A Real Foodie

A photo of the great Honore' de Balzac





I enjoy food like the next guy but it could never replace things like books, plays, “The Godfather,” “The Princess Bride,” or the first half of “Full Metal Jacket.” I knew a guy, I’ll call him “Wendell” who gets more enjoyment from food than anyone I have ever known. He eats, and eats, and eats. Is there such a thing as Food Anonymous? He would be a charter member. On his way to a restaurant, he would tell me things like “it’s meatloaf special day at Twohey’s” or “It’s two lobster for one day at Tan Cang.” Wendell could tell you about the best place to order carnitas burritos in the San Gabriel area (Pepe’s) the best Japanese (Yama) the spiciest menudo (Bun N Burger) the best pizza (Di Pilla) and the best chorizo quesadilla (the now shuttered Azteca), and on and on and on. I used to wonder about Wendell. Weren’t there women he wished to see? Did ever a lady friend strike his fancy enough to want to gather her in his arms, throw her over his shoulder, and, cave-man like, march her to Twohey’s for the Monday short ribs special? I think not. There are some people who are the real foodies, those whose sole purpose in life is to eat and discover all the little surprises that the pursuit of the culinary life can offer. As much as a bibliophile might get a pleasure from first discovering the power of Dostoevsky when reading “Notes from the Underground” or a film geek when standing in line for "Star Wars: Episode 2," a person like Wendell would feel this when eating at a new Italian joint which served a proper veal parm. Perhaps the best novelist at characterization, Honore de Balzac, gave us a picture of this real foodie in describing Pons, the title character in his great “Cousin Pons”: “Unrequited love—a theme overexploited in drama—is based on an inessential need; for, if we are spurned by one of God’s creatures, we can give our love to God, who can heap treasures upon us. But an unrequited stomach!...no suffering can be compared to this, for good living comes first! Pons yearned for certain kinds of crème, each one a poem, for certain white sauces, everyone a masterpiece; for certain dishes of truffled poultry, all ravishing to taste; and above all for those Rhenish carp which are only found in Paris, and with such delicious seasoning. On certain days Pons exclaimed: O Sophie! as he thought of the Comte Popinot’s cook. A stranger who heard him sighing like that would have imagined that the good man was thinking of an absent mistress, but he had something more rare in mind: a succulent carp, with a sauce which was clear in the sauce-boat but thick upon the tongue, a sauce which was worthy of the Montyon prize!”