Fresh Off the Boat

by Eddie Huang

  Going online, I found out that the meat had a liver-y essence, since it was the diaphragm of the cow, so it would be interesting in a braise. Red cooking was always debated in my family. My mom and her family were from the north so they’d do a braise that started by throwing out the first. The pork was always flash-boiled until gray, leaving behind bubbles of gray blood in the pot. After it was blanched, they’d rinse the pork and let it rest. The water got tossed, the pot got wiped, and then the pork got browned with rock candy and aromatics. It was also their custom to not use chilis or peppercorns when making red cooked pork shoulder. My dad’s side did Mao’s style red cooked pork since they were from Hunan. They would cook the first by searing the pork and preferred using pork belly over shank or shoulder. When the pork was reintroduced in a braise, it’d be accompanied by chilis, peppercorns, and garlic. I seared a couple of skirt steaks with just salt so I could taste the essence without anything masking its natural flavor. I could tell immediately that it wouldn’t play with the green onions that we usually used in red cooking, so I decided to use white onions. The meat also had a nice flavor if you got a good high heat sear that left a char, so I decided to cook the first by browning as opposed to blanching.

  I used the chilis, peppercorns, garlic, ginger, and white onions. As I smelled the skirt steak sautéed with the aromatics, I realized that I had to neutralize the liver-y quality with something. Digging around the pantry, I pulled out a bottle of Moutai, China’s finest grain alcohol, aka bai joh. No one cooked with this shit because it tasted like flaming Kim Jong Il’s asshole, but I had fucked around with Moutai before and knew that if you ignited it, the sorghum in it took on a sharp sweetness that would be perfect. A lot of people red cook with dates, but I wanted something different and knew the Moutai would work. I put in about five ounces of Moutai and ignited it with a lighter. Instantly, it enveloped the skirt steak in sharp vapors that finished with a hint of pineapple. I also hit it with some fermented sweet rice sauce that had a more rounded sweetness and nose while still being alcohol based.

  The skirt steak needed a good ninety minutes to break down and finish so I added some soy sauce, rock candy, and water, turned down the heat, and let it simmer. I turned on my TV to watch the Knicks game and hit the Roor. After about thirty minutes of watching Nate Robinson and Jamal Crawford throw the ball out of bounds, I passed out. I was totally knocked out when I smelled something burning. It took me about five minutes to realize the burning skirt steak was in my kitchen and not a fucking dream. I bounced up, ran to the stove, turned it off, and threw a quarter-cup of cold water into the pot just so it stopped cooking. Luckily, the entire sauce hadn’t caramelized yet. I pulled out a big chunk of skirt steak and peeled off the charred crust. Underneath this crusty, dark, fossil-looking piece of skirt steak was ill, tender, dark pink pieces of sweet, savory, aromatic skirt steak. I knew from that first burnt piece of skirt steak that I had a hit record.

  I tell people all the time. Whether it’s a girl, a skirt steak, or a record, you know in the first five seconds if it’s a hit. That first time I ate red cooked skirt steak, I was blazed out of my face, the smoke alarm was going off, and all I smelled was burning sugar, but that first bite was the eye of the storm. It was complex, layered, and hit every note that you could ask for in a piece of braised beef. I had some short-grain sushi rice in the rice cooker, sautéed some onions with soy, sugar, and scallions, and ate them over rice with the skirt steak. That night, I wrote up the recipe and sent it into the Food Network. I didn’t even think about it ’cause I already knew.

  About two months later, I was rollin’ around the Costco in Sunset Park with my boy Stephane. As I reached into a giant bottle of Cheese Puffs, my phone rang. It was Ning.

  “Oh, my gaaawwwd!!!”

  “What?”

  “Food Network called!!!”

  “Oh, word? Why they call you?”

  “ ’Cause they tried to call you like ten million times and you didn’t pick up so they called your ‘emergency contact’!”

  “For real? Hol’ up.”

  I checked my phone and she was right. Somehow I had five missed calls. Oh well.

  “Damn, Steph, did you hear my phone ring?”

  “Yeah, but you never pick it up.”

  “True story.”

  “What’d they say, Ning?”

  “They said they narrowed it down to six people and four of you will make it to the finals!”

  “Ay yo, Steph, they got coconut Ciroc at Costco? We got to celebrate.”

  “DIDDY LIQUOR!”

  * For the record, I love Eminem. He was as real as you can be. It’s just inevitable that when he came on the scene, top-forty format radio stations started playing his songs and other hip-hop. Before Eminem, only things like “Gangster’s Paradise” or Bulworth theme songs got play on the Z100s of the world.

  † “I’m Killa, you Andre Miller, got a basic game.” —Cam’ron

  16.

  THEY DON’T LOVE ME, THEY

  JUST LOVE MY TIGER STYLE

  I knew from the first moment I walked into the Food Network studios at 75 Ninth Avenue that the shit was gonna be cornholio. The show I got cast for was Ultimate Recipe Showdown, which took four home cooks from a national pool of more than thirteen thousand contestants to compete in various categories. Our category was “party food.” Initially, my recipe was for Chairman Mao’s red cooked skirt steak over rice, but the network asked for something handheld. I didn’t get it and said that rice usually goes in a bowl. I mean, that’s pretty fucking handheld, but they didn’t go for it. So … I did what every culture does when Americans can’t understand something: I put it on bread. From banh-mi to baos to arepas to Jamaican beef patties, it takes a little coco bread to make the medicine go down. Barack, I told you to put the health-care bill on some Red Lobster cheddar biscuits, dun!

  In the green room was Thalia Patillo, who was from the Bronx. She worked as a newscaster and was gonna make empanadas. There was this dude Dave, wearing a bright yellow aloha shirt that made him look like Jon Bon Jovi, and lastly, Karate Grandma. The casting director somehow found this old woman from Wisconsin who was a second-degree black belt and made ill crostinis. You could tell from jump that we weren’t picked solely for food, but because we represented different demographics and a “clash of civilizations” could unfold. That is one of the more interesting things about food TV. It’s very difficult to separate race, culture, and food. Yet the network doesn’t want to approach it in any sort of intelligent or meaningful way. They just want to infuse race into the conversation with food, code words, and friendly faces of color.

  Thalia had big dreams of opening some sort of empanada catering business. Karate Grandma was a competitive cook and went around the nation doing things like Ultimate Recipe Showdown, and Dave was a music producer who wanted some cash for studio equipment. Me? I was using the appearance to build my reel for comedy appearances so my intention was to blow the thing up. When I went in for the interviews, they kept asking, “Are you excited to meet Guy Fieri?” I remember telling them, “Do I look like I’m excited to meet some fake tan backwards-sunglasses-wearing asshole with frosted tips?” When it was time for the competition, I was already a few drinks deep, taking shots of the Moutai that I was supposed to cook with. If I won, I won, but I just wanted to have a good time and throw the show off. I hated television, I only watched HBO.

  About fifteen minutes into the competition, my skirt steak was braising and I had to piss like a motherfucker so I left the set and went to the bathroom. I didn’t think it was that big a deal but apparently it was “crazy” to go to the bathroom since this “super-intense” cooking competition was going on. The thing that bothered me the most about food TV was that they were trying so hard to create drama. Reality TV never worked for me because it was all manufactured story, drama, and hype. To this day, the only reality show that I’ve ever enjoyed watching was ego trip’s The (White) Rapper Show. They basically parodied the entir
e industry of reality television and stunted on white people for a season; it was my dream come true watching that shit unfold. Not only was the concept bulletproof, but your boi boi MC Search hosted it, with random appearances by Prince Paul. For heads, there wasn’t a better reality show.

  At Ultimate Recipe Showdown, you could tell the action was already scripted.* During the interviews, they kept asking me how I felt about Dave cooking Asian food, since his dish was wontons in some sort of fucked-up kitchen sink peanut sauce. I could tell there was a Last Samurai story line brewing and Dave was being set up to take me down. I didn’t care because of course that’s what they were doing. They asked me on the show what I thought and I responded, “To be honest, it’s really bad Asian fusion, but some people like that.” Not only did I get away with it, but people were laughing their asses off.

  That’s the confidence that New York gave me. There was finally a city that appreciated what I had to say and the honesty with which I said it. When I would speak my mind like that in Orlando, people would literally call me “racist.” I wasn’t, though. Chinese or not, seeing food or any cultural artifact bastardized just pissed me and most New Yorkers off. In my mind, America’s culinary scene was premature with the whole fusion jump-off. Most Americans don’t even understand the differences between Shanghainese, Hunanese, Sichuanese, or Cantonese food. Even in New York, where these cuisines are readily available, people are just now starting to understand and identify the nuances. A lot of chefs are in a hurry to profit off of appropriated versions of ethnic food without any respect, recognition, or understanding of where these flavors come from. There’s a double standard, too. When my dad had a steakhouse, everyone questioned whether a Chinese person was qualified to open a steakhouse. We had to have white people front like the chef and owners. It was not OK for my dad to sell steak, but white people cooking Asian get more attention than the people in Chinatown who actually know what the fuck they’re doing.†

  (Note to Reader: as you read the next three pages, go on Spotify and play that motherfuckin’ Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue. That’s the only thing that should be in your head right now.)

  What I liked about New York was that food took priority. For immigrant families, food drives your daily life, holidays, vacations, everything. You put in work just to maintain your food culture and eat the things you would back home. In most American cities, dinner is an afterthought. In Orlando, my friends and I would almost never eat before heading out. We’d get high, watch sports, and wait till 11 P.M. to wild. New York was different: dinner was the event. Everyone fights for the 9:30 P.M. seating, the 11:30 cabs before the changeover, and beating the door before midnight if you’re not on the list. People follow the big fall openings, wait hours for café seating in the spring, or buy out their favorite courtyard in the summer. Even in the winter, people are taking car services from TriBeCa to East Harlem for a table at Patsy’s on First Avenue in ten-degree weather. There are your cornball Yelpers, bloggers, and photo takers, but most of us are into it as a culture and foundation of the city. Restaurants are gateways into New York’s neighborhoods. You may never go to the Heights if you don’t cop haze, but Malecon may be the hook that gets John from accounting on the A train. Somehow, food has become a social equalizer. There’s no way you’re getting John into Le Baron and there’s no way you’re letting John drag you to Turtle Bay after work, but dinner is something you can agree on. Peter Luger’s, steak for five, Canadian bacon, tomato salad, hash browns, no one use the fucking steak sauce—who can’t love that?

  In New York, everyone’s a historian: we know what used to be on what block, who replaced it, and how the neighborhood has changed since Shopsin’s moved from the West Village to the Essex Market. People protest closings, fines, violations, and fight for their restaurants. But most important, New Yorkers know their food. I remember the day Frankie’s 17 on Clinton took the pepperoncini with olive-oil-packed tuna off the menu. It was 11 P.M on a Sunday night, an hour before close.

  “Frankie’s 17, how may I help you?”

  “Yeah, I want to make a delivery order.”

  “Lemme get your address?”

  “One-oh-two Norfolk Street, apartment seventeen.”

  “Oh, hey, how’s it going?”

  “Wassup?”

  “What can I get for you?”

  “Same shit: cavatelli with red sauce, broccoli rabe on the side, pepperoncini with tuna.”

  “Ohhh, we took the pepperoncini off the menu.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t do the pepperoncini anymore.”

  “How do you not do the pepperoncini anymore? Nobody told me about this shit.”

  “Ha, ha, they just took it off, I’m sorry!”

  “No, for real, I don’t think you understand, I NEED that pepperoncini. I order it every time I blaze. Like, is there someone we can talk to, to like fix this.”

  “Ha, ha, Eddie, I’m sorry, we love you, but it’s just not on the menu anymore.”

  “Ugggggggghhhhhh.”

  This happens every time a menu or ingredient changes. When I opened Baohaus, one day we switched purveyors for red sugar and customers noticed. I never thought anyone but myself or Evan would care, but people complained. I didn’t want to switch, but our old purveyor just ran out of stock. I liked how we all took ownership in the city, its culture, and its food. We still argue all the time about soup dumplings. Tourists and cornballs love Joe’s Shanghai, but everyone knows it’s Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao holding down Flushing. Just like we argue whether Riley should have pulled Starks in Game 7, we’ll go on and on about how great the lox and whitefish are at Russ & Daughters, but how undeserving their bagels are. The biggest travesty in downtown New York is that you have to buy your lox at R&D then take the train up to Ess-a-Bagel to put together a proper lox, caper, red onion, cream cheese, on sesame or salt bagel. We wish 2nd Ave Deli was still on Second Avenue, we worry about the old man’s health at Di Fara Pizza, and we still don’t understand how people can go to Szechuan Gourmet and order from the American Chinese menu while we get busy with the chili leek intestine casserole and a Diet Coke.

  But despite the misfires, overhyped openings, and super-restaurants that mar the landscape, New York is the best eating city not named Tokyo or Taipei, and we owe it to people Fresh Off the Boat. From the old chick selling churros on the Sunset Park D train to the stray cat crawling over the counter at Fort Greene’s Farmer in the Deli to Peter Luger’s in Williamsburg to Great N.Y. Noodletown on Bowery to Shopsin’s on Essex to Baohaus on Fourteenth to La Taza de Oro on Ninth Avenue to Sapporo on Forty-ninth to the golden elevator at Kuruma Zushi to Lechonera in Harlem to SriPraPhai in Woodside to Mario’s on Arthur Avenue, it’s an army of first- and second-generation immigrants that feed this city. I love the Knicks, I fux with Fool’s Gold parties, and I stay coppin’ kicks, but living in New York, it became clear to me what I loved the most was the thing I loved all along: food.

  By the time we reached the midpoint in the competition, it hit me like Woody at the end of Manhattan. Was it too late? Did I fuck up? I needed that girl! At that point, I wasn’t even paying attention to the competition. It was more fun fucking with the audience, but something woke me up. After the scores for the first round came out, Dave was in the lead, I was second, Grandma was third, and Thalia was fourth. As I walked into the test kitchen, I heard the staff chefs and cooks mumbling to each other.

  “This is such bullshit. His wontons sucked.”

  “For real, did you try Eddie’s baos?”

  “Are you kidding? I made rice to eat it on.”

  “It’s better on rice?”

  “It’s Chinese food; of course it’s better on rice.”

  I wish I knew the Asian woman’s name, but she was a Food Network chef who came up to me before the second round and said to me, “Hey. Don’t worry about the competition. This thing never works out the way it should.”

  “Ha, ha, yeah. I figured Dave gonna be the last samurai standing
, like Tom Cruise and shit.”

  “That’s so fucked-up but true. You know how it is … television. But seriously, everyone in the kitchen ate the skirt steak and it’s phenomenal. Where’d you learn to cook?”

  “My mom.”

  “Well, we see a lot of people come through here and you’re good.”

  “Thanks.”

  In the end, I lost the competition, but won the crowd. After we finished taping, people kept coming up wanting to try the skirt steak. Thalia’s family was mad cool and said they were even hoping I would win. Thalia herself was gracious, wished me the best, and everyone encouraged me to cook professionally. The last one to come by was magenta Guy Fieri himself.

  “Hey, bro. You kicked ass today, man.”

  “Thanks, Guy.”

  “No, for real. Look, this is TV. Don’t pay attention to it. You got the chops. Don’t give up.”