Happy New Year! It's a time for reflection and a time for looking towards the future. Throw caution to the wind and build some initiative. Make a difference in your life and strive to make a difference in the lives around you!
America Eats Tavern is a great place to reflect on not only your past, but America's. Famed chef José Andrés has brought DC this, one year, temporary restaurant occupying the last vessel used to bring us Cafe Atlantico. America Eats opened last year on the fourth of July, and will shut down on this 4th. This gives you six more months to give this extraordinary restaurant a try.
The theme is America, with a twist on many of the comfort foods we were brought up on, and those before us in this great country. The twist is often a deconstruction of the dish, building all the components and flavors separately on the plate, so they come together in your mouth. Dishes all include high presentation value, and perfect execution. I highly recommend giving America Eats one try before it shuts down this year.
CHESAPEAKE CRABCAKES WITH ‘COLD SLAW’
Lord Baltimore Hotel, 1932
Just four years after opening, the landmark Baltimore hotel published the first known recipe for this Chesapeake favorite.
PEANUT SOUP
George Washington Carver, 1914
Carver published his peanut research to show how poor African-American farmers could prosper from an unpopular crop. Peanut butter quickly grew from a delicacy to a commercial success. We take crushed peanuts, peanut praline and mace to recreate something close to the recipe of Rufus Estes. Estes was born a slave but rose to become executive chef of the Pullman Railroad Car Company in Chicago.
Two of the appetisers (seen above) we kicked off with were pretty good, but not show stoppers. I would probably skip these and go for the Oysters or try something else that we didn't try. We did have a nice plate of oysters on the half shell, and they are paired with various flavored fruit vinegars made by the chef's here. Very fresh and very delicious if you're into Oysters.
BBQ BEEF SHORT RIBS WITH HOPPIN’ JOHN
Sarah Rutledge, The Carolina Housewife, 1847
The black-eyed pea was introduced to the West Indies from Central Africa in the 1700s, making its way to the Carolinas soon after. There, slaves combined them with rice, their other most important crop, to create Hoppin’ John. Believed to bring luck to those who eat it, it is still widely consumed by Southerners on New Year’s Day.
I had the beef short ribs and it was delicious. The beef was cooked perfectly, fall-apart tender and the hoppin john was a perfect complement. I would order this again in a heart beat.
EISENHOWER’S STEW
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Washington DC, 1954
This dish was included among Ike’s personal recipe collection, as ‘‘General Eisenhower’s Old-Fashioned Beef Stew.’’ The original recipe, using 20 pounds of meat and similar quantities of vegetables, was supposed to feed 60 people. The White House warned that the scaled-down recipe, widely requested by the public and reprinted in newspapers, had not been tested in such small portions.
The deconstructed stew looked beautiful and tasted delicious. Again, perfect execution on the beef. You won't go wrong giving this a try.
SHRIMP AND PORK JAMBALAYA
Sarah Josepha Hale, New Household Receipt-Book, 1853
The origins of jambalaya are as mixed as the dish, with its flavors from Africa, France, Spain and the Middle East. Mrs Hale, who is credited with making Thanksgiving a national holiday, published the first known recipe in 1853. In Provence, in the south of France, a jambalaya at that time was a mixed stew with rice. But in Louisiana it became something bigger in the original American melting pot.
Another perfect entree was the Jambalaya. The flavors melted in your mouth with a little heat and a lot of spice. The rice had just a tiny little bite to it like it should. This dish has to be ordered for two, so if you love jambalaya, make sure you bring someone else that does too. You will love this dish!
NEW YORK CHEESECAKE
1921
Cheesecake was popular across Europe dating back to Ancient Rome and Greece, but New Yorkers insist the cake did not exist until it arrived in the city in 1921. Arnold Reuben, who created the famous sandwich, invented New York cheesecake after supposedly eating a cheese pie at a dinner party.
KEY LIME PIE
1890s
Limes arrived in the Florida Keys in the 1830s, thanks to a US Consul from Yucatan, Mexico. Two decades later, sweetened condensed milk was invented and the new invention rapidly took hold in the South, where fresh milk spoiled quickly. By the end of the century, the two ingredients were combined to create the famous unbaked pie, not long before a hurricane wiped out the original key limes in the 1920s.
PECAN PIE
1700s
Originally called ‘‘paccans’’ by many Native American tribes, signifying all nuts requiring a stone to crack, pecans are one of the truly indigenous New World foods. The term pecan first appeared in print in the late 1700s, as a misspelling. The nut was favored by both George Washington, who planted pecan trees at Mount Vernon in 1775, and Thomas Jefferson, who cultivated the trees at his Monticello residence starting in 1779.
The desserts were all excellent, and a perfect ending to the evening. They're all takes on dishes from America in sticking with the theme. They all stood out as exceptional and you can't go wrong.
Get out there and celebrate the New Year and celebrate America! Make eating at American Eats one of your resolutions.
America Eats
http://www.americaeatstavern.com/
405 8th St NW Washington DC 20004
