Firsts

A quick post on two important firsts yesterday.

First up was the “Twinkie”, a product I’d heard a lot about on American TV programmes when I was growing up. I’d always been curious about the oddly-named snack. I remember being particularly curious since characters would often talk about Twinkies without actually eating them, so beyond the name I had no real concept of what one was. I think, and I may be wrong, that they’re kind of a byword for a crappy snack, the type of thing people know they shouldn’t really have, but they do anyway (so most American snack and fast foods then).

This is what a twinkie looks like:

You may also be familiar with the product if you’ve recently seen the Woody Harrelson film “Zombieland”, since Harrelson’s character is on a post-apocalyptic quest for Twinkies. To be honest, I’m not really sure why. It wasn’t exactly bad, but it was one of the most fake-tasting foods I’ve ever had. Perhaps it would be good on the bottom of a trifle, but as a straight-up snack, it was strangely displeasing. Suffice to say, should I survive a zombie-led armageddon, it won’t be the snack I’ll be breaking into a 7-11 for.

Next!

Unwisely I teamed the Twinkie first with another first, later that same day.  This time the KFC Doubledown. Oh yes! The new fast food sensation. I had my eye on one of these since they made a bit of a splash when they launched a few months ago. For those unfamiliar, a picture is worth a thousand words, see below:

Now take a close look at the above, because this is touted as a sandwich. But what’s missing? That’s right, the bun. The fried chicken is the bun, and the filling is bacon, melted cheese and the Colonel’s “special sauce”. It’s a revolution! Despite the stomach cramps later that evening, I have to say it was one tasty sandw…whatever it is, it was tasty. Only in America!

It’s not just me that thinks this; “My first bite of KFC’s Double Down made me question why I ever used bread for sandwiches.” For Joel Stein’s take on the Doubledown, click here .

Richard

Update

I have to admit that I’ve had an absolute flood of people demanding, literally demanding, that I update the blog. So their wish is my command (on the other hand it may have been just a  passing comment by one person, one time, but nevertheless the people must have their wish).

So what is there to update? Well I haven’t done anything specifically for this “foodquest” since the last update, but I have got a few irons in the fire. We have planned a trip to New England in a couple of months. We will pass through six states, and we’re probably going to do food things in five of them. Three of these; Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire were part of the original 13 and at a stroke we’ll be more than halfway through those original ones. Plus we’ll be taking in Vermont and Maine as well, and we have a couple of ideas for those.

Happily, out of the five, we’ve got something planned or an idea for at least four of them, so none of them should be as problematic as New Jeughhhsey, if you recall that. At T’s request we will be heading pretty much to the Canadian border to go to the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Vermont. Also it looks like we’ll be just in time for Lobster season in Maine. I’ve heard a tale of a place where you can get a full pound of lobster in a roll, accompanied with drawn butter (I don’t know what that means but it sounds pretty good).

At some point we should be hitting New York again and getting some pizza, and trying a few different ones. Interestingly a lot of people claim New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale university, is the best place to get pizza in the US. So we’re already envisioning some kind of “pizza vs. pizza” duel of the states. (This may just be an excuse to eat a lot of pizza.)

One more thing has caught my eye recently. This. It’s a real thing, and it’s definitely being considered.

R

News

It’s been too long since I last posted and in the interim I was meant to tick off two more states (Maryland and New York) but things have not gone to plan. Initially we planned to do a cookery class for some Maryland classics, think crabs and all its derivatives. Unfortunately the course, “Maryland’s got crabs!”, wasn’t exactly what we thought.

No, not what you’re thinking, it was a cookery course, just not as hands-on as we would have liked it to be. So instead we waited until we cooked the food (Crab Imperial) and we have some cool photos of that, which I will do an entry on in a few days.

Also our recent New York trip didn’t exactly go to plan either, it was still good from both a food and non-food perspective, we just didn’t get to try the Pizza we wanted. I wanted to go round different Pizzerias, since New York pizza is very famous, and there are a lot of varieties and options for the Pizza connoisseur, which I like to think I am. It didn’t go well when we got to Lombardi’s (the oldest Pizzeria in NYC’s Little Italy) and there was an hour-long queue despite it being -10C with the windchill. I like Pizza, but I don’t like it with a side 0f frostbite, so we opted out.

The deciding factor though, was discovering this: www.scottspizzatours.com a pizza tour of NYC! How could we do a Pizza tour and not go on a pre-made Pizza tour?! It was sold-out, so we decided to postpone our New York tour till next year. That, and the other pizzeria we wanted to go to, Grimaldi’s, was in Brooklyn just over the bridge. As the temperature had fallen to -14C in the windchill, we didn’t fancy walking on the bridge.

Instead, we did go to Cafe Edison, a Jewish restaurant in Midtown, where I’d read they did the best Matzo ball soup. Indeed, it was a tasty soup, chicken, noodles and a huge dumpling ball in the middle. You scooped a bit of dumpling off with every spoonful, and it was a tasty treat on a cold day. It reminded me of food in Hungary, and perhaps it was influenced by the Central/Eastern European heritage of a lot of New York’s Jews.

We also tried a Pastrami sandwich, which was the type of thing I’d heard of, but never seen or eaten. We knew to order it “Pastrami on rye” since that’s what they do in Seinfeld and Friends and so on and it was very tasty; although it did seem like a competition to get the most slices of meat between two pieces of bread without it falling apart. We also had some Blintzes, of which the less said the better. Here’s a new rule, if the food sounds more like an affliction than anything else, then avoid.

So back to New York we will go at some point. However, a horrible thought ocurred to me as we were riding on the coach home. We witnessed some typically terrible American driving (you know lane drifting, pulling over on the central reservation, rather than the hard shoulder, that type of thing). Even though I’ve vowed not to go to New Jersey again, we have to go through New Jersey to get to New York, what if we should be in an accident in New Jersey and I should die there? What’s worse than going to New Jersey? Dying there and being forever associated with it, I should say.

Just as an aside, I know any American readers won’t take offence at my criticism of the driving, it’s a well-established fact. Incredibly the new advert for a Ford pick-up truck uses the average American driver’s inattentiveness as the main selling point of the truck. It says something like “That guy over there’s eating his sandwich, and talking on the phone when he’s driving, if he crashes into you, don’t you want to know you’re coming off best?”. My question is this: What if the guy who’s scoffing a burger and texting while he’s driving, is driving a 3-ton pick up truck? What then Ford?*

Also let me point out the subscribe option on the right hand-side of the page, this handy feature allows you to receive updates from this very blog. So if you like this blog, but not enough to actually visit it then this may be the feature for you..

Richard

*Buy a bigger truck.

It’s been a while

Hello everyone,

I know it’s been some time since I posted, and our travels look like they’re slowing a little, I suppose that’s inevitable as winter draws in….looking at the numbers we’ve now done 3 of the original 13 states, plus 1 extra and we’re only a few months in so we’re not doing too badly.

We *almost* did Delaware a couple of weeks ago by going to something called the pumpkin chunkin festival. In short this is a festival celebrated the  week after Halloween, whereby this town in Delaware gathers up all the pumpkins and then fires them using pumpkin catapults. Sounds weird? Find out more here

Anyhow it seemed like too much to do in one day – it would have been 5 hours of driving at least so we thought we’d save that one for next year.

Coming up though next month I’m going to do an entry on the speciality of our very own state of Maryland – the crab. We’re going to New York in December, where I’m sure we’ll fit something foodie in. Then in the new year we’re going to New Orleans, a city and a region synonymous with a certain type of cuisine – Cajun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

R

Update

All,

It’s been a while since I posted and I have a few things for an update.

Ideas

I’ve been having a few ideas of where to go and what to do to in a few states;

Since we were pretty unsuccessful in penetrating the fortress that is the Headquarters of Campbell Soup, I kind of want to do a product-based experience. So what food/drink product has dominated the world in a way that makes the Roman Empire look about as significant as a fort I built in my back garden aged 7?

Coke!

As you might not be aware Coke has a very well branded and worryingly slick exhibit near it’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The World of Coca-cola offers regular tours, VIP trips and even a special section for “educators” called a “teacher’s toolkit”. Now most people like a coke now and again, but if you’re a teacher and you think the best, most educational field trip you can make is to go to a giant coke advert, you’re an idiot.

For our own state of Maryland we want to do something a little different and have enrolled on a cookery course! The state food, you may even say icon, of Maryland is the Crab. Something commonly found in the Chesapeake Bay and something very tasty! So we’re going to be learning how to make crab soup, crab cakes and more.

We’ve had a couple of ideas about other states, I really want to have barbeque/ribs in Texas and Lobster in Maine but neither of those is one of the 13 original states. I think if we do go there then I’ll do a blog entry anyway. If you have any ideas for me on what to do in particular states feel free to leave a comment!

Books

I’ve bought a few books recently for ideas including:

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives by Guy Fieri which is quite good and focuses more on interesting restaurants, it also includes recipes.

Watch it made in the USA by Karen Axelrod which is not exclusively food but has some good ideas.

and by far and away the best one is:

Despite the slightly ominous title (do they know something that we don’t – is the armageddon coming?) this is an absolutely great book, if you’re ever coming to the US and are interested in food I’d highly recommend it.

From comprehensive lists like the best place to get Pizza in Manhattan or the top places for a Philly Cheesesteak (the two places we tried were at No. 4 and No.5 in their list) through to regional specialties you’ve probably never heard of e.g. Whoopie Pie (Maine – a weird chocolate cake that looks like a hamburger) to Perloo (South Carolina and around – rice casserole, an almost Paella-like dish).

In a few weeks I’m going to Virginia so hopefully will have another entry then.

Hasta la próxima!

Richard