When I was young, a night out for real meant a steak. I would go with friends to Arthur's, a North Jersey landmark with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, pickled peppers, roasted potatoes, and flags in the steak to indicate how rare it was. This was sophistication, we told ourselves. We had, after all, simply grown up in an era prior to Nouvelle or Fusion, when a steak dinner was simply what you ordered. No self-respecting man was going to go out and order chicken. As for fish, wasn't that a first course?
As the years went by, I had Chateaubriand at Maisonette, Wellington at Four Seasons, steak pie at Brittingham's, prime rib at Morton's, and onglet at Tewksbury Inn -- always believing that I was happy, that this was dining. (All except Morton's, perhaps, where the the whole vibe was a little too Henry VIII-meets-Disney for my tastes.
Then I had duck at Court Street. It probably wasn't the best duck anyone has ever had, but it was a revelation to me. There was another option -- not boring like chicken, and not silly and inconsequential like pasta. Then there was the salmon at the Sole Proprietor. Fish as a main course? Who knew!
By the time I was 30 years old, I had stopped ordering beef entirely at restaurants. I think I've had one steak in a restaurant in the past five years, and I didn't love it. I'm sure I was nearly the last one to figure this out. There are always hipper people than me. But most of the time they were eating pasta, and where's the fun in that? But I had discovered pork and lamb and organ meat and shellfish, and I wasn't going back.
I was late to the party on variety -- I didn't have Chinese food until my teens. I had sushi, but only because I was in Japan. Pizza was made at home, on cookie sheets, and had tomato paste from a can beneath the rubbery mozzarella. But then I grew up under the Tyranny of Beef. Oh, sure, people ate pork chops. At home. On Wednesday. Turkey was for Thanksgiving, ham for Easter, macaroni and cheese on Friday and during Lent. But beef ruled the world. That was a Saturday night dinner, dinner for company, dinner out. Like having a martini before dinner -- who would have thought we'd trade that for glasses of Chardonnay? (Wine came in a jug, with a handle, right?)
What's the point here? Not much really, other than to observe the culinary changes that came about under my watch, the way that a steak became no-longer-a-steak in a very short time. Three-pieced businessmen started to talk about the joys of ceviche with a minerally Gruner, and the manliness of Don Draper stepped aside to let in the manliness of Tony Bourdain.
It was thrilling, in many ways, to find it happening. Had I been older, I might have been the type who sniffed about such tastes being unmanly -- we don't call someone with simplistic throwback tastes a "meat-and-potatoes man" by accident. Had I been younger, I may have grown up never knowing the Tyranny of Beef -- like a kid born in the era of Facebook and smartphones can't imagine that people once lived -- for lifetimes on end -- without such things.
As the years went by, I had Chateaubriand at Maisonette, Wellington at Four Seasons, steak pie at Brittingham's, prime rib at Morton's, and onglet at Tewksbury Inn -- always believing that I was happy, that this was dining. (All except Morton's, perhaps, where the the whole vibe was a little too Henry VIII-meets-Disney for my tastes.
Then I had duck at Court Street. It probably wasn't the best duck anyone has ever had, but it was a revelation to me. There was another option -- not boring like chicken, and not silly and inconsequential like pasta. Then there was the salmon at the Sole Proprietor. Fish as a main course? Who knew!
By the time I was 30 years old, I had stopped ordering beef entirely at restaurants. I think I've had one steak in a restaurant in the past five years, and I didn't love it. I'm sure I was nearly the last one to figure this out. There are always hipper people than me. But most of the time they were eating pasta, and where's the fun in that? But I had discovered pork and lamb and organ meat and shellfish, and I wasn't going back.
I was late to the party on variety -- I didn't have Chinese food until my teens. I had sushi, but only because I was in Japan. Pizza was made at home, on cookie sheets, and had tomato paste from a can beneath the rubbery mozzarella. But then I grew up under the Tyranny of Beef. Oh, sure, people ate pork chops. At home. On Wednesday. Turkey was for Thanksgiving, ham for Easter, macaroni and cheese on Friday and during Lent. But beef ruled the world. That was a Saturday night dinner, dinner for company, dinner out. Like having a martini before dinner -- who would have thought we'd trade that for glasses of Chardonnay? (Wine came in a jug, with a handle, right?)
What's the point here? Not much really, other than to observe the culinary changes that came about under my watch, the way that a steak became no-longer-a-steak in a very short time. Three-pieced businessmen started to talk about the joys of ceviche with a minerally Gruner, and the manliness of Don Draper stepped aside to let in the manliness of Tony Bourdain.
It was thrilling, in many ways, to find it happening. Had I been older, I might have been the type who sniffed about such tastes being unmanly -- we don't call someone with simplistic throwback tastes a "meat-and-potatoes man" by accident. Had I been younger, I may have grown up never knowing the Tyranny of Beef -- like a kid born in the era of Facebook and smartphones can't imagine that people once lived -- for lifetimes on end -- without such things.