THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED: PART4
THE TASTE OF HOME.
Chicago's a mecca for amazing food, and I got to eat some incredible things in the couple years I lived there. Being flat broke the whole time, though, meant the opportunities were rare. When they came, they were almost always revelatory.
One came through Aikido, of all things. Newer martial art in the grand scheme of combat disciplines, but rooted deep in traditional Japanese hierarchy. So when one of the senseis and a few senior students went out for sushi at a classmate's restaurant, we got treated like royalty. Aikido tends to attract professionals: I'd end up at a table with a schoolteacher, a dentist, an actual neuroscientist, little unimportant barista me right there with them. When the bill came, they'd all argue over who got to pay it. That was a fight I always bowed out of.
Meanwhile, I'd come home as often as I could, and when I did, I ate the same things at the same places every time. Golden Chopsticks: "No thank you, I don't need a menu." Egg roll. Hot and sour soup. General Tso's. Every time.
I loved my DiCarlo's. Had a strict preference, too: Wellsburg first, Elm Grove a close second, Glen Dale a distant third. They went through a rough patch in the early 2000s. Better now, I think.
And I always made the required visit to Coleman's. On one trip I got a lesson from the least expected source. Lunch with my best friend from high school and one of his kids, and as I drowned my fish sandwich in ketchup, squeezing out between the bread and the fish onto the wax paper, the kid asked why I ate it like that. Before I could answer that it was just how I'd always done it, my friend beat me to it: "Because he doesn't actually like the taste of fish."
I laughed it off. But another seed got planted, same as the garlic, same as the coffee.
Jer ate his fish sandwich with a little malt vinegar and salt. There's a running joke in the chef world about how bland whitefish actually is, and the next time I went to Coleman's, I ate it Jer's way. Changed man. Every single visit I've had to Centre Market for a fish sandwich since then: malt vinegar and salt.
Same lesson applies to the soy-sauce-and-wasabi slurry that plagues American diners at Japanese sushi spots. I don't know where that abomination started, but let me save you some money: if you're blending your wasabi into your soy sauce until it's a chunky gray paste that would make a real sushi chef weep, just get the California roll. You're not actually tasting the fish.
Condiments do one of two things. They can be noble: adding to a dish, complementing flavors already there. Or they can be vile: hijacking the dish, covering up whatever mistakes are hiding underneath.
A lot of us in the Upper Ohio Valley grew up on the vile kind, same as we grew up overcooking everything half to death. We came up on the lower end of the ladder, and you make do with what you've got. Ketchup is a notorious flavor pirate. So is ranch dressing. A-1 famously gets a bad rap, but it does complement a steak well and has a place at a steak dinner, in moderation.
Look at comfort food generally. Heavy on carbs, fattier cuts, a lot of dairy. It exists because parents were trying to feed a family as much as they could for as little as they could. It filled a real void, and it's comforting because it's familiar. We're taught the association: holidays, family, warmth, fat and happy.
Nothing wrong with comfort food. Nothing wrong with any food, honestly. It's a matter of how much and when. Some things that used to be a treat have become a daily standard, and that's the actual problem. We can't eat cheeseburgers every day. Treats are supposed to be special. Even Cookie Monster admits that now. You're an adult, you can absolutely have another slice of cake. Doesn't mean you have to.
Still, familiar things really are comforting. Every time I've traveled abroad for an extended stretch, and I've never done it any other way, it's the familiar food I start missing after a couple weeks. Those flavors and textures carry a sense of home, even a sense of identity.
Two weeks into my month in Japan, and friend, I would have murdered for a cheeseburger.
Food is culture. Culture is who we are as a people.
Routine, though, is a killer. We've all driven home from work and realized we're already in the driveway with no memory of the drive itself. Do something enough times, and the brain switches to autopilot. We lose years of our lives that way. Hell, we lose our whole lives that way.
I grew up obsessed with travel and exploration, and that's never left me. Still, I didn't leave the Valley and land in Japan overnight. My first real trip of any consequence was a road trip to Philadelphia with my art school buddies. We made it as far as Somerset.
Slowly, like ripples moving out from a stone dropped in a pond, my travels spread out from Wheeling. And the way those ripples eventually settle back toward center, my travels have always brought me home.
We can live that way in everything. Chase the new and exciting, then come back to the known and comfortable. Keeps life varied and fresh while it recharges you. Takes real energy to break from the gravity of the familiar, and it feels just as good coming back to rest in it. The more you push your horizons out, the bigger your comfort zone gets. The bigger your comfort zone, the further you're able to go next time.
There's no one right way to live, or to eat, except in the broadest possible sense. There's room for both. That's why at Vagabond Kitchen you'll find both the familiar and the interesting on the same menu: something to feel at home in, and something to send those first ripples out.
The first time I was ever taught by my Aikido sensei in Chicago, he said "Good martial arts are beautiful." So is knowing exactly what you like, and why you like it. Took me thirty years and a fish sandwich to figure that part out.
-- Chef Matt
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