“Back then, to review these unheralded mom-and-pop cafés was strange. Foodies (a term that had yet to be popularized) were interested only in eating at gourmet bastions in big cities or abroad. These Continental restaurants were expensive; they served French or northern Italian food and had waiters wielding big pepper mills.”
– “Roadfood” author Jane Stern, from an interview in The Paris Review
In “The United States of Arugula,” Jane and Michael Stern merit only a footnote on page 265. Author David Camp chooses to quote James Beard biographer Robert Clark, who contends that the Sterns in their coast-to-coast guides to highway diners, barbecue joints and much more, “fawned with Warholesque camp enthusiasm over dishes that members of the food establishment considered beyond the pale, lavishing on unpretentious and unassuming juke joints the same fevered attentions that gourmets once reserved for Le Pavillon.”
We have more than a dozen Sterns books, including many editions of “Roadfood” because you never know what one will include that another does not, on our bookshelves. We are fans of the places they write about. Yes, we like Mosca’s (a favorite of the Sterns, and Calvin Trillin as well) outside of New Orleans because it is unpretentious and unassuming, but also because the food is spectacular. Yet we also like Commander’s Palace, which is, well, assuming. And more expensive. With food that is also spectacular. Just different.
That’s one thing that comes to mind when I began thinking about The Session #146: “Where do you find value?”
The other is the promotion designed to wed Miller High Life and dive bars. In that story, I learned that it is possible to buy a case of Miller High Life for about $18. That’s quite a bit cheaper than NA beer, or than a single bottle of some saisons in the big bottle cooler at my local beer store. I’m wondering if drinking Miller High Life in a dive bar adds value to the dive bar experience. Or if the dive bar setting adds value to Miller High Life.
You might call this a philosophical question, because — and I know many brewers who make excellent beer who would disagree — I can’t think of a situation in which I would find value in Miller High Life.
I’m enough of a curmudgeon to be offended by the prices some breweries put on sucker juice (Alan McLeod should have trademarked the term long ago), but price is not what comes to mind when I think about value. I think about something Brian Hunt at Moonlight Brewing said 10 years ago when I was doing the research for “Brewing Local.”
He said he believes drinkers pay attention to relevant beers. “I accept that relevant is subjective. I want to make beers that are relevant to me and that will continue to be relevant,” he said at a time he was 58 years old. “How many more beers am I going to drink in my life? Twenty barrels’ worth, maybe it was once forty. What is relevant is that it is a finite number. If you drink a crappy beer, that’s one less relevant beer you are going to drink.”
Please do not jump on Bluesky and post that, “Stan says Miller High Life is a crappy beer.” That’s not the point. The point is that relevant is binary. Yes or no. There are no degrees of relevant. Dinners at Mosca’s and Commander’s Palace, multiple times across a few decades, were always relevant. And if a dining experience is relevant then it has value.
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival began yesterday. I do not find most of the beers on offer (photo at the top*) in cans at dozens of stations on the massive festival grounds relevant. Instead, we bought beers at Canseco’s Market to drink while standing in line to enter the fairgrounds. I enjoyed Parish Ghost in the Machine.
It is relevant.
It has value.
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To find other contributions to The Session #146, visit Ding’s Beer Blog. Jay Brooks keeps a list of all 146, going back to 2007, at Brookston Beer Bulletin.
* You know if you know. Pilsner Urquell and Abita Jockamo IPA are available on draft at the Blues Bar outside the Blues Tent. Pilsner Urquell is also being poured near the Lagniappe stage.