LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPtalk |
by Bill Sievert |
"You Want Cheese on That?" (or, America Gets Cheesy) Like so many others who make their year-round homes here at the beach, John and I try to do a little traveling during the winter. With so many of our favorite Rehoboth restaurants on hiatus in January and February, we always look forward to checking out the cuisine in the places we visit. Some years our getaways have been to exotic overseas locales with exciting local delicacies to tempt our taste buds. This winter we simply jumped in our van and headed south to visit friends and family in Florida. Unfortunately, most of the culinary experiences on our driving trip only served to reinforce our notion that America has become a frightfully "cheesy" place. Its almost impossible to get a meal along the nations interstate highways without being cajoled into eating cheeseand Im not talking about brie or asiago, but slabs of processed American style. Whichever fast food franchise one chooses, nearly every breakfast and lunch offering comes slathered in sheets of the yellow stuff. "Id like a quarter-pound burger, please," John requested at our first restaurant stop on I-95. "One Quarter Pounder with cheese," the acne scarred teen-ager behind the counter repeated as he punched at his terminal screen. "No, a Quarter Pounderthe one on the menu that comes without cheese." "Really?" the clerk asked, incredulously. "Its only twenty-cents more to get the cheese." "Its not exactly a matter of money," John said. "Huhwell, we dont get many orders for QPs without cheese. Hang on a minute" The guy turned and yelled through the opening to the kitchen. "He dont want cheese on that." We both felt self-conscious, got a sense that everyone in the restaurant was snickering at us. Were they thinking of us as particularly fruity gay guys because we wouldnt eat their cheese? I pointed to the nutritional chart on the wall and started reading salient statistics to the young man who, instead of being behind the counter, should have been in junior high school at that time of day. "A Quarter Pounder with cheese has 30 grams of fat as compared to 21without," I said. "Lets see, thats approximately one-third more fat with the cheese." "Well, you get two slices," the clerk replied. The next person in line ordered a double cheeseburger, large fries and a diet cola. We figured that we would eat a lot better once we arrived in Florida. For our first meal out in the Tampa Bay area, an old friend recommended a "trendy" little bistro recently opened by two women in the charming community of Safety Harbor, where we once had a cottage. The menu is limited to what they feel like cooking, our friend explained, but the food is "fabulous" and the place is "cute as a bug." "No doubt a palmetto roach," John said, raising an eyebrow. Sure enough, the old house in which the bistro was located was quite cute in its funky Key West conch style, and the proprietors were warm in their welcomes. "Tonight, our starter is a beer cheese and popcorn soup," said Marge, the more butch of the chef-owners. I think I gulped audibly. Our friend had just served us cheese-stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer with martinis at his home. "Oh, and everything comes with their fabulous cheese flat bread," our friend enthused. "Mmmm," I replied. Marge returned quickly with the bread and piping bowls of soup accompanied by a slab of parmesan and a grater. She began sprinkling the cheese into Johns bowl without even asking. I had time to cover mine with my hands and beg off on the extra topping. The next night we went out to a spot on the Gulf of Mexico renowned for its fresh grouper, a fish we both adore. "Our soup tonight is potato with Swiss cheese," our tanned beach boy of a server announced. "I think Ill have the salad," I replied. "We make our own blue-cheese dressing; want to try it?" he asked with an en-couraging smile. "Do you have any honey mustard?" I muttered, a bit sheepishly. The salad was delicious, once I plucked out the bright yellow cubes of cheddar. I had to amend the menu once again to get my fish the way I like it, despite the fact that the handsome waiter clearly thought less of me. The broiled grouper special that night was prepared Margherita style, named for the pizza that first mated cheese with traditional Italian peasant bread. Years earlier, on a visit to Naples, John and I learned a little about the history of pizza. For centuries, cheese had not been an ingredient of either the Italian or Greek tradition. As far back as the year 1000, impoverished Neapolitans had been eating "picea," a baked piece of dough with herbs and spices. It was sold by roaming vendors. The idea of using bread as a plate had come to Italy from Greece, where peasants ate "plankuntos," a round flat bread with toppings. When the tomato, introduced to Italy from Mexico and Peru as a decorative plant in the 16th Century, was found not to be poisonous, the Neapolitans made its fruit a favored topping. Cheese did not make a formal appearance on pizza until 1889 when a baker in Naples decided to create a special treat for visiting Queen Margherita. Although she was royalty, she loved her "picea." To honor the colors of the Italian flag, the baker made her one with white mozzarella, red tomatoes and green basil. For most Italians, mozzarella was too expensive and difficult to obtain, but visiting Americans loved the new Margheritas and Italian emigrants began baking them in their New York grocery stores around the turn of the 20th century. After World War II, when American GIs returned from Italy with a taste for cheese pizza, the real craze began. Chef Boyardee packaged kits that helped American families bake their own, and the late 1950s saw the arrival of the first Pizza Huts, Shakeys and the like. As competition for the American pizza dollar grew, enterprising restaurant chains and frozen-food companies figured out how to compete. Forget the simple mozzarella. Peddle pizzas with two, three, four, even five (!) varieties of cheese. One of the most popular pizzerias here in Rehoboth Beach advertises that its dough is "fat free." The ads say nothing about its cheese. Like most everyone, when John and I are home and dont feel like cooking, we occasionally succumb to temptation and call one of the local pizza places for a delivery. About a year ago, we began asking for "light cheese." At first, we were informed that "Lite cheese" was not available. We learned to rephrase our request: "Could you please go light on the cheese?" We rarely even have to ask the question anymore when we call. Our request must appear on the pizzerias caller id screen alongside our phone number. They seem to know immediately that were the strange men who prefer the taste of tomatoes and spices to the big bite of cheese. As has pizza, Mexican food has gone to the cheese dogs. The rise of "Tex-Mex" has changed the definition of Mexican cuisine all over America. Travel to our southern neighbor (or even to the Mission District of San Francisco) and you can still savor that countrys classic cheese-less cuisine. A few years back, we twice stayed at a lovely villa south of Puerto Vallarta. The house had an excellent live-in chef named Tomas. I asked Tomas one evening why Mexican food in the States was so different than in Mexico. "We arent cheese addicts like you people are," he said. "Here its a treat, like in eggs rancheros. But most of our people cant afford cheese very often and weve never acquired so much of a taste for it. The taste and smell of cheese can smother the other flavors, you know." Yes, we know. Thats why John and I make the folks at a lot of restaurants a little crazy, whether were on vacation in Florida or back home in Rehoboth. Its not simply a matter of excessive fat content. Its a question of taste. At a local sub shop I always order exactly what I want on my sub, but invariably the hand of the person preparing it reaches into the cheese bin and I must wave him or her off with a "no thanks." I have observed this same automatic-pilot behavior on the part of sandwich makers wherever I have traveled in these United States. Although people who make false assumptions about us can tend to get on our nerves, John and I have come to take pride in the fact that we are differentto delight in our diversity from the masses of Cheese Whizzing Americans. And, perhaps most important, we have learned just how delicious a chicken enchilada at Tijuana Taxi can be if we simply speak up and ask our server to "hold the cheese." |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 9, No. 3, April 9, 1999 |