Author: Mara L.

I have been crazy-busy at work for the past couple of months, so that’s why I neglected my culinary contributions to Jens’ blog. But I am back in the city now, and ready to throw myself again in the world of the young artist here. (Remember, I’m an expatriate architect, born in Northern Italy, and I sometimes like to muse about the difference between this down-to-earth profession and the loftier vocations of my artsy friends.) So, last night my German friends here in NYC took me to an absolutely not-to-be-missed gallery opening: Jürgen Teller, at Lehmann Maupin.

There, I had occasion to ask myself: What is German about German photography? Answer: A burnt German sausage with smelly Sauerkraut, served in front of the gallery, under the banner of Lufthansa.

But what else? Maybe it is politically incorrect to say, but wasn’t a certain kind of ‘depressingness’ a major element of earlier German art? This is what weighed me down last night. The photos are, to my humble taste, pitiful. Why would a grown-up man place more or less naked women in front of a tree or on a sofa, make a picture, and not think of this as deeply depressing?

(Depressing as in: depressing that there could still be people who consider this ‘shocking’; depressing that the young women probably think they are part of something great, namely art; depressing that the photos look only slightly different, if at all, from the endlessly many even more depressing amateur photos, where the amateur tries to become an artist by undressing his girlfriend and making such photos; and so on.)

However, you might say that you always knew that Italians have no taste in art. Or for that matter, in food.

When I first came to Manhattan, I was consumed with Green Values. Values which I had to give up on, since even organic food here is packed in lots of plastic, which means that Europeans have a strong inclination to refrain from buying it, which however also means that they are likely to starve to death. In Europe, the eat-healthy-food-movement is rather closely linked to the reduce-trash-movement. So it struck me as potentially very comic that, in stores that specialize in organic food, everything is wrapped and packed in plastic. However, it strangely is possible to entirely lose the sense that this is illogical, and to become a happy shopper of organic, plastic-wrapped food.

Why is this possible? For the simple reason that, bad as it may sound, I do not want to starve. However, I cannot deny some hesitation when it comes to certain kinds of organic food. It’s a strange aspect of the organic-movement being somewhat newer here than in Europe, that there seems to be something like an experimental stage. I have clear memories of that phase in Europe, when vegetables tasted like wood, but everyone claimed they were great since they were organic. I’ve seen some of this here, but I won’t complain, it’s bound to be a passing phenomenon.

But there’s also a related phenomenon, which to me is a little scarier – people get into self-fabricating food in roughly the same way in which an amateur might build a house, one where every doorframe is crooked, and which potentially is going to collapse. There was something a little too self-made about some of the cheeses I lately bought, and when I talked to the people who made them, I was not sure whether I should congratulate them for venturing into a field totally new to them, and simply making-some-cheese, or whether I should burst into tears, missing the value of traditional recipes, and the sense that whoever makes the cheese makes it in a fashion that’s been fine-tuned in centuries of experience.

But I guess they are like me, coming to this country. They are trying something new. So they are dear to my heart, and I buy their cheese.

European Green values have, in my particular case, very much to do with taste. Traditionally crafted produce simply tastes better. My moral lowness (or should I say, potential moral lowness, for I haven’t yet figured out whether eating meat is actually morally bad or not) becomes particularly clear to me when I see my fellow Green-value-Manhattanites abdicate all meat. They actually mean it: they look at eating from their moral point of view.

From the culinary point of view, meat in Manhattan is excellent—and I mean it, genuinely excellent. Better than in most places in Europe. Meat here is something to lift your spirits. When I have little time, but a desire for luxury, I buy fillet steak. When I have more time, I buy the kind of beef that Italians cook in red wine, with lots of herbs, tomatoes, shallots, carrots and so on, and I happily eat it with Rigatoni.

So where does this leave me with my attempt to blend in here? Here’s my little theory: The artsy crowd that I hang out with is actually not representative. Vegetarians that they often are, they do not mirror the true nature of Manhattan. This place is, in its heart, a meat eating place, which is a truth visible (to me) when I walk down the street. Manhattan is about survival—at least for the likes of me—and survival doesn’t have the patience for vegetarianism. Don’t we need strength to survive the next heart-breaking phone call, when we realize that we won’t be able to make it to the wedding of a close friend? Living in several places takes a toll. And meat, bad or not bad as eating it may be, steels your soul against the onslaughts of exhaustion.