Bringin’ It All Back

If the chubby guy in the Oval Office with the bad comb-over is still serious about his campaign promise to “Make America Great Again,” perhaps he’d be wise to concentrate on something within his intellectual reach. While I’ll grant that that may provide few options, I do believe he could make a good start and perform a great service to our nation by narrowing his focus to the re-introduction of chicken à la King to our national palate.

If anything ever could serve to bind the disparate politics of the American people, chicken à la King–a glue-like amalgam of chicken, mushrooms, green pepper and cream traditionally served over toast–just might do the trick.

While I’m not suggesting that any official mandates be made or laws be passed, our nation’s shared discomfort could be eased by the mother of all comfort foods by placing it on the menu in the Senate restaurant and introducing it to children through our pubic-school lunch programs. Those simple actions would serve to remedy the fact that at least two, if not three, generations of Americans have never tasted chicken à la King or even heard of it, let alone grown to respect it as a gourmet dish.

We are faced with what must be recognized as a sad state of affairs in our nation.

Calvin Trillin, who set the standard of writing about food and finding humor in what we eat and how we eat it, had this to say about what I believe rightly deserves to replace apple pie as our national food if, in fact, apple pie is our national food.

”There was a time–in the 1950s, say–when the whole country seemed to be awash in chicken à la king,” he wrote in The Nation in 1985, adding that perhaps stores of the concoction were kept in huge silos on the vast expanses of the midwest.

”When I come across a cluster of those silos on the plains, I figure maybe two of them have chicken à la King and the third one has beef Stroganoff and the fourth one is filled to the top with Nehru jackets.”

Though the Nehru jacket didn’t arrive on the American fashion plate until the 1960s, chicken à la King, the origins of which are hotly disputed by people with way too much time on their hands, was well-established in American restaurants well before the Great Depression. A recipe for it was published in the New York Times in 1893 and in the 1906 edition of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Both of those culinary events pre-date the commemoration of one William “Bill” King, a cook at the Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia, in his obituary in the New York Tribune of May 4, 1915.

“In him blazed the fire of genius which, at the white heat of inspiration, drove him one day… to combine bits of chicken, mushrooms, truffles, red and green peppers and cream in that delight-some mixture which ever after has been known as Chicken à la King.”

This demonstrates that newspaper obituaries in 1915 were far different than those one sees today. It is also the last time the word “delight-some” was ever seen in print.

While many might not recognize or acknowledge “the fire of genius” in the widely disputed origins of chicken à la King, the dish nonetheless became both a restaurant and home-cooked favorite. It was cheap, easy-to-make, flavorful and bordered on the exotic. What made it “exotic” escapes me except perhaps for the fact that it wasn’t meatloaf.

To celebrate my sixteenth birthday, my parents took me to see Ella Fitzgerald at the College Inn at the Sherman House, a venerable establishment at the corner of Randolph and Clark in downtown Chicago. Not that it is in the least bit germane to this story, but it should be noted that it was at that hotel where Bugsy Moran and Al Capone negotiated the famous north-south division of their illicit business activities–sort of a Yalta Conference for organized crime.

Anyway, the College Inn in 1967 was a restaurant of some note–once heralded as being the best restaurant in America–and its much-lauded specialties were chicken à la King and lobster Newberg.

This presents a curious state of affairs and poses two important questions: 1) How can a restaurant be famous for a dish that is easy to make at home and be served at every wedding in Cook County between 1931 and 1961? And, 2) Why is there a lobster dish named after a Jew? Somewhere it says that we’re not supposed to eat shellfish.

(Whoever sent that missive regarding my tribe’s culinary behavior, by the way, had obviously not had the shrimp cocktail at the Bel-Air Country Club, the oysters Bourguignonne at Antoine’s, nor eaten clam chowder out of a loaf of bread in San Francisco.)

While we’re on the subject, when was the last time you saw lobster Newberg on a restaurant menu?

This is another dish that needs to be revived if we are to survive as a nation or, if I may dare to say, a civilization.

Ben Wenberg was a sea captain in the fruit trade, the meaning of which remains unclear although it might involve bananas, and one day in 1876 while dining at the venerable Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York he not only shared, but actually demonstrated his gastronomical idea to the chef, Charles Ranhofer. Chefs love when this kind of thing happens. Anyway, Chef Charlie resisted the urge to plunge a knife deep into Ben’s back and merely offered some minor refinements to a recipe that is remarkably similar to chicken à la King in that it too is served on toast.

Lobster à la Wenberg, as the dish was first named, became so popular a menu item at Delmonico’s that French chefs all over the South Bronx started making their own version that they called Homard sauté à la crème because French chefs instinctively know that food printed in italics always tastes better. In the meantime, Wenberg and Delmonico had some sort of falling-out that led to the sea captain’s being banned from the restaurant and the clever restaurateur cleverly re-naming the dish “lobster Newberg.”

In the event this posting doesn’t get to the White House before the much-anticipated impeachment, let me suggest that we act quickly as a citizenry to bring these throw-back dishes back into vogue. And while we’re at it, I believe it’s time to revive relish trays and Baked Alaska.

Chicken à la King

6 Tablespoons butter, softened and divided
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1 cup mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 Tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups heavy cream
3 cups cooked chicken, diced
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1-2 Tablespoons dry sherry
chopped pimento as garnish

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan set over medium heat. Add the green pepper and mushrooms and cook until they start to soften, about 5 minutes. Whisk in flour and salt and cook, stirring constantly, until frothy.
Slowly pour in the cream and cook, stirring often, until the sauce thickens.
Transfer mixture to a double boiler set over medium low heat. Add chicken pieces and let stand.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl beat the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter with the egg yolks, onion juice, lemon juice and paprika. Fold this mixture into the chicken mixture and cook, stirring occasionally, until thick and combined. Drizzle in sherry and stir in chopped pimento, both to taste. Serve on top of toasted bread.

Lobster Newberg

5 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups cooked lobster meat, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy cream, divided
3 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco or 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/3 cup Madeira
In a large frying pan or chafing dish over medium-low heat, heat butter until the foam begins to subside. Immediately add the cooked lobster meat and saute, turning all the pieces, for approximately 2 minutes.
Add 3/4 cup of the cream and add the salt; stir and simmer for an additional 2 minutes.
Meanwhile in another bowl, beat the remaining 1/4 cup of cream together with the egg yolks.
Stir in the Tabasco and Madeira to the lobster mixture. Stir or whisk in a few tablespoons of the simmering cream mixture into the egg/cream mixture. Reduce heat to low and stir the mixture until thickened (but not boiling). Serve on toast.

Photo-Illustration by Courtney A. Liska