Have you heard about this uber-trendy and uber-sneaky eating situation that started in Oakland, CA, and is roving the earth (as far as Australia, even) like a hip, movable feast? Forget restaurants and menus. Get a tip from your gourmet friends, dig into your PayPal, wire fifty bucks to some fly-by-oven organization and you’re in. The day before, you get an e-mailed location and you show up in somebody’s loft, basement or attic, sit down with strangers and chow down on cuisine (chefed up by an off-duty master) that can’t be diddled by the health inspector because the joint is moving all the time like a poker game on the run from the law. Sounds like a swingers’ club for foodies with an agenda.
I heard about it from a friend who loves food, and Time magazine even wrote about it. Ghetto Gourmet (http://www.theghet.com/website/) advertises itself as “A wandering supperclub for lovers of fine cookin’, cool art and new friends.” The logo is a chef-hatted skull and crossboned pirate flag. The font on the website looks like graffiti. These literal galloping gourmets are sautéing a trend where people are tired of the rigors of a restaurant and want to eat on the edge (if sitting on somebody’s old pillows and bringing your own wine qualifies as radical tom-foodery).
I am a totally unqualified voyeur in such eclectic gastronomical circles. Although I do watch my share of the Food Network, my idea of fine dining is a Pop-Tart chased by warm Mountain Dew. So maybe I am the perfect target for the Ghetto Gourmet. It’s quirky and, since I am not big on authority anyway and will eat with most anybody, it’s intriguing. And in a sick and twisted way, I kind of like the idea of no food inspectors. The authorities don’t know what you’re eating. You can stick it to the big guy by forking “The Man.” Where’s that Bob Dylan music coming from?
Next time you eat in a restaurant, do a little inspecting yourself. I promise you’re going to see something you’d like to see flagged. You know what I’m talking about. Look at those big plastic buckets in the kitchen. Yeah. The one that was on the floor that’s now on the table back there. Remember going to a friend’s house to eat? Remember Grandma’s? Tell me, did her old Kenmore look as nasty as that peek through the kitchen door at the eatery down the street? Ghetto Gourmet is smelling better by the plateful.
So maybe these roving, swashbuckling, pirate chefs are on to something that fills our deep-seated need to break the law by shoving unregulated roasted frog or illegal grilled pork down our felonious gullets. With the government finding ever more ways to get deeply involved in our personal lives, maybe what we choose to eat and how is the final frontier of criminal behavior. I’m starved.