Sound Taste

Red Hook Food Vendors update

For much of the last three decades, Memorial Day weekend has been the traditional opening day for the Red Hook Fields food vendors. Chowhounds and other foodies have watched the date like birders waiting in Capistrano.

But the weekend has come and gone, and no vendors. A few have been sighted at the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene. Even though Parks & Rec granted them a six-year permit in March, it wasn't clear whether all the vendors would be able to return, given all the expenses involved in meeting Dept. of Health requirements.

I was about to check with vendor rep Cesar Fuentes when I ran across this interview with him at Porkchop Express, which has been at the forefront of documenting and defending the vendors.

The good news: it's almost certain all of the vendors will return, and the new permit allows them to expands days of operation.

The meh: the look will be different, with carts instead of the mercado-looking tents.

The ugly: the new costs -- an added $30,000 for some -- mean that they really need all those folks who defended them to put their money where their mouth is.

César, the son of one of the vendors, has become a great rep for the group. He's passionate, poised and politic. The latter, seeing how he's made sure to speak in a way that does not risk his relations to the city agencies that control the vendors' destiny, had me
carefully reading his responses.

PE: How much do you think race, language and immigration played into the city's crackdown?
CF: This is certainly a very touchy subject, and I have heard compelling arguments that these were some of the reasons behind the city's crackdown. I also believe the vendor's increased fame and notoriety accelerated this process, along with general changes to the area. It might also simply have been 'our time' to face compliance. I can't help but think that it was a collection of all these factors, and that one word sums it all up: gentrification.

This is the closest that Cesar has come to pointing the finger at the racial/gentrification factor in public. The funny thing is, I never quite understood why the vendors bothered the city so much. They are set up in the middle of fields that, guess what, gentrifying whites do not use.

The closest housing to the fields is basically the projects, the sort of factor that normally provides a buffer to clean-up efforts. But I guess that some think the coming of Ikea and Fairway (not to mention all the cute businesses along Van Brunt) will finally change the area, i.e., make it safe for the bougie whites.

But the funny thing is that, as I talked about in my "emotional eminent domain" post, newcomers with money (and even in Red Hook, one has to have $$$ to buy these days) always want a little color with their convenience. Fairway and the vendors.

According to Cesar, the soccer games that were the original reason for the vendors to set up have declined. (I can confirm that: when I first covered the vendors a decade ago, the games were lively; these days, they are merely background, with only the players' families as spectators.)

Since many of our patrons now pay less mind to soccer than to Huaraches, the vendors have become the main attraction. When Red Hook was rediscovered, so were the food vendors. Still, vendors' reactions were mixed: some adapted quickly, others more gradually.... They could have easily relocated to other fields in the city with a stronger Latino presence, but didn't – even if they felt anger or initial resentment towards the change. And in a very human way, the vendors have adapted to change in the way they operate and do business, welcoming new crowds without sacrificing their authenticity.

I'm with Cesar. The vendors have adapted to the changing market but retained a strong identity. And I don't think that the audience is mostly non-Latino. When I've done informal surveys in the last couple of years, there have been plenty of Latinos there. It's just that they too are mostly there for the food and not the games.

In either case, be on the lookout for the return of the vendors, possibly in another couple of weeks. Look for the news here or at Porkchop's site.

[pix of huaraches, plantain balls and ceviche from last year's market by me]

In praise of concón

I was thinking about rising prices of rice, cataclysmic food shortages, and the wisdom of peasant cultures while eating some Thai sticky rice this weekend.

I love sticky rice (and mochi and bibimbop) and other toothsome chewy rice-based treats because they all remind me of concón. This is literally the rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Rather than being a culinary disaster, concón is a delicacy in the DR (In PR it is too, called pegao). To the point that some cooks purposefully cook rice so that it creates concón. (I've never quite gotten the hang of this, but I think it involves extra oil and extra fire toward the end of the cooking process.)

Like any hyper-local delicacy, there are rules:

1) It's easiest to make this in those possibly harmful aluminum round-bottomed pans commonly called calderos and available in hardware stores in Latin nabes. Do not try making it with your automatic rice cooker.

2) While it should have some color, it should not be burnt (golden to caramel, not black).

3) Texture-wise, it should be chewy to crispy, but should not threaten to chip your fillings (although some masochistic friends love just that, fighting the rice to submission).

3) It should be served separately, not mixed in with the regular rice. All the better to savor.

4) The more you can scrape from the pan in a single piece, the better. Hence why the picture below, of a pot-shaped piece of concón, is so impressive.

It makes sense that concón would also be loved in Haiti, and I know that for me the only proper bibimbop is one that has rice stuck to the bottom of the pot it's served in, but I wonder how many other rice-eating peoples love that crunchy sticky treat.

Anyone?

UPDATE: In Cuban = raspa. In Korean = nurungji. In Catalán = soccarat. In Farsi = tahdig. See, I knew it!

[concón pix via remolacha]

Friday kids

Precociousness alert: if you are not a fan of cute children performing, click away and wait for my next post.

Maybe it's because I have a new toddler niece, but I've been fascinated of late by videos of little kids performing amazing feats of mimicry. Normally, I despise seeing kids hauled out in front of an audience like trained monkeys, but these had me awww-ing and laughing.

Four-and-a-half-year-old "Hero," Ha Young Woong, performs "Hey Jude," one of supposedly about 40 Beatles tunes he has taught himself to perform, though he does not speak English (he lives in Seoul, Korea).

Next up is 3-year-old Jaden Carda, the "Mini Minimalist," who does a spot-on and nearly verbatim recitation/miming of NYT food writer Mark Bittman walking through an instructional video on making chocolate ganache. I nearly peed myself watching this.

And last but not least, diva-in-training Amby, a "Cutie" (I'm just reading the t-shirt), singing her version of Girl in a Coma's "Say" (the blurry swaying is trés arty).

As if you needed more proof that the Voice sucks

After Nina Lalli was summarily shown the door at the Village Voice, I'd forgotten to check in on the paper's new chowchick, Sarah DiGregorio. During a cursory look at the one or two things left worth reading in that rag, I noticed that Eat for Victory had been replaced by Fork in the Road (cute title, works for me).

Here's the weird part. After leaving Lalli's Feb. 19 post up FOREVER, FitR started March 10 without so much as a hello, I'm the new eater on the block. Fine, I don't expect DiGregorio to explain her new boss' bizarro decisions. But no acknowledgment of a new columnist, a column name change? That's just weird, like some totalitarian regime changing history books to erase "inconvenient" facts.

As of this morning, DiGregorio's posted 24 times since her start, with as many as four posts in a single day (Lalli averaged about 3-4 posts a week). Ah, the eagerness of the newbie employee. Don't worry, Sarah, the Voice will ditch you too one of these days.

So far, she's treading familiar ground -- commenting on news, riffing off of Sietsema, a couple of field trips and some original reporting (like Bowery Whole Foods' decision to stop offering plastic bags a month earlier than its national cutoff). We'll check in periodically, but to be honest the whole affair has left a bitter taste.

[photo of Andrew Coté's honey over blue cheese from DiGregorio's first Voice post]

Beany, baby

For me, the point of any holiday worth celebrating is getting together with family, and the glorious food.

And while I sometimes tend to giving nouveau twists to family holiday menus (i.e. Christmas Day Dominican-style Chinese fried rice made with lechón leftover from Nochebuena), there are some standbys that I will love till the day I die. In the González households, no major celebration can pass without pastelitos and potato salad (how potato salad became a Dominican staple is beyond me, but there it is).

A favorite Easter DR treat is one I sometimes have a hard time explaining to non-Dominicans (even other Latins): habichuelas con dulce.

This sweet, a sort of cinnamon-infused bean-based soup, is eaten during Holy Week and at no other time of the year (except in El Alto, where you can buy it year-round from Nena la Rubia, a sidewalk vendor on St. Nicholas and 181st St.). I haven't run across a dish like it in any other Latin American cuisine, and Cubans and Puerto Ricans, our closest culinary relatives, always raise a quizzical eyebrow when I bring it up.

I've outgrown the taste for many cavity-inducing Dominican sweets, including the fudge-like dulce de leche and several types of fruits preserved in syrup. But I still crave habichuelas con dulce, maybe because, despite Nena, it really belongs to a particular time of the year.

I also like taking an everyday ingredient and presenting it in an unexpected way. And I love the little surprises it contains: the bits of sweet potato and raisins and the little sweet round crackers stamped with a cross that are floated on top.

Making beans sweet is not unique to wacky Dominicans, but mostly it's an Asian thing. Think of Japanese sweets made with red bean paste, and the lovely horn of plenty that is Malaysian ABC.

But I wonder where the specific Dominican dish came from. Historian José Guerrero has an elaborate origin story that involves migrants from the Haitian side and an adaptation of French "frijoles azucarados," which sounds a little odd. I smell a culinary research project!

If I ever opened a haute Dominican resto, I would make a dessert that plays with the idea of HcD. Either an ice cream (which Helados Bon in the DR makes seasonally) or a sort of deconstruction, separating out the beans, the cookies, raisins and sweet potato.

The Daily News ran a story about HcD in this month's Viva section, and it includes a recipe.

Here is a recipe I tweaked from the one Tía Clara has on her Dominican cooking website:

    Ingredients

    2 cups of red beans
    2 cinnamon sticks
    10 cloves
    5-6 grains of allspice
    1/2 cup sugar
    1 cup coconut milk
    3 cups milk
    salt to taste
    1/2 cup sweet potatoes, chopped into 1" cubes
    1/4 cup golden raisins
    garnish: casabe or little cross cookies.

    Cook beans in about 4 cups of water, adding one of the cinnamon sticks and half the cloves and allspice. Once cooked till soft, drain beans, reserving 2 cups of the cooking water. In a blender, mix beans and water into a thin purée (I like to hold some beans aside for the sake of texture). Place bean purée and half the cow's milk in a heavy-bottomed pot at medium heat. When it begins to boil, add the rest of the cow's milk, salt, sugar, raisins and sweet potato, lower heat to a simmer and cook for about 15-20 min., until sweet potatoes are cooked. Stir regularly so the bottom doesn't scorch. Add remainder of spices and coconut milk and cook until thickened. Allow to cool in the refrigerator at least an hour before serving with toasted pieces of casabe or little cookies floating on top.

[HcD illustration by John Coulter via his blog; Galletitas de leche Guarina pix via La Central Express]

Breaking news: Red Hook vendors are legal!

Just read a note from César Fuentes, the representative for the food vendors at the Red Hook ball fields, announcing that the Parks Department has issued the group a six-year permit to operate the wonder-filled outdoors food court that's been operating on the spot for decades. My angst-filled posts covering last year's brouhaha are here and here.

After facing numerous hurdles related to Dept. of Health regulations (having to do with proper food handling, storage, the usual), several of the vendors took classes to get certified, and Parks asked them to submit an RFP (proposal) that had to be completed on a tight deadline. According to César, the group "described our history, our hopes & our plea to continue our commitment to our patrons & visitors- To provide some of the most delicious & authentic Latin food experience around." Here, here.

"Over the past fifteen years, the vendors have been at the vanguard of the Red Hook Renaissance, and now they have another six years to continue their delectable work. I look forward to visiting the ball fields again soon and supporting this Brooklyn treasure," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has been a real helpful defender of the vendors (we hear a few foodies on his staff really pushed him on this -- this is the passion these vendors inspire).

Don't mark your calendar yet -- each vendor who continues at the spot must meet DoH standards around equipment for food storage, cleaning, etc. We'll keep you posted.

Long live deliciousness! Not THAT is the best sign of spring.

[photos of corn on a stick and pickled onions by me and Anthony Inswasty, taken last year]

Nina Lalli, where are you?

Since Valentine's Day, I've been anxiously awaiting the results of the Cubano Challenge over at the Village Voice's personable food blog Eat for Victory.

But something odd is going on. A few days after this post apologizing for plumbling problems at EfV HQ, Lalli stopped posting on the 19th, over a week ago.

Emails sent to EfV's address and Nina's individual Village Voice address bounced back. I sure hope she's not a late victim of the purging that led me to mostly give up on the VV, which I'd been reading faithfully since I was 13 and you could only get it in Manhattan for $1.

Come back, Nina, I miss you!

UPDATE: Our worst fears have been confirmed. Eater reports that Lalli is out and some gal named Sarah DiGregorio is in. A quickie Google reveals that Sarah is a Brooklyn-based freelancer who's written for an even altier publication, The Brooklyn Rail, as well as for Time Out and food porno mag Gastronomica. She seems to have gone to Brown and to NYU J-School.

I'll give Sarah a fair chance, but only if she reports the results of the cubano-off. Otherwise, that leaves Robert Sietsema, Michael Musto and Status Ain't Hood as the only reasons to read the VV site (but not to pick up the paper, not even to wrap fish in).

Get out the (cubano) vote!

Nina Lalli over at the Village Voice food blog Eat for Victory is accepting votes through today for the Cubano Challenge.

I already sent her my vote, which is for 1) El Mambi, 2) Margon, and 3) El Rey del Sandwich Cubano. I know that cubano fanatics are legendarily, well, fanatical, so post a comment on the blog or email her here.

Off to make lunch, seeing those sandwich pix is making me hungry.

[pix courtesy of Village Voice]

Cubano Challenge

Since I don't get out as often as I used to, I only found that one of my standbys, Havana Chelsea, had closed after reading about it in the Village Voice food blog Eat for Victory. (The closing last year of the ersatz but delicious Kitchen Market and a tip from a friend that Sucelt, one of my other area favorites closed a month or so ago, means that now there is only one Latin destination left for me in all of Chelsea: La Taza de Oro).

Through EfV, I have been following the yo-mama beef between Casa Havana (what the new owners have renamed the old Havana Chelsea locale) and the old owners of the spot. For the installments of that telenovela, check here, here and here.

But now the new people have declared war. In this post, EfV conveys the words of Casa Havana owner Thomas Vicari, claiming that his place makes the best Cuban sandwich in the city. He writes,

I have eaten and tested over a thousand of these so called cubanos. I have perfected the perfect cuban sandwich.I would like to challenge anyone who says they have the best cuban sandwich! I would like to have your paper The village Voice hold the contest and let the people vote.

I'll have to swing by and check it out, but something about the tone makes me doubt. When someone needs to boast so loud, he runs the risk of being mucha espuma y poco chocolate.

I take cubanos seriously, ever since my dad got me hooked on them arriving on Saturday nights with a bagful of thin-as-an-envelope freshly-pressed beauties from La Lechonera #7 on Junction Blvd. (now a Colombian spot). There were also the family must-stops at El Mambi on trips to Washington Heights, and the obligatory cubano in Union City (I forget at which place). Yes, I know that Tampa cubanos are supposed to be the non-plus ultra, but I rarely go there, so my Platonic ideal resides here.

Meantime, I refer you kind readers to the Nueva York list of Top 5 Cuban sandwiches in the city, which included Havana Chelsea's (the others, in order of my preference, are: Mambi Express in Wash. Hts., Margon in midtown El Rey de los Cubanos near City College and El Sitio in Woodside).

Let me know which are YOUR favorite cubanos -- I'll be making a mini-tour in the next couple of days to send EfV my picks, as well as eating Vicari's words, er, sandwich.

[drool-inducing cubano photo courtesy of tasteofcuba.com]

This is not a bottle of rum; this is not a bottle of soda

These two bottles look innocent enough, but they both represent liquid contraband (shhh, don't tell Homeland Security).

The bottle on the left is honey, bought near San Juan de la Maguana, in the DR's arid South. I can't quite identify the type of flower the bees visited, but sugar cane is flowering now, and the honey is a little boozy and mellow.

Honey is not only one of the oldest foods consumed by man, but it also always has an unmistakable terroir, especially where bees are wild still. And here, it's best to buy honey from road stands, where it's been collected by local campesinos, and bottled in whatever's handy (hence the recycled Brugal bottle). Supermarket honey, though still local, is usually adulterated with molasses.

Most people think the island is one long uninterrupted beach, but there are several ecosystems here. There's even one area, Constanza, where the temperature drops to freezing in winter. The South is very dry, with lots of succulents (cacti are common) and has crops that don't grow as well elsewhere (guandules, anón, a chewy kind of corn).

Even in a smallish island (you can go tip to tip in a few hours, barring traffic), honey tastes different from place to place. A bottle bought in the Central Cibao region tasted muskier and richer.

As for the mystery liquid in the bottle on the right? It's clerén -- Haitian cane liquor. There is no commercial production, and on the Dominican side, it's forbidden, so the way to get is in Haiti or buying it from one of the smugglers along the border. Again, the artisanal production explains the recylced bottles.

I paid RD$80 (US$2) for the 20 oz bottle. When we stopped at the border on Elias Piña (our friend Osiris suggested we buy on the Dominican side, to avoid problems with the border guards), we asked one of the motoconcho guys who sold some, and he took me a few minutes down the road and up a dusty, rocky hill to the house of a man who eyed me up and down before agreeing to sell it to me.

The motor taxi guy was right about the quality; this is a good few steps above rotgut. It reminds me of a nice cachaça, which makes sense, as they are both basically the same liquor.

A friend promised to find me some San Pedro guavaberry (a liqueur made by West Indian immigrants who came to work in the sugar factories), but I think that'll have to wait for some other time. My plans for the clerén? Probably neat, when New York warms up, or if I just want to feel a little Caribbean warmth. Who needs all those brain cells anyway?