Eating In Translation

Food in Postcolonial Hawai'i

Fiddleheads? Yes: What's a seasonal rarity in the Northeast is available year-round, though in fluctuating supply, in Hawai'i. In the seafood salad at hand, the cubes of yellowfin tuna in this spicy ahi poke (poh-Kay) were garnished with a hard-to-procure seaweed from the islands; these particular fiddleheads, however, were obtained from a mainland source. (Postcolonial or no, some Hawai'ian produce just isn't within the budget of a university-funded garde manger.)

Also shown: fried panko-coated taro accompanied by pineapple relish and (non-Hawai'ian) sea beans; sakura arare, blossom-shaped rice crackers, representing a diverse category of nibbles known as "crack seed"; sweet potato and coconut on a bed of cooked taro leaves.

Food in Postcolonial Hawai'i
Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU
8 Washington Mews (Fifth Ave.-University Pl), Manhattan
212-998-3700
www.NYU-APAstudies.org/2012/event/system-taste-food-in-postcolonial-hawaii
(This 2014 program was held on March 27)

Yang-Kee's #No. 1 Chinese Kitchen

Posted in honor of a new baseball season. In truth I'm more of a National League fan, but my photo archives (and the Mets) have only just so much to offer.

Yang-Kee's #No. 1 Chinese Kitchen
75-01 101st Ave. (at 75th St.), Ozone Park, Queens
718-848-8922

Glaser's Bake Shop

(This venue is closed.) This prune danish ($2.75) was billed as "Hungarian style," a nod to a cuisine that has all but disappeared from the Yorkville neighborhood of the Upper East Side. The style might have something to do with the shape but almost surely with the filling — not jam but levkar, also known as prune butter.

Previously: I'd never heard "ice cream cone" used as a verb. On a visit to Glaser's several years ago, after long deliberation I settled on a lemon meringue tart (at the time, $2) and asked the gal at the counter not to bother wrapping it. She couldn't quickly find me a fork; no worries, I said, raising a toast with my tart, I'll manage. Oh, she exclaimed, you're going to ice-cream-cone it?

More or less. Meringue doesn't yield gracefully to the side-on, tongue-lapping approach; it's more susceptible to a biting attack from on high. I've done this with dipped cones, too, but the expression itself — "ice cream cone," as a verb — makes sense only when applied to something other than ice cream. I spent several minutes wondering why this is, pausing every so often to wipe meringue off my chin.

Glaser's Bake Shop
(pronounced "Glaa-zer's," as in "glad")
1670 First Ave. (87th-88th Sts.), Manhattan
212-289-2562
www.GlasersBakeShop.com

Small Game Dinner of the Bronx Pipe Smoking Society

In coming days, no doubt, you'll see much more of the costumery and ribaldry brought forth for this annual feast (to call it merely a dinner does it a grave disservice) conceived by Baron Ambrosia. Though intrigued by Malian muskrat fakoye, Thai porcupine nam tok, and Garifunan possum hudutu, I confess that big game provided the most satisfying cut of the evening: marinated, grilled elk, sliced thin. Dressing it with the accompanying Argentinean chimichurri would only have painted the lily.

One of the few non-meat-centric dishes appeared for dessert: mud pies whose namesake, dark brown component was a chocolate "créme de terra" made with Georgia-dug edible white clay. Conventional coffee service was not an option; in its stead were a pair of digestifs distilled by the Baron, including a bear-paw aquavit. As I write, nearly 24 hours later, I think I can taste it still.

Small Game Dinner of the Bronx Pipe Smoking Society
Andrew Freedman Home, 1125 Grand Concourse (McClellan-East 166th Sts.), Bronx
(The 2014 feast was held on March 29)

Polish & Slavic Center Cafeteria

Even if you read as little Polish as I do, a bulletin board like this, in the vestibule leading to the dining room, provides valuable intelligence: It suggests that the center has close ties to an active local community. In such light, homemade rather than professionally printed notices are especially promising.

One possible reward for your attentiveness: a pair of sweet cheese blintzes ($6). The glass of thin compote that came with would have been a better pairing for the hefty lunch plates ordered by many other customers. Despite cross-talk between tables, on this afternoon most folks dined solo, orienting their seats toward the televised newscast in one corner of the room. A Polish-language newscast, of course.

Polish & Slavic Center Cafeteria
177 Kent St. (Manhattan Ave.-McGuinness Blvd.), Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718-349-1033
www.PolishSlavicCenter.org

Old Poland Bakery

Cherry and poppy seeds are instantly recognizable in this babka (slice, $3); owing to a barrier of language, I can't account for the two bands of color in the crumb. The crust, however, hints at the reason for a texture that's more dense and crumbly than typical babkas. This much I could get from the counterwoman: It's made with corn.

Old Poland Bakery
926 Manhattan Ave. (Java-Kent Sts.), Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718-349-7900

Queens Pita Bakery

"Warm it in the oven, this" the counterwoman said. The classic potato knick ($3.99) is similar to a kugel, but much more like a yeast bread than a baked pudding. Onion and black pepper (this one needed more) are other principal ingredients; butter and slices of apple are felicitous accompaniments.

Potato knick — or, as pronounced and more often spelled, potato nik or potatonik — is also known in a version that resembles a large latke meant to be cut into wedges. I haven't found citations of this style that long predate Mark Bittman's recipe, which seems to have been first published in 2006.

Queens Pita Bakery
68-34 Main St. (Melbourne-68th Aves.), Kew Gardens Hills, Queens
718-263-8000

Willie's Wee-Nee Wagon

Had one wee-nee; I prefer dogs with more snap and buns that are less all-enveloping. Willie's is also locally famous for its boneless pork-chop sandwich, served on a hero-style roll with mustard and grilled onions; I opted for a curiously named variation.

Swapping in sauerkraut for the onions, this "Rue Ban" (pronounced like any other rueben, $6.15, including sweet tea) sported a pair of peperoncini, too. How did it get a toehold in Georgia? According to the fellow at the serving window, the original owner (Willie, presumably) moved down from Chicago; the rueben's customary corned beef, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing, it seems, didn't make the trip. Even so, sliced grilled pork on a big soft roll made for a good now-and-later sandwich, half of it hot, in the afternoon, half of it cold, as a before-bedtime snack.

Willie's Wee-Nee Wagon
3599 Altama Ave. (at 6th St.), Brunswick, Georgia
912-264-1146
Closed Sunday

Jones Kitchen

Pulling into the parking lot just before the stated opening hour, I found it already half-full. The dining room was all a-murmur, too. My timing was fine, the cashier reassured me, as she directed me to a seat at one of the communal benches: Jones Kitchen often opens 15 to 20 minutes early when the buffet is ready and folks are waiting outside. Given the variety and the value (all you can eat, $9, including a pitcher of sweet tea or the like), I'm glad I didn't dawdle on the drive down.

Shown: vegetables, meats, desserts. The first and most interesting round also squeezed in a biscuit and a scoop of stuffing. For the second and third I was tapping on the brakes; another (smaller) lunch was in the offing.

Jones Kitchen
526 West Cherry St. (North 3rd St.-North 3rd St. Ln.), Jesup, Georgia
912-427-4100
Open Monday to Saturday, 11:00-2:00 (though doors may open early if the buffet is ready)

John Houstoun McIntosh Sugarhouse

Built in the late 1820s, this sugarhouse was the first to employ a horizontal mill powered by cattle, according to John Houstoun McIntosh's colleague Thomas Spaulding. By the time of the Civil War the building was employed to produce arrowroot starch as well; when and why it fell into disuse is unknown. See also this 1844 comparison of sugar-production technologies (horizontal trumps vertical) and this 1985 report on archeological testing at the site.

McIntosh's building is also colloquially known as the Tabby Sugar Works, owing to its use of a particular local concrete. To build permanent structures, early settlers on the coasts of what would become Georgia and South Carolina had trees, but no stones or clay — only extensive middens of empty shells, "the accumulation of countless past oyster roasts." European settlers, in this instance, had to make do with Native American leftovers.

John Houstoun McIntosh Sugarhouse
3600 Charlie Smith Sr. Highway (at Georgia Spur 40), St. Mary's, Georgia