Books, Arts & Manners: For a Tuna Tutorial

AFTER revisiting the Holy City —Charleston—and other parts of the Southern seaboard recently, I have a suggestion for improving the food there. Now, before anyone gets red in the face, I said “improve,” for much of what I was served was quite promising. But it could be better. What it needs is the importation of a few shiploads of Sicilians and Andalucians: not manacled, you understand, quite the reverse, granted a special exemption from health and other state regulations so they can get to work exploiting the wonderful raw materials—the shrimp, clams, oysters, crabs, rice, grouper, tuna—in cafés in every park and street comer.

For the South and much else of America has a problem. Those who eat out in restaurants or at friends’ are caught on a fork of two extremes. There is plain food—freshly caught shrimp boiled, grouper grilled, undressed salad. With this, one has the option of adding fortunately separate but countless packets or buckets of unmentionable sewage dressings, disgusting garlic bread made with powdered garlic, drawn rather bad butter, house sauce which is mildly reformed ketchup, and various cheese biscuits. There will also be lots of ice about, usually under raw oysters and clams to ensure that one cannot appreciate the taste of the shellfish, and compulsory music of the sort pleasing to lower-class young persons. The cultured eater throws away all the garbage, sauces, dressings, and ice, sits as far away from the loudspeaker as possible, asks for and fails to get some decent bread and olive oil, keeps his salad back to have in the proper place after the fish, thereby confusing “Hi, I’m your server, Debbie—is everything okay?,” but at least finishes up with very good shrimp and grouper at a very fair price. It’s just that this aggressively plain fare gets a bit much after a dozen more such meals.

DA

About the Author

Digby Anderson

Featured Tags

AFTER revisiting the Holy City —Charleston—and other parts of the Southern seaboard recently, I have a suggestion for improving the food there. Now, before anyone gets red in the face, I said “improve,” for much of what I was served was quite promising. But it could be better. What it needs is the importation of a few shiploads of Sicilians and Andalucians: not manacled, you understand, quite the reverse, granted a special exemption from health and other state regulations so they can get to work exploiting the wonderful raw materials—the shrimp, clams, oysters, crabs, rice, grouper, tuna—in cafés in every park and street comer.

For the South and much else of America has a problem. Those who eat out in restaurants or at friends’ are caught on a fork of two extremes. There is plain food—freshly caught shrimp boiled, grouper grilled, undressed salad. With this, one has the option of adding fortunately separate but countless packets or buckets of unmentionable sewage dressings, disgusting garlic bread made with powdered garlic, drawn rather bad butter, house sauce which is mildly reformed ketchup, and various cheese biscuits. There will also be lots of ice about, usually under raw oysters and clams to ensure that one cannot appreciate the taste of the shellfish, and compulsory music of the sort pleasing to lower-class young persons. The cultured eater throws away all the garbage, sauces, dressings, and ice, sits as far away from the loudspeaker as possible, asks for and fails to get some decent bread and olive oil, keeps his salad back to have in the proper place after the fish, thereby confusing “Hi, I’m your server, Debbie—is everything okay?,” but at least finishes up with very good shrimp and grouper at a very fair price. It’s just that this aggressively plain fare gets a bit much after a dozen more such meals.