×

The con in connoisseurship

Whenever I walk the streets of My Home Town, it’s Two-for-One Day … just not in the typical sense.

Simply put, almost every business I see reminds me of the business that was there before.

I see I.B. Hunt’s insurance, and I think of the Edicott-Johnson shoestore. Or the Waterhole reminds me of Mike and Sandy’s. Or I look at the Blue Line and think of Wilson’s.

So it was only par for the course that as I walked by the bowling alley, I remembered one of the great havens of my childhood – the Altamont.

I think it’s full name was Altamont Dairy Bar, but I could be wrong. What I can’t be wrong about is how wonderful it was. In the front it had ice cream cones to go; on the side, running the length of the room, was a long counter where you could sit and partake of goodies. And what goodies they were!

They had all the usual soda shop fare – cones, sundaes, sodas, banana splits – and two mind-blowing specials. One was the Pig’s Dinner; the other was the Undertaker’s Delight. Both were the stuff of legends multiple scoops of ice cream, all kinds of syrups, bananas, pineapples, whipped cream, nuts, cherries, and Lord knows what else. If you finished either, you got a pin proclaiming you did it.

Sadly, I never had either of them. For all the years I went in there, I was strictly a cone guy, sometimes a cherry phosphate, but never even a sundae or banana split. This was due less to my self-control or common sense, so much as a severe cash flow problem.

But the thing about the Altamont, its n’est plus ultra as it were, was the ice cream itself. It was incomparable.

And in case you think this statement is just schoolboy braggadocio revisited, it’s not: Their ice cream was the best I ever had. They made it themselves (the plant was in Tupper) and every flavor was the richest, tastiest, most ice creamiest there ever was.

Nowadays Ben and Jerry’s is considered the Big Kahuna of ice cream, but I’m not impressed. I think it’s no better than Stewart’s. Granted, B&Js has the adorable names – Chubby Hubby, Chunky Monkey, Lanky Flunky, Drunken Lackey and Funky Honky. But it also costs up the wazoo. It goes for about five frogskins a pint; Stewart’s is under three bucks.

And now we get into the real sticking point: According to the B&J “connoisseurs,” Stewart’s simply doesn’t taste as good, so the extra cost is well worth it. To which I say, “Phooey!”

Even my pal Cliff Smalley, whose opinion on most issues I value, gave me that line of bumpf.

“I can tell the difference,” he said.

“Yeah, right,” I said. Then I added,”Blindfolded?”

He said nothing.

Instead, he backpedaled and shut down. You know the scene: Looked down at the floor, shuffled his feet, shrugged a couple of times.

As I said, we’re friends, so I didn’t pursue it. The way I figure it, there was no need to humiliate the kid.

Phoniness times 10

All of which brings up a hot button topic I’m loath to touch on, but feel I must in the name of journalistic integrity. It is connoisseurship.

I think about connoisseurs the same way I think about honest faith healers, psychics with real powers, and education consultants who are not shameless hustlers: I can accept that they exist … just is, I’ve never seen one.

Actually, there’s one exception: the chefs at Paul Smith’s, who were indeed connoisseurs of the highest order. They were also exceptional, in that they were as down-to-earth as it gets – a seeming rarity among the food mafia cognoscenti (or any cognoscenti, for that matter).

But instead of me making generalizations about the silliness of connoisseurship, let me give you an example that’s near and dear to my heart and palate: Chocolate.

I’m addicted to chocolate. I wish there was a more gentle or subtle way of saying it, but there isn’t. I do it up in two forms ice cream, and chocolate bars. As you already know, my ice cream preference is Stewarts’; with bars it’s Hershey’s. I’ve pretty much always been a Hershey guy and at this point I’m sure I always will. I’ve tried others -? including the much-vaunted Ghiardelli’s, but they never held sway. Maybe it’s due to a childhood trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, and touring the Hershey factory that did it. I don’t know. I only know I can still see the conveyer belts of thousands, maybe millions, of M&M’s rolling by on the other side of a window, mere inches from my drooling mouth. Those things leave powerful lasting impressions just ask any Freudian.

Anyhow, with chocolate, as with everything else, there are connoisseurs. And now let me tell you a little story about them.

First, the gold standard of chocolate is what’s called “artisanal chocolate. The very name smacks of snottiness, as if anyone eating the regular stuff is some low-brow with yellow eyes, uber-prognathic brow and nine fingers on each hand.

And what is artisanal chocolate? It’s chocolate that’s made by a company, from scratch. That is, they start with the beans and then control and direct every step in the process till the final result, which is – at least according to them – positively transformative. And well it should be, since those goniffs charge about five bucks an ounce. (Hershey’s, FYI, costs between 50 and 60 cents an ounce).

So dig this: One of the tres chic artisanal chocolate companies is Mast. It’s run by two brothers who, when they started, fronted a groovy wrapper, a funky hipster image and a whole lot of hype about how they made their wares the only way they should be made – from bean to bar.

Only one small problem reared its ugly head: Some big-time chocolate maven did a bunch of research and found out their bars were not artisanal. In fact, they started not with beans but with mass-produced chocolate from France which they then remelted and added whatever. Though the expert stated it in different terms, I got the idea he considered those Mast bars less artisanal than fart-isanal.

But that’s only half the story. The other half is that until those revelations, all the peeps who were paying through their upturned noses for the faux artisanal swill had been smacking their lips in delight and kvelling to the high heavens over the stuff. In short, they had no idea what they eating in the first place.

The secret ingredient

The last word on connoisseurship belongs to Kenny Lawless, co-owner of The Downhill Grill.

When the Grill was in Lake Placid, the steak on their menu sold for $18. A couple of other places in Placid (let’s call them Place X and Place Y) sold their steak for $38. The thing is, all the steaks were the same. That is, they all were the same cut and they all came from from the same purveyor.

Yet time after time, people would tell Kenny that although they liked the Grill’s steak well enough, the steaks at Place X and Place Y were so much better. And they’d inevitably add, “I just have no idea what makes the difference.”

Kenny would give them his wide-eyed, oh gosh smile and shrug his shoulders. And being the smart businessman he is, he said nothing.

But when he told me this story, he did say something.

It was this:

“I know what made the difference,” he said. “Twenty dollars.”

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.75/week.

Subscribe Today