Category: New York Times

Republicans and cities: Ill-starred romance?

From Wikipedia.com

With a graphic that mimicked the famous 1975 New York Daily News headline: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” the last Sunday’s New York Times Review section had this headline: “REPUBLICANS TO CITIES: DROP DEAD.” It topped an article headlined “How the GOP Became the Anti-Urban Party.”

“The fact is that cities don’t count anymore — at least not in national Republican politics. The very word “city” went all but unheard at the Republican convention, held in the rudimentary city of Tampa, Fla.,” wrote Kevin Baker, author of the “City of Fire” series of historical novels.

To be fair, he also notes this about the Democratic presidential campaign: “There wasn’t so much as a mention of cities in the debate on domestic issues the presidential candidates had last week. Nor did the Democrats have much to say about cities at their convention in Charlotte, N.C.” At least he didn’t call Charlotte a “rudimentary city.”

Are Republicans anti-city? If so,why, and if not, why not? Not a few political observers have noted, for instance, that in North Carolina, Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory, former mayor of Charlotte, is running ads that mention he was mayor but neglect to say he was mayor of Charlotte, the state’s largest city. [Mike Collins, host of WFAE‘s “Charlotte Talks” radio show this morning asked McCrory about that, during an interview. McCrory said about half his ads mention Charlotte and said there isn’t much time in some ads to say very much.]

Obviously, there is anti-Charlotte sentiment in some parts of North Carolina, and in my observation it’s not so much a Republican-Democrat thing as a rural-urban thing and – as Charlotte is blessed with a robust and bipartisan phalanx of boosters who display great zest for their city – a “We don’t like braggers” thing.

What should the candidates be saying about cities? Weigh in below, if you have thoughts.

(Note: I moderate comments for obscenity, insults, lack of civility, etc., but not for the opinions expressed. So if your comment doesn’t instantly appear, please don’t be discouraged. )

Livermush’s time to shine

Liver pudding (aka livermush) samples, courtesy of Neese’s, at the N.C. State Fair.

This is it. When the Democratic National Convention arrives (and even beforehand) the world will be looking at Charlotte. What better time for this city to embrace its true, unique and authentic culinary heritage?

No, I’m not talking about vinegary barbecue (as today’s New York Times article reports). The Times fell for the spin. Vinegary barbecue is a North Carolina culinary heritage but is not at all unique to Charlotte or the greater Charlotte metro region. (Related note: a small squabble has broken out among barbecue fans over whether Charlotte has any great barbecue restaurants. Some say Bill Spoon’s on South Boulevard. Others favor Bubba’s off I-77 north, and some contend Mac’s has the best. Regardless, none has the fame and national following of places such as Lexington BBQ No. 1, Wilber’s in Goldsboro, the Skylight Inn in Ayden, Bridges (both of ’em) in Shelby, or even Stamey’s in Greensboro.

What does Charlotte have that the world does not? We have livermush. Don’t turn up your nose.

If you treasure authentic roots foods, livermush is ours. Why not celebrate that instead of acting ashamed? In Observer food writer Kathleen Purvis’ livermush magnum opus from 2000 (alas, I couldn’t find a link) she quotes John Egerton, the Nashville-based author of the authoritative guidebook “Southern Food.” “I don’t ever remember seeing a dish called livermush anyplace else [outside of North Carolina],’ he said. “And I hope never to see it again.” Bah!

Livermush even has a listing in Wikipedia. That page takes you to a 2004 Christian Science Monitor article on livermush. And here’s a nice roundup from October, by Andrea Weigl.

Weigl makes it sound as if livermush is an all-over-N.C. thing. It isn’t. Go to most regular-Joe breakfast places in Charlotte and this region – I mean places where menus offer biscuits and grits and sausage patties and other normal breakfast food – you will see livermush on the menu. Or maybe they’ll call it liver pudding. True, too many chain-type places owned by out-of-town corporations do not offer livermush. That’s their loss, and their lost business.

Go roughly 80 miles in any direction from Charlotte you aren’t likely to see livermush on the menu – not in Asheville, not in Columbia, not in Fayetteville, not in Raleigh. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can buy it at a grocery store. I had my first livermush when I lived in Fayetteville, but only because Charlotte native David McKnight kept telling me to try it and told me how you just fry it up in a pan. I did. And it was quite tasty. Crunchy edges, with a soft interior, not too heavy on the liver, either. When I spent the 2007-08 year living in Cambridge, Mass., I asked Charlotte visitors to please bring livermush. Did you know it freezes nicely?

Until four or five years ago Charlotte had its own livermush manufacturer, Jamison’s. They stopped making it, though Ronnie Jamison told Purvis last summer they had contracted with “a company in the mountains” to make it. Another well-known brand is Guilford County-based Neese’s, which claims liver pudding and livermush are different. Mack’s is made in Shelby, about 40 miles west of Charlotte and possibly the livermush epicenter of the world. I was in a Shelby convenience store recently and noticed three different brands, two of them locally made. In a convenience store! Shelby of course has its Livermush Expo every year. The 2011 Livermush Expo will be Oct. 22 at Court Square in uptown Shelby.)
So please, if you’re a proud Charlottean bragging to out-of-town pols or pundits or journalists, remember what our real roots food is. And, like those green eggs and ham, if you have not tried it – you should.

NY writer likes us! He really likes us!

Krista Terrell of the Arts & Science Council just sent along a note revealing that the New York Times’ Frugal Traveler, Seth Kugel, spent a few days in Charlotte and blogs about it, “Making Pit Stops in Charlotte.”

While he wrote a lot about the NASCAR Hall of Fame and that he enjoyed his visit there despite not being a NASCAR fan, he also praises the ASC’s new public art tour and podcast, which is why Terrell was interested in sharing.

Here’s Kugel’s remark about NASCAR: “I know that Nascar is awesome in the same way I know that cricket and Tolstoy novels and contemporary dance are awesome. I personally can’t see the appeal, but enough reasonable people disagree with me that I believe in their awesomeness.”

He’s not exactly kind to the city’s image elsewhere, though (the bold-facing here is mine): “The city — which has experienced rapid growth (with a population of over 700,000, double what it was in the mid-1980s) and at the same time maintained a relative lack of identity (banking center and airline hub, total snoozer) — intrigued me. Something had to be going on there, and I would find out what it was.”

Here’s Kugel’s take on the public art tour:
“Uptown is one of those clean areas that people from grittier cities may at first perceive as sanitized and devoid of character, but the podcast will go a long way to dispel that, pointing out many works of public art, including the four statues that stand at the four corners of Trade and Tryon Streets. (Don’t miss the very odd bust of Alan Greenspan in the statue representing “Commerce”.)”

I wrote about the public art tour in a September op-ed, “The art of a city: more than mosaics.”