This Guacamole Haas No Avocado

The courts have just told us that a burrito is not a sandwich, and now we'll find out if guacamole legally has to contain avocado. A Los Angeles woman is suing Kraft foods over its "guacamole dip" for misleading advertising because the dip contains only 2% avocados. The article is here.

Interestingly, the article notes that peanut butter must contain at least 90% peanuts according to FDA regulations. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's that high. Many European countries take the contents of their food products very seriously. I wonder if this is the beginning of greater federal regulation in this country.

Another important Food and the Law issue...

Is a burrito a sandwich?

Thanks to Jim Smith for the pointer.

How do you know it's fall? Sausage soup and pumpkin ice cream

Yesterday, Chris announced that he wanted to go to Lincoln Square to buy sausages today. Lincoln Square is an older but charming Chicago neighborhood about fifteen minutes from our house. It has an obvious German influence. Every year -- like many towns -- they have an Octoberfest with good German sausages and beer. The "square" is like any small-town downtown, with plenty of small shops and tree lined parking. They also have metered lots, which is great because you don't have to pay $20 to park for half-an-hour. We've eaten at some interesting, genuine biergartens, but today we had Thai food. Sorry.

In any event, the real purpose of our trip today was to visit Han's Delicatessen Meyer, Chris's favorite German grocery. While Chris was taking the MPRE this morning, I studied our numerous and varied cook books for a sausage-related recipe. I settled on Country Style Cream of Leek Soup from Splendid Fare: The Albert Stockli Cookbook. My dad picked up the book -- which was published in 1970 -- for Chris at a book consignment sale. According to the book jacket, Stockli "made New York's Four Seasons restaurant celebrated around the world." I don't know about that, but I do know that his recipes are influenced by his European training and, particularly, his Swiss heritage. Hence, Country Style Cream of Leek Soup, which is simmering as I type (with a few of my slight modifications):

Chop and saute four slices of thick bacon for 5-10 minutes. Remove some bacon for garnish later. Roughly chop and add to the saute: three leeks, half an onion, three cloves garlic. Add a bouquet garni (parsley, thyme, basil), salt and pepper (light on the salt). Add four cups of chicken stock or canned chicken broth (I am using canned broth because Chris has been slack on making stock lately.) and bring to a simmer.

In a cast iron pan, brown several sausages, such as smoked farmer sausages, bauernwurst, cervelat, Kielbasa, pig's knuckles, or small pork link sausages. We're using two each of thuringer and nuernberger sausages. Add the sausages (whole) to the simmering stock. Simmer uncovered for about 45 minutes or until the leeks are soft and well cooked. (I haven't gotten past this point in cooking, but I'm sure Chris will blog about the finished product later.) Remove the sausage, pour the soup into a blender (or, if you're smart enough to have one, use an emersion blender. And, I strongly recommend buying one. They're so easy to use and clean.) Puree the soup until smooth. Return to stove and stir in one cup of cream. Yum!! Heat, but do not boil. Slice the sausage and return it to the soup. Serve sprinkled with chopped chives and the reserved bacon.

For dessert, we're having pumpkin ice cream. I know it sounds kind of strange, and I was skeptical at first, but the unfrozen custard (which is cooling in the fridge) is great. I can't wait to freeze it:

Halve two small pie pumpkins (not the same as carving pumpkins), remove seeds, and roast until soft or microwave in a dish with about half an inch of water for ten minutes. Scoop pulp into a bowl and add 1 tsp vanilla paste or extract (I recommend buying the real stuff, it makes a huge difference). If you don't want to cook the pumpkin you can also buy canned unsweetened pumpkin puree. Refridgerate the puree for a couple of hours.

Whisk 1 1/2 cups of cream and 1/2 cup of brown sugar over the stove, let warm on medium heat for about ten minutes, stirring often. Whisk five egg yolks, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger), until the sugar begins to dissolve. Slowly pour about 1/2 cup of the warm cream mixture in to the eggs, whisking, to temper the eggs. Pour the egg mixture in to the warm cream and simmer, stirring, for about five minutes or until the custard coats a spoon. Cool over an ice bath, then whip the pumpkin puree into the mixture. Refridgerate for three to twenty-four hours (longer results in better texture), then freeze according to the ice cream manufacturer directions.

So, we're having Country Style Cream of Leek Soup for dinner, and homemade pumpkin ice cream for dessert. This is what I call a real fall meal! I can't wait!

Domaine Saint-Damien Les Souteyrades Gigondas 2003

We picked up some lamb shoulder this weekend, and I braised it tonight in red wine, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, and celery. Sadly the store was out of baguettes, so much good jus went unsopped. The lamb immediately called to mind a Rhone wine, so I picked up this bottle from the southern portion of that region. While it was rather ripe and round for an old world wine, it showed a nice balance of earth and acidity to pair well with the food. American wineries would be well-served in studying wines such as this, which show the value of rich fruit and soft texture when combined with length, structure, and tannin.

Sweets & Savories

Last Sunday, Chris and I went to Sweets & Savories for brunch. Chris has been wanting to try this place for a while, and I thought brunch would be a fun but affordable way to see what we thought about it. I made reservations through Open Table and sent him an e-vite as a surprise.

The restaraunt is small, to say the least. There were probably fifteen tables. Decor is minimal and is mostly brown and pink. We arrived and were seated promptly at a table by the front window, looking out onto the street. To our surprise, there were several large parties at tables pushed together, including what looked like a baby shower or birthday party for an infant, complete with baby blue baloons tied to the chairs. Otherwise, the restaraunt was not overly full.

Our waiter was nice enough and knowledgeable about the food. Sunday brunch is a three course prix fixe menu for only $16.00. For this, you receive various scones and muffins and are given choices of: 1) drinks, including tea, coffee, mimosas and bloody marys; 2) soup, salad or fruit; and 3) an entree.

Chris ordered the curried potato soup and duck confit hash with poached eggs and a lemon hollandaise sauce. He requested champagne in lieu of a mimosa, and was offered a presseco, which was fresh and bright. I ordered a bloody mary, as well as the arugula salad and soft scrambled eggs with white truffle oil.

Chris's soup was not "curried" so much as it was a warm vichyssoise. It was creamy and rich, and just wonderful, with a hint of truffle. The arugula salad was also great -- lemony and nutty. Chris really loved his duck confit hash (which I did not taste), and the poached eggs in lemon sauce were out of this world. They were perfectly cooked, and the lemon added just the right touch of spark. My soft scrambled eggs were also nice --served over brioche -- but the bread was soggy and the "white truffle" was non-existent. Over all, the food was solid and I would return for that.

That said, our service was simply atrocious. We were brought our soup and salad promptly, and after we had each taken one bite, someone who appeared to be a food runner approached our table and informed us that our entrees were ready and asked if we minded having them served immediately. Chris said yes, we actually did mind, and the food runner said he couldn't do anything, our food was coming out. He was quite rude about it, and he and Chris bantered briefly. He insisted that he was going to bring the entrees out despite our request to wait. Chris then asked about our muffins and scones, which had not yet been brought out, though they are listed as the first course on the prix fixe menu. The food runner very brusquely said he would go and get them if we wanted them. He disappeared and shortly thereafter returned with the scones, but, thankfully, not the entrees.

Our entrees were ultimately delivered after we finished our soup and salad course, as we requested. The food itself was solid, if not terribly creative. The disappointment in this meal was the service, which was astonishingly bad -- e.g., trying to bring our entrees with the salad course, not bringing the "first" course until askd, not refilling our water even once. But, I can live with bad service. Sometimes it happens. Here, the service was downright rude. Chris later had a nice conversation with our actual waiter, but I was not able to get beyond the poor service. While Chris would like to return for a dinner, I would not.

In sum, the food was solid, brunch prices are more than reasonable, but service was terrible. If you're in it for the food and don't care about the service, go for it.

Food, Law, and Culture Panels

A while back I published a Call for Papers for a panel devoted to food and the law at the upcoming Law, Culture, and Humanities conference at Georgetown University. I got an excellent response and am forming two panels on the subject. Here are the abstracts for the papers:

J. Amy Dillard
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Baltimore
School of Law

“Sloppy Joe, Slop, Sloppy Joe”: How USDA Commodities Dumping Destroyed the National School Lunch Program

Alice Waters, the godmother of the organic, whole food movement, has set the considerable resources of her Chez Panisse Foundation to the task of reforming school lunch in Berkeley, California, while working within the confines of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). First funded by Congress in 1946, the NSLP combined two post-Depression Era objectives: 1) assist with the health of the nation’s children, and 2) ensure a market for farmers. The Department of Agriculture has used the NSLP to turn the nation’s school lunchrooms into a commodities dumping ground that has produced a glut of obese children and an expanding agribusiness that processes whole foods into nutritional nightmares.
This paper will explore the history of the NSLP and its complex relationship with USDA commodities, will examine the agribusiness of converting commodities into unhealthy lunchroom food, and will conclude by discussing the cultural challenges faced by the organic, whole food movement for bringing healthy food to a land where “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving” freaks are excoriated by social conservatives.

*******

James Smith
John Byrd Martin Chair of Law
University of Georgia School of Law

Genetically modified pollen drifting onto the field of a neighboring farm may cause substantial harm. If the bystanding farmer is growing non-genetically modified crops, she may suffer a pecuniary loss due to genetic ‘pollution.’ If the pollen is patented, the patentee may also claim harm stemming from the unauthorized distribution of its proprietary genetic material. Disputes arising from pollen drift present classic legal questions arising under the law of neighbors and classic economic questions broached most famously by Ronald Coase in his essay on The Problem of Social Cost. The application of the Coase Theorem and its most applicable corollary strongly suggest that: 1) balancing rules under nuisance law should be applied on a case-by-case basis to determine whether any particular genetic polluter should be liable for damages caused by pollen drift; and 2) most bystanding farmers should have viable defenses to patent infringement. Venerable legal principles applied to this new problem suggest the same two conclusions. Proving both propositions provides a textbook demonstration for the usefulness of economic analysis and solves a world-wide multi-billion dollar legal problem.

******

Morgan L. Holcomb
Visiting Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota Law School

The local food movement has taken root (or perhaps taken root again). Witness books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan) and Eat Here (Halweil), activists taking on school lunches (Alice Waters revamping the Berkeley public school cafeteria), and the proliferation of farmers markets in almost all regions of the country.

This local food movement evidences a new or renewed interest in where our food comes from. Some farmers hope that it also means a renewed interest in keeping farms as “family farms” and a renewed economic commitment to do so. But what is meant by the term “family farm”? Shall we include large-scale commodity farms, or is “family farm” a proxy for something else? Perhaps by “family farm” we intend something other than simply any farm owned by a family.

This paper will begin by exploring what we mean by “family farm.” It will then go on to address what role will the tax code plays in our complicated agricultural system. Finally, the paper will address whether the tax code in fact save the family farm, and if saving the family farm a goal worth achieving.

******

Charlene Elliott
Assistant Professor
School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University

In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Quebec’s long-standing law that prohibits the sale of yellow margarine. While the precise colour of margarine may seem trivial, the dispute carries on a century-old tradition in Canada of placing margarine in the legal (and lobbyist’s) limelight.

Margarine presents a long and bizarre legal history which opens the door for probing both the notion of legislative intent and the belief in a product’s communicative potential. The buttery impostor has been banned, outlawed, bootlegged, taxed and colour-coded—and even implicated in the Canadian Constitution

Inspired by Arjun Appadurai’s (1988) claim that ‘objects have social lives’, this analysis provides a legal ‘biography’ of margarine in Canada from 1886 to present. It details how the product has become the site of contestation, negotiation and special interest claims, and how the evolving regulation of margarine reflects some surprisingly consistent social realities.

******

Jonathan M. Gutoff
Associate Professor of Law
Roger Williams University School of Law

Under the Common Law, certain animals were classified as “royal” and were preserved for the sovereign as part of his or her prerogative. However, while salmon were recognized to be “great fish” they were not considered to be royal fish. I propose to use the case of sturgeon and salmon to explore the relationship between law and culture. Specifically, my plan is to investigate how the culinary and social distinction between sturgeon and salmon in the medieval period was reflected in the development of the legal distinction. Then, and this is why this case study may prove quite interesting, I hope to show how, in turn, the legal distinction in early-modern and modern times was reflected in the social and culinary position of sturgeon and salmon.

******

Patrick Baude
Ralph F. Fuchs Professor of Law and Public Service
Indiana University – Bloomington

Memory and the Twenty-First Amendment.

The Twenty-First Amendment (1) repeals Prohibition and (2) allows states to prohibit the transportation or importation of intoxicating liquors. Justice Stevens, dissenting from a recent Supreme Court opinion somewhat limiting state bans on importation, observed that the Court’s decision would “seem strange indeed to the millions of Americans who condemned the use of ‘demon rum.”’ This is a sensible thing to say about Prohibition but quite an odd thing to say about an amendment repealing Prohibition. His comment was especially powerful, however odd, in light of the implication that he had personal memory of this particular bit of legislative history. In fact, one can remember that history as a condemnation of strong drink or as a condemnation of the corruption created by the ban itself. Which memory one privileges will determine whether the penumbra of the Amendment is “wet” or “dry.” This paper traces the link between that history and a number of current questions, such as: (1) Can parents allow their twenty-year old children a glass of wine? (2) Can women be forbidden to drink because they might be pregnant? (3) Can sleeping pills be banned because they sometimes cause automobile accidents?

******

Christopher J. Buccafusco
University of Chicago

A Culture of Hospitality: Social Norms and Intellectual Property Among Chefs

American law offers little in the way of intellectual property protection to chefs’ creative recipes. Nonetheless, an informal system of social norms exists among chefs that serves to promote recipe innovation, assign credit to creative chefs, and inhibit rampant copying. This paper will examine the history of these quasi-IP norms and the culinary profession’s overarching “culture of hospitality.” It will attempt to determine whether the existence of such norms made the low-IP situation possible or whether they developed in response to a lack of legal protection. Finally, it will consider whether such a system is uniquely possible in the culinary profession or whether it can shed light on other areas of cultural property.

A Pork Filled Weekend

After an eye exam on Saturday (apparently all of this graduate schooling isn't good for the eyes), Stephanie and I stopped into a small Latin grocer and picked up a couple of pork cuts not seen at the yuppie markets. That night we roasted a saddle of pork with root vegetables. The saddle is the part on the top of the animal where the loins come together. It is like two very thick pork chops connected in the middle by the backbone. I had a bottle of Dr. H. Thanisch Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett 2004 open from the previous night that matched superbly. Kabinett is the driest of Germany's sweet rieslings, but it is still far too sweet for Stephanie's palate. It was an excellent wine, with stone fruit flavors, a wild honey sweetness, and a pleasantly lingering acidity.

Last night I braised a pork belly. Regular blog readers will know of our love for the pork belly sandwich at Blackbird, and, fortunately, I was able to locate a recipe online by Blackbird chef Paul Kahan. The belly is the same cut of meat that bacon comes from. It's enormously tender and flavorful, and a bit fatty. The pork is seared on both sides to render some of the fat and then mirepoix and white wine are added to deglaze. Finally, a bit of chicken stock and bouquet garni, and the whole thing is roasted uncovered in a 325F oven for 2.5 hours. Stephanie prepared a delightful side dish of wilted escarole with green peas. She even toasted some bread and smeared it with butter and mayonaise to imitate the Blackbird sandwich. Everything was supremely delicious. Earlier that day at Sam's we had picked up a bottle of J-P Granier Coteaux du Languedoc les essentielles 2001 on sale. Unfortunately, it tasted like something from California or Australia rather than the Languedoc we had hoped for. Far too ripe, alcholic, and glycerin-y to go well with pork. Another riesling, like the Wehlener or perhaps from Alsace, would have been a much better choice.

Georges Duboeuf Moulin-a-Vent Oak Aged 2005

Again keeping things gastronomically simple in preparation for visitors, we decided to order a pizza from Father & Son tonight. It was sufficiently yummy, despite being cut into squares. F&S is about the only pizza place that delivers to Chicago's west side hinterland. I wonder if they'd cut it into normal slices if we asked.

In any event, we opened our first bottle of the new 2005 vintage from Beaujolais. It is perhaps worth pausing for a moment to discuss the wines of Beaujolais for those only familiar with its most (in)famous product Nouveau. Beaujolais is a region in the east of France, south of Burgundy proper, and its considerable production of red wines is devoted to the Gamay grape (also occasionally found in the Loire Valley). Gamay produces crisp, light red wines with refreshing berry characteristics and little tannin. This makes it a lovely choice for "Nouveau" bottlings, where the wine is released weeks after being harvested, pressed, and fermented. These wines, while perfectly acceptable for a celebration, are not especially satisfying. The next step up in quality are labeled "Villages" (pronounced vill-ahzj). These are fine table wines for regular consumption, showing more structure than the nouveaux. At the top are the "cru" wines produced from particular sub-regions within Beaujolais. These wines, from crus named Julienas, Morgon, Fleurie, Brouilly, etc., are some of the best values in the wine world. They usually sell for $10-20, and they can be as satisfying as more expensive bottles from Burgundy.

The wine I chose, from Beaujolais's biggest and best known producer, was, sadly, not up to the fine standards of the cru bottlings. It had a lovely violet red color but the oak aging did little more than make the wine taste like a cheap California pinot noir. Perhaps it needs some time to integrate, but the oak covers the delicate floral and berry notes that are so desperately trying to be noticed. In any event, the 2005s promise to be tasty. Just try different bottles.

Domaine des Aubuisiéres Vouvray Cuvée de Silex 2005

I didn't feel like cooking anyting too fancy last night, so I whipped up some pasta and shrimp in garlic and olive oil. It wasn't an exciting meal, but the wine we chose was quite nice.

Regular blog readers will be familiar with my fondness for chenin blanc from the Loire (clearly Eric Asimov has been reading my blog), and I couldn't pass up this Vouvray selling for a few dollars cheaper than the bottlings by Huet and others. I was also attracted to the wine's designation as "cuvee de silex," drawing attention to the predominant soil type in the vineyard (a practice popularized in the Loire Valley by Didier Dageneau).

Made by Bernard Fouquet, this wine showed great minerally balanced by round stone-fruit flavors and aromas. The Loire reds I've tasted from '05 have been uniformly flabby due to the high summer temperatures, but this bottle kept everything in the proper register. While perhaps not as age-worthy as Heut's vouvrays or Baumard or Joly's savennieres, this was a chenin that could stand up to rich fish like salmon or rouget and even to pork and veal.

Ch. Malartic La Graviere 2003 & Ch. Pedesclaux 2003

It rained for the 41st consecutive day in Chicago, but this time I was ready for the weather. I braised some beef short ribs and made some lovely mashed potatoes with more butter and cream than Stephanie was aware of. The short ribs were excellent. They may very well be the most naturally flavorful cut of beef.

We paired dinner with a couple of 2003 Bordeauz. The Malartic La Graviere hails from the Pessac Leognan and has a rich floral and hotdoggy aroma. On the palate, the flowers turn to red fruits backed by a solid by unintrusive layer of tannins. The Pedesclaux comes from Paulliac and shows rich fruit and floral aromas and a matching palate. The finish on the Pedesclaux is much longer than the Malartic, but it is also a more extracted and modern wine. Both wines were surprisingly restrained considering that they were produced during the scorching 2003 vintage, and both matched well with the meal. If I had to choose, I'd give the edge in the wine-food pairing to the Malartic and the edge in stand-alone pleasure to the Pedesclaux. But, fortunately, I don't have to choose.

Shellfish Fest

After hearing that co-blogger Jonathan and my Moto dinner companion John had never schucked raw oysters, Stephanie and I decided to invite them over for a lesson in opening the delicious bivalves. Dirk's Fish Market was the source for the oysters, which included Kumomotos, Fanny Bays, Virginicas, and Malpeques. Our guests picked up the technique rapidly despite imperfect instruction. Fortunately, no fingers were lost. Unfortunately, a number of the Fanny Bays were not edible, but the rest of the oysters were delicious. I was particularly impressed by the briny yet clean character of the Virginicas and Malpeques. We drank a delicious 2004 Beauregard Muscadet as we schucked. It's crisp acidity and minerally finish accented the oysters perfectly.

Following the raw fish, we decided to eat something cooked. I smoked Prince Edward Island mussels on the grill with hickory chips. They took a while to open, but they had a splendidly rich flavor tinged with smoke. The obvious wine pairing was a Pouilly-Fume (Fume is French for "smoke"), and we enjoyed an excellent bottle of 2004 Chatelain (it was manifestly better than one reviewed earlier on this blog). It seemed round and broad following the muscadet, but the flinty finish went perfectly with the mussels. Also, following a recommendation from co-blogger Charlie, we tried a bit of peaty Scotch with the mussels, choosing the obviously delicious Johnny Walker Blue Label. If only we had more mussels and more Scotch.

Deciding that we were no where close to full, I grilled a pair of mackerel, seasoned only with salt, pepper, lemon, and Sicilian olive oil. Mackerel is a rich, oily fish (so much so that Stephanie declined to try it), so it was just the thing to follow the smoked mussels.

Jonathan was kind enough to bring by a bottle of grappa, which a welcome resource for continued gastronomic pleasure. It was full, rich, and oily with a delicate hint of plums. Unlike some of the more fruity or restrained grappas on the market now, this one had the heft that signified its authenticity.

With such a wonderful digestif, we were fully prepared to enjoy the wonderful cheese, goose pate, and 2003 Carmes de Rieussec Sauternes that John provided. Although I'm sure I don't even have to say it, the sweet, rich wine paired excellently with the extravagant goose pate and the Rochefort and Humboldt Fog cheeses.

Having plied our guests with enough food and drink to put a horse into a coma, I decided that it was an excellent time to revenge a bocce drubbing that John and Jonathan had given my neighbor Willie and I a few days earlier. Grappa in hand and straw bocce hat on head, we managed to tie the series at two games a piece. It was a fanatastic evening.

Food, Law, and Culture Panel - Call for Papers

The folks at LawCulture have been nice enough to link to my Food, Law, and Culture call for papers, so I am moving it to the top of my blog. Please stop by their blog if you get the chance.

****
I am currently soliciting paper presentations for a new panel on “Food, Law, and Culture” for the annual Law, Culture, and Humanities Conference to be held at Georgetown University, March 23-24 2007.

Last year’s conference included a handful of “Law and Food” papers in different panels. They were all well-received, and the topics they addressed seem worthy of integration into a single panel. The panel’s goal will be to begin theorizing about the place(s) of food in the law by exploring both the different ways law treats food and the various cultural norms about food that lie behind this treatment. My work, for example, analyzes the copyrightability of recipes through the lenses of aesthetic philosophy and the cultural history of cooks and cooking.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

Intellectual property rights in genetically modified foods
Hunger strikes and force-feeding prisoners
Last meals
Food torts, e.g. exploding sodas, fingers in chili, coffee in the lap
Government regulation of food and alcohol
Obesity regulation
Animal rights
Dietary laws and regulations in different cultures
Trademark rights in appellations of origin
Farm subsidies and international trade
Linguistic classification of food, e.g. kosher, 1st Growths, Organic
Sumptuary laws
Famine
Labeling, packaging, and branding
Rationing
Food stamps

The deadline for submissions to the conference is October 15, 2006, so please respond well before then if you think you might be interested in joining the panel. Also, please circulate this to any colleagues that might be interested. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,
Christopher Buccafusco
chrstphr@uchicago.edu

Stephanie's Birthday Dinner at Spring

Having taken the whole week off to celebrate her birthday, Stephanie thought that it would be nice to spend the time doing things that she doesn't normally get to do during the week when she's at work. So on her birthday we headed to Hot Doug's for lunch. Their Saturday lines are often too long, so it was nice to go during the week when we could get in quickly. Stephanie had her usual Chicago dog with cheese fries, and I enjoyed my last foie gras dog in Chicago (the ban goes in effect today) and a mushroom swiss pork sausage. This seemed like the perfect start to our big day of fine eating.

Sadly, dinner was unable to meet the high standard set by lunch at Doug's. We had reservation at 7:30 for Spring, a fairly fancy restaurant housed in an old bath house in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. We'd been meaning to go for some time and were even more encouraged by the announcement of Chef Shawn McClain's James Beard Foundation Best Chef in the Midwest award. Spring, his first solo restaurant, is devoted to Asian-inspired fish, while newer restaurants focus on vegetables and steaks.

When we arrived, the dining room was less that half full, and it would remain so throughout the evening. Clearly the James Beard award does not do for a restaurant's business what 3 Michelin stars do or, for that matter, a Food & Wine "Best New Chef" award does (Schwa is booked for the next two months). I was fortunate that the restaurant was not more full, however, because the table we were seated at had a wobbly chair. The staff were nice enough to move us.

As we poured over the menu, Stephanie had the inspired idea of having a single raw oyster between each course of the meal. We checked with the waiter, and he agreed (if not gladly). The oysters were Rocky Points from Prince Edward Island, and they were far more enjoyable spaced out during the meal than consumed en masse at the outset. Each was presented on a bed of rock salt and dressed with cucumber mignonette and fresh wasabi. Unfortunately, these were the highlight of the meal.

Stephanie began the meal with a bowl of the chilled sweet corn chowder with peekytoe crab. She described it, in a way that would have made Bernard Loiseau proud, as "the essence of corn." I chose scallop and potato "raviolis" - scallop slices sandwiched between thin slices of potato and sauced with truffles and mushrooms. The concept was interesting, but when the sauce was poured over the crisp potatoes, they disintegrated into a murky pool of starch. The flavor of the scallops, however, was spot on.

After another oyster, we split an heirloom tomoto salad that was both beautiful and delicious. I would recount the varieties included but the waiter didn't know when asked and he made no effort to find out.

One more oyster, and the main courses were served. Stephanie chose the bluenose grouper with lobster and crab dumplings in shellfish broth. The dumplings were superb, and the broth was delicate and flavorful, but the grouper was overcooked, chewy, and lacking flavor. Stephanie recommended leaving out the fish and serving the course as a "wonton soup." It would have been much better.

I followed the waiter's advice, usually a good choice, and selected the sockeye salmon with fingerling potatoes and lobster mushrooms. The fish was overcooked and the Chinese stirfry sauce was exceedingly oily. Perhaps most disappointingly, as it showed the utter disregard of the kitchen staff, were the actual pieces of fish I received. Instead of receiving a single thick fillet of salmon perched on top of the other ingredients, I was served two small cuts from the tail of the fish (the worst cut), toppled over the plate, and with an enormous gash in the crisp skin. The woman next to me ordered the same dish and received a far superior product. It is difficult to believe that a kitchen like this would care so little. Perhaps Chef McClain had switched his kitchen staff for the evening, because our fish tasted like it was prepared at a steakhouse.

If only I could stop this tale of woe here, but doing so would neglect the rather poor service that we received. The waiter, as mentioned, was kind enough to agree to our oyster request, but no effort was made to describe the dishes. At a restaurant of this caliber, one expects the waiter to remind the diners what they are eating and perhaps to offer a comment about the preparation. Here, on the other hand, we couldn't even find out what the tomatoes were when we asked. The food runner was polite, and he congratulated us on our wise choice of the oysters, but the bus boy was exceedingly gruff when he wasn't being entirely unresponsive. He cleared the plates with visible distain and crumbed only half of one of our place settings. Perhaps he was having a bad day, but this is not the kind of service I expect for a James Beard award winner, or of an Applebee's for that matter.

Dinner at Moto

I apologize for the blogging hiatus. We have been very busy celebrating Stephanie's birthday. More on that to follow.

Last Saturday, however, Stephanie was out of town, and I invited my friend John, a law professor who appeared earlier in this blog as Jonathan's dining companion at Le Bernardin, to a last-minute dinner at Moto. We took the 9:30 reservation, as it was all that was left as of Friday afternoon. Moto, for those unfamiliar with cutting-edge gastronomy, is one of these "molecular gastronomy" restaurants that serves food inspired and created by various scientific processes. Chef Homaro Cantu was kind enough to be interviewed for my paper on the copyrightability of recipes, and many of the dishes we consumed were created with patent-pending technologies.

The meal began when we were presented with edible menus that also served as both the amuse bouche and a legal statement. An edible strip of paper was attached to a piece of crisp bread, which were used to eat Indian-flavored lentils with preserved lemon. This was matched with the best cucumer juice shooter I've ever tasted. The shooter let us know that dinner would not simply offer a progression of "gee-whiz" flare but a seriously tasty gastronomic experience. The menu, however, very clearly warned us against attempting to recreate any of the chef's patent-pending techniques without first purchasing a license.

After some indecision about which tasting menu to order (the restaurant offers 5-course, 10-course, and the 20-course GTM menus), John and I settled on the GTM - Grand Tour of Moto - and we decided to order wine by the glass rather than purchase the course-by-course accompaniments. But more on the wine later.

Dinner began with a Vietnamese egg-drop soup, where the egg had been dipped in liquid nitrogen (as you will see, a familiar theme for the evening) and "cooked" in the warm, spicy soup. This was followed by one of our favorite courses of the evening, sweet corn ice cream with liquid nitrogen (LI) kernels and mussels and clams in bacony broth. Many of the courses, and most of the truly successful ones, made use of temperature contrasts such as this. By tacking between warm and cold, the meal seemed more like a dance than slog through a series of heavier and warmer courses. It made the 20 courses seem almost not insane.

The corn was followed by "synthetic champagne" where a liquid in a glass is combined tableside with a different liquid in a syringe over the glass, carbonating the resulting liquid, which, while tasty, bears little resemblance to champagne. Next came the only disappointing savory course, goat cheese snow with balsamic. The cheese had been dipped in LI and then shattered to create small white flakes. It was drizzled with the balsamic. I found the flavors too abrupt and poorly integrated. Another ingredient was necessary to bring them together - perhaps hills of bread.

The meal continued with a series of fish courses: hamachi sashimi (over-)marinated in "carbonated" clementine with parsnip puree, a delicious crab dish with passion fruit and "popcorn butter" sauce, and bass cooked in patented ovens placed on the table. This last course was served with heirloom tomato sauce and mushrooms. It was reasonably tasty, but John and I were surprised to have received very differently shaped pieces of fish.

The fish courses were briefly interupted for one of my favorite courses - "savory dippin dots" (no doubt a trademark violation on Chef Cantu's part). We received "peas and carrots," a spoon of frozen dots made from liquified and sweetned vegetable juices. I found it both delicious and playful.

We next received our meat courses. Tender bison in a red runner bean puree was eaten with patented "aromatic utensils," which sport spiral handles stuffed with sage leaves. After a bite of frozen jalapeno, we enjoyed a thrice seared beef ribeye with a pureed kielbasa sauce. The meat was divine; the sauce a bit peculiar and not especially helpful to the meat.

As we began a progression of nine sweet courses I noticed that John was looking a bit full. I think he had begun to wish that we had chosen the 10-course menu. John does not sport my well-earned girth, and having almost eaten himself to death at Joel Robuchon earlier in the month, Moto was proving to be quite a challenge for him. Committed gastronomer that he is, John tucked into the first "dessert" - mac & cheese where the "noodles" were made from hollowed out fruit and the cheese was a triple-cream mixed with white chocolate. The next dessert, "fettuccine alla dolce" was my favorite - sweetened pasta noodles (real noodles this time) with a lovely sauce. John really enjoyed the next dessert of cotton candy 3 ways - paper printed with cotton-candy flavored ink, a cotton candy truffle, and malanga root strips flavored with cotton candy and white chocolate.

By 1:30 am the finishing courses became something of a blur, but I must credit pastry chef Ben Roche for their daring contrasts of textures and flavors and their ability to put familiar sensations in unfamiliar contexts. Only one proved to over step the line, the next to last course of "chili-cheese nachos." At 2:15 the visual pun was simply too intense, as sweetened nacho chips were served with some kind of "cheese" and a salsa made of kiwi. I may have enjoyed this course had I tasted it earlier, perhaps after the mac & cheese, but 19th was too late to serve it.

The service at Moto was friendly, knowledgeable, and well-coordinated if a little less professional than one might expect for a bill this large. We received solid advice on wine selection, and our questions about techniques, ingredient sources, and other minutiae were all answered.

The wine program, however, leaves quite a bit to be desired. The wine list is quite small in comparison to similarly priced restaurants, and only four reds and four whites are offered by the glass. Admittedly, cuisine like this is not easy to match to wine. Even if you know what to match with shellfish, for example, how are you supposed to decide what to drink when the shellfish comes with a side of corn ice cream? We followed some of the staff's wine recommendations and went out on our own for others, but had little meaningful success either way. John and I seemed to agree that a diner at Moto is best served by choosing a glasses of white, red, and sweet wine that look interesting instead of making any attempt to match the wine to particular courses.

In sum, the dinner was a great success. The dishes were thoughtful, exciting, and most of all, delicious. Despite the muted decor, the atmosphere is alive with wonder and awe. I would happily go back and would strongly recommend even the 5-course meal for a very reasonable $65. Moto plays an important role in Chicago's current reputation as America's most innovative dining city.