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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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010289
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01028900.004
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1990-09-22
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FOOD, Page 98MOST OF '88Recipe of the Year: Eat and Be WellCulinary comfort is the themeBy Mimi Sheraton
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.
THE BIGGEST BOOK FOR THE BUCK
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.
CINDERELLA FOOD OF THE YEAR
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.
HIGHEST-PRICED PASTA
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.
THE BIGGEST BEEF
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.
FOOD FASHION COLOR
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.
HOTTEST RESTAURANT DESIGNER
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.
MOST DELICIOUS FILM SEQUEL
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.
TRENDIEST REGIONAL CUISINE
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.
SWEETEST COMEBACK
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.
LEAST-NEEDED NEW PRODUCT
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?