Simon Hopkinson Can Go Roast Himself
This complete fallacy is from his Second Helpings of Roast Chicken. In the chapter on mile, he discusses the superiority of what we would call New England clam chowder, then goes on to say : "For those who daily sit at the counter of the Oyster Bay in Grand Central Station, New York City, slurping down large bowls of Manhattan clam chowder, this would doubtless be seen as nothing less than the though of a demented heretic..."
Wrong from start to finish. I've eaten at the counter there at least one hundred times, and I've never heard anyone order, let alone seen anyone eat, Manhattan clam chowder.
He concludes with an attempt at replicating New York speech that is simply ludicrous. Has Simon Hopkinson ever, in fact, been to New York?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
24 Comments:
Chapter on "milk," of course. When will I learn not to type before having a second cup of coffee?
Barbara Hanson at 9:53AM on 04/14/08
A second cup of coffee ... at almost 10?? Gee, must be nice! ;-)
LunaPierCook at 10:14AM on 04/14/08
Self-employed--it's one of the perks, as it were.
Barbara Hanson at 10:20AM on 04/14/08
hey, baha, thanks for the heads up. i didn't know he had published a sequel. will have to get myself a copy/
cybercita at 10:34AM on 04/14/08
I guess someone has an issue with Simon Hopkinson then? I had to scroll up and check the spelling of his name, which is how little I know/care about him. Please keep the conversation on food. Thanks!! Have a great day now!!.
nelson5757 at 11:12AM on 04/14/08
Nelson, Hopkinson is one of the most celebrated food writers of the 21st century. Not in the least off-topic here.
Barbara Hanson at 11:44AM on 04/14/08
Your opinion and I respect it. Just like you should respect his, no matter how ignorant it may be.
nelson5757 at 2:05PM on 04/14/08
Factual inaccuracies are not opinion. If they were, I'd be out of work!
Barbara Hanson at 2:12PM on 04/14/08
Um... gee... I don't have a response for BaHa's point, and I don't have an opinion about Simon, but I can say that the post is not off-topic. His Roast Chicken and Other Stories was featured here on Serious Eats just in the past few months... not sure what nelson's issue is?
LoCo at 2:45PM on 04/14/08
I've never seen anyone eat MCC at the Oyster Bar either. I haven't been there in a while but it is my understanding that regardless of the geography NECC is what one is supposed to eat there.
As a matter of fact, the only place I've ever seen anyone eat MCC is in the Midwest at slophouses. I mean chophouses.
Karen Resta at 2:56PM on 04/14/08
All I'm saying is that people are entitled to their opinions, even if he's english and really who gives a crap about manhattan clam chowder at the oyster bar enough to complain about another person's metaphoric (or is it a simile?) opinion. Let the guy go, he wrote a book about Bananas that talk for Chrissakes
nelson5757 at 4:08PM on 04/14/08
I'd just like to clarify that I do love Hopkinson's work, but there is a toploftiness in regard to American food that I find a bit distressing. His take on American pancakes is pretty off-base, too. Apparently, we make egg sandwiches with them.
Barbara Hanson at 4:09PM on 04/14/08
@Baha---only at McDonald's....and if that is what he's basing it off of, that's just plain scary.
jcrisco at 4:24PM on 04/14/08
Nelson, if the topic is of no interest to you...why not go to another thread?
Barbara Hanson at 7:30PM on 04/14/08
It's possible, though, that Hopkinson went to The Oyster Bar, ending up there at the same time as a group of tourists from the midwest who thought that the thing to do (being in Manhattan) was to eat MCC - they were wanting, of course, to try it in its "native atmosphere" having only eating it in midwest chophouses or from a Campbell's can - and he thought that they were all Manhattanites indulging in their usual behavior.
If so, one could not blame him for the food mistake but merely for a lack of a discerning eye for style and fashion.
Karen Resta at 7:21AM on 04/15/08
In thinking a bit more on this it could also be the reason behind the ludicrous replication of New York speech you mention, BaHa. Or else he could have been listening to the B&T crowd, which would also distort the correct cadence.
As far as his toploftiness towards our food goes (love that word toploftiness!) he's certainly not alone in feeling that way. It is amusing to hear of a Brit being this way though - for so often the Brits themselves have been the direct receivers of toploftiness from everyone directed towards their own food/"cuisine" (a French word)/cookery.
The real question that plagues me though - brought up by this topic - is: Does anyone eat MCC? And if so, why? Why?
Karen Resta at 9:09AM on 04/15/08
@Karen...Not me! If I want a spicy tomato based soup, I go for conch chowder!
jcrisco at 9:39AM on 04/15/08
Nope, I don't eat it. Don't know anyone else who eats it either. There is no comparison- it can just never measure up to NECC.
Kerosena at 2:30PM on 04/15/08
@Karen........implying that midwestern tourists to NYC lack style and fashion, and that midwestern folks eat at slophouses and/or chophouses sounds like "toploftiness" to me.
So, how did Manhattan clam chowder get it's name?
I'm a fan of NECC also.
PerkyMac at 2:43PM on 04/15/08
@Perky------The History of MC.
jcrisco at 3:09PM on 04/15/08
Conch chowder for me, too jcrisco.
Goodness, did I imply that (some) midwestern tourists to the city lack style and fashion and that there are slop/chophouses there too Perky?
Incredible.
I've heard (some) midwesterners exhibit the same sort of "toploftiness" (but upside down as the premise followed in this case is different) towards cityfolk and city style-eateries, too. I've even read here and there of people who do not like "big titles" for people who happened to end up with well . . . big titles. For their jobs, obviously. I'm not talking about Kings and Queens here.
Chacun sa gout. Always chacun sa gout.
I have to go see if Dorothy Parker ever wrote anything on clam chowder.
Karen Resta at 3:26PM on 04/15/08
No, no Dorothy Parker online about clam chowder (except in a strange twist of fate an old post from me calling Betty McDonald who wrote "The Egg and I" with some admiration "a rural Dorothy Parker") but there was this from James Thurber (yes, he of the Algonquin Roundtable):
He wondered if he would kiss her and when he would kiss her and if she wanted to be kissed and if she were thinking of it, but she asked him what he would have to eat tonight at his hotel. He said clam chowder. Thursday, he said, they always have clam chowder. Is that the way you know it's Thursday, she said, or is that the way you know it's clam chowder?
I'm certain it was NECC. It had to be. It just had to be.
Karen Resta at 3:40PM on 04/15/08
Here's what Evan Jones says about clam chowder in his American Food :
Whether brewed in a ship's galley or on the home stove, mention of clam chowder has spurred debate for generations. Real Yankees think of chowder as a whole meal by itself, and some feel so strongly about the ingredients that a Maine legislator named Seeder finally, in 1939, introduced a bill to make it illegal to add tomatoes to the pot. Long Islanders and other defenders of the so-called Manhattan clam chowder point out that their version should be served as a soup course, and for them fresh tomatoes have been the source of necessary flavor and color, since Long Island tomato growers and some neighborly old salts were mutually persuasive about merging fruits of the garden and the sea. .
There's more on this from Alan Davidson which I'll add in a bit.
Karen Resta at 5:13PM on 04/15/08
Okay here's Alan Davidson from his North Atlantic Seafood then I'm done ranting on about chowder.
The frontier between Massachusetts and Rhode Island seems to mark the Great Divide between chowders made with milk and those made with tomatoes and water. This is a matter on which strong feelings are easily roused. J. George Frederick, in his "Long Island Seafood Book", talks of 'Long Island's praetorian gourmet guards, who snorted like whales when an hour-old chowder was offered to them; and might even draw their fish knives menacingly if a milk chowder was even mentioned.'
Never met one of these guys. It sounds like they would be great characters in a Broadway musical, though.
Karen Resta at 5:55PM on 04/15/08