Did you grow up in the USA — with a “regular” burger, hotdogs, and mac & cheese childhood? Or what was your gastronomic experience like as a kid?
I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., which means there was slice pizza from Fascati and pork buns from Su-Su’s and chicken Yunan from China Chili. There was fried chicken my dad made on Sundays and my mother’s fresh yogurt every morning and big bagels still warm from the oven on Clark Street on the way to school. There were Saturday day trips all over the city to pick up sausages and cold cuts and ham, to buy bread, Jamaican ginger beer, hot dogs from Papaya King, tomatoes and greens from Norman, the hippie on Cranberry Street. There were appetizers from Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side and sandwiches at Buffa’s in SoHo. There was always a goose at Christmas, a ham at Easter, and a hot turkey plate on white bread with extra cranberry and gravy in June on my birthday, at Junior’s, with cheesecake for dessert. There were Coke floats at diners and debates over the merits of diner cheeseburgers over the fat ones served in “real” restaurants, by which we meant bars. There were actual Merits, too, smoked by pretty girls drinking Ballantine Ale, and hot dogs cooked under the Brooklyn Bridge in the wind. There was sushi. There were tagines. Fruit rollups from Sahadi on Atlantic Avenue, halvah bars for the brave. There was rice and peas. Roti. Corned beef and cabbage. Maduros. Knishes. Some crazy brown-noodle thing at Dojo to impress a girl on a Saturday night. And then a slice from Fascati, again, on the way home. Fairly typical upbringing for a food guy out of New York City, actually.
- Sam Sifton, NY Times food critic.
(via NY Times)
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