Who Booby-Trapped This Tiny Cabbage?

And other critical questions from the mailbag.

Welcome back to 2 Mailbag 2 Furious, in which I answer reader questions mere weeks after they were submitted. Let’s get to it.

Michael:

Top 5 best KC bbq establishments, please!  I haven’t lived in KC since ‘11, and I was pretty devoted to Oklahoma Joe’s - a cop once let me off with a warning because I was speeding to get there before it closed - so I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the modern-day offerings.

Jason:

As someone raised in KC, I have very strong opinions about BBQ. I’d like to hear your top five BBQ joints in KC (and why). If you feel like it, as a bonus you could also rank the BBQ styles (KC, Texas, Carolina (shudder), Memphis, etc.)

Let’s all pour one out for the sixth-best barbecue joint in town.

I’m going to cheat a little bit in answering this question and guide you to this (unranked) tourist’s guide to KC barbecue I wrote for Eater last month.

Listicles suck even when I write them, but:

• your girl’s got to get paid so Haterade can stay free

• I tried to give a good sense of the ~vibes~ and context of each place in addition to advice about what to order, which I hope will help you better find the spots that speak to your soul.

I don’t love ranking restaurants, mostly because I don’t find rankings very helpful as a diner. Some people want a clean, full-service restaurant experience with cocktails and table service; others want to drizzle grease down their elbows at a run-down trailer with a picnic table so they can feel like Anthony Bourdain. Those groups will have very different ideas about the best BBQ in town.

Rankings can be tricky even if you restrict your focus to what’s on the plate. A pitmaster may have the best ribs in the city but churn out gray, chalky brisket. The sausage at Le Porcine may be marginally better than the links at Randy’s Rowdy Rib Racket but three times the price. How do you balance all of that in a way that means anything?

In a just world, I could field a fantasy barbecue team with ribs from Joe’s, Texas-style brisket from Harp, thin-sliced brisket from Big T’s, turkey from Slap’s, ham from Night Goat…

But we do not live in a just world. We live in the real world, and I live in the real Kansas City, where I have to associate with people who think I’m a hack for liking Gates (it’s great; they’re wrong). Qualitative it is.¹

Marc:

I think that these smoked paprika peanut butter cookies are worth the hassle, but my friends tell me that the idea itself is gross.  Having made them I know this is objectively false.  What should I tell these cretins to persuade them to grow up?

I have made these cookies as well! The Sister Pie cookbook is excellent, and I have made just about every cookie in it by now.

The smoked paprika peanut butter cookies are decidedly not gross, but they also didn’t blow me away. They tasted exactly like I expected them to—like a slightly smoky, almost imperceptibly bitter PB cookie. I have not been moved to make them again.

I suspect part of my ambivalence reflects that the recipe was borne more out of obstinance than a sincere conviction that peanut butter and paprika belong together. In the recipe’s headnote, Lisa Ludwinski writes that she came up with the cookie in response to being teased for her oddball flavor combos.

Still, I appreciate the concept, and your friends shouldn’t be any more put off by that flavor combo than by salted caramel or chamoy.

The semi-savory dessert is superior in my book. I salt my cantaloupe and put chili crisp on my soft serve. I like a cupcake just fine, but I could do without the swirly, sugary crown of American buttercream.

The buckwheat chocolate chip cookies from Ludwinski’s cookbook and these peanut-butter miso cookies from NYT Cooking are the two varieties I make most often, in part because they temper their sweetness with something unexpected or a little offbeat.

I aspire to the same.

Andy:

Why in the Midwest do we call "thinly-pounded deep-fried breaded pork" a "pork tenderloin" instead of schnitzel, which it clearly is? Is it anti-German sentiment? Anxiety over mispronouncing so many consonants pushed together?

Breaded Pork Tenderloin fanatics will point to some fussy differences between schnitzel and a BPT. Traditional wiener schnitzel was made with veal, pan-fried instead of deep-fried, and topped with gravy. But Andy’s right: the Midwest’s favorite comically large meatwich is fundamentally schnitzel on a bun.

Why the name didn’t stick is a bit of a mystery. The anti-German sentiment hypothesis is an interesting one—it would make sense if schnitzel got the “Freedom fries” treatment during the war. But U.S. restaurants were marketing “pork tenderloin sandwiches” at least a decade before World War I began.

Most food historians tie the invention of the BPT sandwich to Huntington, Indiana, where a pushcart operator named Nick Freienstein allegedly began selling them around 1904.

If that’s true, the news traveled fast: a year later, a Minnesota restaurant called "J.S. Mills’ Lunch and Sandwich Room” advertised their own “pork tenderloin sandwich” in the Saint Paul Appeal.

But “schnitzel” has continued to quietly assert itself over the years. Consider, for example, this lively 1962 ad for a “wiener schnitzel sandwich” in Manhattan, KS newspaper The Manhattan Mercury.

The “Hibachi Hut” in the “Dugout” served “inscrutable” “cuisine.”

The German Ways may be making a comeback. If you go to the Minnesota State Fair this year, you can buy a breaded pork tenderloin there for the first time—only it will be sold as a “pork schnitzel sandwich.”

The plot—but not the cutlet—thickens.

Jason:

Is The Bear a good show or a bad show? I love cooking shows so I binged it and it was gripping. But I didn’t like any of the characters, it’s not very true to Chicago, and the ending was a baffling deus ex machina.

It’s an entertaining show, but I’ve got some Italian Beef with it.

For those who haven’t seen The Bear, it’s an eight-episode fictional series on Hulu about a fine-dining chef named Carmy who takes over his deceased brother’s sandwich shop. As workplace dramedies go, it’s fine: the script is decent, the acting is great, and the supporting characters are well drawn. It’s engrossing escapism, and I do not regret watching it!

But it’s not groundbreaking TV, and most of the glowing reviews from chefs and food writers—including some whose opinions I respect!—seem to engage more with a sense of nostalgia and “feeling seen” than with the show’s merits as a work of fiction.

I haven’t worked in restaurants in a decade, so I’m not going to join the chorus about how it really do be like that sometimes. I am going to point out that before the main character turned 21, he apparently:

• held high-level positions at Noma, The French Laundry, and Eleven Madison Park;

• received the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year²; and

• was named one of Food & Wine’s “Best New Chefs.”

That’s some cringe food-world Mary Sue shit. Any one of those accolades would be enough to convince people who only sort of follow the industry that Carmy Is Indeed Good At Cooking. Together, they would make him one of the most powerful, influential, and press-swarmed chefs in the country—and I say would, because the showrunners still insist on painting Carmy as a hangdog underdog able to fly under the radar.

The closest thing the food world’s got to that kind of high-profile prodigy right now is Flynn McGarry, a Kidz Bop Gordon Ramsay who staged in some fancy kitchens but hasn’t yet won any fancy awards. And Food People write about him every time he farts a new fart!

My bigger problem with The Bear is that even as it tries to signal awareness about contemporary kitchen dynamics and conversations, its vision feels super dated. Much of the show follows Carmy and his sous chef, Sydney, as they attempt to bring the restaurant into the 21st century by…implementing a 19th century brigade.

Ultimately, The Bear shows us a young, talented chef working in an exacting, hierarchical system that manufactures violent-tempered egomaniacs and reveals that—yep! that system still manufactures violent-tempered egomaniacs!

Carmy’s outbursts are forgivable, the show seems to posture, because he’s a grieving softboi underneath. But I’m going to let you in on a secret: they’re all grieving softbois underneath. “Terrible Boss Is Actually Nice Person, Deep Down” is not a radical observation unless you have a child’s conception of morality.

I don’t know any ~evil~ chefs. I know plenty of overworked, stressed-out, fucked-up chefs who have made a habit of passing the buck to their more vulnerable employees. Carmy doesn’t operate outside of that category; he is the category.

I don’t need my television to be virtuous, but I do need it to be interesting. And that story just isn’t that interesting anymore.

Jonathan:

What is a good trash human substitute for salmon roe?

Strawberry-flavored Mini Gushers.

If you want a non-horrifying answer, you can get texturally close by picking up some tapioca starch, making your own tapioca pearls, and marinating them in some ponzu. But I’m not sure you’ll come out ahead, cost-wise, unless you’re making an industrial-sized batch. Salmon roe is pricy, but it ain’t sturgeon.

Kevin:

Meatloaf is underrated. I've been lambasted on more than one occasion for listing meatloaf as my favorite food on whatever stupid get-to-know-you work thing, but I will not be silenced. 

I get that a lot of people grew up eating some dry/mushy/flavorless lump of low grade chuck that their dad threw together at the last second, but that shouldn't tarnish them against what has the potential to be a great dish. I guess this has to be a question...so, am I alone in this? Do I have the palate of a child or am I justified in a defense of this dish?

I discovered the joys of meatloaf (and Meatloaf) relatively late in life. The Loaves of My Youth were composed entirely of 90 percent lean beef bound together with an egg and some rolled oats—a one-way ticket to Crumbletown.

Food People usually try to solve this by adding veal to their meatloaf mixes, which gives the loaf a softer, suppler texture. But that feels anathema to the meatloaf’s “everyman” cultural positioning—it’s like wearing a fur coat to the Clay County Fair.

Instead, I use equal portions of 80/20 beef and pork in my meatloaf, which keeps them moist and flavorful and smooth. If I know I’m going to serve a meatloaf fresh out of the oven, which is rare, I’ll add a little powdered gelatin to the mix for texture insurance. Most of the time, though, I’m making meatloaf because I want to eat cold, lightly glazed slabs of it in a sandwich the next day. And a meatloaf that’s been refrigerated overnight doesn’t need much encouragement to congeal.

Haters be damned: a cold meatloaf sandwich is an absolute gift. Like a slice of cold pizza, it transcends its origins and becomes something new, with its own particular charms. Lift that loaf high, Kevin.

Annie:

How does one make the ideal crispy Brussels sprouts? I’m talking about super dry, crispy, with a little shot of grease in every bite. When prepping: peeling them layer by layer is tedious and chopping is inconsistent. When cooking: stovetop in the cast iron doesn’t dry them out enough, baking and broiling can burn the little ones first, and I don’t have a deep fryer. Is there a better way to achieve crispy Brussels?

I don’t own an air fryer, but a lot of people love them for this reason. They’re just small convection ovens that blow hot air around foods with enviable efficiency, crisping them in much less time than it would take in a full-size oven with a convection fan.

But I’m going to assume you don’t have an air fryer because you didn’t start your question by telling me how much you love your air fryer.

The first step toward Crispy Sprout Transcendence is managing the flavor tradeoff. The Brussels sprout is a tiny cabbage full of biological booby traps. Enzymes in the sprout are just waiting for you to cut into it so they can wake up all the glucosinolates—the bitter, sulfurous flavor compounds—and skunk-spray them into our mouths.

Fortunately, many of us enjoy these flavors. Annie and I are two peas in a sociopathic pod: we like to taste a cabbage’s fear.

That said, one of the sprout’s Defensive Enzymes actually dulls some of its desirable mustard-y aromas. The only way to halt that enzyme’s progress and preserve flavor is to get the sprout up to around 180° F as quickly as possible.

The best way to balance that need for immediate heat with the desire for a crisp and caramelized sprout is with a combo method.

Sear, then roast.

Cut your Brussels sprouts into quarters (always “hot dog style,” so that each piece retains a little bit of the stem left to hold itself together), sear them in some bacon grease in your cast iron until each face is lightly browned, and then transfer that pan to a 425° F oven, where the hot, dry air will do a much better job crisping your sprouts (if you’ve got a convection setting on your oven, use it). If your sprouts have a lot of size variation, adjust the chop so they’ll cook evenly: quarter the big bois and halve the shrimps.

Russ:

Do you still write reviews for The Pitch?

I do! I’m actually procrastinating on a review for the August issue by writing this newsletter. But I haven’t been writing them as often as I did before the pandemic. My last review was of the Taco Bell Cantina in Westport, and that came out in April.

I still believe restaurant criticism is important, but there are other stories that feel more pressing and interesting to me right now. So in between reviews, I’ve written about how the hospitality industry is fixing (or fucking up) longstanding labor issues, or how the city’s dated permitting infrastructure was sidelining independent cooks and bakers. The latter story ended up helping to push a new ordinance through local government, at least according to one of our city councilmen. I think that’s neat!³

Reviewing less often also helps me avoid becoming self-important by ensuring I remain unimportant. Long-time Hatereaders may recall that I had something of an existential crisis about restaurant reviewing last September. I’m feeling a lot more settled about my work now, and I think a large part of that has been stepping back from identifying as a “restaurant critic” instead of just a '“writer.”

Admittedly, broadening my beat means that I’m flirting with the tricky ethical line I referenced back then:

In an ideal world, “critic” and “reporter” would be separate positions—restaurants aren’t going to want to pick up the phone for an interview if you brutalize them, and you aren’t going to brutalize them if you want them to keep picking up the phone.

But I assume everyone in the industry that I’m friendly with will throw me under the bus the second it’s convenient, and I don’t take it personally. Complaining about food media will always be fun and cool.

Plus, much like the Brussels sprout, I contain many defensive enzymes and glucosinolates that make me much more pungent when cut.

wint @dril

go ahead. keep screaming "Shut The Fuck Up " at me. it only makes my opinions Worse

So I will continue to do my own dumb little work in my own dumb little way, pursuing what interests me, toiling away in my cabbage patch largely for my own delight.

I will stop when it is no longer delightful.

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The Haterade mailbag is always open; drop a question in the comments or email me any time. And if you liked this post, please share, subscribe, or send to a friend! You can also donate to the Haterade Center for Loaf-Lovers: Venmo | PayPal

1. That said, shoot me an email the next time you’re coming to town, and I’ll be happy to draft you a personal Top 5 if you give me a little info about the vibes, price point, and experience you’re looking for.

2. Renamed this year to “Emerging Chef,” as if overlooked cooks across America had suddenly burst forth from a hedge.

3. I have also sunk about 100 hours into Elden Ring since April, according to Steam, so please do not assume that I have been using my time in useful and productive ways. I’m stuck on Commander Niall now; HMU if you want to swoop in to help (I play on PC).