With SFIAAF 2008 in full swing, I’ve managed to munch popcorn with yeast for dinner more times than I care to admit during the past few days. And with another week of films ahead, it looks like I’m going to need to restock my supply of dental floss.

Fortunately, it’s been worth it. Over the weekend, two titles that food and film lovers should add to their list were screened to sold-out crowds.

THE KILLING OF A CHINESE COOKIE

Who among us can resist opening a fortune cookie? No matter how jaded or snobby, no matter how much you may hate that dry, tasteless joke of a dessert that sits on your bill after a meal at the Golden Imperial Jade Wok Garden, I dare you to leave behind, unopened and unread, that little strip of paper and its peek into your future.

Like many things we touch in daily life, the beginnings of the humble fortune cookie are murky, but in his documentary, The Killing of a Chinese Cookie, director Derek Shimoda doggedly follows the complex maze of historic claims and counterclaims. Best of all, he collects the amazing stories of thoroughly lovable individuals. Third-generation confectioners and visual artists, judges and lawyers, historians and entrepreneurs, master chefs and hack writers–everyone has an opinion about the fortune cookie. Among the highlights are recollections of the mock trial held in 1983 at the San Francisco Court of Historical Review. Instead of settling the dispute, though, the arguments seemed to have only stirred up the controversy even more.

More recently, The New York Times covered the long-standing debate in a feature about the origins of the ubiquitous cookie. Among the many representing Northern California’s interests are the descendants of Suyeichi Okamura, who in 1906 opened the Benkyodo Company, a confectionary in San Francisco Japantown where you can still buy handmade moochi, sembei and other traditional sweets.

One of the Suyeichi Okamura’s grandsons shows how hot cookies were once slipped into this wooden rack to cool slightly before a fortune was hidden within its crisp folds.

I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much during a documentary while learning about the secrets of the past. With great affection, Shimoda tracks the cookie’s influence from Japan’s sembei treats to Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden, though World War II and the rise of Chinatown restaurants, to erotic art and lucky lottery numbers. I won’t reveal any more about the film or the cookie’s history, since I highly recommend this film. The fun of it will be in watching the story unfold for yourself.

A manager at a Los Angeles factory showing an old tin of fortune cookies that he’s resisted opening for posterity’s sake.

The Killing of a Chinese Cookie
Directed by Derek Shimoda
Sunday, March 23
12:00 Noon
Camera Cinemas 12 Downtown
201 South Second Street
San Jose, CA 95113
(408) 998-3300

You can still buy tickets for this weekend’s screening of the film at San Jose’s Camera Cinemas 12. Until then, you can read the memorable fortunes submitted by NTY readers.

I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OKAY

Many of us have been waiting to see Park Chan-Wook’s latest film on the big screen. If you’ve survived his infamous films, Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, then you’ll already know that Park’s work is not for everyone. But those who love his intense, over-the-top vision or who can’t get enough of Korea’s boundary-breaking films, his latest should not be missed.

I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Okay reveals a new tack in his filmmaking: romantic comedy. In Park’s world, though, this means telling the story of how two psychotics in an insane asylum find love across the distance of alternative realities, group therapy and padded rooms.

Im Su-jeong plays Young-goon, a pale and skittish young woman who refuses to swallow even a single grain of rice, since cyborgs like her cannot digest food. She licks batteries to help recharge her energy, talks to vending machines and flickering lights, and mourns the loss of her daikon-nibbling grandmother. Superstar singer Rain plays a scruffy kleptomaniac, Il-sun, who invents and (in one of my favorite scenes in the film) installs a tiny machine called the Rice Megatron–with lifetime service guaranteed–inside Young-goon to help her survive the rigors of reality.

Any further attempt to explain the plot or introduce the cast of characters will fail miserably.

Viewers who nearly died from cuteness overdose during Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain or Michel Gondry’s La Science des Rêves might think twice about seeing this film. You’ll find a bit of relief from romantic sweetness during a few crazed killer-bot scenes, but don’t expect the endless blood or deep anger of Park’s earlier films.

I’m a Cyborg is the ultimate film, however, for fans of surrealism on the screen, well-intentioned massacres, hope flickering in a chaotic world, and uncertain non-endings.

On display through the wonderful internets are hundreds upon thousands of photographs of everyday lunches. No soggy PB&J’s here, though. One forum, the Mr. Bento Porn Flickr group, posts their collective creative efforts to make mid-day meals visually appealing, healthful, delicious and, yes, a little easier on the wallet. Their cousin site, Diet Bento, includes impressively low calorie counts for those whose 2008 resolutions (for now at least) include trimming down a little of their own belly fat.

Portable meals have been with us for as long as farmers have trudged off to their fields and soldiers have marched on in war. The Japanese took it a little further, of course. Where other countries preferred banana leaves or woven baskets, Japanese al fresco diners preferred compartmentalized boxes. By the 17th century, bento meals became elaborately arranged celebrations of the full moon and cherry blossoms, a leisurely way to enjoy intermission with friends at the theatre or, like the older form of sushi, essential food for travelers in an age before planes and bullet trains.

Fast forward to the 20th century for aluminum tins, insulated containers, microwaveable cups and, last but not least, those brightly colored, plastic Hello Kitty boxes that accompany kids to school. Adult versions abound, too, although Ichiban Kan’s bento aisle seems pretty well populated by over-twenty-somethings. For those who want to pack with style, <a href=”http://www.plasticashop.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=P&Product_Code=BNTOBX&Category_Code
Designer boxes”>Plastica offers a sleek, stackable set in elegant colors.

Japan is not the only country with distinctive lunch boxes. Vietnam has its aluminum ca men that families carry every morning to the market to pick up breakfast, a different soup in each of the layers prepared exactly as each person prefers. The beautifully painted enamel tins of Malaysia are collectors’ items, while in India, no-nonsense tiffin boxes show wonder less in their appearance than in their amazing daily travels from home to office and back again.

In Japan, there are nearly 500 magazines dedicated to showing parents (read: mothers) how to pack lunches that will entice and impress. The proper order to place in the elements, the proper balance of color and flavors, the proper container for the right food, the secret to making flowers and hamsters and their favorite manga characters out of edible delights: childrens’ meals are no less subject to codification and over-the-top creativity than anything else the Japanese do.

A few English-language books attempt to translate the techniques as well as the art of bento. Some designs would only appeal to an obsessive artist with lots of free time, but many are simple and worth trying. It’s a good way to get the kids involved the night before. Lay out some ingredients, flip to a fun photo and suddenly packing lunch becomes a game. Two titles to check out are Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go for a how-to guide and Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes for an aesthetic treatment of the topic.

Another good resource is Biggie’s Lunch in A Box site, where parents will find excellent suggestions for getting their kids off to school with good food. She has hints that acknowledge the need for speed in addition to the desire to make lunch and snacks both healthy and fun.

Like with most good habits, packing meals for lunch requires practice and foresight at first, then as the regimen settles into a comfortable part of your day and week, merely some momentary foresight during weekend shopping and prep. Simple tips include washing and cutting your vegetables ahead of time, freezing food in smaller batches and learning to pack more flavor than bulk.

And if you just want to have a cute lunchbox without the work, well, they do make excellent take-out containers. Buy one with straps or handles to carry to your favorite deli counter and do your part to cut back on disposable ware.

The documentary film, Chez Schwartz, enjoyed a quiet if savory U.S. premier at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center earlier this week. It has yet to be picked up for wider distribution, but keep an eye out for it. Or, if you can’t wait, order a DVD and see for yourself why this little “Charcuterie Hebraique” is the place to eat in Montréal.

Garry Beitel, a Montréal-based documentary filmmaker, recorded the day-to-day rhythms of Schwartz’s Deli over the course of an entire year. He managed to whittle his footage down to a poetic study of its workers. As one season melts into another, Beitel teases out the stories of the diverse men — from the dishwasher in the back of the house to the waiters in the front, from the general manager down to the gentlemanly panhandlers. They each describe their unique role in the extended family anchored by this tiny, 75-year-old restaurant. Through their stories, we see how years slip into decades and how one long-lived business adapts to a changing world.

Unusual in a film about ethnic food, there’s an “overcast” feel throughout the documentary. In the end we wonder what happens to individuals such as newly promoted Alex or sweet, ailing Ryan. (Anyone interested in degrees of separation and ground-breaking animation should watch this award-winning short about Ryan.) The power of Chez Schwartz lies in Beitel’s understated directing, Marc Gadoury’s intimate camera, André Boisvert’s amazingly natural sound, Robert Marcel Lepage’s music and — ultimately — the simple, direct oral history of the workers themselves.

At the head of the line, hungry pilgrims can catch glimpses of smoked meat, freshly sliced by hand and ready to go at the sandwich counter. Joao (Johnny) Gonçalves, meat cutter, prepares some without the usual bright yellow mustard.

I remember the first time I bit into smoked meat at Schwartz’s. Everyone does. In the film, two women gasp in rapture while sharing their first sandwich right there at the counter, and another diner is struck speechless while remembering his own first taste as a teenager. It may seem strange, perhaps even laughable to the uninitiated. But like any religion, only the converted truly understand.

During my year of exile in Vermont, I drove across the border every month to eat in Montréal. While dinner restaurants varied — rilettes at l’Express with my own jar of cornichons or maybe noodles in Chinatown — I always started with an early lunch at Schwartz’s.

The neighborhood surrounding the deli draws immigrants from around the world. Historically the heart of Montréal’s Jewish community, the road on which the deli sits has also been the symbolic division between the city’s east and west streets, its French and English languages.

After five years as the busboy, Alexandre “007″ Lebel gets promoted to waiter. To help with the stress of a fast-paced deli, he composes poems on clean paper place mats during precious down time.

If you arrive at 3895 Boulevard St. Laurent anywhere near the middle of the day, you’ll stand in line on the sidewalk with a couple of dozen other meat lovers, separated by mere glass from stacks and stacks of brisket still warm from the massive steamer. You’ll be able to smell the smoky, salt-tinged meat and listen to the same order over and over again in two different languages: a “medium” with fries, cole slaw, fresh pickle and black cherry soda. Around 400 to 500 other diners a day will order a steak from Peter at the grill; it arrives accompanied by a slice of calf liver and two diminutive sausages. The grill is a relic of the past: open flame right in the dining room, arm’s length from innocent diners.

Grill man Peter Christianis (left) has been searing steaks and calf livers at the same station for 40 years, while waiter Mike Nelli has been a member of the Chez Schwartz family going on 7 years now.

Upstairs in the marinating bins and inside the smoker in the back are where the magic happens. The very secret recipe results in über-meat that’s juicy and tender, savory and smoky, fatty and flavorful. It’s not quite pastrami (there’s a dry rather than wet cure) and it’s way beyond corned beef (behold that spice-flocked, smoke-lacquered exterior). So everyone just calls it for what it is: smoked meat.

Frank Silva, general manager, knows the business inside and out. He’s hefted and sliced so many briskets during his twenty years at the deli that his arm is starting to give out.

Schwartz’s sandwiches have no need to rise to Carnegie heights nor does the owner, Hy Diamond, feel pressure to expand the menu beyond one type of meat sandwich, a steak and a few sides. As Peter Levitt and Karen Adelman, co-owners of Saul’s Deli in Berkeley know well, this is a rare and precious thing.

After the film’s screening on Thursday night, the two moderated an enlightening discussion about the future of Jewish delicatessens in the U.S. How does a meat-centered restaurant survive in a health-conscious, politically aware, option-filled world? How does Saul’s modest amount of Niman Ranch beef compete with super-stacked, industrially raised pastrami from tourist-driven, New York delis? And how does a younger generation begin transforming a cuisine frozen in time into a meaningful, relevant, profitable business?

It’s not about the size: Saul’s uses “clean meat” from Niman Ranch in its pastrami sandwiches.

Anyone who hangs around chefs knows that, generally, they survive on the razor’s edge of profit margins and see the cloud behind every silver lining. Peter and Karen were refreshingly honest about the challenges of running the deli, from the need to cater to the economics of not smoking your own meat to the impossibility of guaranteeing a kosher establishment. (People want milk with their coffee, after all, and don’t even think about getting rid of the Reuben!)

They named their own favorite delis: Langer’s in LA, Katz’s in NYC, and Manny’s in Chicago all made the short list. Most intriguing, though, were hints of a possible “Jewish bistro” in their future. The two hope to reinterpret and reinvent the vernacular of Jewish food with dishes from around the world using local, seasonal, organic ingredients.

For the time being, I’ll continue enjoying my favorites at Saul’s. From personal experience, I can vouch for the chopped liver (on both rye and matzo with plenty of mustard), the chicken soup and the pastrami sandwich. I also enjoyed more than my fair share of half-sour pickles and, of course, a bottle of Cel-Ray to wash everything down.

SAUL’S RESTAURANT & DELICATESSEN
1475 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 848-3354

Every year, on the first Sunday of November, tens of thousands of Sikh from across the U.S. and Canada travel to Yuba City for the largest gathering of their extended community in North America. It’s the only public festival I’ve seen in this country where not a single piece of food is sold, yet I still managed to eat and drink for six hours straight.

Food is offered free to all who come: Every single one of the 60,000 Sikh (give or take 20,000 in any given year) who take part in the festival, and the few hundred curious folk like me who show up for the food.

Cauliflower pakoras fresh from the oil.

All along the side of the parade’s path are stations of Sikh men and women rolling roti, frying pakoras, stirring curries, and cutting sweets. Everything served is vegetarian, to be as inclusive as possible. Friendly, young men offer fresh fruit, water, juice, and hot chai to all who walk by — even the Christian evangelists with their placards and flyers.
A line of women roll fill bread with potatoes masala while a two-man team shares dipping and frying duty.

Men from the Punjab region of Northern India were among the earliest immigrants to the Pacific Northwest and then the Central and Imperial Valleys of California. Many of them were Sikh, and their hard work — felling trees, laying rails, and laboring in fields and orchards — helped build the West.

The November festival in Yuba City honors the Sikh scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib, and the recitation of its words is central to the procession. Large, decorated semi-trucks help pull the priests and musicians through the crowded streets.

This Thursday, I’ll be giving a presentation about the importance of the communal kitchen in the Sikh religion. There’ll be lots more photos, including many archival ones, and we’ll discuss how Asian Americans such as the Sikh navigated strict immigration and alien land laws to establish thriving farms in the Central Valley.

“Sikh Temples and Communal Meals: Religion, Politics and Potluck in California’s Central Valley”
Presented by Thy Tran
Thursday, October 11, 2007
5:15-6:45 pm

Magnes Museum
2911 Russell Street, Berkeley, CA
Contact: Erica J. Peters, Culinary Historians of Northern California
Phone: (650) 938-4936
Email: e-peters-9@alumni.uchicago.edu

The Indian karahi has the same lovely, generous shape as a Chinese wok.

This week I scored big. In addition to finishing off a pint of burnt caramel ice cream I found a dusty but still strongly bound first edition of Laughter on the Hill, a book about a young woman who moved to San Francisco alone in the winter of 1940.

(Grandmothers, 1955. Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library.

For others who have adopted this city as their home, who have looked over the Bay and its bridges with awe, lived in a drafty dump of a flat that’s very well stocked with wine, or danced in the streets with strangers, this memoir will also strike a chord. It reminded me of other books that capture a special, specific time in the City’s history.

For a taste of San Francisco in years past…

Recollections of California: 1846-1881
by General William T. Sherman

During the spring of 1848, as reports of gold began transforming the City, young William Tecumseh Sherman was still stationed under General Kearny in California. Later in his life, he remembered accompanying Governor Mason from San Francisco to Santa Cruz on one particularly difficult journey.

The house was of adobe, with a long range of adobe-huts occupied by semi-civilized Indians, who at that time did all the labor of a ranch, the herding and marking of cattle, breaking of horses, and cultivating the little patches of wheat and vegetables which constituted all the farming of that day. Every thing about the house looked deserted, and, seeing a small Indian boy leaning up against a post, I approached him and asked in Spanish, “Where is the master?” “Gone to the Presidio” (Monterey). “Is anybody in the house?” “No.” “Is it locked up?” “Yes.” “Is no one about who can get in?” “No.” “Do you have any meat?” “No.” “Any flour or grain?” “No.” “Any chickens?” “No.” “Any eggs?” “No.” “What do you live on?” “Nada” (nothing). The utter indifference of this boy and the tone of his “Nada” attracted the attention of Colonel Mason, who had been listening to our conversation, and who knew enough of Spanish to catch the meaning, and he exclaimed with some feeling, “So we get nada for breakfast.” I felt mortified, for I had held out the prospect of a splendid breakfast of meat and tortillas with rice, chicken, eggs, etc., at the ranch of my friend Jose Antonio, as a justification for taking the Governor, a man of sixty years of age, more than twenty miles at a full canter for his breakfast. But there was no help for it, and we accordingly went a short distance to a pond, where we unpacked our mules and made a slim breakfast on scraps of hard bread and a bone of pork that remained in our alforjas.

Joe Tilden’s Recipes for Epicures
by Major Joseph Tilden (Sequoia Press, 1907)

Back when celery was a rare and refined delicacy, displaying its long green stalks in a crystal celery vase was a mark of high society. The tenderest, palest stalks would appear in a creamy soup. This version comes from the kitchen of San Francisco’s self-proclaimed Bohemian and epicurean, Joe Tilden.

Celery Soup

Boil one small cupful of rice in three pints of milk, or two pints of milk and one of cream, until it is tender. Then rub it through a sieve and add one quart of veal stock, salt, cayenne, and three heads of celery (the white stalks only) which have been previously grated. Boil until the celery is tender.

Laughter on the Hill: A San Francisco Interlude
by Margaret Parton (McGraw-Hill, 1945)

This slim volume recounts the quintessential San Francisco experience: the ripeness of youth, rebellion amidst soul-searching, parties with poets and much, much red wine. Before she became a reporter and correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, Parton lived for a year in a tiny, walk-up on Telegraph Hill.

It was autumn now in San Francisco, and wine-making time on the Hill. As I walked down Union Street toward the streetcar I could smell the purple grapes hanging rich and heavy in the hidden arbors behind the bare white fronts of the Italian flats. Great wooden barrels, scoured for the wine to come, began to appear in front of every doorstep, and one day there was the stained old wine press starting its yearly journey from the houses at the top of the Hill down to the late harvesters at the bottom. Each day as I passed it would be moved a little farther down, its heady smell mingling with the warm air from the basement bakeries, the odors of Provolone, salami, and black olives from the dim Italian groceries, the acid reek of the dark, male-frequented alleys, the salt wind from the Pacific.

This is San Francisco: A Classic Portrait of the City
by Robert O’Brien (Whittlesey House, 1948)

For catching the City in its many moods, there’s no better than Robert O’Brien’s street-by-street study. He trained his eyes and ears onto the quirky characters who flocked to the “City of Second Chances,” and his book, recently reprinted, remains one of the best portraits we have of the City.

Cross Broadway, and you leave behind the kingdom of chow mein and jow won ton and jasmine tea, and enter the realm of ravioli. The vowels you hear now are soft and liquid, and the music is something from La Tosca.

In fact, a step from the corner of Grant Avenue and Broadway is a cafe called “La Tosca.” Scenes from the opera are painted on the walls; Caruso sings from the juke box, and you drink a cappuccino, gray, like the robe of a capuchin monk, and made of chocolate that is laced with brandy or rum, and heated by steam forced through coffee.

This is a world of round brovolette cheeses hanging in store windows, and garlic sausage, and capretti at Easter time. Of the lovely smells of baking bread coming from ovens beneath the sidewalk, of picturesque and brightly colored family washings on clotheslines strung high over narrow alleys, of flowers in window boxes and canaries singing. Of Tony’s Shaving Parlor, and the Panama Canal Tagliarini and Noodle Factory and the Roma Macaroni Factory. Of steep lanes on the side of Telegraph Hill, and fat Italian housewives leaning on the their window sills and laughing in the sunshine, and wiry Italian boys playing ball in the street.

The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook
by Alice B. Toklas (Harper & Row, 1954)

After settling comfortably for years in France, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas returned to the U.S. for a lecture tour that stretched from New York to California. They weren’t impressed with what they ate during much of their journey across the nation but were delighted at last to reach the West Coast. (I’ve been searching for the tarte Chambord recipe for years, so if anyone knows how to make it, drop me a line!)

In San Francisco, we indulged in gastronomic orgies–sand dabs meuniere, rainbow trout in aspic, grilled soft-shell crabs, paupieres of roast fillets of pork, eggs Rossini and tarte Chambord. The tarte Chambord had been a specialty of one of the three great French bakers before the San Francisco fire. To my surprise in Paris no one had ever heard of it.

At Fisherman’s Wharf we waited for two enormous crabs to be cooked in a cauldron on the side-walk, and they were still quite warm when we ate them at lunch in Napa Country. Gertrude Atherton took us to lunch at a restaurant were the menu consisted entirely of the most perfectly cooked shell-fish, to her club where the cooking was incredibly good, and to dinner at a club of writers where conversation excelled.

The Silent Traveler in San Francisco
by Chiang Yee (W.W. Norton, 1964)

This is one in a long series of books written and illustrated by Yee as he explored cities throughout Europe and the U.S.

The crab-sellers of San Francisco’s Fishermen’s Wharf offer a sharp contrast to my mind from the lobster-seller in Bar Harbor and all the coastal towns of the State of Maine. There every lobster is kept alive as long as possible and there is no sign of any being cooked on the spot. It is the general belief that a lobster should be eaten straight after being cooked, for it tastes best then. Does not this belief extend to crabs? Or perhaps crabs cannot live out of the sea for long? The most puzzling point for me is that Crabdom seems to lie in the bottom of the Pacific around the west coast covering San Francisco while Lobsterdom (if any) is in that part of the Atlantic covering the New England States. The Chinese proverb “Pai wen pu yu yi chien” or “Hearing (about a thing) a hundred times is not better than seeing it once” proves true. Had I not been in both places I should not have realised the existence of these separate kingdoms. Crabdom and Lobsterdom!

…

Eating a whole freshly-cooked lobster or crab, though some small forks are usually provided, involves some action with the fingers from time to time, which in turns involves “table manners.” This brings to my mind many little problems concerning Chinese eating manners….We Chinese have two definite styles of eating: formal eating and eating for pleasure. At a banquet it is all formality and good manners; at other times we just enjoy ourselves, and then there is no question of etiquette. That is why some of the typically Chinese restaurants in San Francisco have a number of partitioned rooms, unlike the modern fashionable restaurant with many tables neatly arranged all together. Within these partitions, one can enjoy a meal with one’s friends, and eat as unconventionally as one likes without being criticized. Unfortunately this kind of typical Chinese restaurant with partitioned rooms is beginning to disappear even in San Francisco.

Far from the golden hills of California, with endless lush stretches of forest and field, the Green Mountain State lives up to its name. My road trip continues, and this week I find myself heading toward the Northeast Kingdom. Along the way, near the shores of Lake Champlain, I’ve been enjoying two local treats.

Faced with the uncertain future of sugar maples, eating maple creemees whenever possible is an imperative. Sugar shacks dot the countryside, and if a sign and an arrow point the way to a creemee, I am there. Soft vanilla ice cream swirled with this year’s maple syrup — what better way to celebrate summer in Vermont?

If you’re picky about such things as real ingredients (and you must be if you’re reading this blog) then be sure to ask at the creemee stands if they use real maple syrup. If not, well…there’s always another sugar shack further down the road.

In the village of Barre, pronounced “barry” as I was gently reminded by a local, an especially memorable variation appears in the guise of a maple sundae. At the window of Caesar’s Fare, where a red siren light promises rescue from snack attacks, you can order two scoops of maple-walnut ice cream topped with maple syrup (Grade B = “Better & Bolder”) and more walnuts. The bitterness of the nuts balances perfectly the sweetness of the syrup. Whipped cream and maraschino cherries complete the experience.

Another local flavor comes from a metal tin. At the other end of the sensuality spectrum, dry and crisp Common Crackers have sustained generations of Vermonters. Round, puffy and neatly halved like a French macaron, they’re the New England embodiment of pragmatism. Originally purchased annually by the barrel, these crackers served as breakfast when soaked in milk, lunch when nibbled with cheddar cheese, afternoon tea when spread with jam, or dinner when served with chowder.

Common crackers are descendants of the long-lived, well-traveled hardtack much-maligned by sailors and soldiers, and their close cousins include pilot crackers, water crackers, and sea biscuits. Recently revived by the Orton family, owners of the Vermont Country Store, the crackers are still available 180 years after they were first cut and baked in Montpelier.

I’ve been enjoying my mini-barrel of common crackers with shards of Grafton Village’s six-year cheddar cheese in between my maple creemees. Who cares about crumbs in the car or lactose intolerance with the open road ahead?

Stay tuned for an update next week from Maine. If all goes well, I’ll be posting photos of freshly dug steamers and buttery lobsters.

In the meantime, please feel free to share coordinates for your favorite lobster shack along the Down East Coast!

A recent breakfast at T-28 Cafe in the Outer Sunset reminded me just how good a cup of hot, strong milk tea tastes on lazy weekend mornings. Although the richness of a well-aged pu-erh or the emerald sweetness of a spring shin-cha give me great pleasure as a tea drinker, neither have a place in my heart like down-home milk tea.

Milk tea is its own religion in Hong Kong, intertwined in the colony’s history and culinary culture. It’s a topic not taken lightly, and I know I enter dangerous territory writing about it as an outsider. I’ve hosted visitors insisted on traveling with their own packets of instant “3-in-1″ milk tea to ensure that their morning cup wouldn’t be compromised. Although the boba generation may not remember, milk tea helped defined the intersection of east and west. Enjoyed from morning to midnight, it was served on nearly every street corner. Establishments guarded their secret recipes, and even McDonald’s began offering its own version of milk tea.

One of the 28 remaining dai pai dong in Hong Kong. Ubiquitous in the 50s and 60s, these street stalls specialized in both hot and cold milk tea as well as fast fare at all times of the day and night. I love those little, built-in, square stools — perfect for hunching over a bowl of noodles.

As with any ritual that combines comfort with caffeine, there’s much debate over the specifics, from the type of tea leaves to the brand of milk to the precise mechanics of combining the two. Generally, though, most can agree on some basic tenets for milk tea: a blend of Ceylon and Assam leaves brewed for an extended period, a generous stir of evaporated milk, and a hint of sweetness from a spoonful of condensed milk or sugar. Purists will insist on Black & White brand milk (the one with the cow on the label) and a cloth brewing bag to mimic the fine-textured, oblong filters that lend milk tea its nickname in Cantonese: “silk stocking tea.” I’m perfectly okay with English and Irish Breakfast teabags, but even the pragmatist in me admits that milk tea with anything else but evaporated milk falls far from its creator’s intent.

The key is brewing the tea over low heat for a very long time. The extra tannin gives enough body and bitterness to balance the milk, so the result is a strong yet silky smooth, creamy, and full-bodied drink that’s as easy to identify by sight as a properly made espresso. In fact, even before the cup arrives, you’ll know: walk into any cafe that makes its own milk tea and you’ll pick up instantly milk tea’s distinctive scent.

Marrying into the Wu family means learning new habits. The morning after my wedding, Ba Wu brews a big pot of milk tea for all our guests.

Yes, I know, Anglophiles and expats all shudder in horror at the thought of milk tea. But just like a tall glass of Southern sweet tea or a mug of cowboy coffee, the moment you sip one made with integrity and generosity, you’ll understand.

For your first cup of milk tea, don’t order from a place that makes it from an instant mix. Instead, look for Hong Kong eateries or bakeries where it appears on a separate drink menu. The popularity of bubble tea means a true milk tea has become extremely difficult to find. Try it at Sweetheart Cafe on Grant, D&A on Broadway, or ABC Bakery on Jackson in SF Chinatown. Slanted Door has an excellent version, lifted out of its Chinese diner ambience but honest, strong and good. My favorite source, T-28 Cafe out on Taraval at 28th Avenue, has an extensive menu that also highlights lemon tea, ginger coke, and other lovely libations.

Making Hong Kong Milk Tea

Experiment with various combinations of Ceylon (”English Breakfast”) and Assam (”Irish Breakfast”) teas. I personally like the redder, warmer flavors of more Assam leaves, but many prefer the darker, more robust Ceylon. If you use a large mesh ball or one of those muslin tea brewing bags, it’ll be easier to strain loose tea leaves. Of course, teabags sidestep this entirely.

Bring a small pot of water just to the boiling point, but do not let it actually bubble up. Lower the heat to as low as possible. Add three times as many tea bags or twice as much loose tea as you would normally. Cover and leave the tea to brew for at least 10 minutes and up to 30 minutes. Strain out the tea leaves or remove the teabags; for this, it’s okay to squeeze teabags to get the extra boost. Stir in evaporated milk until the tea is the color of caramel, then bring the tea back to very hot serving temperature.

Divide the tea among several cups and invite your guests to stir in a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk or sugar.

In this age of Google and Wikipedia, it’s easy to forget the joy of getting lost for hours deep in the stacks of a three-dimensional library. To entice you back to these important anchors of our community, here’s a short list of culinary exhibits and events worth adding to your list of food adventures:

READING AMERICA: Reconstructed Books by Mary Marsh

“Snack.” Mary Marsh, 2004. Coffee, ink, gouache on found book.

Head to the airy, sunny sixth floor of the San Francisco Main Library to find a wonderful exhibit of new work by artist Mary Marsh. Using comfort food as an analogy, Marsh explores the intersection of eating and reading. Discarded books and old library catalog cards (remember those?!) find new lives with bits of linen tape, layers of gouache and coffee as ink. Marsh explores issues of privacy, consumption and narrative with these evocative creations. Her artwork will be on display at the library galleries though April 5, 2007.

While you’re at the top of the SF Main, visit one of my favorite local resources: the Koshland SF History Center. If you can’t make it there in person, it’s almost as fun browsing their amazing photo collection online. Their “Picture This” series includes a line of serious-minded, long-aproned butchers at the Stadium Market in the Sunset District (1935), a proud baker at Dianda’s Bakery in the Mission (1980); and a birthday party in the Western Addition, when Japanese-American families still flourished in the neighborhood (1938).

San Francisco Main Library, 6th Floor
100 Larkin Street, San Francisco
(415) 557-4400

TASTE MATTERS: The Role of Food and Drink in Jewish Culture

Detail of “Pesach” by Mary Thorman

The Magnes Museum, a stately building tucked in the foothills of Berkeley, has launched a series of cross-disciplinary presentations of gastronomic narratives in Jewish culture. These intimate gatherings are open to the public ($8 for nonmembers) and offer a valuable resource both for those attempting to understand their own heritage and those trying to learn more about the history of an important but largely invisible group. Last week’s conversation with Eleanor Kaufman from UCLA highlighted Eastern European homesteaders keeping kosher under harsh conditions on the plains and utopian farming communities, such as Petaluma’s chicken and egg producers, that succeeded for a brief period in the early to mid-20th century.

On May 31, Alisa Braun from UC Davis will discuss the depiction of Jewish foods in films, and on August 16, Benjamin Wurgaft from UC Berkeley will show how food writers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, shape perception and identity.

In addition to its ceremonial, decorative and modern art collections, the Magnes houses an excellent research library for scholars of Jewish history and culture.

Judah L. Magnes Museum
2911 Russell Street, Berkeley
(510) 549-6950

ALICE STATLER LIBRARY

The menu cover from a 1930s “Bohemian” restaurant near Coit Tower.

To support its stellar culinary arts and hospitality program, City College maintains a reading library of books about food, restaurants and anything remotely related to the history, culture, science, politics and business of cooking and eating. Their periodical collection alone could occupy a dedicated cook for years.

Though nearly everyone in the Statler Library is wearing chef whites, it’s open to the public. You’re welcome to read for hours whether you’re browsing for random discoveries, honing a research topic or filling up on glossy food mags.

You can also enjoy the library’s beautiful menu collections online. With their covers and inside pages lovingly scanned, the menus highlight restaurants across the nation as well as concessionaries at the 1939 World’s Fair in San Francisco.

Alice Statler Library
City College of San Francisco
Room 10, Statler Wing
50 Phelan Avenue, San Francisco
(415) 239-3460