Best Food Writing 2010 Part 3

The upset was caused by a spare 42-seat restaurant in a warehouse on the docks of Copenhagen run by Rene Redzepi, a 32-year-old chef whose idea of a spring salad includes beech leaves, axel berry shoots, pine shoots and unripe white strawberries in a dressing made from grill-charred cuc.u.mber skins.

The cuisine at Redzepi's Noma focuses on a continuously researched range of Scandinavian foods. "As soon as they named Ferran as No. 2 in the countdown, I knew the winner had to be Noma," said Alessandro Porcelli, a longtime collaborator with Redzepi on the concept of Nordic cuisine.

"That sends a really strong message that high gastronomy is going in a new direction, toward place-specific, seasonal ingredients, including wild and forgotten ones, cooked in more natural yet highly creative ways."

"This will be a great inspiration for cooks all over the world to look for interesting ingredients in their own backyards and use them in new ways. It's no longer all about technique and technology," Porcelli added.

THE NEWS OF NOMA'S VICTORY spread like wildfire via the Internet, Twitter and the traditional press. Within 24 hours, the restaurant received a staggering 140,000 requests for dining reservations, more than enough to fill the 45-seater at lunch and dinner for six years. As Redzepi took the stage to get his award, he and four of his sous chefs donned white T-shirts with a photograph of a smiling black man printed on them. "This is a team prize, the result of seven years of working together," Redzepi said. "It's a testament to what you can do working with people you love, with whom you can develop yourself," he added, before explaining the T-shirts pictured their dishwasher, Ali, who had been refused a 24-hour visa to be at the award show.

Adria, who is closing El Bulli at the end of next year, gave an emotional speech as he accepted Restaurant Magazine's prize for Chef of the Decade. "El Bulli will never be a restaurant again, so it won't be able to get a prize as one again," he said, as the audience rose to its feet to applaud him. "But this prize is in my heart, and my career is linked to this prize."

NOW IN ITS NINTH EDITION, the World's 50 Best cla.s.sification has been steadily gaining importance. "For the most ambitious chefs, this list has become the key to who's who in the food world," says chef-patron Davide Scabin, of Combal.Zero in Turin, listed at number 35, up seven places from 2009. "It now matters more for us to be in the 50 Best than to acquire other Michelin stars. There's also an element of national team compet.i.tion: This year, five Italian restaurants are in the top 50, and that's exciting. It's a stimulus to keep improving." The Americans have eight in the 2010 top 50, the French six, the Spanish five, the British three. The remaining restaurants come from countries that include Finland, Brazil, Mexico, j.a.pan, Sweden, Singapore, Australia and South Africa. The highest scorer for the U.S., and receiver of the special Acqua Panna Best Restaurant in North America award, is Alinea, at number 7, up three places from last year. Its brilliant chef, Grant Achatz, was visibly moved at the success and warm reception he received. Other high-flying Americans present included Thomas Keller for Per Se (at number 10) and the French Laundry (32), David Chang, for Momof.u.ku Ssam Bar (26), and Daniel Boulud, for Daniel (8). Boulud also hosted the chef's lunch the next day at his elegant, soon-to-be-opened, Bar Boulud in Knightsbridge.

The Michelin system, with its legions of faceless inspectors and penchant for the pompous and the prissy, is not always in tune with the direction today's most innovative restaurants are taking. Its rating structure is often too c.u.mbersome and its criteria too rigid to follow the thrust of the ground breakers. Le Chateaubriand, an unstuffy 1930s bistro in an outer arrondiss.e.m.e.nt in Paris, is a case in point.

Chef Inaki Aizpitarte is selftaught and hugely inventive. His food is imaginative, improvisational, and instinctive-adjectives more often used for a jazz musician than a cook. From his tiny, chaotic kitchen he prepares just one multi-course meal a day, take it or leave it. He has no Michelin stars, but came in 11th in the World's 50 Best this year-after jumping in at number 40 in 2009. in the World's 50 Best this year-after jumping in at number 40 in 2009.

It's not just for the chefs' egos that the listing matters; the World's 50 Best is proving a winner in terms of business, too. "Many of our new customers come thanks to the list, and they're arriving from all over the world," said chef Yoshihiro Narisawa, whose Tokyo restaurant Les Creations de Narisawa was awarded Best Restaurant in Asia for the second consecutive year.

If most reactions to the new order have been positive, the World's 50 Best has its detractors. Comments on the Le Figaro website and in French blogs suggest some French diners just can't accept a non-Michelin, non-French-starring list, especially one that comes out of Britain. Despite being cla.s.sified in the 50 Best, several of France's senior chefs, including Pierre Gagnaire, Joel Robuchon and Alain Duca.s.se, were noticeably absent from the awards ceremony. Grunts and jeers were also heard from some in Italy and other Old World countries whose traditional food is often considered a sacred-and untouchable-part of their cultural heritage.

Chang expressed another point of view: "I think Noma's win shows that the days are over when a chef's image will be constructed around a single person's ego, when it was all about me, me, me, me! Redzepi's acceptance speech proves you need to keep your team together to create a top restaurant. And that's a great lesson."

ANONYMOUS ONLINE REVIEWS AFFECTING TWIN CITIES EATERIES.

By Rachel Hutton From City Pages City Pages

Whom should you trust when picking a restaurant-a professional dining critic, or a tip from a "real" diner on an online review site? City Pages City Pages food editor Hutton examines the impact of such amateur reviews on her local Minneapolis/St. Paul restaurants. food editor Hutton examines the impact of such amateur reviews on her local Minneapolis/St. Paul restaurants.

They gripe about their server tacking the gratuity onto their bill, without realizing that the sum was actually the valet parking charge. They fault the pulled pork for being "too shredded," when, by definition, that's exactly what pulled pork is. They complain that the appetizer is too small-"a -inch diameter of food on a big plate, about of what I would expect"-not recognizing the absurdity of such a large portion of foie gras. They air their criticisms to everyone on the internet, but rarely share them directly with the chef. These are the anonymous commenters on local restaurant review sites, message boards, and blogs: a source of both delight and ire to the local restaurant community.

Restaurants have long been subjected to professional critics-I dug up a New York Times New York Times review published in 1859. But increasingly restaurateurs find themselves being critiqued by anyone with an internet connection. Few other professions face such public scrutiny. You don't read many blogs that a.s.sess the efficiency of a particular computer programmer's code or the speed at which a certain farmer milks his cows. While service-industry workers certainly deal with their share of public feedback, the skills of hairdressers, tailors, and mechanics are perceived to be a bit more mysterious than those of chefs. How many people cut their own hair, sew their own clothes, or fix their own cars, compared to those who make their own dinner? review published in 1859. But increasingly restaurateurs find themselves being critiqued by anyone with an internet connection. Few other professions face such public scrutiny. You don't read many blogs that a.s.sess the efficiency of a particular computer programmer's code or the speed at which a certain farmer milks his cows. While service-industry workers certainly deal with their share of public feedback, the skills of hairdressers, tailors, and mechanics are perceived to be a bit more mysterious than those of chefs. How many people cut their own hair, sew their own clothes, or fix their own cars, compared to those who make their own dinner?

Thus an inordinate amount of online chatter-on blogs, message boards, and review sites-is devoted to restaurants. When I last checked the review site Yelp, it listed 130 reviews in Minneapolis's Beauty and Spas category, 225 in Nightlife, 476 in Shopping, and 898 in Restaurants. The commentary is by and large positive, and restaurants for the most part are grateful to have their praises sung further and faster than they would by word-of-mouth. Several restaurateurs I spoke with said they also appreciate critical but respectful online feedback as a tool to help them improve their business.

But negative anonymous reviews are murkier territory. Everyone is ent.i.tled to an opinion, certainly, and relaying one's experience with sub-par food and service can be a valuable warning to would-be diners. But many restaurateurs say they have received criticism they felt was false, unfair, or malicious-which they had little ability to correct or refute. They were deeply troubled to know that, with a cursory Google search, such messages could reach potential customers for the foreseeable future.

LENNY RUSSO, CHEF-OWNER of the upscale Midwest-focused eatery Heartland, says that often the inaccuracies he sees in online comments are minor. A person might, for example, describe a meal at Heartland that included rice and pineapple salsa-two foods the restaurant doesn't serve. "Maybe it was wheat berries or barley, and it was squash that they thought was pineapple," Russo says. "Hopefully the people reading understand that the writer is ignorant."

But he has also seen broad mischaracterizations of his restaurant spread rapidly around cybers.p.a.ce. He was particularly exasperated by one commenter who complained about Heartland's small portions: "I think I could have gotten more food walking around the taste testers at Sam's Club," she penned. "She didn't really understand what we were doing," Russo says.

Chef Russell Klein, who owns Meritage with his wife, Desta, recalls one incident in which a family brought along a baby who cried loudly throughout their leisurely meal. The adults made no effort to quiet the baby as it continued to disturb other guests' enjoyment of the restaurant's quaint, romantic ambiance. Looking out for the interests of other diners-some of whom had certainly paid for babysitters-Klein says Desta politely asked the woman if she'd like to take the baby out in the hallway to soothe it. The woman responded by making a scene about being "kicked out" and writing a rant that she posted on several restaurant-related sites.

I looked up the screed: "She was the meanest and rudest restaurant owner I had ever seen!" it reads. "A person who can not comprehend that a 10-month-old baby is not able to behave at 7 p.m. can no way make the rest of the customers happy." Although Desta did post a response, the original comment remains. "If somebody puts something out that's biased, unfair, or untrue," Klein says, "it lives forever."

Russo says he's learned to ignore criticism-he gets his fair share from the comments section of his blog on StarTribune.com-though he and other restaurateurs are especially sensitive to unfair comments about their customers or staff. Erica Christ, owner of the Black Forest, recalls one online commenter who complained that a server was flirting with diners at another table and described the server's appearance so specifically that she was easily identifiable. Elijah Goodwell, manager of the Birchwood Cafe, says he was particularly upset by disparaging remarks about two groups of valued customers: cyclists, who were described as "older flabby spandex-wearing bikers jockeying for first place like it was the friggin Tour de France," and kids, of which the commenter wrote: "OMG! Do they really have to eat out? Can't you leave them at home and throw them some kibble when you return?"

THE ANONYMITY GRANTED to bloggers and commenters who write under pseudonyms does have advantages to face-to-face conversation. If someone isn't comfortable with confrontation, Duplex chef Andrew Smith points out, anonymous complaints may be more authentic and direct than those made in person. "'Fine' in Minnesotan means 'it sucks,'" he notes.

But anonymity also means not having to take responsibility for one's words. Opinions need not be justified with knowledge. "You can say whatever you want on a blog and you don't have to research or fact-check or have to be qualified to offer an opinion," Russo says. "Some of it borders on libel." Anonymous critiques also tend to be harsher than bylined comments. Anna Christoforides, owner of Gardens of Salonica, says that she's seen far too much of such internet bullying. Her husband/co-owner has been referred to as a "soup n.a.z.i" and "freaky" on local restaurant comment forums. "The public seems to have lost all of its sense of decorum and diplomacy," she says. Klein concurs: "The viciousness that people display online that they wouldn't say in person is pretty disturbing, actually."

Anonymous comment forums can also foster smear campaigns. "If somebody had a bone to pick with you for whatever reason, they could go online and say some nasty things about your business," Klein says. He wonders if the animosity of former colleagues at W.A. Frost may have prompted some to write negative reviews of Meritage. Goodwell says it's harder for him to trust online comments, not knowing the commenter's agenda, and describes the situation's inherent imbalance. "They have less to lose than we do," he says. "Their reputation isn't involved."

Worst of all, online disputes may be moving off computer screens and manifesting themselves in physically destructive acts. Earlier this fall, Heidi's chef-owner Stewart Woodman published some unflattering remarks about another local chef on his blog, Shefzilla.com, and shortly thereafter his restaurant was egged. The timing and narrow target of the vandalism suggested it may have been retaliatory.

Smith notes that the rise of the "entry-level foodism thing" has shifted the way food is perceived in our culture. "Interest in food has increased astronomically, so you have people who are really into it but don't really know that much about it," he says. He compares the tirades of the notoriously temperamental television celebrichef Gordon Ramsey to those of online commenters. "Those folks who are the chefs on TV actually have a background in cooking and knowledge to compel their rants," he says. "Some of the people don't have the background of knowledge but do try to copy the att.i.tude."

SO HOW DO RESTAURATEURS respond to comments they feel are out of line? "If they attack me personally in a vicious way, I don't respond," Russo says. "For the most part people read that stuff and they don't give it a second thought." On some sites, responding to a comment will move it to the forefront of a discussion; if left alone, comments tend to migrate to less noticeable placement over time. "If you respond, you inject life into it, and the person is probably enjoying your response," Russo adds.

Parasole, the restaurant group that owns Manny's, Chino Latino, and Salut, among others, has jumped into social media with more enthusiasm than any other local restaurateur. (Even founder Phil Roberts, who is in his 70s, has taken to Twittering.) Each of the company's restaurants has one youthful staffer devoted to updating its Facebook page and monitoring online commentary. Kip Clayton, who handles the company's business development, says that he has occasionally responded to online complaints on behalf of the company. For example, when commenters griped about the long lines and ticket times at Burger Jones, he explained that the restaurant was receiving three times the traffic they antic.i.p.ated and were struggling to keep up. (Even for experienced restaurant owners like Parasole, some aspects of the business can be hard to predict.) Still, it's nearly impossible for restaurateurs to respond online and not have their remarks seem defensive. Lisa Edevold, co-owner of Tiger Sushi, discovered the challenges of counteracting negative online comments when a few loyal customers mentioned that they had seen some not-so-positive reviews of Tiger on Yelp and offered to submit their own reviews to balance them out.

Shortly after the loyal customers posted their reviews, several were removed. Looking into the situation, Edevold found a discussion on the site among hard-core Yelpers who accused Tiger of posting "fraudulent" reviews, because several had been written by first-time Yelpers. (Determining authentic reviews isn't Yelp's only business challenge. The company recently came under fire for allegations that its sales reps were offering to make negative reviews less prominent for businesses who advertised with Yelp, as well as accusations that employees were posting negative reviews about businesses that didn't advertise.) "Now when people tell me they love my restaurant and ask what they can do to get the word out, I tell them to stay away from Yelp, because they don't seem to welcome newcomers to their site," Evevold says. "We just stopped all Yelp activity after I read that, thinking that any more interaction with them would just be dangerous."

LIKE IT OR NOT, social media and anonymous online chatter aren't going away. "We have to figure it out or we'll be left behind," Clayton says. "I'm not sure how we're going to communicate with twentysomethings otherwise. Young people depend more on each other than on a Target commercial to tell them where to shop."

Still, every restaurateur I spoke with wished that online commenters would first try to address their concerns in the moment. "That gives us the opportunity to make it better," says Goodwell. "We're human. We're going to make mistakes. But we really care that people have a good experience."

Mike Phillips, chef at the Craftsman, laments the tendency for dissatisfied customers to express their concerns online instead of in person. "No one wants to talk to anyone anymore," he says. "They want to hide behind a computer and say things." Phillips also encourages commenters to be aware of the power of their words-they can have an impact on a restaurant's bottom line. "A lot of people's jobs are at stake," he says.

Russo, too, says he can't understand why unsatisfied customers don't speak up. ("Maybe because I'm Italian and I'm from New Jersey," he says, "I'll tell anybody anything.") "I would have made an attempt to do a better job for you. I'm not going to charge you for something you didn't enjoy. Do they think the chef is going to come out and sock them in the eye?" Russo says he'll oblige a customer's wish, even if it goes against his recommendation. "Order steak well done?" he says. "That's wrong. But I'm doing it anyhow because that's the way you asked for it." Somewhat facetiously he adds, "You want me throw it on the ground and step on it?" (I dare somebody to hold him to that one.) Like most new technologies, anonymous online comments can be both a blessing and a curse. Restaurant-goers may find them helpful in making dining decisions-as long as they know they're coming from a trustworthy source. And restaurateurs appreciate the increased feedback-with a few reservations. "It provides more publicity and more information for people," Klein acknowledges, "but it can be really frustrating to have people who don't know a whole lot about what we do evaluate us." He urges commenters to keep things in perspective. "There are also times that people can be downright mean and vicious, and you want to remind them, 'It's just dinner. Tomorrow it'll be s.h.i.t-literally.' "

Dining Around

FRIED IN EAST L.A.

By Jonathan Gold From LA Weekly LA Weekly

Longtime LA Weekly LA Weekly critic, and winner of a 2007 Pulitzer Prize (the first dining critic to be so honored), Jonathan Gold is like the Philip Marlowe of the LA dining scene, with a restless curiosity about critic, and winner of a 2007 Pulitzer Prize (the first dining critic to be so honored), Jonathan Gold is like the Philip Marlowe of the LA dining scene, with a restless curiosity about all all its eateries, from the trendiest cafe to the humblest food stand. its eateries, from the trendiest cafe to the humblest food stand.

It is late, and my family is asleep in the car, and I am leaning against a chain-link fence on a sleepy Eastside street. At the shuttered bakery on the corner, some of the night crew has just shuffled into work, but I am here for the makeshift line of folding tables along the sidewalk, the line of folding chairs, the bowls of salsa teetering on the oilcloth. A woman bent over blue flames prepares to make my dinner.

She fries tortillas in hot oil for a second or two, just long enough to soften them, dips them in a dish of ruddy sauce, and splashes a few drops of oil onto a second griddle. Tortillas fly onto the hot metal. A moment later, the air is thick with the dark, musky scent of toasting chiles. She inverts the tortillas, flips them around a bit of cheese, and maneuvers them onto a plate in what seems like a single motion. They are the best enchiladas I have ever tasted.

Until recently, the center of the Eastside street-food universe was located in a small parking lot on Breed Street in Boyle Heights, a nocturnal band of vendors drawing customers from as far away as Riverside and San Diego, serving sticky, sizzling, crunchy, meaty snacks from all over Mexico; salsas hot enough to burn small, b.u.t.terfly-shaped patches into the leather of your shoes; and quart-size foam cups of homemade orange drink. Over here were huaraches huaraches; over there Mexico City-style quesadillas; crunchy flautas; sugary churros; gooey tacos al vapor. The vendors never stayed open quite late enough, but Breed Street had become something of an inst.i.tution, a place to take out of town visitors, a great quick dinner before a show. Sometimes there were even clowns.

The Breed Street experience was not exactly dependable-you never knew if a visit was going to result in a delicious bowl of barbacoa barbacoa or a desolate patch of asphalt-and after local officials rousted the gathering for good a couple of months ago, it looked as if the party was over. To some of us, luxury dining means being able to find your favorite tamale vendor two nights in a row. But this is 2009-the tools of social networking are no farther away than the cell phone in your back pocket. A few weeks ago, some of the scattered vendors from the old parking lot began broadcasting their locations on Twitter, one of them as @antojitoscarmen, another group of them as @BreedStScene, and as with the introduction of Kogi merely one year ago, the intersection of technology and street food enabled something new. With Twitter, it doesn't matter if that tamale vendor has set up at the corner of Olympic and Soto, at a Maravilla service station or in front of a nightclub down on Whittier. or a desolate patch of asphalt-and after local officials rousted the gathering for good a couple of months ago, it looked as if the party was over. To some of us, luxury dining means being able to find your favorite tamale vendor two nights in a row. But this is 2009-the tools of social networking are no farther away than the cell phone in your back pocket. A few weeks ago, some of the scattered vendors from the old parking lot began broadcasting their locations on Twitter, one of them as @antojitoscarmen, another group of them as @BreedStScene, and as with the introduction of Kogi merely one year ago, the intersection of technology and street food enabled something new. With Twitter, it doesn't matter if that tamale vendor has set up at the corner of Olympic and Soto, at a Maravilla service station or in front of a nightclub down on Whittier.

So a weekend taco crawl might begin with a visit to the @BreedStScene guys, chiefly Nina's, whose gorditas gorditas and and huaraches huaraches were the stars of the Breed Street gatherings, and whose scarlet were the stars of the Breed Street gatherings, and whose scarlet pambazos pambazos, chorizo-and-potato sandwiches dunked in chile and fried until the sauce hardens into a crackly gloss, are among the best in town. (Nina's dry salsa of toasted seeds and chile is the perfect condiment.) Somebody will slip you a tiny pill cup filled with the hominy stew pozole pozole, and you'll probably have a bowl of that too, as well as one of the Mexico City-style quesadillas, which are like demonically good Hostess Fruit Pies filled with squash blossoms and melted cheese. Kids run around glugging orange soda, teasing their little sisters with Mickey Mouse dolls.

Lupe's Crepes, the next stand over, specializes in sweets: bubbly pancakes or fried bananas dressed with caramel sauce and condensed milk. Rodolfo's Barbacoa sells soupy lamb stew. The rogue cart around the corner does street dogs and tacos al vapor al vapor, scooping soft, unctuous ma.s.ses of cow's head from steam-table bins hidden under a clean, white towel. A block away are those enchiladas, part of a smaller, quieter scene, another entrepot of huaraches huaraches and quesadillas. If you ask for tamales, somebody fetches them from a silent man in a car. and quesadillas. If you ask for tamales, somebody fetches them from a silent man in a car.

When you approach Antojitos Carmen, several blocks north and east, the first thing you may notice, once you get past the woman selling purses, are the big griddles dotted with chalupas, tiny tortillas smeared with pureed beans, drizzled with cream, and moistened with red or green salsa-the green chile is the spiciest thing you will eat tonight, unless you dipped into the sauce labeled "muy picoso" at Nina's, in which case you're already back home, recovering. And you can eat a dozen chalupas in a flash. Once you abandon yourself to the magnetic chalupa forces you will be lured across the river again and again-the CIA could learn something about mind control from antojitos masters.

And Antojitos Carmen itself? Homemade walnut atole atole, fluffy pambazos pambazos and the best Mexico City huaraches on the street: crisp-edged surfboards of toasted masa sluiced with an ink-black stew of and the best Mexico City huaraches on the street: crisp-edged surfboards of toasted masa sluiced with an ink-black stew of huitlacoche huitlacoche, painted with red chile, crema crema and green chile to resemble the Mexican flag. The scion of the family that runs the stand, Abe Ortega, perpetually wearing an outsize Dodgers jacket, hands you a raisin-studded gelatin dessert and grins. and green chile to resemble the Mexican flag. The scion of the family that runs the stand, Abe Ortega, perpetually wearing an outsize Dodgers jacket, hands you a raisin-studded gelatin dessert and grins.

NEW ZION BARBECUE.

By Patricia Sharpe From Saveur Saveur

Moonlighting from her three-decades-plus gig as food columnist of Texas Monthly Texas Monthly magazine, Patricia Sharpe opens a window onto authentic Texas barbecue for magazine, Patricia Sharpe opens a window onto authentic Texas barbecue for Saveur Saveur's nationwide readership.

The time is 5:30 on a cool Friday morning, and, as the old saying goes, it's as dark as the inside of a black cat. A little breeze riffles the tall pines lining a country road in Huntsville, a town of 35,000 in southeastern Texas, and an insomniac mockingbird sings somewhere deep in the shadows. Although every cell in my body is screaming for caffeine, I've somehow managed to show up on time at the small parish hall behind New Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Soon a pair of headlights appears in the distance: Robert Polk has come, as he does three days a week, to fire up the barbecue pit.

Looking with resignation at the soot-covered, nine-foot-long metal drum cooker in front of him, the taciturn 44-year-old outlines the task ahead. "First, I have to shovel the old ashes out and put them in the trash," he tells me. "Then I put some oak logs in the firebox," he says, referring to the metal receptacle that serves as the pit's fireplace. He gets a roaring blaze going and lets it cool down before he sc.r.a.pes the grill racks clean. Then he disappears into the kitchen and returns with four enormous beef briskets that have been sitting in the refrigerator overnight while a seasoning rub from a closely guarded recipe seeps into every fiber and pore. After heaving the meat onto the racks, Polk settles into a rusty metal folding chair a few feet away. The sun has come up, and the day is getting warmer; the pit radiates a slumber-inducing heat. "I'll keep an eye on it, but I might nod off a little," he says. He's ent.i.tled. By 11, when the customers start showing up, things will be too busy for so much as a coffee break.

New Zion-more generally referred to as "that church that sells barbecue"-is one of the most renowned yet improbable members of the Texas barbecue hall of fame. I've been making regular pilgrimages here from my home in Austin, a good three hours away, for nearly 15 years, and each time I do I wonder why I've waited so long to come back. Everything about the trip is gratifying: driving out through the remote region known as the Piney Woods, spotting the smoke rising above the trees, comparing notes with other customers ("How'd y'all hear about this place?"), and finally sitting down in a rickety little church building to devour some of the most tender, flavorful barbecue in the state.

The transaction is about as straightforward as it can be: the church cooks mouthwatering meats, sides, and pies, and the public queues up for the privilege of consuming them. That's all there is to it. Basically, the church runs a barbecue joint like thousands of others in Texas, but something about the whole experience far surpa.s.ses the sum of its exceedingly modest parts. Walking across the remnants of purple carpet that have been placed on the ground around the pit to keep the dust down, I feel as if I'd been hired as an extra for a Texas-based episode of The Andy Griffith Show The Andy Griffith Show or perhaps been asked to pose for a Norman Rockwell painting. A feeling of deja vu-of having stepped back into that elusive, simpler time, a time when community and fellowship fueled the state's great barbecue tradition-envelops me, but with one key difference: this is for real. or perhaps been asked to pose for a Norman Rockwell painting. A feeling of deja vu-of having stepped back into that elusive, simpler time, a time when community and fellowship fueled the state's great barbecue tradition-envelops me, but with one key difference: this is for real.

If you want to find out more about the place that wags inevitably refer to as the Church of the Holy Smoke, it's a good idea to get acquainted with the Reverend Clinton Edison, the fatherly, 56-year-old pastor who presides over New Zion's congregation of 40 or so mostly elderly members. I ask him how the barbecues got started, and he treats me to an hour-long yarn.

As best he can figure, it was 1976-although some say 1979-when a painting contractor named D. C. Ward volunteered to paint the church, to which he and his family belonged. At noon on the first day of work, his wife, Annie Mae, set up a smoker on the church lawn to barbecue some meat for Ward's lunch. Savory aromas wafted through the air. "Once she fired that pit up," Edison says, "people started stopping by and asking if they could buy some barbecue." Annie Mae sold a little meat, then a little more, and pretty soon it was all gone. "My poor husband never got anything to eat," she is quoted as saying in one of the yellowed news clippings tacked to the dining room's walls. The following Sunday, Annie Mae asked the pastor at the time whether she could sell barbecue and give the proceeds to the church. He handed her $50, and with that sum she started what could be described as the longest-running church fund-raiser in the state's history.

The Wards handled the whole shebang at first, but before long most of the congregation was pitching in. Lunches and dinners were served on paper plates on the church lawn for a couple of years, until the health department cracked down and said they had to move the operation indoors. Fortunately, the church had raised enough money by then to build a wood-frame parish hall with room for a handful of tables and a kitchen. Things took off in a serious way: on some days, the line of barbecue supplicants stretched out the door to the church parking lot. Annie Mae and half a dozen church ladies would bustle around the kitchen in their print dresses and ap.r.o.ns, preparing side dishes and desserts: tender, un-fussy pinto beans that had soaked and simmered for hours; potato salad made with Idaho russets, mashed by hand and flavored with plenty of dill pickle relish; pecan pie with a famously high pecan-to-goo ratio; eye-rollingly good, cinnamon-y sweet potato pie; and more. The recipes were Annie Mae's, and she resisted innumerable entreaties from customers that she share them. As Edison recalls, "She would say, 'It's not a secret; we just don't tell anyone.'"

New Zion's piece de resistance, though, was its barbecue, prepared in smoke-belching pits by D. C. Ward and the church men. In the early years, they used direct-heat smokers, in which the coals are placed right under the grill racks; it's a difficult, labor-intensive way to cook, as the meat can easily dry out if the cooks aren't careful, but done right, it delivers an intensely smoky taste. Later the church switched to indirect-heat barrel smokers, with the firebox off to the side. Beef brisket-loose textured and abundantly fatty even after it's been trimmed-was always the centerpiece, but there were also meaty pork ribs that you ate using two hands, as you would corn on the cob, along with chicken, its skin burnished and golden and its meat falling from the bone in pearlescent hunks. Links of slow-smoked pork-and-beef sausage-made in nearby Bryan, Texas-added a salty, peppery kick to the ensemble.

Annie Mae and D. C. Ward did things their own way, which is to say, not in the style you might expect to find at most East Texas barbecue joints. For one thing, they cooked their brisket and ribs for a comparatively short time, not until it fell apart in tender shreds. For another, they didn't serve their brisket precut and slathered with the smash-up of condiments, from ketchup and Worcestershire to barbecued meat drippings and black coffee, that's become the thick and hearty style of sauce now common across the state. Instead, the Wards cooked their meats for anywhere from four to six hours, until they were succulent and smoky, and served their sauce-the kind of thinnish, tomatoey, russet-colored brew shot through with vinegar that you used to find in Central Texas-on the side or, if the customer preferred, ladled onto the plate. The signature flavor came from Annie Mae's special mix of salt, pepper, and secret seasonings, which was not only rubbed on the meats but also added to the barbecue sauce and the beans, as it still is today. "About the only thing it's not in is the tea, and we're working on that," a cook named Clayton "Smitty" Smith tells me.

In 2004 the Wards, well into their 90s, retired to Houston, where they still live. Horace and Mae Archie, longtime church members, took over the management of the meals and oversaw them until last year, when Mae died of a heart attack. After that, Edison himself took on the job of running the business. "I told everybody we would keep it going as long as the Wards were alive or until the old building falls down," he said. Given a dwindling and aging congregation, he has had to hire help from outside the church in order to keep up with demand.

Over time and with practice, though, the group of six has coalesced into an efficient, tight-knit team. During the day I spent hanging around the kitchen, I watched with admiration as they sliced brisket, ladled sauce, toted steaming platters of sides, and weaved around one another with seeming extrasensory perception. Robert Polk, the pit master I met earlier this morning, comes in carrying a gorgeous brisket fresh from the smoker and hands it off to Smitty, who starts slicing it to make sandwiches and plates. The rest goes into a supersize crock pot, where it stays warm throughout service. Ann O'Bryant, a woman in her 40s who does most of the cooking, tells me that she prepares sides "just the way Mrs. Ward did," and Henry Ford, 16, the newest member of the team, moves quickly as he washes dishes and cleans up. Reverend Edison, under the watchful eye of his wife, Wyvonnia, who helps him manage the place, runs the cash register. He also comes in early to make a few desserts, having added his own, excellent b.u.t.termilk pie to the repertoire.

By around one o'clock, the rush has died down, and I come out from behind the counter where I've been shooed so that I'd be out of the way. I find Edison at a kitchen counter putting away leftovers. I have a couple of final questions for him, including one that you could almost call theological: What does the future hold?

"Well," he says, "our first goal is to give this place a good face-lift." I confess that I find this alarming. While I can't deny that the church hall could use an upgrade-the flooring is cracked, the curtains are faded-too much spiffing up could destroy the joint's scruffy charisma.

Perhaps Reverend Edison senses that I'm quietly freaking out. "We're not going to do much; people come for the history," he says, as he stretches a sheet of plastic wrap around a bowl of potato salad and puts it into the refrigerator. Aside from a little sprucing up, the reverend says, he and his flock plan to keep things exactly the same. Thank heaven.

KYOTO'S TOFU OBSESSION By Adam Sachs From Bon Appet.i.t Bon Appet.i.t

If the term "globetrotter" hadn't already existed, it would have to be invented to describe Adam Sachs. Few travel writers delve so eagerly into the local tastes of a destination. He doesn't just dine in Kyoto, he seeks out the artisans who create its signature foodstuff.

Mitsuyoshi Kotzumi squeezes a soybean between his fingers and looks pleased.

"Unyuu," he says-a j.a.panese onomatopoeia that means (more or less) the sound of something firm but pliant being squished. This, according to Koizumi, is what a perfect soybean sounds like when it's ready to become tofu.

"Like gummy candy," he says, handing me the wet soybean.

It is 5:30 a.m. on my first full day in Kyoto. I am wearing a hairnet, standing in a narrow, steamy kitchen overlooking the Kamogawa River, pinching a soaked bean. Why am I here? The reason is bean curd.

Koizumi-san is a tofu maker at Kinki, an artisa.n.a.l shop where I have come to witness the daily predawn alchemy by which raw soybeans are transformed into squares of the firm-but-creamy building blocks of kyo-ryori kyo-ryori, the cuisine of Kyoto. Ancient land of culture, temples, and gardens, once the imperial capital of j.a.pan for 1,000 years, Kyoto is a city with a healthy obsession for tofu.

But stay, carnivorous reader. Don't turn the page. It's not what you're thinking. Believe me-I'm not a morning person, and before coming here, I was never an avid tofu-seeker. The fresh j.a.panese version is a far more n.o.ble creature than the often bland loaves sold in American supermarkets. The difference in taste? Chalk and cheese, I'd say, though that would be unfair to chalk.

Here, tofu is a delicate handmade food, produced every morning in small shops and large industrial kitchens throughout the country. Each region makes its own styles of tofu, but Kyoto is to tofu what Naples is to pizza, New York to bagels. The Kyoto variety-perfected over centuries by Buddhist monks, in imperial kitchens, and in neighborhood shops like this one-is the accepted standard; it is regarded as the best in j.a.pan and thus the world.

While tofu has become a ma.s.s-produced staple stateside, only now are we waking up to the allure of nonindustrial tofu. j.a.panese restaurants like EN j.a.panese Bra.s.serie in New York feature fresh tofu on their menus. Reika Yo, the proprietor of EN, told me it took her a while to educate people about how tofu was eaten in j.a.pan. I'd had great tofu dishes in the formal kaiseki kaiseki restaurants and raucous restaurants and raucous izakayas izakayas of Tokyo. But Tokyo is so overwhelming; the discreet pleasures of humble tofu are easily lost in the culinary cacophony. I knew that in quieter Kyoto I'd find (and be able to focus on) the real thing. of Tokyo. But Tokyo is so overwhelming; the discreet pleasures of humble tofu are easily lost in the culinary cacophony. I knew that in quieter Kyoto I'd find (and be able to focus on) the real thing.

Back at Kinki, Koizumi and a few colleagues dart around the kitchen while loungy Blue Note jazz plays on the radio. Through a window, gawky herons are visible gliding across the river. On the far bank, the first stirrings of the morning bicycle traffic. Kyoto is a modern city, with modern sprawl, apartment towers, and a subway system. But it is also a place of serene gardens, of temple life, and of little streets like this one, where you can walk alone in the early morning and observe craftsmen keeping alive old traditions inside kyomachiya kyomachiya, the city's traditional wooden townhouses.

My translator this morning is Derek Wilc.o.x, a Poughkeepsieborn chef who works at Kyoto's Kikunoi restaurant. "It has more presence presence," Wilc.o.x says, trying to explain the special properties of Kyoto tofu. "It's not just this empty block of protein that you flavor with something else."

The thing that turns tonyu tonyu, or soy milk, into tofu is called nigari nigari. Crystals of magnesium chloride act as a coagulant, much as rennin makes cheese curds out of cow's milk. The familiar, firm, square-cut variety is called momen-dofu momen-dofu, meaning "cotton tofu," as it was traditionally pressed over a porous cloth. Kinugoshi-dofu Kinugoshi-dofu means "silken tofu," and while silk isn't actually used to prepare it, the name makes sense: It is a wet, jiggly tofu with the silken creaminess of a custard-the best a soybean can be. means "silken tofu," and while silk isn't actually used to prepare it, the name makes sense: It is a wet, jiggly tofu with the silken creaminess of a custard-the best a soybean can be.

Wilc.o.x and I leave the staff at Kinki to their morning work. Walking north, we take a meandering course from the river toward Nishiki Market, Kyoto's famous covered street of food stalls, pickle sellers, tea vendors, fishmongers, a 400-year-old knife shop, and, of course, tofu-lots of tofu.

As we walk, Wilc.o.x talks me through what he calls "Kyoto Tofu 101." In addition to momen-dofu momen-dofu, the most flexible, and kinugoshi-dofu kinugoshi-dofu , the most refined, we find , the most refined, we find age-dofu age-dofu (tofu sliced into sheets and deep-fried), (tofu sliced into sheets and deep-fried), atsu-age dofu atsu-age dofu (thick deep-fried tofu), (thick deep-fried tofu), oboro-dofu oboro-dofu (with a scooped, crumbly texture like cottage cheese), and (with a scooped, crumbly texture like cottage cheese), and yaki-dofu yaki-dofu (grilled tofu). This being j.a.pan, there are dozens of variations and riffs within this framework, and hundreds of ways to cook it: cold tofu, boiled tofu, (grilled tofu). This being j.a.pan, there are dozens of variations and riffs within this framework, and hundreds of ways to cook it: cold tofu, boiled tofu, dengaku dengaku (skewered and grilled), fried tofu b.a.l.l.s, and on and on. (skewered and grilled), fried tofu b.a.l.l.s, and on and on.

Our lesson is cut short by the sight of Hara Donuts, a happy little take-away place with three giggly girls frying donuts. The house specialty is a tofu donut made with sweet soy milk and okara, the fiber-rich by-product of tofu production. In the interest of research, Wilc.o.x and I eat several. "Almost healthy," he says. The girls giggle more.

"Hippie, crunchy, pinko-leaning, in America, we have all these a.s.sociations for tofu," says Chris Rowthorn, an expat writer who lives in Kyoto and runs personalized tours around j.a.pan. "But in j.a.pan, you'll see the hardest construction workers or truck drivers walk into a restaurant and order a block of cold tofu."

Rowthorn and I meet for lunch at Tousuiro, a tofu restaurant in a narrow alley off Kiyamachi Street. The kaiseki kaiseki-style tofu menu begins with a pretty plate of zensai zensai, j.a.panese amuse-bouches: tamago tamago (omelet) folded with sea bream eggs and tofu; a small pile of grainy (omelet) folded with sea bream eggs and tofu; a small pile of grainy okara okara; and a green-pea-flavored tofu cut into the shape of a j.a.panese maple leaf. Next comes cold yuba yuba, or tofu "skin," piled up like soft-serve, topped with purple-flowering miniature shiso shiso leaves and resting on a bed of crushed ice. In every course, tofu pops up like Peter Sellers playing multiple roles in the same movie, a versatile actor showing off its range with various accents and guises. Sea ba.s.s is pressed into a block with tofu. leaves and resting on a bed of crushed ice. In every course, tofu pops up like Peter Sellers playing multiple roles in the same movie, a versatile actor showing off its range with various accents and guises. Sea ba.s.s is pressed into a block with tofu. Oboro-dofu Oboro-dofu has a consistency somewhere between has a consistency somewhere between burrata burrata and panna cotta. and panna cotta.

After a dessert of soy-milk ice cream, Rowthorn and I chat with the restaurant's manager, Nagashi Yoshida.