Category: Food and Drink
Rules for Tri-State Italian food
Piers emails me:
You’re a NJ native and great at finding good restaurants.
So what are the rules for finding good old school American Italian restaurants? Not like modern farm to table places full of natural light in Brooklyn or SF, you know what I mean?
Review aggregators are useless. Horrid “egg noodles and ketchup” places get high scores just for being family run.
It is harder and harder to find such places. I think the Latino-ization of the New Jersey heartland largely has been a good thing, and also a good thing for food (Peruvian!), but it hasn’t helped Italian dining very much. More and more New Jersey Italian places sell to the upper middle class, rather than to the diehards. I have two pieces of advice:
1. Go to a classic heartland road, such as Rt.17 or Rt.46, and try to learn which places still have Mafia ties, or had them recently.
2. Go to a town in the heartland, and ask a person working at a fire station. Heed the answer only if that person has a New Jersey accent.
As a side remark, the good places have either “too good but tacky” decor, or poor, not good enough decor. Either way, it should not feel pleasant, that is a sign the ravioli and lasagna will be ordinary. And you can always resort to Staten Island, the Bronx, and parts of Connecticut, in that order.
If you need to ask what “the heartland” means, you shouldn’t even be trying to eat this food, just drive to Kearny and opt for the lomo saltado or maybe something Brazilian, Dominican or Puerto Rican in Paterson.
What should I ask Brian Winter?
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him. Here is his bio:
Brian Winter is the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and a seasoned analyst of Latin American politics, with more than 20 years following the region’s ups and downs. He lived in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico as a correspondent for Reuters before taking on his current role in New York, where he is also the vice president of policy for the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. He has been called “the best foreign expert on Brazil of this moment” by GloboNews. Brian is the author of several books including Why Soccer Matters, a New York Times bestseller he wrote with the Brazilian soccer legend Pelé; The Accidental President of Brazil, co-authored with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso; and Long After Midnight, a memoir about trying (and failing) to learn to tango in Argentina. He is a regular contributor to television and radio, the host of the Americas Quarterly Podcast and a prolific barbecuer and chef. Proficient in Spanish and Portuguese, Brian speaks frequently about Latin America’s past, present and future to investors and general-interest audiences. Follow him on Twitter @BrazilBrian
So what should I ask him?
San Francisco dining
Dwarkesh brought me to the very good Sizzling Pot King, 139 8th St, San Francisco, genuine Hunan food and yes I have been to Changsha. Don’t walk there though, take an Uber or better yet a Waymo. Dwarkesh was kind enough to call me one for the trip back to the hotel. When I asked for jazz music, I was shocked to hear a very high quality Bill Evans trio cut, not some popular slop.
The Guam restaurant on Mission — Prubechu — is quite interesting and serves largely the indigenous Chamorro food. It is rare that I have the chance to try an altogether new cuisine, in any case I would eat there again.
Netherlands fact of the day
The country, which is a bit bigger than Maryland, not only accomplished this feat but also has become the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products by value behind the United States. Perhaps even more significant in the face of a warming planet: It is among the largest exporters of agricultural and food technology. The Dutch have pioneered cell-cultured meat, vertical farming, seed technology and robotics in milking and harvesting — spearheading innovations that focus on decreased water usage as well as reduced carbon and methane emissions…
The country has nearly 24,000 acres — almost twice the size of Manhattan — of crops growing in greenhouses. These greenhouses, with less fertilizer and water, can grow in a single acre what would take 10 acres of traditional dirt farming to achieve. Dutch farms use only a half-gallon of water to grow about a pound of tomatoes, while the global average is more than 28 gallons.
Here is the full article, via S. The article is interesting throughout. However here is a more recent piece on the Dutch nitrogen revolt.
Further data on alcohol use amongst American youth
This paper provides the first long-run assessment of adolescent alcohol control policies on later-life health and labor market outcomes. Our analysis exploits cross-state variation in the rollout of “Zero Tolerance” (ZT) Laws, which set strict alcohol limits for drivers under age 21 and led to sharp reductions in youth binge drinking. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach that combines information on state and year of birth to identify individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence and tracks the evolving impacts into middle age. We find that ZT Laws led to significant improvements in later-life health. Individuals exposed to the laws during adolescence were substantially less likely to suffer from cognitive and physical limitations in their 40s. The health effects are mirrored by improved labor market outcomes. These patterns cannot be attributed to changes in educational attainment or marriage. Instead, we find that affected cohorts were significantly less likely to drink heavily by middle age, suggesting an important role for adolescent initiation and habit-formation in affecting long-term substance use.
Here is the article by Tatiana Abboud, Andriana Bellou, and Joshua Lewis, via tekl once again. People, you can make things easier for the political philosophers — why should they have to weigh liberty against utility? Just give up drinking voluntarily.
Dynamic surge pricing for Wendy’s
“Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and daypart offerings, along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling,” he said. “As we continue to show the benefit of this technology in our company-operated restaurants, franchisee interest in digital menu boards should increase, further supporting sales and profit growth across the system.”
Here is one story of many, remember USA Today? (Should they not be the go-to source for a Wendy’s story?)
I predict this will fail. For one thing, “we will have discounts for Tuesdays at 3 p.m.” would have been better marketing. Furthermore, many Wendy’s buyers are not wealthy, and they care a good deal about predictable prices. Perhaps the higher prices will stick in their memories more? The pitch: “I know I can go to Wendy’s and get my favorite meal there for xxxx” is a powerful meme. I don’t even know what those numbers for “xxxx” should be! Which I guess is part of the point.
Update from Ryan Bourne: Wendy’s already has backed down.
My Conversation with Rebecca F. Kuang
Here is the audio, video, and transcript, here is the episode summary:
Rebecca F. Kuang just might change the way you think about fantasy and science fiction. Known for her best-selling books Babel and The Poppy War trilogy, Kuang combines a unique blend of historical richness and imaginative storytelling. At just 27, she’s already published five novels, and her compulsion to write has not abated even as she’s pursued advanced degrees at Oxford, Cambridge, and now Yale. Her latest book, Yellowface, was one of Tyler’s favorites in 2023.
She sat down with Tyler to discuss Chinese science-fiction, which work of fantasy she hopes will still be read in fifty years, which novels use footnotes well, how she’d change book publishing, what she enjoys about book tours, what to make of which Chinese fiction is read in the West, the differences between the three volumes of The Three Body Problem, what surprised her on her recent Taiwan trip, why novels are rarely co-authored, how debate influences her writing, how she’ll balance writing fiction with her academic pursuits, where she’ll travel next, and more.
Here is one excerpt:
COWEN: Why do you think that British imperialism worked so much better in Singapore and Hong Kong than most of the rest of the world?
KUANG: What do you mean by work so much better?
COWEN: Singapore today, per capita — it’s a richer nation than the United States. It’s hard to think, “I’d rather go back and redo that whole history.” If you’re a Singaporean today, I think most of them would say, “We’ll take what we got. It was far from perfect along the way, but it worked out very well for us.” People in Sierra Leone would not say the same thing, right?
Hong Kong did much better under Britain than it had done under China. Now that it’s back in the hands of China, it seems to be doing worse again, so it seems Hong Kong was better off under imperialism.
KUANG: It’s true that there is a lot of contemporary nostalgia for the colonial era, and that would take hours and hours to unpack. I guess I would say two things. The first is that I am very hesitant to make arguments about a historical counterfactual such as, “Oh, if it were not for the British Empire, would Singapore have the economy it does today?” Or “would Hong Kong have the culture it does today?” Because we don’t really know.
Also, I think these broad comparisons of colonial history are very hard to do, as well, because the methods of extraction and the pervasiveness and techniques of colonial rule were also different from place to place. It feels like a useless comparison to say, “Oh, why has Hong Kong prospered under British rule while India hasn’t?” Et cetera.
COWEN: It seems, if anywhere we know, it’s Hong Kong. You can look at Guangzhou — it’s a fairly close comparator. Until very recently, Hong Kong was much, much richer than Guangzhou. Without the British, it would be reasonable to assume living standards in Hong Kong would’ve been about those of the rest of Southern China, right? It would be weird to think it would be some extreme outlier. None others of those happened in the rest of China. Isn’t that close to a natural experiment? Not a controlled experiment, but a pretty clear comparison?
KUANG: Maybe. Again, I’m not a historian, so I don’t have a lot to say about this. I just think it’s pretty tricky to argue that places prospered solely due to British presence when, without the British, there are lots of alternate ways things could have gone, and we just don’t know.
Interesting throughout.
Ben Casnocha on food procedures in Tokyo
- No matter how many people sit at a table, generally only one menu will be put down at the table, for the group to share. What could explain this cultural norm?
- There’s a bag container next to each table to put your briefcase or bag or jacket. Without fail — a bag container. Is it to keep your individual bag clean? Or to keep the floor clean and tidy for the collective aesthetic?
- Even in meals where they offer western cutlery, I encountered multiple instances of forks eschewed in favor of spoons. Spoons to eat a salad, for example. Always few knives — not as dramatic as in Singapore (which never offered knives) but still scarce.
- Too many tourists stress about finding “the best” ramen place, the best sushi, the best whatever. Don’t do that. Just wander around and walking into random restaurants that seem popular with locals and using Google Translate to scan the menu. Rolling the dice works in Tokyo.
- Many casual restaurants have table dividers to allow single patrons to eat alone without having to make eye contact with anyone else at a shared table. There’s something a bit eerie about a restaurant full of people — mostly businessmen — slurping their noodles in otherwise silence, head down, talking to nobody, even as they all share a table.
Here is the full post, mostly about Tokyo more generally.
Comayagua, Honduras
Comayagua is one of the very nicest and most classic of Central American towns. It is safe (yes, this is Honduras), walkable, delightful, and comes to life later in the day in the main square. It is full of colonial buildings and some churches. I didn’t see any North American tourists, and the surrounding countryside is lovely. Population is about 100,000.
A few years ago Honduras switched its main international airport, so a flight to the capital Tegulcigalpa actually brings you much closer to Comayagua — visit there instead! Here is Wikipedia on the city.
As for food, go to Hotel Helechos (central in town, but oddly no one has heard of it), walk out to your right and immediately there is an amazing baleadas stand. The pupuseria on the corner of main square is excellent. In general, Honduras is the country where the quality difference between roadside and street food, compared to the restaurants, perhaps is greatest. And it doesn’t favor the restaurants.
Uber and Traffic Fatalities
Abstract: Previous studies of the effect of ridesharing on traffic fatalities have yielded inconsistent, often contradictory conclusions. In this paper we revisit this question using proprietary data from Uber measuring monthly rideshare activity at the Census tract level. Using these more detailed data, we find a consistent negative effect of ridesharing on traffic fatalities. Impacts concentrate during nights and weekends and are robust across a range of alternative specifications. Overall, our results imply that ridesharing has decreased U.S. traffic fatalities by 5.4% in areas where it operates. Based on conventional estimates of the value of statistical life the annual life-saving benefits are $6.8 billion. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that these benefits are of similar magnitude to producer surplus captured by Uber shareholders or consumer surplus captured by Uber riders.
The authors, Michael Anderson and Lucas Davis, note that alcohol involvement is reported in approximately 30% of fatal crashes, which is an amazingly high number unless you think a lot of people are driving drunk. I am reminded of a clever paper by Levitt and Porter who use the proportion of crashes involving two drunk drivers to estimate that it is not that lots of people are driving drunk but rather that “drivers with alcohol in their blood are seven times more likely to cause a fatal crash” and “legally drunk drivers pose a risk 13 times greater than sober drivers.” Thus, substituting a sober driver for a drunk driver is a very good thing and so it’s plausible to me that Uber significantly reduces traffic fatalities.
Consider this a public service announcement.
Getting Closer to AGI–Happy Holidays!
“Around since xxxx”
From a reader, Matt:
Is “Since 19XX” a positive or negative signal for a restaurant? I passed a BBQ restaurant in Denver recently with such a sign. If it’s been around so long but is good, why haven’t I heard of it before? On the other hand, it’s seemingly a positive market signal?
I view that as mostly a negative signal. It does put the restaurant in the top half of the distribution, so if you don’t know where else to go, OK. But such restaurants are rarely excellent or on any number of cutting edges. They are used to serving large numbers of longstanding customers in a pretty reliable manner. Wonderful. Sadly, most people have OK but not great taste. And such restaurants self-consciously think of themselves as a “franchise,” perhaps a bit frozen in time, in a way to be admired by 67-year-olds. Fine.
For the best meals, mostly you should look elsewhere.
p.s. such restaurants also raise the interesting theoretical question of whether a time horizon can be too long. Arguably the most interesting restaurants will end up obsolete, or in some other other way lose their unique balance or capabilities. They just want to be great for a few years, and indeed they can be. The restaurant that sticks around for 57 years is one that makes “pizza” at a “6.7 on a scale of 10” level of quality. Eh.
My first Paraguayan restaurant, and a test of GPT-4
That was the menu from Tal Cual!, in Buenos Aires, the first Paraguayan food I have had. I showed GPT-4 that menu and asked why there were no posted prices on it. It responded that the restaurant wanted to economize on the cost of price changes, and afterwards mentioned a fixed price menu as an alternative explanation. I then added that I was in Argentina, and would that help improve the answer any? GPT responded that high inflation was likely the reason why the restaurant might want to economize on the cost of frequent price changes. Not bad.
A fun time was had by all.
Salta (and Jujuy) notes
The food is excellent. Don’t worry about choosing the right restaurant, just try to eat the simple things. Corn products. Beans. Baked goods such as empanadas. Don’t waste your time on the steak. The food stalls in the Mercado Municipal are a good place to start, and many items there cost fifty cents to a dollar. The “sopa de mani” (peanut soup) is especially good, and almost identical to what you find in Bolivia.
The overall vibe in Salta reminds me of both northern Mexico and the older parts of the American Southwest. And the adjacent parts of Bolivia. It is hot, the cities are surrounded by beautiful scenery, and it still all feels rather wild. Salta is also much safer than Buenos Aires, and you don’t see many beggars here. In B.A. they are now asking for food rather than money.
There’s not much to do in Salta, as the central sights in town are the two mummified remains of young Incan girls in the archaeological museum. They are memorable, as it feels like they are staring right back at you.
Spending time here will cure you of utopianism, and also of pessimism. Whatever issues you might think are really important, most people here really don’t care about them or even know about them.
American brands at the retail level are not to be seen. Nor will you run across Chinese or Indian merchants. Perhaps a Syrian or Lebanese is to be found, but not in any great numbers.
Tyrone is accompanying me, and I asked him what he thinks. As you might expect, he had only stupid rudeness in response. Tyrone said that northern Argentina is the true essence of the Argentinean nation, and that everyone interested in Argentina should visit here. In fact, having visited North Macedonia, he wishes to rename the country South Bolivia — were they not once part of the same Viceroyalty? Is it not enough to share the same soup? Do they not have broadly the same accent, devoid of all that B.A. slurring? Was not the country born here in the north? That is where the decisive battle for national independence was fought and won. Do we not all agree with theories of deep roots? It is not just who moves to your nation, but it is about how and where your nation was founded. And for Argentina that is in the north, and with violence and corruption and economic decline. Tyrone even wishes to hand over the rest of Patagonia to the Chileans, so that Argentina may better recognize its true self.
In the twisted view of Tyrone, the creation of the modernist city of Brasilia was a big success. The real failure, hermetically hidden by some charming Parisian and Barcelona-style architecture, was the attempted modernist outpost of Buenos Aires, an immature and underdeveloped excrudescence from the real nation of chocro, horse saddles and the quebrada. It tricked a few Johnny-come-lately migrants during the early 20th century, and neglected to tell them they still would be ruled by the ideas and the norms of the north.
Imagine thinking that you could govern a nation with high modernism and Freudian psychoanalysis — what folly! And now, Tyrone tells us, we have the Milei revolution, attempting to replace one Viennese modernism — that of Freud — with the Viennese modernist revolution of Mises. Good luck with that one, Tyrone says. What kind of fool would think that the future of South America would be determined by a war across different Viennese modernisms? Those mummified corpses still will rule the day, whether or not the feds balance the budget in the short term. Desiccated ever-young girls are in perpetual deficit, no matter how the daily fiscal accounts may read.
I had to stop Tyrone right then and there, as he was explaining why the current hyperinflation probably was a good thing, as the only path to true dollarization and at least one symbolic unification with North America. Tyrone was shouting that such symbolic unification nonetheless was impossible, and thus the corpses had brought in Milei to restore fiscal sanity and prevent dollarization and thus protect the true Incan and Andean nation.
Such thoughts are not allowed on Marginal Revolution, and so I am now trying to persuade Tyrone to visit Iguassu, in the hope that I can induce him to take a quick swim in those falls…
I hope the rest of you will visit northern Argentina nonetheless, and put all that nonsense aside. The empanadas await you.
Tyler and Alex on Gift Giving
December? It must be time for the holiday favorite that everyone loves, the sweet and wise An Economist’s Christmas!
Effective altruism has taken some hits this year but the core insights remain underrated. We still like the excellent GiveDirectly and also GiveWell’s Top Charity Fund.
Happy holidays everyone!