Now, every region has its own variation of comfort food, as well as some kind of high falutin' special occasion cuisine. While the Adirondacks, a park of some 6.1 million acres, certainly has been the scene of many a fancy schmancy meal, at the restaurants of some of the country's first luxury hotels, not to mention at the dining tables of the "Great Camps" (actually sprawling, multi-building compounds) of uber-wealthy industrialists like J.P. Morgan), the real food heritage of these woods and mountains is hearty fare, designed to meet the caloric needs first of lumberjacks and their ilk, or the enhanced appetites of travelers partaking of hiking, hunting, swimming and other athletic pursuits.
Locally-sourced food is not a new idea in the Adirondacks. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when travel to the Adirondacks was a major project, much of this cuisine depended on ingredients that could be gathered, foraged, fished or hunted locally, like game meat, freshwater fish, berries, and so on. In such a cold northern climate, farming was next to impossible, and in a remote area, one could not depend on regular delivery of food supplies.
Although today the area is certainly not cut off from food delivery -- there's plenty of lobster, tuna and scallops served on Adirondack plates that clearly did not originate from any of the park's lakes -- the prevalence of hearty comfort food hasn't changed -- even at white table cloth fine dining restaurants.
There's still a sense of the frontier here -- just as there the distinct sense that you ought to fill up your gas tank when you see a gas station, even if you're no where near empty, and you have a GPS, and you're not an idiot who will go off-roading, because this ain't strip mall central and gas stations aren't everywhere, there's the idea that you ought to eat a lot when the eating's good, because you don't really know what's going to happen next.
This is either some sort of latent memory of the collective unconscious of the area (charitably), or an excuse to stuff yourself (more likely) since you are logically aware that you've just walked past a Starbucks in Lake Placid and are unlikely to waste away in a snow bank when nary a flake has fallen. At the Adirondacks Museum, a culinary history exhibit called "Let's Eat" encapsulates this sentiment when it concludes there may not be one definition of "Adirondacks Cuisine", unless it's defined as food that can still be prepared when the electricity's out.
That's a joke, mostly. But it's good that the Adirondacks stimulates the urge to comfort eat, because it's the best kind of food to have here. Some highlights from my visit:
- On my first night in the Adirondacks, I had dinner at Basil & Wick's in North Creek, where I had a burger paired with sweet potato waffle fries, elevated with a side of maple syrup ketchup. And a couple of Adirondack Brewing Company Dirty Blond, a perfect paring as far as I'm concerned.
- I'm not one for sweet foods at breakfast, but the lacey blueberry pancakes served at Fern Lodge in Chestertown, New York, with a nice helping of sausage, came as close as anything to changing my mind. (I'm also puzzling over the incredibly sweet honeydew melon with vanilla yogurt that was a prelude to the pancakes -- how did they find a melon so sweet, and so out of season?)
- If there's anything more comforting than a bowl of soup, don't tell me about it. I had soup at every opportunity during my Adirondacks visits, which meant every lunch and dinner. My favorite, bar none, was at The View at Mirror Lake Inn Resort and Spa, in Lake Placid, where I spooned into a roasted rutabaga and local clover honey bisque, topped with a few slivers of crispy red and gold beet "chips" -- the chips adding a toasted flavor to a soup that was just the right balance between sweet and savory.
- Honorable mention: Although you can't say that clam chowder is local to the region, the kitschy Tail O' the Pup in Ray Brook, just outside of Lake Placid serves a surprisingly good bowl.
- Game sausage: The dinner menu at the Brown Dog Cafe and Wine Bar in Lake Placid offers a sausage du jour, on the night of my visit it was venison and pear, served on an excellent baguette. If you think this sounds weird, bear in mind that the pear is more of an accent, providing just a hint of sweet.
I also very much enjoyed the restaurant's four cheese macaroni and cheese -- gruyere, brie, Valdeon Spanish blue, and Cabot cheddar -- but it was disappointing that the shaved black truffle meant to top the casserole was nowhere in evidence. (There was also no parmesan on the parmesan cheese fries, and no bacon in the sweet potato soup with melted leek and bacon -- which makes me think something was going wrong in the kitchen that night.)
