Eating With Ed: On Tipping, Texas Barbecue, and Rich-People Food

The Date October 24, 2015

Where We're Eating
Osteria Morini, Michael White's SoHo restaurant specializing in rustic foods from Italy's Emilia-Romagna region
What We're Eating Ed: Eggs in Purgatorio (baked eggs served in tomato sauce and topped with Parmesan) Keith: Tagliatelle with ragù antico
What Ed's Thinking About Rich people, tipping, chicken sandwiches, apple pie, Texas barbecue, and why the makers of Cheerios might help usher in the future of food

The other thing we ordered for the YPO was this great brisket from Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor, Texas. The Muellers are one of the old Central Texas barbecue families. They've been smoking meats forever, and came out of the Czech-German butcher tradition that exists down there. Their brisket is really well marbled, just so tender and smoky, but not so smoky that it loses its intensely beefy flavor. It's the kind of thing that's really hard to find in New York. But it was nothing like the experience of eating it in Texas. You walk into Louie Mueller and, well, first of all, it's this huge place where they offer you a slice of the brisket to try before you even order. There's a big open fire in the restaurant, and they take a hunk of meat out, put it on the cutting block, and slice it up for you. And the smell of the place is just incredible. You'll have that smell on you for hours, days even. The people at the YPO event weren't going to have that experience, they weren't going to leave with that great barbecue smell on them.

What went over well with the YPO-ers and what didn't? I think most of them really loved what they were eating. But there were some things that challenged them for sure. Cracklins, for instance, did not go over well. I think most of the people there thought they were just pork rinds, but these were different—they were these really delicious versions from Louisiana, and some people were turned off by them because they were much fattier and porkier than your average pork rind. The gumbos were a challenge, too, which was interesting. There were duck and chicken gumbos from Prejean's in Lafayette, so it was, like, you know, the real deal, but people seemed afraid of them for some reason. The Kansas City barbecue we ordered from Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue went over really well, though.

I guess what I'm wondering here is this: What do rich people eat these days? What constitutes "rich-people food"? I think that, no matter what financial state you're in, people are attracted to foods that connect them to human beings and places. Rich people are no different. They crave authenticity, and they crave an emotional connection—something that resonates. The people who attended this event knew what they were in for. This wasn't a foie gras and caviar affair, which I'm sure they have; there's no shortage of opportunities for them to celebrate their status. But this was about celebrating something else that I hope is inside all of them.

I'm surprised that some of the foods you mentioned above, especially the ones that were ordered from the South, weren't at least somewhat familiar to the YPO set. New Yorkers seem to have an obsession with Southern food these days, especially... Southern fried chicken? Could there be more fried chicken sandwiches available in New York right now? I mean, there were people waiting in line overnight when Chick-fil-A opened here last month. That is perverse to me. I get it, though. Fried chicken is now a part of so many cultures. First there were the fast food chicken sandwiches, which were adequate. Then there were the really good fast food chicken sandwiches, like Chick-fil-A. Then, of course, chefs discovered them. I remember meeting David Chang many years ago, and he was obsessed with fried chicken. And then he started serving his fried chicken at Momofuku two ways, which included a cheffy version of twice-fried Korean chicken, with a Southern fried version alongside it. He was the first chef I remember really paying attention to fried chicken. And now he's got Fuku, which only serves chicken sandwiches. I get the obsession, though. It's a deeply satisfying alternative to red meat, namely the hamburger. Maybe there's some burger fatigue happening out there, though you could hardly tell that from Shake Shack sales.

Just about every food publication in the country has been discussing Danny Meyer's decision to eliminate tipping from all of his restaurants. Care to weigh in? The whole tipping story is totally fascinating to me. I do think it's a big story in the context of the larger battle being fought over income inequality in this country. It just seems cruel that somebody at a very fancy restaurant is working insanely hard for $10 or $12 an hour. The hope is that eliminating tipping will lead to the sea change we're all wishing for, but I think the jury is still very much out. There are restaurants around the country that have launched similar experiments and gone back to the old tipping model because they were losing servers and facing taxes on their service fees. I think what we're seeing—and this is part of what makes covering the food culture so interesting—is that food culture touches on all the issues that people are talking about in the presidential election. Income inequality, immigration—what was the famous Anthony Bourdain line? [Ed reaches for his phone to look it up.] Here it is: "As any chef will tell you, our entire service economy—the restaurant business as we know it—in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers." I think one of the most interesting things about the food culture as a whole is that there are issues coming up and being reported on every week that have profound implications for the workplace.

Kenji wrote a story about a $65 knife he loves that is being funded by a Kickstarter campaign. How is crowdsourcing, as well as social media, changing the food and restaurant landscape overall? What's great about crowdsourcing and social media is that they have a profound effect on something like raising money to make a good, inexpensive knife, or resurrecting a cherished restaurant after a fire, in a way that you couldn't do before. Before the internet, there were around a dozen gatekeepers that controlled the flow of information. Now there are hundreds, if not thousands. Someone with a big Twitter following who tweets about how to raise money so that a restaurant can be opened or resurrected becomes a powerful leveler, and I think that's great. I also think it's great that someone like Carla Hall from "The Chew," who is a lovely, lovely person and has spent a very long time doing advocacy work, will be able to open her own hot chicken restaurant in Brooklyn using Kickstarter money. She raised $260,000 from around 1,550 people. How much equity did she give away? Zero? She is honoring contributors by placing their names on a wall of fame in the restaurant.

So it was reported that food giant General Mills is introducing a new venture capital fund for small, fledgling food companies, citing that they are seeing more innovation coming from the little guys than the big ones these days. Your thoughts? It's fascinating to watch companies like General Mills try to grapple with the changing food landscape. It's always been easier for the big guys to buy other companies with products that have already gained a foothold in the marketplace, rather than develop them on their own. For example, right now all the soda makers are freaking out, wondering what happened to all those people who used to drink soda. Now they're drinking tea and coconut water. Most big companies have R&D departments to develop new foods that people are trending toward, but now General Mills is taking it one step further. They're thinking, "Why don't we get in on the ground floor?" Instead of paying $10 million or $20 million or $40 million to acquire an established company, they're going to give the smaller guys a million or two and accept that, while a bunch of them won't make it, a lot of them probably will. That's what venture capital is all about.

Finally, the World Health Organization recently came out with a report that made a connection between processed meats and certain kinds of cancer. You're a bit of a bon vivant when it comes to food consumption. Will this change your eating habits at all? I have to admit to myself that, yes, it probably will. For example: I went through a period a couple of weeks ago where I started eating a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich every other day at Gray's Papaya. Damn fine. But when I read that WHO thing, I thought that maybe, especially now that I'm getting older, I should only have it once a week. I think the idea of total abstention is just stupid. It is a matter of everything in moderation. So maybe you can't have bacon every day, but should you have bacon or sausage once a week if it gives you great pleasure? I say yes.