Don’t get me wrong: winning a writing award this week from the James Beard Foundation for my humble Reader cover story on the cultural history of mince pie was an honor and a thrill, as would have been simply attending the “Oscars of food” on somebody else’s dime. But in a fair and balanced universe, the award probably would have gone to someone who was at least aware of the awards prior to being nominated (ideally my Reader colleague Mike Sula, who was a finalist as well). Candidly, I was not, though I had heard of James Beard.
The fishing gig also taught me an interesting lesson in the relativity of taste: The guys I worked for were in their late 20s, but the older fishermen we worked with wouldn’t eat “bugs” at gunpoint. They’d started fishing when most of the lobster catch went to fertilize nearby potato fields, and one old guy explained to me how in his childhood any kid caught with lobster sandwiches in his lunch pail was subject to instant social death as a charity case. He found it hilarious that city slickers were willing pay premium prices to eat such a degraded, bottom-feeding scavenger.
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A food writer would likely categorize our standard menus as “comfort food”: big, caloric household fare like lasagna, roast turkey with all the trimmings, fried chicken, chili, corned beef and cabbage, plus a vegetarian option for that easy-to-please minority. At our most adventurous, we undertook a gargantuan feed of sauerbraten, but that experiment coincided with a unforeseen need to break camp and relocate to another clear cut further north. Marinating in huge plastic buckets, our giant cuts of beef bounced around in the back of a pick-up truck for three blazing hot summer days before we saw them again. After a cautious sniff, we roasted and served it. It was the best sauerbraten I’ve ever tasted, and so tender you could cut it with your thumb. I’ve never quite managed to duplicate the recipe.
Anyway, the media awards shindig turned out to be a total hoot, though I really should have fortified myself beforehand with a slice or three of thin-crust pizza, because the food, while delicious, was, well, somewhat more modestly portioned than what I’m used to packing away at dinner. I could have easily managed six or seven servings of the toothsome entree, chef Suzanne Goin’s braised short ribs with baked ricotta, pine nuts, black olives, and crumbled feta.
“Hey, what are you doing out here?” the guy then said to me, pointing at my medal. “You could totally get in with that.”
