Food Notes: 4/1
Cookbook reviews, halal chicken, Smartfood popcorn, espresso martinis and more
Big News!
So you might have noticed a new look and title, All The Things We Eat. That’s because this site is growing. All The Things I Eat will continue to be the home of long-form food writing, and All The Things We Eat will specifically refer to this newsletter. But wait, there’s more.
We’re also adding a new subsection, and by “we” I really do mean another person. All The Things We Read will be helmed by Annmarie Pisano featuring cookbook reviews similar to her project Hot Sauce Review. The first review will publish later this week and then follow monthly-ish.
Food Notes
New York City’s food carts have long featured a variety of different ethnic cuisines. Consider, for instance, how a single taco truck launched the Birria taco craze. Halal chicken, especially served over rice, is fast becoming a kind of New York City icon, in the same way there’s a pizzeria on every corner.
Halal cuisine is an Islamic dietary tradition where food is prepared following religious guidelines, similar to Jewish Kosher dietary rules. And perhaps not surprisingly, the rules are similar, with both banning the consumption of pork.
New York City’s halal food carts first started appearing on the streets in the 1980s, and similar to every other cuisine brought to the city, the food has evolved into something unique. For instance, the red-colored chicken is derivative of an Egyptian harissa, while the cooler white sauce is similar to Greek tzatziki. Today, the white sauce often includes mayonnaise, which not only tastes delicious, but helps prevent the sauce from spoiling.
The halal chicken platter is largely credited to the Halal Guys, a food cart based in midtown Manhattan since 1990. Three Egyptian-Americans, Mohamed Abouelenein, Ahmed Elsaka, and Abdelbaset Elsayed, started off selling hot dogs. (New York hot dogs are traditionally all-beef, meaning they can be kosher and halal-friendly). Abouelenein wanted to sell something more substantial—and perhaps differentiate his cart from the others in the area.
Two years later, the Halal Guys introduced a chicken and rice platter, and the dish quickly caught on with the city’s cab drivers, many of whom were Muslim. Their stand at 53rd and 6th Avenue became a destination, and the chicken and rice platter, served with vegetables and hot sauce, was copied by other carts and local bodegas, spreading across the five boroughs.
By the 2000s, the dish picked up some more recognition from formal chefs, magazines, and television. Social media has made the Halal Guys’s original location famous and their stand now attracts long lines. The stand began franchising the name and recipes too, but today halal chicken platters have evolved beyond them.
It’s common today to order halal chicken gyros like I did this afternoon. The chicken and vegetables are stuffed into a pita and topped with white sauce. Other variations include using lamb gyro meat instead of chicken.
“Halal” restaurants are seemingly in every neighborhood these, and the term is more about the type of food than a religious designation. Back in September, writing in the New Yorker, Helen Rosner highlighted a gas station restaurant in Bushwick thats gentrifying the halal platter and the other dishes. One of my favorite variations on the genre is Halal-and-Out, a restaurant that has taken design inspiration from California’s In-and-Out Burger. And Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamadani has even made the soaring Halal cart prices a talking point in his campaign.
Anyway, this was just a long way of saying we didn’t have anything in the house for lunch so we walked over to our local Crown Chicken for a halal chicken gyro and halal chicken platter. It was delicious.
The Latest
Quote of the Week
“Being alive at the start of the new century was a trip, but being young, broke, and not knowing much of anything then was scary.”
—Jason Diamond
How Frito Lay Killed Smartfood
Long-time readers will note I’m an avid fan of cooking popcorn on the stovetop, but like most millennials, I have fond memories of Smartfood popcorn from the 90s. I was disappointed the last time I had some at a 3-year-old’s birthday, and as it turns out, there’s a good reason why. Jaya Saxena got to the bottom of accusations that Smartfood doesn’t hit like it used to— Frito Lay decided to enshittify the recipe around 2021, reducing the cheddar goodness and adding corn sugar.
The Martini That Wakes You Up
Espresso martinis are back in a big way. Basically every bar in NYC right now has some version of the classic vodka, coffee liqueur, and espresso. It’s the kind of drink that feels alright to have at brunch because *coffee*. Robert Simonson at the Wall Street Journal looks into the history of this cocktail. While a bartender in London created the drink as a pick-me-up, Illy coffee helped make it possible. A marketing push to get espresso into London eateries created the availability. The espresso martini offers that blissful combination of caffeine and alcohol, similar to Vodka and Red Bull or the now banned Four Loko.
Big Soda’s Big Moment
In effort to make life for SNAP beneficiaries even worse, lawmakers are looking to ban recipients from buying soda. Cue the lobbyists. Apparently a secretive organization paid a number of high profile social media influencers to compare the soda ban to COVID restrictions. As it turns out, when your biggest supporters are cash-for-click influencers, their loyalty is only as good as the most recent pay stub. I’m old enough to remember when conservatives were against banning soda for health reasons, and sued New York City’s health department.
The Jerk
Anna Hezel looks at the Caribbean-inspired spice profile, Jerk, and how its turning up in all sorts of places on all sorts of foods.
Southern Cheese
Southern Living explains Hoop Cheese, a southern cheese wrapped in red wax. Personally it reminds me of an oversized Babybel cheese.
Sustainable Ramps
Wild ramp season is upon us! But remember to be careful not to over harvest them.
Food Fooled You
April 1st is traditionally known as April Fool’s Day when pranks are played. One of the best all-time pranks was the Italian Spaghetti Harvest, where a BBC documentary looked at the traditional harvesting of spaghetti trees. The Today Show highlights some of this year’s food related pranks from your favorite brands, because big business can be funny, too.