I recently bought a book called Counter Intelligence: Where to Eat in the Real Los Angeles by Jonathan Gold. There are many problems with this book, but I want to focus on one: below the title it states "the indispensable eats guide to America's most diverse food city." Los Angeles is America's most diverse food city? I don't know why I should expect a book cover to be any more truthful than those idiotic milk ads, which claim cow's milk--one of the most dangerous products of industrial agriculture--is actually good for you, leading the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to file a complaint with the FTC. But the claim of "the most" about any city always bothers me, and its worse when it comes to some vague category like cuisine diversity. Now if it was something like "tallest building in the U.S." or "largest indoor shopping mall", this is a little easier to measure, but what does "most diverse food city" mean?
Most likely it is based on the idea that L.A. is the most diverse city. But L.A. is hardly the only city to make this claim. Of course, the question is how do you define diversity? Based on research conducted by The Civil Rights Project of Harvard, Time Magazine declared Sacramento America's "most diverse city." Reading the article you discover by "most diverse" they mean "most integrated." Nearby Oakland also describes itself as "America's most diverse city" because "More than 125 languages and dialects are spoken." Oh, but wait a second, according to the New York State Comptroller 138 languages are spoken in the Borough of Queens alone. Another definition is found at the Skyscraper City forum, where I found a list of cities with the smallest "majority group," putting Waipo Acres, Hawaii at the top. Even my home town of St. Paul brags of having the most "balanced" diversity because, although it is majority white, it has significant numbers of African Americans, Latino/as, Asians and Native Americans.
So lets presume the publishers do not mean simply that L.A. is the most diverse city but that it just has the most diverse food. And here their argument is probably based on the size of the immigrant population. Woops, once again it depends on what you mean. If you mean the percentage of foreign born in a city's population, Miami wins easily, followed by Santa Ana and then L.A. But if you mean counties--which is what the book must mean since many of its entries are in places like East L.A. or Pasadena--then once again, after Miami, our old friend Queens is back, followed by Hudson, New Jersey, then Kings--that is Brooklyn--then San Francisco, and finally L.A. comes in at number six. If we take 2005 data and compare Los Angeles County to the city of New York it is pretty close. 36.6% of New York is foreign born, 36% of L.A. So L.A. and NYC are roughly the same--except there is a factor missing here. L.A.'s immigrant population is over 50% Latino/a, and that Latino/a population is over 80% Mexican. By contrast New York's top three immigrant groups are Dominicans, Chinese and Jamaicans and only Dominicans are more than 10% of all immigrants-about 14%.
My point is not simply to once again dismiss any challenge by L.A. to NYC's status as the center of the cultural universe--well it kind of is. But even if L.A. did have near the diversity of New York, experiencing that diversity is like trying to eat ice cream with your fingers. You can do it, but after a while the sticky mess starts driving you mad. Sure there is great Chinese in Monterey Park and Ethiopian on South Fairfax, but getting from here to there is a sticky situation. In New York, the subway is your ice cream scoop. Better yet, let your legs be your spoon. On a single stroll you move from stores and restaurants catering to Greeks, Indians and Ecuadorians. Yes, I'm sure that Uzbeki place on La Brea and Sunset is "very authentic," but who wants to drive from the West Valley at rush hour and then dump another 5 bucks on valet parking--and they say you have to be rich to live in New York. No, I think I'll just pick up a pint of Baba Ganoush at my local Persian deli, go home and watch Huell Howser eat some Macapuno at famous Fosselman's in Alhambra.
1 comment:
Hi Mason, it's your friend Kay. Great blog. Darlin', you are missing the point of the "America's most diverse food city" claim. What it is saying is that there are more different foods represented in the L.A. metropolitan area than in any other metropolitan area in the U.S. "People" do not equal "food." For example, I recently met a Turkish immigrant at an Argentine tango class in Century City, who told me that there are no Turkish restaurants in the L.A. area. Along the same lines, the food of a certain place may be represented here, but there may be no people from that place here. People from one ethnicity could run restaurants of another ethnicity. For example, some Koreans run sandwich or frozen-yogurt shops. I appreciate that half our immigrants are from Mexico; however, as Jonathan Gold distinguishes in "Counterintelligence," many different types of Mexican cuisine are represented in L.A. County. As someone who is co-running a dining club based on C.I. (Counterintelligence), I know that there is Veracruzian Mexican food, which has a lot of seafood in it, which is different from the chicken burritos and beef enchiladas that most people think of when they think of Mexican food. Then there's the Gardens of Taxco, in West Hollywood, which specializes in the cuisine of Mexico City, which has some cream sauces and baked dishes that I haven't noticed at the usual taco stand (the Gardens of Taxco's white wine margaritas are to die for, by the way). And what about Baja fish tacos? An entry in C.I. about Birrieria Chalio, a Mexican restaurant in East L.A., may prove instructive: "The roast goat served here may be a trademark of the Zacatecas-style food that Chalio serves (most restaurants advertise *birria* made in the style of neighboring Jalisco state)..." Maybe I'm stretching things to say that the diversity of Mexican food here in Los Angeles County contributes to the diversity of ethnic food here in general. I don't think so. I have eaten at the Uzbeki restaurant that you cited in your blog (It was pretty good, although indistinguishable, to me, from Russian food). (Jonathan) Gold also introduced me to my second-favorite restaurant in L.A., the Magic Carpet, a Kosher Yemenite (Middle Eastern) restaurant near La Cienega and Pico boulevards in Los Angeles. My current favorite restaurant is Paru's, a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Hollywood, which specializes in South Indian cuisine, which is less well known than the spicy curries and tandoori chicken of North India. There can be no doubt that there is tremendous culinary diversity in Los Angeles. Thanks in no small part to Gold and C.I., here in L.A. I have eaten Kosher Chinese food (no shrimp or pork), Muslim Chinese food (wonderful flaky bread instead of rice, lots of mutton. Check out the amazing China Islamic restaurant in Rosemead), Tibetan/Nepalese food, Peruvian Japanese food, Chilean Japanese food, Korean Chinese food (K.C. restaurants serve cha-chang-mien, a noodle dish with black bean sauce, which you can't get at plain Korean or run-of-the-mill Chinese restaurants) and Serbian food. I really wouldn't be surprised to see a sign in a storefront that said "Thai Mennonite Donuts" while driving down the street. As a former skeptical journalist (OK, I'm still skeptical), I had my doubts when I read C.I.'s claim that we were culinarily more diverse than New York City, which has a larger population than Los Angeles (They're No. 1 to our No. 2.) And let's face it, it's *New York.* They are superior to us in most ways, although not in the most important way-weather. However, it could be true. We are on the Pacific Rim (although they are on the Atlantic Rim). We have the largest Korean, Armenian, Iranian and Mexican populations outside of Seoul, Yerevan, Tehran and Mexico City. L.A.'s real estate is more affordable than New York City's, which makes it possible that we have more ethnic restaurants. Whether we're culinarily more diverse than them, may depend on our definition of culinary diversity. Are we talking about the number of countries represented in our cuisines, or do we count the individual regional cuisines of a country as distinct cuisines? To sum up, people do not equal food. N.Y. may have more diversity in its people, while L.A. could have more diversity in its cuisine. Your point about the accessibility of food is well taken. What's important is that we live in one of the two most food-diverse cities in the country. Probably. And that means that we are very, very lucky (if we are lucky enough to have a good set of wheels that enable us to make it to Pomona and back, and if we can live with the guilt of having polluted our way to dinner. Confronting these transportation issues is the point of this most righteous blog.) On that note, I recommend that anyone who is reading this, get thy buns to La Cabanita, a Mexico City-style Mexican restaurant in Glendale, and order its chicken mole flavored with pomegranate seeds. It is a semi-orgasmic experience. And if there is some way to get there using public transportation, biodiesel, or a hybrid vehicle, all the better.
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