Bloomington/Normal Day 3: JJ's

One of my favorite movies of all time is "The Blues Brothers".  In that movie, the part when the brothers go to recruit Matt Guitar Murphy from his verbally abusive wife, played by Aretha Franklin, they go to a really run-down restaurant, resembling a hole in the wall. What I like about that scene, is that Aretha's character refers to their fried chicken as the "best fried chicken in the whole state."  So, very similar, there is this awesome place in Bloomington called Super JJ's.

 
The place is small, has old ceiling tiles, has some old carpet and floor tiles, looks like this:

But there is the kicker: the food is freakin' amazing.  The fried fish is so fresh and clean.  The fries are delicious.  I have ordered their wings before and they are so good they make me and anyone else want to take some "to go" and make the 2 hour drive back home with it.  I ordered something new, which is on that sign in the middle of the counter, near the hot sauce squeeze bottle.  I ordered a chicken sandwich.

It may not look like much, but that fried chicken sandwich was the best chicken sandwich I have ever eaten.  This is a big deal considering that during my teenage years I had lived on a mix of the chicken sandwich from Burger King and Mcnuggets from McDonalds.  It is amazing and perfectly cooked.  An easy 3 out of 5 stars.  Please look them up and go there. 

• 1510 W Market
  Bloomington, IL 61701

From the Golden Arches

So, as my son was eating his once a month Happy Meal, he asked me where hamburgers came from and to be honest, I didn't know.  I thought that there is a place in Germany named Hamburg and it was thought of at one time that frankfurters came from the town of Frankfurt, so perhaps hamburgers came from the town of Hamburg.  But, having some remedial knowledge of other cuisines and cultures, I find it highly unlikely that a town in Germany was the only place in the world where someone had the idea of making a ground meat patty and placing it between two layers of bread.  However, what we call a "hamburger", being ground beef and placed on a yeast risen bread bun, may only come from a culture that A: has cows as one of their food sources and B: has access and use of yeast to rise their bread.  These two factors rule out the possibility of Asia and Africa as being sources of the origin. I also refuse to believe that much of anything traditional such as a hamburger, was really invented in America, like ice tea...

Still, most places, including the Library of Congress, do believe that a man in Connecticut in 1900 was out of steaks at his shop and instead stuck the ground up pieces and trimmings of his steaks together to create a hamburger. While that may be the first time this meat item had shown up in America, it isn't the first time it was ever invented.  (In fact, like the creation of Buffalo Wings, I doubt the above claim.)  Although a Governor in Oklahoma, claimed that the first hamburger on a bun was eaten in Tulsa in 1881.

But what about other parts of this meal?  What about French Fries?  Well, let's get one claim out of the way that it either was invented in France or Belgium.  Both countries claim to have invented it.  The fact we know, is that potatoes are native to Central America and therefore, did not show up anywhere else in the world until after 1735.  What is interesting though, is that Spain, would have been the first European country to get the potatoes and therefore could have had the ability to invent the French Fry.  It wasn't until Thomas Jefferson was at a dinner at the White House, where he was served a dish called French Fries, which meant "potatoes served in a French manner".  This part makes sense because it was the French who helped America during the Revolutionary War, so of course it would have been France who had had close relations with America and therefore if any cook from a country would have delivered fried potatoes first, it would have been France.

So, we doing alright?  Is your mouth watering yet?

Now, while ketchup seems to always be paired with hamburgers and fries, remember this: tomatoes are native of the Americas also, so no other place could have tomatoes before the 1730's as well, like potatoes. In fact, the earliest mention of tomato ketchup, was in 1801.  Things resembling ketchup, without the tomatoes, had existed in India and China as early as the 1600's, but the tomatoes are New World products and this means that ketchup is as well.

I think the last thing that goes well with hamburgers, may have been the oldest one yet.  Mustard, is historically connected with the ancient Romans, who created a spread grinding mustard seeds with grape juice vinegar and then cooking it to give it a musty taste.  A recipe has survived from the 4th century.  It is amazing that we still use the same item today on our food.

 

Dressels' pub

About a week ago, my wife and I went with another couple to Dressel's Public House.  The other husband we went with, has been there many, many times.  His main thought about the location, was that half of the items are good and the other half are bad.  I thought he was just being a pessimist but, his thoughts and ideas were correct as about half of the items we ordered were good and the other half could have been skipped.

We stood and waited for a table, after I had made contact with someone from the email on their website.  I sometimes call and sometimes use opentable to see how they respond to my reservation request.  This time, they did horrible with the email request.  I did get someone to respond and they confirmed the day and time and I thought I was ready, but then when we arrived, there was no reservation in my name at all and we had to wait 15 minutes for a table.  The inside was covered with signs and memorabilia about Scotland.  The pub was originally opened in 1980 and was opened to let people have a place to relax and feel comfortable in the art and literary area.  There are autographed magazines and playbills and all sorts of things from Jon Dressel, who is a respected poet dealing with subject matter from Wales, although he was born and raised here in St. Louis.  His son, Ben, runs the pub now and has moved it in the direction of the farm-to-table and seasonal food approach.  But, all of that doesn't mean anything if the food isn't that good.

We started off with some starters, so we could get a good feel of the food here.  We ordered the Homemade Potato Chips with the added Rarebit.  What we had received was burnt chips and a tiny portion of $2 cheese.  For $6 of chips that were supposed to be cooked to order, our luke warm burnt chips were not what we had expected.

Properly cooked chips are not supposed to be brown, but lightly browned.  I think of the chips they serve at John D. McGuirks or even the ones in this bag from Lays.  Chips are lightly colored as you only fry them long enough to cook them, not kill them.  You know, started off with burnt chips isn't a great way to impress me.  I give these a 2 out of 5.  I will not be ordering chips again from them.

We had also ordered the House Banger Plate, which in this case was a blue corn pancake with a breakfast pork sausage and fried egg.

It was good: the pork sausage was perfectly spiced and perfectly cooked.  The egg was right as well and that pancake was heavy and dense and very flavorful.  The whole thing was as much of a success as the first one was as much of a failure, which was a lot.  I would give this one alone a 4 out of 5.  In fact, if I came again, I'd order 3 of these just for myself.

Again, on this side of the spectrum, the two wives present, happily ate the Mussels.  They said that these mussels were perfectly cooked and perfectly flavored so that the broth was worth taking the time to soak up with the rock hard garlic bread.  Everyone loved them and a 4 out of 5 for mussels was given.

So then, it comes to my main plate and I get ballsy.  First of all, I'm not a cheese guy.  I don't sit around trying and tasting all sorts of cheeses.  I don't like the pungent scents and flavors that go with cheeses.  I ate some white and mild cheeses on pizza and will let go with some provel or mozarella but I will not eat cheeses on a sandwich or burger.  So, anyway, what made Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives so happy was the Porchetta "Louie".  So, this sandwich is supposed to some herb roasted pork, rapini and peppercini on it.  So, I start to eat and eat and it tastes good at first.  If I had only had two bites, like Andrew Zimmerman, and stopped there, this would have been a 4 out of 5 stars for me.  The problem, was that it was so heavily peppered, that by the 4th or 5th bite, I was sensing heat and by the 8th or 9th bite, I was using my Guinness to wash the sandwich taste down.  And it was salty, like salt-lick salty.  The sandwich was bad and it was getting worse with every bite.  I didn't even finish it and I was starving at this point.  I gave this sandwich a simple 2 out of 5 stars. 

So, then, I get a choice of a side and I am suggested that I take the baked beans and so I take them.  They arrive with my sandwich and I am happy.  The others at my table and I all take a fork-full of the beans and...we all had mixed reviews.  Half of us had beans which were over cooked, in that they were mushy.  The other half of us had undercooked beans which were almost crunchy.  There was no huge pieces of bacon fat or brown sugar syrup slathered in and instead was a simple tomato tasting sauce with undercooked and overcooked beans.  A 2 out of 5 for me.

Overall, there were some hits and some misses.  It seems that if this is a restaurant where great thing happen, the one who does them was off and his sub just didn't care.  The chips really started it all for me because I am one of those guys that if the chips are really really good, I'll find an excuse to come and sit, drink and eat chips.  But when you fail at making potato chips, I wonder how good you can do anything else.

A Man's topic...

Peanut butter and jelly, whether you like them fried or fresh, the PB&J seems to have become a staple for any male's diet.  It could be a tie in with some feeling of a comfort food or a piece of nostalgia, but this sandwich seems to show up in almost every setting and I almost always have seen men enjoy this over women.

 

While the first recorded mention of this sandwich was in the 1940's, we have a couple of facts that can be seen and laid out here for everyone's view:

1.  We know that George Washington Carver created a peanut butter for culinary uses in 1880, but did not patent it because he thought that anything from nature was a gift from God and allowed to everyone.  But this is the first recorded listing of peanut butter.  The peanut probably was first seen around 950BC in South America.  From there it was sent to places like Africa where it is believed that the Africans did grind it up into a paste.

2. Jelly can likely be traced back to the Middle East, where sugar cane grew naturally.  Mixing some macerated fruit with the ground sugar cane and cooking it down, reducing it, could have produced a very simple jelly if not a fruit spread.  Scientists believe that this happened before the Crusades, as it was likely Crusaders who brought the idea of jelly in to Europe.  Modern jelly probably did not exist until much later, around the 16th century when the Spanish used sugar cane syrup to preserve fruit. Pectin was not extracted from apples to make jelly until the late 17th century.

3. While some could point out that South America had peanuts and the India actually had the first sugar cane, then  could the two have collided at some point and created the sandwich?  I guess this comes down to the bread.While the Middle East and India may have had sugar cane or sugar first, their bread has been a thin bread not made with any yeast, so it would have resembled a rolled or very skinny and flat sandwich. While the more leavened bread would have required grains and yeast to rise and would likely have originated in the Scandinavian countries, it could be noted that Spain did have a grain bread like what we are familiar with now, in America.

This being said, thanks to help with wikipedia, by looking up different histories, it could be seen that the Spanish may have invented more closely what we refer to as peanut butter and jelly. The Spanish Conquistadors brought peanuts over to Spain and if Spain already used honey and sugar by then in their fruit preserving, then the love of the peanut and jelly could have kindled. If Spain had access to honey or sugar around the 16th century and had access to peanuts or ground peanuts and bread, then they could have sliced it in two and created the first peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Now, whether you prefer grape, strawberry or another flavor of jelly, wheat, white or another kind of bread and chunky or smooth peanut butter, that is another story.

You are now in the presence of royalty....

Like many other culinary inventions, no one can be 100% certain as to where it was first invented or who invented it.  Take for instance the "Buffalo Wings".  Some say that they invented it by mocking chicken wings and calling them buffalo wings, some say that they made a sauce that was so hot that it could give buffalo wings and others say that they were named such because the creator has his restaurant in Buffalo, NY.  Now, most likely, many different people could have invented it at the same time.  There is no way that one person, on the whole planet, could have had the idea of frying chicken wings and then coating them in hot sauce, before everyone else had.

The sandwich has no definite origins.  You would think that it is a no-brainer to take some sort of food and place it between two pieces of bread. How else would eat peanut butter and jelly, if you had nothing to smear it on and eat together?  Since the invention of bread people have been using it as we use it today. The first written use of the word 'sandwich' came from the English in the 1700's, when the 4th Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu ordered a dish of meats prepared and served between two slices of bread.  The legend is that so many others liked the idea that they called it the "food of Sandwich" or "the same as sandwich".  Like any restaurant that has a food item named after a person, soon people just start to order the item using that famous person's name.  So, people started to order and make "sandwiches".   The Royal Earl did this because the two slices of bread on either end protected and kept his hands clean, so he could play cards without getting food and filth on the playing cards.

Whether the Earl invented it or not, still doesn't dispute the fact that we all have some favorite sandwiches.  I had one today, where I took some home-made turkey meatloaf, placed it on some freshly home-made rosemary bread, threw a spoonful of sauerkraut on top of that and then a nice sprinkle of ground black pepper with some squirts of ketchup and mustard.  That sandwich was only able to be consumed and eaten with a knife and fork so it fulfilled the purpose of the Earl's original sandwich creation.

Famous people do make other sandwiches and I think that if asked, more people would be familiar with Elvis and his peanut butter and banana sandwich habit than the Earl.  On top of that, Elvis was a king, which makes him a higher class of royalty, than the Earl.

Because it is 9:29pm on a Thursday night and I am in the mood and hungry, I think a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich should be in order.  Just like the Earl or Elvis, my father invented this sandwich.  I am sure that someone else had the idea at cooking their peanut butter and jelly, but with no recorded history of it, I trust my dad.  So, this 20 year old recipe involves nothing more than a hot pan, butter and an already made sandwich.

Now, the jelly was one of my home-made strawberry and rhubarb jellies.  You will likely not find any like it, until next year when I start selling my jams across the world.

I love this sight.  When butter is in a pan, that means that something good is going to come about.  So, you melt the butter in the pan while smearing some butter on the top of the sandwich.  When the butter is melted place the sandwich, un-buttered side down.  Cook the sandwich on high heat for a minute, or until it is browned. Then flip it over and cook the other side.  What comes out of this is this:

Each bite produces a flavor of that moist butter toasted bread, with molten hot liquefied jelly and hot peanut butter. A complex symphony of flavors even for something as simple as PB&J. What could be better than this?