Eating Read online

  In my own case, some years ago I put myself in the hands of a physician famous for curing addictions. His technique, with the help of a hypnotic drug and a rumored cattle prod, was to associate the unwanted appetite with unpleasantness, and so for several years thereafter I dined parsimoniously until the treatment failed, for eating is not an addiction, like drugs or tobacco, that can be squelched outright. Later I turned to the late Dr. Atkins and lost twenty pounds in two months of carbohydrate starvation—only to gain ten back a month later and the rest a bit more eventually.

  From my Atkins adventure I contracted a few lasting aversions: pretzels, which I never liked anyway, and bagels, with their forty grams of densely packed carbohydrates. But I see no reason to eschew the wild Baltic salmon from Russ & Daughters or Lombardi’s pizza or Di Palo’s incomparable gorgonzola dolce on a Tuscan cracker. Perhaps my New York neighborhood with its multitudinous temptations is at fault. But I chose to live here. There is no escaping one’s self.

  TARTE TATIN

  I began this book in the blueberry season when I violated my vow to forgo another pie and ready myself for a year of abstinence. Now it is apple time and my resolve has again failed. I have baked a tarte tatin and will not pretend to bake no more. Tarte tatin can also be made with pears (comice are best, just as they begin to ripen). For the traditional tarte tatin, however, you must use apples, preferably Golden Delicious, which are not good eaten raw but hold their shape nicely in a tart. The tarte tatin is baked upside down, with the apples under the crust, which, when the finished tart is flipped, becomes the bottom. I peel, core, and quarter four Golden Delicious apples. Then, in the copper tatin pan that I bought from Fred Bridge fifty years ago, I caramelize a half-cup or so of granulated sugar in a quarter-stick of unsalted butter until the sugar becomes the color of honey. Be careful not to cook the caramel for more than a few seconds beyond this stage or the sugar will darken too much. You can move the caramel with a wooden spoon to even the color, which will be a little darker in some places than others. Then turn off the flame and wipe the wooden spoon clean (or the sugar will harden and stick to it). Carefully, for the caramel is burning hot, lay the apple wedges thick side down in a circle on the caramel, shaping one of the quarters to fill the center of the circle. Use any remaining scraps to fill gaps and sprinkle a good handful of arrowroot over the apples to hold the syrup. Now make a crust of simple pie dough by spinning in a food processor two cups of all-purpose flour with a stick of unsalted butter cut into chunks until the butter is incorporated but still a little lumpy. Then add a half-cup or a little less of ice water, a sprinkle at a time, processing after each addition, until the dough begins to form. As soon as it forms, remove it from the processor onto a marble slab or plastic sheet, and knead the dough into an oblong. You might enclose the dough in plastic wrap at this point and let it rest in the refrigerator for a half hour or so to relax the gluten, or you can skip this step, as I usually do. Then roll out the dough in a circle about an eighth of an inch thick, place the tarte pan with its apples (or pears) adjacent to the dough, roll the dough onto the rolling pin, and place it over the apples, discarding the trimmings or saving them for another purpose. With a fork I tuck the edge of the dough down into the pan. Then I slip the pie onto the middle shelf of an oven just under 360 degrees, at which temperature the fruit will not stick to the pan when you turn it right side up. But if you forget and some of the slices stick, just shove them with a wooden spoon from the pan into the gaps where they belong and smooth everything out. When the crust begins to darken, after about forty minutes, slip the pie out of the oven and let it cool for ten minutes or so. Then carefully place the plate on which you plan to serve the tarte over the pastry and flip the pie over. If the syrup is still runny, spoon it back over the pie and with a damp paper towel wipe up any excess syrup from the serving plate. A dedicated tarte tatin pan is not essential. A well-seasoned iron skillet or even an eight-inch sauté pan will do just as well. Serve the tarte warm with vanilla ice cream.

  And so life goes on.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jason Epstein has led one of the most creative careers in book publishing of the past half century. In 1952, while a young editor at Doubleday, he created Anchor Books, which launched the so-called paperback revolution and established the trade-paperback format. In the following decade, he became cofounder of The New York Review of Books. In the 1980s, he created the Library of America, the prestigious publisher of American classics, and The Reader’s Catalog, the precursor of online bookselling. For many years, Jason Epstein was editorial director of Random House. He was the first recipient of the National Book Award for Distinguished Service to American Letters, and he has been given the Curtis Benjamin Award of the Association of American Publishers for “inventing new kinds of publishing and editing” as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critic’s Circle and the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement. He has edited many well-known novelists, including Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov, E. L. Doctorow, Peter Matthiessen, Philip Roth, and Gore Vidal, as well as many important writers of nonfiction.

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2009 by Jason Epstein

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This book is based on material that originally appeared in The New York Times.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to John Wiley & Sons, Inc., for permission to reprint an excerpt from The Art of Eating, 50th Anniversary Edition by M. F. K. Fisher and Joan Reardon, copyright © 1937, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1948, 1949, 1954, 1990, 2004 by M. F. K. Fisher. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Epstein, Jason.

  Eating : a memoir / by Jason Epstein.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-27336-9

  1. Cookery. 2. Gastronomy. 3. Epstein, Jason. I. Title.

  TX652.E5923 2009

  641.01’3—dc22 2009021217

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