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TIME: Almanac 1990s
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<text id=89TT0004>
<title>
Jan. 02, 1989: Recipe Of The Year--Eat And Be Well
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
Jan. 02, 1989 Planet Of The Year:Endangered Earth
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
FOOD, Page 98
MOST OF '88
</hdr><body>
<p>Recipe of the Year: Eat and Be Well -- Culinary comfort is the
theme
</p>
<p>By Mimi Sheraton
</p>
<p> Still shakily insecure after the crash of '87, food trendies
this year looked for safer culinary havens. They snuggled up to
take-out food in the barefoot safety of their own living rooms,
or sought out comfort foods (pasta and pizza, meat loaf with
mashed potatoes and gravy, creamy desserts) in small, moderately
priced Italian trattorias and American bistros. Many of them
shunned the lavishly styled and priced restaurants, which in
general took an almost unprecedented beating. The beef industry
fought back even while the promise of immortality via good
health made a superstar of cholesterol-reducing oat bran. And
Oprah Winfrey's public skinnying down with the Optifast liquid
diet may just make real food obsolete by the century's end.
</p>
<p> THE BIGGEST BOOK FOR THE BUCK
</p>
<p> Weighing in at 7 lbs. and priced at $50, the new American
edition of the French food encyclopedia Larousse Gastronomique,
edited by Jenifer Harvey Lang (Crown), comes in at only 45 cents
per oz., less than the price of fine veal or salmon. Rewritten
and modernized in France, then translated in England and its
measurements and ingredients Americanized, this essentially
French work expands sections on China, Japan and the U.S. Too
bad that the text and illustrations are so lackluster.
</p>
<p> CINDERELLA FOOD OF THE YEAR
</p>
<p> Discovered to be a crunchy ally in the dietary war against
cholesterol, previously unglamorous oat bran has experienced a
jump of 600% in sales this year for the Quaker Oats Co. alone.
Health buffs are sprinkling this supposed miracle on virtually
everything, even high-fashion muffins. Only the farmers seem
unenchanted. Oat bran still brings a far lower price than corn
and barley, and so is not likely to be given more acreage.
</p>
<p> HIGHEST-PRICED PASTA
</p>
<p> The single most expensive pasta extant is the soft egg
raviolo (the singular of ravioli) that is a $36 hot ticket at
San Domenico, the best new Italian restaurant to open in
Manhattan in the past five years. The large silky square of
pasta enfolds spinach, ricotta cheese and a whole egg yolk that
poaches as the raviolo cooks. But the reason for the price lies
in the topping of hazelnut butter and a fine, if sparse,
mincing of white truffles.
</p>
<p> THE BIGGEST BEEF
</p>
<p> Considered a villain by anticholesterol forces, beef has
taken a drubbing in sales in recent years. Now, thanks in part
to a diligent advertising campaign ("beef: real food for real
people") and undoubtedly to the natural longing for this most
American of meats, sales are increasing in many parts of the
country, in some areas as much as 20%. But many butchers bow to
the times and trim all visible gristle and fat.
</p>
<p> FOOD FASHION COLOR
</p>
<p> Beet red is the shade showing up in a few trend-setting new
American boutique restaurants. It is valued primarily by chefs
for its color, even though the beet's earthy flavor is anathema
to many customers. In some places beets can't be given away,
according to one chef in Dallas. However, they are glossing
(and hopelessly muffling) ingredients such as lobster and ice
cream at Rakel, and are adding heft to rabbit salad and halibut
at Bouley, both in New York City.
</p>
<p> HOTTEST RESTAURANT DESIGNER
</p>
<p> Suave, clubby dining rooms with mellow wood-paneled walls,
glistening brass and a glowing wash of light are trademarks of
the year's most popular restaurant architect, Adam Tihany. He is
responsible for the quietly formal Huberts and Metro in
Manhattan, and Bice, which will also open in Los Angeles and
Chicago next year.
</p>
<p> MOST DELICIOUS FILM SEQUEL
</p>
<p> When the Danish film Babette's Feast opened in the U.S.
early this year, the irresistible meal prepared by the
French-chef-masquerading-as-housemaid was offered in a posh
restaurant in most of the cities where the film was shown. The
meal, with its turtle soup (real or mock), its blini pancakes
with caviar, the cailles en sarcophage -- quails with truffles
and foie gras in a "sarcophagus" of puff pastry -- and the
yeasty rum-drenched baba dessert, has become a classic staple at
Petrossian in New York City, at $125 with the wines or $90
without.
</p>
<p> TRENDIEST REGIONAL CUISINE
</p>
<p> Say so long to the chilies and blue cornmeal of the
Southwest and to the Northwest's oysters, salmon and brambly
herbs. The regional cuisine of the moment is dubbed
"heartland," the bland and stodgy meat-gravy-and-potatoes fare
of the Midwest. No doubt it will soon appear in stylized
versions, complete with oysters, salmon, chilies and blue
cornmeal, to become indiscernible from the food of other
regions.
</p>
<p> SWEETEST COMEBACK
</p>
<p> Profiteroles, the tiny ice-cream-filled cream puffs,
considered the glamour dessert of the '50s and long passe, are
back in favor at newly fashionable restaurants. The final
classic touch is the dousing of bittersweet chocolate sauce, a
sundae kind of taste that is so essentially American.
</p>
<p> LEAST-NEEDED NEW PRODUCT
</p>
<p> Take mineral water from Mendocino, Calif., turn it over to
chef John Ash, and be prepared for Truffle Water, a
sourish-smelling carbonated drink that suggests spoiled milk,
sulfur and stale beer. The question is not how he thought of
it, but why?
</p>
</body></article>
</text>