Omnivore Atlanta

Wow, lobster’s now cheaper per pound than scrap meat:

Looking for an inexpensive change-up for your next backyard barbeque? Try lobster. “Per pound, it’s less expensive than hot dogs right now,” grumbles lobster-boat captain Mike Dassatt, who fishes the coast near Belfast, Maine, with his wife Sheila….

All around the globe, the lousy economy is having a devastating impact on demand for luxury goods, and the Maine lobster may well be the Mercedes-Benz of food.

Restaurant demand for lobster is down 30% to 35%, versus 10% to 15% for other seafood, reports Michael Tourkistas, CEO of Lynn, Mass., seafood distributor East Coast Seafoods. “Lobster is considered a celebration food — a feel-good food — and right now people don’t have a lot to celebrate,” says Tourkistas.

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Today’s New York Times website includes a video about patrons of a food bank in California. The reporter, Monica Almeida, spent a year tracking people who use the facility, a faith-based organization. Click here and look for the video piece entitled “A Year of Struggle at a Food Bank”…

Richard Blais is featured in a Businessweek article about the hamburger renaissance:

A finalist on Bravo’s Top Chef last season, Blais is a student of molecular gastronomy, cooking with nitrogen and the like. One of his beef burgers is cooked sous-vide, which is French for “under vacuum,” and describes food that is cooked inside an airtight plastic bag over a long period at low temperatures. What Blaise brokers in is not so much hamburgers as proteins of any ilk stuck between two buns….

Joel Antunes is cooking in Bali.

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Salon has published a fascinating interview with Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Wrangham, a Harvard anthropologist, argues that the signal event in the evolution of apes into men was learning to use fire to cook — not the development of tools, as is usually said.

Wrangham observes that cooked food is more efficiently digestible and nutritious than raw food (and he thus criticizes the so-called “raw food movement”). He also argues that cooking shaped our households and notions about gender.

It’s a great read, but I was surprised that neither the author of the interview or Wrangham himself credited Claude Lévi-Strauss for his seminal book, The Raw and the Cooked (1964), which argues (by looking at mythological themes) that the axis of the raw and the cooked signifies the binary opposition of nature and culture. It’s arguably a rather small step from Lévi-Strauss’ argument to Wrangham’s.

Maybe Wrangham takes up Lévi-Strauss in the book’s text….

Economy got you down? Home in foreclosure? Don’t worry. Bake cakes….

Atlanta did not make Huffington Post’s list of the 10 Best US Cities for Local Food. But you can still nominate us….

Hollywood organizes to help save the sushi favorite, bluefin tuna, from extinction.

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First sign of the times: Cheap food. I can’t think of a better bargain in Midtown than a meal at Eats on Ponce de Leon Avenue. Here’s half a chicken roasted with jerk seasonings, an ear of fresh corn, a bowl of lima beans and some collards — for just under $10. And it all tastes good

Second sign of the times: This warning is affixed to the door of Eats.

Third sign of the times: Ansley Mall is doomed to eventual redevelopment but the Piccadilly Cafeteria there is closing this week or next, I’m told. I wonder where the area’s church groups will go for dinner now. The parade of hats and suits in colors unknown to nature has long been a favorite Sunday spectacle there.

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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“Hi, I’ll be your server tonight. What may I get you to drink? Could I recommend a wine?”

“I’d just like a glass of tonic water with some lime.”

“OK, no wine. I understand. Can I ask the kitchen to start you an appetizer while I get your tonic? We have an excellent soup tonight. I know it’s warm out here on the patio and even though it’s a hot soup, it’s really good. May I order you a cup or a bowl? I just hate for you not to taste it.”

“No thanks.”

“Maybe you’d like some bruschetta? Yes? No? I tell you what. Why don’t you think about that while I get your tonic water? Maybe you’ll change your mind. Did you want lemon in that tonic? Or would you prefer lime?”

“No bruschetta, thanks, and lime.”

*********

“Here’s your tonic water with lime. Did you decide on a starter?”

“No starter, thanks.”

“OK, I understand. Now, we have a couple of entree specials tonight that I think you’d enjoy. …”

“I’m having the white pizza. I’d like you to add some arugula to the top of it.”

“Oh, OK. We can do that. Do you want a lot of arugula or just a little arugula? I like to ask. How much arugula do you want on that pizza?”

“A little is fine.”

“OK, if it’s not enough, we can always add more. Do you want parmesan on that arugula? I can grate some at the table if you’d like. Just think about it, OK?”

********

“I see you’re done. Now how about some dessert? What would you like? We have some delicious choices I’d like to tell you about. First off, there’s…”

“No dessert, just the check, please.”

“OK, I understand. You can try a dessert when you come back next time. Just think about it, OK?”

(Photo courtesy of http://www.mysteryshoppersmanual.com)

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Big chain restaurants are dropping like flies, according to the New York Times:

Now consumers are cutting back, and dining out is among the casualties. Finer restaurant chains have been hit hard, and so have the casual sit-down places that flooded suburban shopping centers and tourist districts across the country, aimed straight at middle American tastes.

A few chains have boarded up already. Many others are going into survival mode, trying to renegotiate their loans, cutting staff, offering bargains to customers and closing less profitable restaurants. Analysts predict thousands more restaurants could close in the next year or two.

The pain is evident even amid the neon glitz of Times Square, which draws big crowds of tourists used to eating at places like Red Lobster and Applebee’s.

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Although I found the new Fourth and Swift beautiful, one thing about its interior shocked me: Its size. Even in the best of times, I’d expect a restaurant that large to have difficulty filling up. With the economy tanking, that’s going to be even harder.

Generally, the recession is having an immediate effect on the restaurant industry. But it’s not all bad, according to Karlene Lukovitz of MediaPost.com. She has written an interesting article that outlines a few surprising effects.

Chief among them is a boost to local and organic ingredients:

In the past, buying food at farmers’ markets was more expensive, but soaring fuel prices are now giving the cost edge to local growers, who do not have to factor long-distance transportation into their prices. And as more budget-conscious consumers turn to farmers’ markets, more such markets are in turn springing up around the nation…

In addition, more consumers are buying less expensive private-label organic brands, which are becoming increasingly available not only through pioneers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, but more mainstream retailers. Examples include Stop & Shop’s Nature’s Promise. And Target’s Archer Farms. “People don’t want to give up their organics, but as the recession worsens, they’re seeking out cheaper organics,” sums up Ramin Ganeshram [a restaurant trends analyst].

In response, retailers are expanding their lines of private-label organics even more rapidly, to encompass everything from milk to chocolate bars. And while the economy is currently driving the acceleration in consumer demand and new SKU’s within the private-label organics sector, these buying patterns “will become so entrenched that they will be here to stay,” says the trends analyst.

She also notes that ethnic restaurants are booming. With travel increasingly unaffordable, ethnic restaurants offer a brief “passport” to another culture. It’s always amazed me that people will go to so-called fusion restaurants and pay big prices for food they could consume on Buford Highway for a fraction of the cost.

I think people are also catching on that ethnic restaurants provide an inexpensive, usually healthier alternative to fast food, although sales of that are also increasing due to the recession.

Lukovitz also notes one of my regular complaints: the “tapafication” of menus:

This trend began in part as a response to meeting the preferences of 18- to-30-year-old Millennials who tend to be “opportunity eaters” or “grazers” and often opt for non-traditional food choices, such as eating waffles for dinner….With health- and weight-conscious consumers cutting back on sweets, restaurants also spotted smaller portions as a way to successfully tempt customers into springing for a dessert, even at big-portion prices.

Read the entire article here.

(Photo of Gray’s, a hot dog joint in New York, from gothamist.com.)

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