1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (153 page)

A close relative of the date plum, the American persimmon (
Diospyros virginiana
) was called
putchamin
by the Algonquin Indians, who ate the fruit fresh off the tree, in the fall, and then dried any surplus to enjoy through winter. This type of persimmon still grows on the East Coast from Pennsylvania to Florida and as far west as Illinois, and has a distinctive taste that’s described as a cross between an apricot and a date. Ripeness means everything here, as this fruit can be overly astringent and almost inedible when unripe—sharply tart, with a grainy texture that leaves the inside of the mouth dryly puckered long after the unfortunate tasting. (For the richest flavor, ambitious eaters are well advised to try hanging around a persimmon tree and catching the ultraripe fruit as it drops to the ground.)

The kaki persimmon (
Diospyros kaki
), also known as the Japanese persimmon (although originally from China and grown throughout Asia as well as in Italy, Israel, and California), is a broad category of persimmon that is larger than the American variety, and harder and flatter, too. There are two main varieties of kaki, and because they keep more easily than the American fruits, they are the ones most commonly seen in U.S. supermarkets: the pointed, deep red-orange
hachiya
(which makes up as much as 90 percent of the persimmons sold in the world) and the flatter, firmer, brightly orange
fuyu
. The first is more astringent than the American variety, while the second is a comparatively nonastringent persimmon and can be eaten in a less-than-ripe state.

Despite its finickiness, the genuine American article is far superior in flavor and texture, best enjoyed peeled at the top and served with a slim spoon for extracting the flesh, although it is also excellent doused with cream or baked into a cakelike pudding.

Mail order:
Local Harvest, ships American persimmons in September and October,
localharvest.org
; Melissa’s Produce, ships from September to December, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables
by Elizabeth Schneider (2010);
epicurious.com
(search persimmon bread; persimmon fool; fuyu persimmon relish);
cookstr.com
(search persimmon gelato; persimmons grand marnier).
Special event:
Annual Mitchell Persimmon Festival, Mitchell, IN, September, tel 800-580-1985,
persimmonfestival.org
.

Finger food doesn’t get more addictive than pigs in a blanket, the diminutive “cocktail” wieners (beef or pork) snugly enfolded in miniature pastry wraps. After dipping them into a pungent mustard, we pop them into our mouths with grateful abandon, whether they come on a woven wicker platter or a silver tray.

Wrapping meat in pastry is an old-timey practice, but the pig in a blanket itself is
probably a descendant of the canapés and sausage rolls that were popular during the Victorian era. Pigs in a blanket began appearing in American cookbooks in the early twentieth century, although the term was then used to refer to all manner of proteins, from chicken livers to oysters, wrapped in anything from biscuit dough to bacon. By the 1950s, the pastry-encased hot dog was universally understood as a pig in a blanket, and it grew to be a standard at backyard barbecues and bridge club dinners.

The piglets’ appeal is easy to understand. Convenient, cute, and salty, they are an ideal foil for just about any preprandial drink, from a can of Budweiser to a flute of vintage Taittinger. Although they wax and wane in popularity, whenever they do appear they are always quickly consumed. And they will forever remain a bar mitzvah classic—the beef hot dogs used for kosher celebrants are sometimes called “franks in jackets,” a term said to have originated at Katz’s Delicatessen in lower Manhattan.

Mail order:
For ready-to-bake, frozen kosher beef pigs in a blanket,
hebrewnational.com
; for high-end organic “pigs” (called Greatest Little Organic Smokey Pork Cocktail Franks),
applegatefarms.com
.

An annual island contest celebrates poke’s diversity.

Cool, silky, and steeped in a pungent marinade, poke is inspired by Tahitian
poisson cru
(see
listing
). It is also Hawaii’s answer to ceviche, and is just one of the many dishes that testify to the extent of Hawaii’s culinary melting pot, deriving influences from immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Portugal. Rosy ahi tuna is the preferred fish, but yellowtail, fluke, bass, and snapper are well-regarded stand-ins, especially with tuna becoming scarce and endangered. (Freshwater fish are to be avoided in raw dishes, as they can carry parasites, which are killed by cooking.)

Poke—pronounced POH-key—literally means to slice or cut into pieces, a simple description for a bright, piquant, vibrantly-flavored marinated fish salad. Though there is no one exact formula for the dish, and some say there are as many as two dozen “authentic” variations, the most common version contains cubes of raw fish, usually ahi tuna, mixed with seaweed, sea salt, chiles, sweet Maui onion, and light sesame oil. The ruby-red dice shimmers, each piece of fish slickly coated with sweet and tart flavors that hit the palate all at once. It’s a pastel rainbow of a dish that can be served either raw or, less wonderfully, flash-fried.

Poke’s delights are well known on all the islands, and versions of it are served at the most high-end restaurants. Celebrity chef Alan Wong has a signature version called Poki Pines: ahi balls encased in wonton wrappers, deep-fried, and served on avocado slices with wasabi sauce.

Where:
In Honolulu
, Ono Hawaiian Foods, tel 808-737-2275,
onohawaiianfoods.com
; Sam Choy’s Seafood Grille, tel 808-422-3002,
samchoysseafoodgrille.com
;
in Honolulu and Seattle
, Sam Choy’s Poke to the Max truck,
samchoyspoke.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Sam Choy’s Poke
by Sam Choy (1999);
Sam Choy’s Little Hawaiian Poke Cookbook
by Elizabeth Meahl (2004);
Poke
by Sam Choy (2009);
saveur.com
(search poke);
allrecipes.com
(search ahi poke salad; ahi poke basic).
Tip:
In Hawaii, decent poke can be found in the refrigerator section of some takeout food stores, and even gas stations and hardware stores.

An elusive and luxurious fish.

As proof positive that the great questions are eternal, a
New York Times
domestic advice column from October 17, 1880, asks, “How Should Pompano Be Cooked?” The story on the proper way of cooking “the finest of fish” goes on: “Should a pompano be broiled or boiled? Grave question full of delicate subtleties.” (Spoiler alert: Both are great. Pompano is so delicious as to be impervious to minor details of preparation.)

For a great many years, the pompano (
Trachinotus carolinus
) has been considered one of the most luxurious fish available on the North American continent—with a generally high price that reflects its desirability. A slim, beautiful fish with edible silvery skin, a forked tail, and plump, smooth, pearly-white, and slightly oily flesh, it represents the best of both worlds: the seemingly contradictory appeal of a lean white fish and of a darker, more oily specimen, all in one fish. Harvested from about April to September in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic, from Florida to Virginia, it is found in densest concentration on the west coast of Florida. Still, it is elusive and rare, a southern fish that’s often found in northern markets. Like many a wily yachtsman, pompano goes where the money is.

Because the fish are relatively small—the largest pompanos can be three pounds, but average size is about half that—they’re often served whole. One of the most beloved preparations comes from the classic French Quarter restaurants of New Orleans:
pompano en papillote
, said to have been created at Antoine’s restaurant in honor of the Brazilian aviation balloonist Alberto Santos-Dumont. The fish is baked in parchment paper (to recall a balloon) with shrimp and lump crabmeat in a white wine sauce. Also in New Orleans, at Galatoire’s, pompano almondine is sautéed and mantled with melted butter and slivers of toasted almonds. Both preparations are aromatic, toothsome delicacies—but when it comes to pompano, you really can’t go wrong.

Where:
In New Orleans
, Antoine’s, tel 504-581-4422,
antoines.com
; Galatoire’s, tel 504-525-2021,
galatoires.com
.
Further information and recipes:
For pompano en papillote,
Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Cooking
by Paul Prudhomme (1984);
kpauls.com
(search fish en papillote);
cookstr.com
(search grilled pompano with lime and olive oil);
saveur.com
(search tommy’s pompano en papillote);
fishingdestinyguide.com
(click Pompano under Local Fish).
Tip:
At first blush, pompano looks like a lot of other, cheaper, less delicately flavored members of the jack family, such as amberjack. Check for a slim, tapered tail and sharply defined fins, along with gleaming silver-blue scales and pale-gold undermarkings.

Salty, buttery, and crunchy may well be America’s three favorite gustatory adjectives—and when they are used in combination to describe airy popped corn kernels, they result in nothing less than a national addiction. What would movies be without it? There is something seriously satisfying about the mouthfeel, texture, shape, and size of the savory confection, as pleasing to handle as it is to chew.

Long before there were movie theaters dotting American strip malls, several types of corn grew in the country’s fields: sweet corn, dent corn (also called field corn), flint corn (or Indian corn), and popcorn. The last differs from its brethren in that each kernel contains a small drop of water surrounded by a hard outer surface and a hull of just the right thickness. Although some Native Americans attributed the corn’s magical popping abilities to the work of a spirit living inside its kernels, it is the crucial water content that allows popcorn to pop as cheerily as it has for over 5,600 years. Archaeologists have found evidence of ancient corn popping in the caves of New Mexico, and Native Americans not only ate the corn but also incorporated it into ceremonial rituals, like the sixteenth-century Aztec festivals in which garlands of popcorn were placed on young girls’ heads.

Corn was first popped
near
American movie theaters around 1912, when street vendors set up their carts outside to catch the hungry throngs. Soon, savvy theater owners realized they could reap additional profits by selling the snack themselves, and a winning combination was born—later to morph into the more elaborate, boxed popcorn known as Cracker Jack that was caramelized and tossed with roasted peanuts (and included a toy prize).

No one did more to modernize the popcorn concept than Orville Redenbacher, a Purdue University agricultural scientist from Brazil, Indiana, who burst onto the scene in 1965 with a variety of popping corn he cultivated and called “snowflake.” Redenbacher’s corn expanded twice as much as other popcorn kernels to produce a fluffier product, and on the advice of marketing consultants, he branded the product in his own image, using his picture and name on the label. Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn was introduced in Chicago at Marshall Field’s in 1970, and the rest is history.

Although the Redenbacher’s brand is strongly associated with microwaveable popcorn, before he died in 1995 Redenbacher himself insisted that the method of choice for popping corn was the old-fashioned one: in a kettle, with hot oil.