THE FOOD & TRAVEL ISSUE Searching for the Ultimate Artisanal
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For Immediate Release: Monday 28, 2016 Press Contacts: Natalie Raabe, (212) 286-6591 Adrea Piazza, (212) 286-4255 THE FOOD & TRAVEL ISSUE Searching for the Ultimate Artisanal Distillate In the April 4, 2016, issue of The New Yorker, in “Mezcal Sunrise” (p. 40), Dana Goodyear travels to Oaxaca and explores the humble roots and in- ternational rise of the latest rage in small-batch, artisanal spirits: mezcal. Mezcal, a distilled spirit that can be made from some thirty varieties of agave, is, at heart, homemade hooch. “It is typically produced by farmers using a laborious and antiquated method, at primitive distilleries known as palenques, and sold or shared in villages to mark births, funerals, and everything in between,” Goodyear writes. There is scarcely a serious cocktail menu in a major American city today that does not feature at least one mezcal drink. “The mezcal boom coincides with the popularity of farm-to-table food, the rise of the craft cocktail, and the advent of the bartender as an advocate for environmental and social justice,” Goodyear writes. Bricia Lopez, an enthusiast whom Goodyear calls the “mezcal queen of Los Angeles,” says, “Mezcal hits every magic word—artisanal, organic, gluten-free, vegan.” She continues, “Tequila got to the point where it’s like Tyson chicken—that’s Cuervo. Now I want to know my chicken’s name. That’s mezcal.” As Goodyear explains, Mezcal’s ascent is both a victory for those who love it and a cause for concern. The grains for whiskey are planted and har- vested each year; grapes are perennials. But most agaves—succulents, kin to asparagus—resist domestication; many of the varieties take at least a de- cade to mature and yield only a modest amount of alcohol. “The desire to consume a botanical time capsule is fraught; every precious sip both sup- ports a traditional craft and hastens its extinction,” Goodyear, who also examines proposed regulations, backed by the tequila industry, that would affect Mexican distillers, writes. An American named Jason Cox, who is a partial owner of a restaurant in Oaxaca City, tells Goodyear that he feels fiercely protective of mezcal’s future, and that, given the shortage of raw material, its popularity scares him. “I don’t give a shit about the common person who thinks mezcal is a smoked tequila,” he says. “It’s not a drink to buy in clubs. This is limited! It should be consumed by people who know what they’re talking about.” Can a Restaurant for the Rich Benefit the Poor? In “The Tasting-Menu Initiative” (p. 49), Carolyn Kormann visits Gustu, in La Paz, Bolivia’s most ambitious restaurant, which aspires to change the way Bolivians perceive traditional ingredients—through both innovative dishes and culinary education. In opening Gustu, in 2013, the Danish food entrepreneur Claus Meyer sought to create the Bolivian equivalent of his widely known venture Noma, in Copenhagen: a “fine-dining temple” with an avant-garde tasting menu, composed entirely from indigenous ingredients. He came to Bolivia for a reason: though it is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, it has, Meyer says, “a great undiscovered larder of fantastic products that people could be seduced by.” Meyer sought to create a culinary school for disadvantaged youths, and to train a generation of cooks who would ed- ucate their communities. He tapped Kamilla Seidler, a thirty-two-year-old Dane who had worked in some of Europe’s top restaurants, to be Gustu’s chef. To succeed, Seidler needed to please many kinds of people: prominent Bolivians, the local press, the international press, travel bloggers, food tourists, regular tourists, backpackers, Bolivian ex-pats who are nostalgic for flavors from their childhood, and judges for Latin America’s Fifty Best Restaurants. Today, Gustu holds seventeenth place on that Fifty Best list. “If you’re on a mountaintop in a devel- oping country where no one knows what a tasting menu is, that list is very important,” Seidler tells Kormann. “Suddenly, it’s—boom! Everyone’s wondering, ‘What the hell is going on in Bolivia?’ ” But success has been hard fought. Gustu may not yet be the destination restaurant that Meyer envisioned, but it is busy, and Meyer’s ambition to train young people is coming to fruition: in 2014, opened a net- work of entry-level cooking schools, called Manq’a—“food,” in Aymara. The schools’ top graduates are eligible for scholarships to continue their studies at Gustu. “But the Bolivian restaurant scene is grow- ing slowly, and high-end kitchen jobs are scarce,” Kormann writes. “Many Manq’a graduates will need to either start their own businesses or work in fast-food places and dives.” When the program’s fund- ing runs out, the Bolivian cooks will have to keep up the momentum on their own. In the United States, Meyer is quietly pursuing another project with a similar ethos: a restaurant and cooking school in Brownsville, one of New York’s poorest neighborhoods. “In New York, the program has a commercial logic,” Kormann writes. “But in Bolivia haute cuisine can seem like a limited development strategy.” JAIME HERNANDEZ Exploring a Himalayan Glacier In “The End of Ice” (p.58),Dexter Filkins journeys to the Chhota Shigri Glacier, in the Himalayan peaks of northern India, with an international group of scientists who want to assess how rapidly it is melting. There are a hundred and ninety -eight thousand glaciers in the world, and, while many of them have been studied extensively, the nine thousand in India remain mostly unexamined. The reasons are largely financial: India is a relatively poor country, and there are scant funds available for research. “To adequately study the Himalayan glaciers, we need thirty to forty times more money than we actually receive,” A. L. Ramanathan, a glaciologist at Jawaharlal Nehru University, who oversaw the expedition, tells Filkins. For the people who live on the Indian subcontinent, the future of the high-mountain climate is of more than academic interest. “The three great rivers that flow from the Indian Himalayas—the Ganges, the Indus, and the Brahmaputra—provide water for more than seven hundred million people in India, Pak- istan, and Bangladesh, and they power numerous hydroelectric plants,” Filkins writes. “Already, villages in India and Pakistan are experiencing more frequent flooding from the melting ice; scientists are predicting even more.” Annual expeditions to Chhota Shigri began only fourteen years ago, so relatively little is known about its climatic history. But scientists have found that Chhota Shigri’s mass has declined significantly since 2002, losing more than twenty feet across its surface. “If we can connect what has happened on the glacier to what is happening in the climate, then we should be able to predict what is going to happen,” an Indian scientist named Shyam Ranjan tells Filkins. The glaciers may already be melting, but knowing their pre- cise state will, he hopes, allow him to understand what it will take to save them. His colleague Farooq Azam adds, “But these things don’t depend on science. They depend on politics.” The Food-and-Booze Fest that Is France’s National Agricultural Exhibition In “Come to the Fair” (p. 32), Lauren Collins attends the Salon International de l’Agriculture, the enormous show that each spring brings the farm- ers of France together in Paris—accompanied by nearly four thousand of their bovine, ovine, caprine, porcine, equine, asinine, and canine companions. The over-all atmosphere, Collins writes, is best described as “the Iowa State Fair crossed with the Aspen Food & Wine Classic, with the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show going on in a side ring.” Anything passably earthy goes at the sprawling convention, which is housed under the eight roofs of the Porte de Versailles convention center. “In addition to the éleveurs (animal farmers), there are agriculteurs (farmers in general), knife-makers, bee- keepers, hot-tub venders, insurance agents, representatives of feed conglomerates, backhoe salesmen,” Collins writes. “Slurp down some oysters in Ar- cachon, grab some choucroute in Alsace, and then turn a corner and you’re in Martinique, drinking Ti’Punch.” This year, parts of the fair saw flareups over France’s agricultural crisis—in which an oversupply has led to a drastic drop in the prices of milk and wheat, among other staples—and politicians clashed with farmers. “There was a crisis in 2009, but now it’s worse than ever,” a young cattle farmer from Normandy named Valentin Boulet tells Collins. He prefers to talk about a happier subject— his cow, Idée Lustre. “I use a hair dryer to fluff up her fur,” he says. The weight of the manure gen- erated at the Salon, Collins points out, is almost three hundred tons—“equivalent to that of the steamship in ‘Fitzcarraldo.’ ” Plus: In Comment, Amy Davidson considers why many of the G.O.P.’s leaders are supporting Ted Cruz for President when his rheto- ric—last week, on Muslims living in the United States—is as inflammatory as Donald Trump’s campaign-trail comments (p. 27); in the Financial Page, James Surowiecki examines how “sketchy accounting, political blowback, and slowing growth” precipitated the downfall of the pharmaceutical company Valeant under the leadership of its former C.E.O. Michael Pearson (p. 31); in Shouts & Murmurs, Shon Arieh-Lerer predicts which grains will overtake quinoa, including the lovable underdog of the grain world, worse, and oal-é, which is pronounced “Dennis” (p. 39); David Remnick profiles the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, and speaks with President Obama and Car- ole King about the breadth of her enduring influence.