Does This Taste Funny? A Half-Baked Look at Food and Foodies (21 page)

Or better yet, Nutella.
They could even pay me in jars of Nutella.

Who am I kidding? For
the right amount of money, I’d wear a giant hazelnut costume and sing their
slogan. Which, if you’re curious, is
"
Che mondo
sarebbe senza Nutella?,
” or “What would the world be without Nutella?”
What, indeed?

Sometimes I wonder,
with the number of people
writing
about food these days, if anyone
just
eats
food anymore. You might think that trying to appreciate food by reading about
it is like trying to appreciate Mozart by looking at a
painting
of an orchestra.

Of course, at least if
you’re
reading
about food, you get the occasional picture to
help you connect with the subject. But what could you possibly get from just
listening to someone
talk
about food on the radio?

Turns out, a lot. ‘The
Splendid Table’ is a weekly show on public radio, but you probably could have
guessed the ‘public part,’ since I don’t think the word ‘splendid’ gets used
very often on commercial radio.

And calm down,
right-wingers—I know you started salivating when you saw the words ‘public
radio,’ but there’s no scary liberal agenda here.

The host of ‘The
Splendid Table’ is Lynne Rosetto Kasper, author of an award winning book on
Northern Italian cooking called, oddly enough, ‘The Splendid Table.’

Her show mixes
interviews with food questions from listeners. They call it ‘”radio for
people who love to eat.” I call it . . . comfort radio.

When I set up our chat,
I had two fears. The first was that somehow she would know that, though I’ve
listened to public radio for years . . .
I’ve
never been a ‘paid member.’

That’s right—I’ve been
stealing
great music and conversation! I’ve been enjoying insightful political analysis
and
 
Tibetan throat singing without paying for either!

So I was afraid we
might get to a really interesting part of the interview, and then someone from
my local station would
interrupt
the phone call for twenty
minutes asking me to make a pledge.

My second fear was that
I would accidentally refer to her as Lynne RISOTTO Kasper, and then she’d
get pissed, thinking I was mocking either
her
or the
classic Italian creamy rice dish.

Thankfully,
my fears were unfounded. She was very warm and down-to-earth, with none of the
stuffiness you might think of when you hear ‘public radio.’

I
figured that she must get tired of answering questions, and I asked her whether
she gets constantly bombarded with food questions wherever she goes. She was
refreshingly honest:

“I
do, and quite frankly, I really don’t mind it at all
—
I
rather like it.
I
f
people
weren’t
interested, I’d be a bit
surprised.

I
t’s
very flattering that people pay attention and have some idea what you do for a
living.
”

She was understandably
diplomatic when I wanted her to name a favorite guest
(“It’s hard to
name names
—
it’s like being asked to name
your favorite restaurant”)
,
but she did single out
quirky writer Amy Sedaris, saying
“she’s just a hoot.”

The more
interesting
answer, if only for
how
extraordinarily
carefully it was worded, came when I asked for her
least
favorite guest.
Someone, let’s say, whose
cooking
is more interesting than
they
are…

“I’m
gonna put it this way . . . I’m not gonna name
names
—
(Again with the
not naming names? C’mon, lady, I’m trying to write a story here! I want to
expose the dark side of public broadcasting!)

There
are
some
people that .
. . lamentably
,
do
not
sparkle
with life and do not generate
an
immense amount of
. . .
enthusiasm
in others
(Got it—sort of the interview equivalent
of powdered mashed potatoes).

I found it encouraging
that she admits to having been stumped—

“Oh,
let me count the number of times! Oh my good
ness,
yes! Absolutely
—I’m an expert at backpedalling.
If you listen closely, a lot of what you’re hearing
is
just logic, not
knowledge.”

“If
you spend time involved in something you get a tremendous
amount of pleasure doing, or being challenged by, you
learn enough that, when people ask you questions, you can extrapolate.”

I’ll have to remember, the
next time I’m entirely guessing at something, to tell people that I’m just
‘extrapolating.’

I thought it was time
to make the questions a bit less ordinary, so I asked her: If a New York deli
wanted to name a sandwich after her, what would you need to make the LRK?

 ”First
of all, it would be made with a really, really chewy ciabatta bread.

It
would be
—
oh
god, I haven’t had this in ages
—
really,
really, REALLY good New York deli liverwurst
.
. .

W
ith
thin-sliced onion that has been marinated in a little
vinegar
to g
et rid of the heat of the onion.
”

“
Those
onions are shaved, they’re piled on the sandwich, the
re’s
mayo on the bread,
and mustard . . .”

“
N
ow
this is not a traditio
nal liverwurst sandwich. T
his
is MY liverwurst sandwich. This is the sandwich I ate growing up.

And
you have this really chewy, fabulous bread — or, if  you’re on the east
coast, you
have a hard roll, which, unfortunately,
nobody here knows what that is…
I
t’s
cultural
(Nobody can make decent
egg salad in Minnesota, either).

The
thing you
have
to
have with that sandwich, and this is where deli traditionalists will raise
their eyebrows and say ‘She’s a heathen,’
is a great
sweet
gherkin
—
NOT
a kosher pickle
—
I
know, ‘S
he’s a barbarian’…”

She’s right. That
is
crazy talk.But while she was
on a roll (no doubt an east coast hard roll), I asked her to deal with a
hypothetical dilemma:

Let’s say I have to
make a romantic dinner for someone, but I’m broke
and
I don’t want to
work too hard. Now . . . extrapolate!

“First
thing you’
re gonna do is buy a potato
. Y
ou’re
gonna buy an onion
, a
nd
a carrot
.
A
nd we’re gonna get one can of tomatoes
. . .
and I’m gonna
assume you have some herbs in the cupboard
.”

Initially, I thought
she was asking if I had any
herb
, and then I thought of how cool it
would be if Lynne Rosetto Kasper hosted “A Splendid Table” stoned. But back to
my romantic dinner.

She asked if I had some
wine around the house
(of course—hypothetically, that’s how I would cope
with being hypothetically broke)
, and whether I had any stale bread
(what
is this, ‘Let’s Make A Deal’?)
. Oh, and I would need some garlic and some
oil or butter . . .

“You
are gonna make her the best peasant soup in the whole world, and it’s gonna
warm her right to her toes.
”

 
“
You’re
gonna take a nice
pot, put some butter in
that pot.
Y
ou’re
gonna slice up a lot of onion, and some of the carrots and put it in that pot,
over medium
to medium-low heat, and cover.
”