NYC – The Real Food Guide
I’ve decided to tidy up my crazy mental and visual notes for the weekend by dividing them into two sensible categories, and two entries. From the photo-essay I’ve assembled so far, Saturday’s topic, “FOOD,” appears to be taking on the shape of a Zagat guide written by Mary Shelley. Meanwhile, Sunday’s feature, “FASHION,” will be a laissez-faire Vogue tribute to September street sights and Manhattan hipster initiatives.
*Note: I wrote large chunks of this Monday afternoon at Gate D2 of LaGuardia airport while waiting for delayed flight 1167 to Toronto to arrive. The rest was lashed together Tuesday night under the influence of high fever delerium. Could be disjointed. Not recommended for the faint of heart or the high of cholesterol. Beware.*
New York is home to thousands upon thousands of restaurants. Good food is abundant, and many people eat it. But the seedy, sticky, enormously distended underbelly of Manhattan’s culinary adventures is what I set out to explore. Five star experiences are a dime a dozen, and guides aplenty tell you where to lay your plastic down for tasty apps and a main. But where can you get authenticity? Where can you find True American Eats? Right here, baby. Right here.
Vegetable: Boar’s Head Pickles. They’re cheap and they’re massive. A single courgette can feed a family of five for a month. You can buy them anywhere in New York, and the only requirement is that you must be able to heft them out of the jar without breaking your own arm.
But watch out… if they soak up too much brine, they can turn EVIL.
Animal: Sturgeon. It’s a fish, whose popularity would suggest it spawns in huge vats of heroin-laced ambrosia. Barney Greengrass, the self-titled “Sturgeon King,” has people lined up around the block waiting for their piscine hit on Sundays. Seriously, some folks camp out overnight. I would have snapped a photo of the ravening hordes, but I didn’t want to be mistaken for the delivery guy.
Mineral(?): There were several fine candidates for the dishonorable mention of most-freaky-totally-chemical ‘food’ item on the shelves in NYC. Despite the stiff competition, I narrowed it down to a tie for first. “New Extreme Crème Taste Oreo O’s Cereal” is terrifying in its frivolous disregard for the health of young Americans. To me, this product smacks of chocolately defeat, a saccharine acceptance of video game culture and obesity.
The second item I caught a glance of in the checkout aisle, casually laying itself out as an “impulse item.” Instantly recognizable as one of my childhood delights, “Fun Dip” has taken on a disturbing new face with the advent of some subtle graphic retooling of their packaging. The dip itself is pictured as having fun, making the figurative horrifyingly literal. The average consumer may not even register the dreadful scene unfolding in happy cartoon colours, as the dip’s anthropomorphized mouth opens wide to receive a tongue piled high with its own substance. Crystalline fructose cannibalism. Apple, grape and cherry cheerfully plunge the dip stick into themselves in an overtly sexual and violent act. What kind of twisted morality is this teaching the children of today?
Other: While not technically edible (the same could be said of Oreo cereal, really), there were a few other food-fetish items that seemed worthy of note. During a routine stop at F.A.O. Schwartz, the giant toy store across from Bergdorf Goodman’s, one can take witness the glory that is the world’s biggest Mr. Potato Head.
Also on display were the latest in cutting-edge plastics that didn’t prove useful in warfare, so got annexed as toys instead. Check out silly putty if you want historical precendent for this practice. You have to appreciate the humour in “Goooze” by Nickelodeon (insert vagina slang joke here). Yes, I know. I have a filthy, filthy mind. But you have to admit, the packaging doesn’t help. Not only does “Goooze” (snort, guffaw, ahem) come in a wide array of food-flavours such as cream soda, mint chocolate chip, whole lotta berry, and the freakish pinenana-splitz, it also has some hilarious marketing imperatives. “New Scented Formula: Smell It!”, “Stretch It”, “Bounce It!”, “Squeeze it!”, “Bubble it!” How’s a girl NOT supposed to laugh? Serious homonym action with a really nasty word for snatch I could giggle at and move on, but SNIFF IT?!? It’s all just too much for my poor perverted mind to handle.
It didn’t help that just one floor up was another strange twist in the weird world of food-related toys. Some bright spark saw a market for new, hip, urban Barbie Dolls, and decided to call them “Flavas.” These dolls are true role models for the Future Leaders of America. Little hip hop ghetto people wearing leopard print tube tops and oversized pants, their ‘hoods tagged with graffiti, sporting names like P. Bo and Kiyoni Brown. I don’t think I need to go on about these. They sort of scream for themselves.
