the devilled egg is hip again, and that’s OK with me.

And there was a party at the Standard in Miami Beach, and Questlove was there, comb in hair just in case you didn’t recognize him (and in fact I’m not sure I would have recognized him without the comb), and the waiters came round with sliders and things on sticks, and they were fine, but it wasn’t prime psychogourmet territory.

On Sunday morning, having no eating companion, I went to the local Publix supermarket which struck me as a rather superior supermarket, and I admired the look of the canned chorizos in lard, but I didn’t honestly think I could sit on a bench and eat them from a can .

So I wandered around in the stinking heat looking for somewhere to eat, and by luck rather than judgment I ended up in a place called Bin 18. And did I ever strike lucky.  They were serving brunch – basically poached eggs with various Benedict-ish variations. 

But wait, what’s this on the menu – it says that all their eggs are cooked sous-vide.  Blimey!  If devilled eggs are now declared thoroughly hip, I couldn’t help wondering if sous vide eggs (or sous vide anything) might be a bit “last-craze.”  But they were damn good.  I had the Don Quixote – poached eggs, with two kinds of chorizo (that would be chorizo palacios and chorizo cantimpalo - and no reference to lard) caramelize onions, hollandaise, and some rosemary potatoes on the side.

A younger version of myself would never have been able to sit alone in a restaurant with a glass of wine eating alone, savoring a meal – not even brunch.  Some things do get very slightly easier as you get older.

THE DEVIL HAS ALL THE BEST EGGS

 If you’re on the email list for Nathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine you occasionally get sent one of his molecular gastronomy recipes. I know he doesn’t much like the term molecular gastronomy, but until something better comes along to describe his cooking it will have to do.  As a meaningful term “modernist cuisine” strikes me as a complete a non-starter.  Modernist as in Modernism?  As in Picasso?  As in Ezra Pound? As in Le Corbusier? Come, come.

Anyway, these emailed Myhrvold recipes produce much innocent mirth in a reader like myself, since they involving hours, if not days, of labor, the use of massively expensive quasi-industrial equipment, and in the end you’re left with a spoonful of lemon curd or some such.

The latest recipe to come across the bows is Chorizo French Toast (above).  This is actually one of the simpler recipes, requiring only a sous vide machine and a vacuum chamber, and could probably be accomplished in a couple of hours or so.  You might think that the average sous chef (as opposed to a sous vide chef) might be able to rustle up something remarkably similar in about ten minutes, but why be negative?

I think the result seen above, looks pretty decent, shown here with a "quenelle scoop of olive marmalade." And there’s a word to the wise from the email under the heading “tips and substitutions.”  “Save your quail shells. We like to serve a trompe l’oeil in them. We use spherification to make a passion fruit egg yolk and white, and serve it in a quail eggshell.”  Well they would, wouldn’t they?

Eggs have been on my mind lately because the Tam O’Shanter restaurant, just down the road from me, is currently celebrating 90 years in business, and to mark this, each month they feature dishes from a specific decade of their history.  They also print facsimiles of the relevant menu.

Last month they celebrated the 1940s and the menu was from the war years, and on the front there’s praise for, “The stupendous job the government is doing in distributing the food so that all may be adequately fed,” although it concedes that “shortages and restrictions are inevitable before long.”

Inside, the menu itself shows few signs of austerity.  There’s Planked Hamburger, Fresh Cuban Pineapple (with or without cottage cheese), Little Pig Sausages with Potatoes.  There are also eggs served many ways, including devilled.  I actually ordered these in the restaurant.  They were perfectly good, as good as devilled eggs ever are.

And, having a long memory, I recall the days when dinner parties in England regularly featured devilled eggs as a starter.  I even made them myself - this was right before the avocado vinaigrette craze swept the nation.  The term “devilled” originated in the 18^th century, and doesn’t mean much more than “spicy,” although the concept of flavoring egg yolks is ancient and dates back to at least Roman times.

The English variety I used to make weren’t especially devilish, the yolks were mixed with mayo, mustard and Worcestershire sauce, and paprika was sprinkled on the top.  Trust me, in 1970s England this was regarded as pretty darned exotic. How they were regarded in America in the 1940s I’m not sure.  How Nathan Myhrvold would regard them I can only imagine.

Anyway, above are some I made earlier.  They're probably not restaurant quality, and definitely not modern.  Modernist? Nah.  Postmodern?  Just possibly.