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In American Cooking, Chicago's the Kitchen

In American Cooking, Chicago's the Kitchen

Old Aug 8, 2001, 7:04 am
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In American Cooking, Chicago's the Kitchen

New York Times, 8/8/01

CHICAGO -- AMERICA has never really had a cuisine. We went straight to "new American" without ever having determined how all the regional styles from New England to New Mexico came together to form a national philosophy of food. And what we wound up with was a smorgasbord.

But there may be hope yet. A new generation of young chefs in Chicago, working far from the constant jangle on the two coasts, is melding well- grounded Midwestern values with highflying global ingredients to produce consistently smart food that is both daring and coherent. Chicago is emerging as a cradle of the first truly adult American cooking.

Paul Kahan's celery soup at Blackbird is a great example. It could not be a more distant cousin of Campbell's a bright green pure enhanced by a mound of peekytoe crab and a drizzle of hazelnut oil but anyone who grew up on cream of celery would understand it by the second spoonful. Celery goes with seafood (crab salad); nuts go with celery (Waldorf salad). The texture and the celery flavor are the surprises. And they make you see how familiarity breeds comfort and creativity in kitchens here.

After shaking off all the clichs of steak and deep-dish pizza, Chicago today knows that it stands shoulder to shoulder with any major city as a serious dining destination. The cooking is positively American, not all over the map like New York's or San Francisco's. Sitting firmly in the middle of flyover country, in thrall to neither Europe nor Asia, Chicago quietly developed an identity all its own.

Charlie Trotter and Rick Bayless first put the city on the high end of the national radar screen, as did a few top-rated restaurants in the suburbs, like Trio in Evanston and Le Francais in Wheeling. But the new wave of chefs have both more modest aims and an urban attitude. They take their cues not just from the local heroes but also Alice Waters and especially Curnonsky ("cuisine is when things taste like themselves"). With the straightforwardness that has always been a hallmark of Midwestern cooking, they easily combine local asparagus and beets with Spanish Manchego cheese and Italian black truffles.

Eating here is like assimilation at microwave speed. Because of its climate, Chicago has never had the luxury of using only local ingredients. But thanks to huge improvements in airfreight, chefs here can now buy anything from anywhere in the world. They can serve it to an audience willing to pay a little more for Maine lobster or Alaskan halibut rather than settle for the inevitable beef. But they can never forget that their wildest international ideas still have to speak English. If a candied kumquat is lying up against a scallop, it had better be communing with the tomato and basil on the other side. This is, after all, the heart of the heart of the country.

"Chicago is not like New York," said Paul Kahan. "Chicago people are much pickier."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/dining/08ILLI.html
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