Jack is an American you should know. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, he has been there for you. He offers you a variety of American favorites with no breakfast cut-off time. He takes you to such exotic locales as Mexico on the cheap in the form of the ubiquitous “2-for-99 cents” tacos. However, there comes a time in every American’s palate when it’s time to take our inner hungry Jack outside of the box and look elsewhere for culinary satisfaction. I bring you this article, perhaps the beginning of a series of articles, on casual to fine dining on particularly non-American dishes that, if you take the effort to find them, you may experience here in the melting pot we call home.
In short, after having discussed American politics, sex, drugs and business (see 2008′s Indy USA column) and coming to no useful personal conclusions or epiphany-inspiring feedback, what’s left for a guy like me to do but order out foreign food and participate in our true national past-time, gluttony?
Actually, let me take that back one step and retract the “in short” for just this moment (fear not, dear readers, I will take your advice and keep my columns short and dirty this year, with the exception of this wrap-up addendum about my Indy USA column of 2008). Looking back on 2008′s Indy USA column, I have come to one useful personal conclusion. People, for the most part, are apathetic, narcissist complainers that I don’t care much about beyond complaining about how they incessantly inhibit my convenience and lifestyle choices. Sure, this is the natural hypothesis I already had assumed, but my experiences and experiments in writing “Indy USA” have given way to new hard evidence supporting the theory. I laid out my heart and some of (oh, but rest assured not ALL) my family’s darkest hours in “Gay as it Ever Was” just after our liberal city was “rocked” by Prop 8. I laid out gritty street truth in “The Three R’s” after a series of DEA shutdowns throughout L.A. County. I laid out examples and keys to independent success in a codependent society in articles wrapped around presumably popular L.A. subjects like the music business and the Dodgers.
But what, dear readers, do you suppose garnered the most feedback? What hot-button topic touched the nerve center of your fellow hip, PC, artistic, passionate Los Angelenos the most?? The fucking Fullbar scam. Really? That’s what you took the time to comment on the most, my fellow sensitive, caring, philanthropic human beings (not that you commented much, but for the record I agree that Sharon probably is an idiot)? Fuck human rights and the pursuit of happiness in our arguably un-free society, let’s discuss diet products and whether or not my writing style is up to snuff for a fucking free paper (Wesley Note: Binary Zine)!
So, now knowing that my readers think I lack intelligence and that they seem to care more about stuffing their faces on processed food products in an effort to appear healthy, what better station in life for me than a food column writer with little to no viable experience as a chef or a fine diner? Why not…it’s a free county and this is a free periodical. The people have spoken and the topic of choice is food, so fuck it, here goes. This column is where two of my least favorite platitudes, “you get what you pay for” meets “it is what it is”, meets. Bon Appetit!
I went to Scotland recently. It was a really good time. I had to eat McDonald’s, as it was an option and I noted the irony of the “Mc” name of an American cafe in Scotland, home of the “Mc”, and I did have an egg Mcmuffin toward the end of the trip. It tasted like an egg Mcmuffin. I tried a Chinese place one night….not as good as the Chinese at home. The food on Air France was actually pretty good and the wine was gratis, plus all the baguette you can scarf. But let’s get to what we’re getting at…. the cuisine of bonnie Scotland.
Haggis, it’s not just for breakfast anymore, as proven by how well it goes with beer. If you’re a fan of Soctland’s own Robert Burns or Ren and Stimpy’s own Haggis MacHaggis, you will surely agree that nothing goes better with ground sheep’s heart, liver and lungs than…..oatmeal! Just spice up these ingredients with the right dash of spices, stuff it in a sheep’s stomach, bake and serve. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that for it to go from sheep guts to shear gourmet, but get a good haggis and you’ll see why it remains Scotland’s national dish. Sure, there’s a variety of fine native fish (Scottish smoked salmon rivals that of Nova Scotia) and the revered beef of the long-haired highland cow (pronounced coo), but Haggis is an art.
Looking at the ingredients, one could easily imagine that this is a dish that is very easy to fuck up. Case in point, the haggis I had at renowned Greyfriars Bobby’s Pub was EXCEPTIONALLY tastier than the haggis at the breakfast buffet at the Edinburgh Airport Marriott . Naturally, leave it to the Mormon-owned Marriott morons to botch the national dish as soon as the tourists get off the plane. It comes as no surprise to me that they had bad food across the entire board…this is the same American corporation that brought me so many nasty meals at my college cafeteria. But enough about Haggis for now. All you need to know is that when it’s right, it’s damn good. If it’s properly served it will come with a side of tatties (mashed potatoes) and neeps (mashed turnips). If you’ve had good scrapple and good mince-meat, this is something like scrapple pudding with mince-meat like seasoning. It’s not easy to come by here in the US southwest, but you can get it on occasion at:
Tam O’Shanter Inn
2980 Los Feliz Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90039
323-664-0228
Moving on, quickly…
Irn Bru is a local soda and can be found easily by it’s bright orange color and blue label. Considering it tastes like Red Bull mixed with orange creamsicle, it’s hard to believe that it outsells Coca-Cola or any other soda in Scotland…but it does. Go figure. I came, I tried it, I quickly chased it with a much better national favorite, which brings us to…
Scotch! Right next to Edinburgh Castle at the peak of the Royal Mile, one can find Scotland’s national museum of Scotch Whisky…..yummy and educational! Not that you have to climb up the Royal Mile to find a good Scotch in Scotland. However, the atmosphere at Deacon Brodie’s pub on a cold winter’s day is ideal for swilling the ol’ scotch, and they have a fine variety of single malts aged as many as 15 years or more. You can ponder the delicious slow suicide that is alcoholism while looking at the mural depicting the hanging death of Deacon Brodie, the namesake of the establishment who was the real-life source for the Jeckyl-and-Hyde character of famed Scottish fiction.
But don’t bother to buy bottles of scotch in Scotland unless you really know what you’re looking for or you’ll find that you’re over-paying what you could get the same bottle for stateside. However, DO buy such scotch related products as Scotch Whisky Cheese (preferably served on oatcakes, the Scottish cracker of choice) and Scotch Whisky Fudge…..MMMMM! Tired of Scotch? Try the hot mulled cider and don’t pass on the extra shot of brandy if it’s offered. Toasty good!
Moving on to the home stretch…..
Fish and chips w malt vinegar=essential and worthwhile despite it’s stateside familiarity. Full Scottish breakfast=delicious, heavy and eerily similar to the neighboring Full Irish or Full English Breakfast. The coffee is generally stronger than what you’d find here, but no less tasty. The sea bass of the North Sea is smaller and a bit less tasty to me than the Chilean sea bass you can get here. I had bad venison experiences as a child so I passed on it in Scotland, but it’s very popular there.
I had a boar’s head and langostino dish at Tom Kitchin’s “The Kitchin”, which was as fine as any dish I’ve ever had. The boar’s head tasted vaguely like really, really, really good corned beef hash, but made of pork facial tissue and without the potatoes. It took some time to get through the fancy formal dining experience, but it was well worth it, for both the food and the people-watching.
Go to Scotland. Golf if you want, look for Nessie, listen to the pipes, ogle the kilts, rent a car and see if you can handle the whole “wrong side of the road, wrong side of the car, and why the hell are there no automatic transmissions available” thing, but sooner or later you’ll have to eat. So eat Classy, Los Angeles….eat classy!
Tags: Indy U.S.A
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