In Defense of Culinary Provincialism [weak form]

Per Stephan’s comment, “One other utterly annoying food snob bit of common wisdom is they idea that “they can’t make ____ here like they do at home” (Louisianans are good are repeating this boring bromide). Hmm, well, let’s see, are the laws of physics different in Massachusetts than in Louisiana? I think no. You can get basically the same ingredients nowadays in any civilized place, so yes, you can make it here like they make it there.”

Well yes one can get “basically” the same ingredients, but not quite the same combination of the exact ingredients combined with weather, atmospheric pressure, and a passion for the particular food. New York City expats all over US have been trying to replicate the famed NY pizza in other locales without success. I’ve heard of some entrepreneur’s having grandma ship tap water from Brooklyn to Texas to use in their dough recipes in order to increase “authenticity.” Although the pizza comes out pretty good, it’s just not quite the same. Having all kinds of pizza across the US, I attest nothing quite compares to the pizza in New York, particularly in Brooklyn and Staten Island. I’ve had pizza on Staten Island (at Nunzio’s in particular) that is an extremely close approximation to Plato’s form of a pizza to which nothing else has matched since. This isn’t to say that pizza in Chicago isn’t good, it just isn’t nearly as good as slice from New York (I’m not enough of a pizza snob to turn away a BBQ chicken pizza or a Stouffer’s French bread version as these are good in their own right, but not as good as…). While Chicago’s pizza doesn’t cut it against New York, its hot dogs blow away the boiled dirty dogs, and dare I say Nathan’s grilled dogs in NY. I once ordered a dog in Chicago with sauerkraut and the guy replied, “you must be from NY, New Yorkers have to put kraut on their hot dogs because they’re terrible, there’s no need for sauerkraut here.” He’s right and Chicagoans make better hot dogs, which comes more from an attitude toward particular ingredients. But even as good as Chicago dogs are, they don’t make a good approximation of Plato’s form of a hot dog. I’ve yet to taste such.

For a discussion on provincialism in BBQ, I defer to Bad Edmonds (personally I’m a west Texas fan).

As for Mexican food, they don’t quite make it like in the southwest. Las Cruces (NM), El Paso (TX), Tucson (AZ) all naturally blow away anything in NY. Yeah, you can ship the green chilies to New York but in my experience it is just not the same.

Being a New York expat myself, I’ve learned the hard way to appreciate the provincialism of other places, otherwise I would be miserable all the time, missing good pizza and possibly the world’s best Italian food. I’ve learned to love Greek in Tucson and Chicago, Mexican in the southwest, BBQ in the south, and Rhode Island clam chowder in southeast Connecticut.

What keeps my provincialism in a weak form is that I once had Plato’s form of a key lime pie in Anchorage (AK) while skiing there in February, which blew away anything I’ve ever had in Florida.

While provincialism might at times bore us with its bromides, there is a great amount of truth to it, especially when you’re trying to find Plato’s taco.

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