Chicken wings and addictive things
December is a dumb excuse to overindulge. January is a dumb excuse for abstinence. Maybe before New Year’s we could’ve just eaten, drank, spent and driven like grown-ups.
But some of us can’t help it. Some of us are addicts. Also, we often confuse addiction with dependence.
“Dependent is when you’re physically dependent, and if you stop using you experience physical withdrawal,” says addictions specialist Anita Srivastava, assistant professor in the department of family and community medicine at the University of Toronto.
“And addiction is a powerful compulsion to use a drug that you can’t control,” adds her colleague Meldon Kahan, who says it’s more defined by behaviour. “Often the two go together but not always.”
Everyone has an addict in their life, a husband, wife, mayor, son, daughter, boss, employee or neighbour who frustrates workable relationships with their duplicitous, risky, drug-seeking behaviour.
And yet, despite the common pain we’ve all experienced, we seem comfortable with the marketing of food for its addictive qualities, from Lay’s potato chips classic “bet you can’t eat just one” campaign, to the casual compliment of “OMG this chicken is addictive” to the trend of naming foods after crack: crack pie at Momofuku, crack buns at Electric Mud BBQ and Rock Lobster. This is not nice.
Crack cocaine is a dangerously addictive derivative of cocaine. An epidemic in the late 1980s, its legacy is a generation of birth defects and racist sentencing laws in the United States, resulting in the mass incarceration of young black males.
It’s true that we eat popcorn compulsively, repetitiously, more than kale (though Manhattan burger joint Whitman’s does sell “crack kale”). And everything I’m serving tonight belongs to the family of bet-you-can’t-eat-just-one foods: shrimp-flavoured popcorn, spicy Thai chicken wings, Reese’s Peanut Butter hot chocolate.
“If there’s one addictive food for me,” says Kahan, munching on popcorn seasoned with dried and ground shrimp, “it’s popcorn.”
“I think it’s the way you made it,” says Srivastava’s husband, Albert, reaching for popcorn coated in smoked paprika and guajillo chili powder. “If it was just plain popcorn, I would have no trouble walking away from it.”
But none of this is sufficiently addictive that my guests are going to lose their jobs, wives, driver’s licences or ability to appoint members of Toronto city council executive committees.
The big bowl of chicken wings has been marinated in sugar, garlic and fish sauce, deep-fried and then lacquered in a syrupy, fiery sauce. I adapted the recipe from the Pok Pok cookbook. In their restaurants (in Brooklyn and Portland) they only serve six of the potent wings (drumette, wingette and tip attached) per order. Just enough, and in the right ratio of sweet, salty and fatty to make you want more.
“I think that the companies that are manipulating the composition of food to make it more pleasurable and addictive,” says Kahan, “relying on the composition of salt, sugar and fat — those are the three drugs that work on the neurotransmitters that make food pleasurable — I don’t think they’re much better than drug dealers.” Srivastava raises her colleague. “When you’re talking about potato chips, I get impassioned about pharmaceutical companies. They’ve raised all this awareness of sleep disorders so they can sell an addictive drug. They pick a few doctors who are willing to be paid a lot of money to be their spokespeople and educate other doctors.”
Kahan agrees. “When Big Pharma comes up with a new product, forget this independent critical thinking of doctors. They roll over like teenage boys confronted with a cigarette ad. They are so easily bought it’s shameful. Soon we’re going to have to recognize that there are such things as pharma-epidemics.”
Maybe it’s easier to make light of addiction because we are a generation of addicts, to sleeping pills, antidepressants and something called “froyo.”
Even if it’s just through TV, most of us know the tropes of addiction treatment, the interventions, the rock bottoms, the 12 steps. But we’re still unable to help addicts until they accept they need it.
“The main reason why people quit drugs and alcohol,” says Kahan, “is because they fear that something bad is going to happen to them.”
“Or they have something really big to lose,” adds Srivastava.
“The problem with somebody in Rob Ford’s position,” says Kahan, “is that there’s no one to say, ‘enough is enough.’ If he were working on an assembly line or a doctor who showed up drunk at work, they’d say, get help or we’ll fire you. Or a family member might say, get help or I’ll leave.”
But we can’t quit the mayor. And despite the wiretaps, the videos, the lies followed with blurted half-confessions, the sister who says he is only an alcoholic depending on how you define “alcoholic,” the insistence on his current abstinence while maintaining that he doesn’t have a problem, the mind of Rob Ford, the desire for change, remains elusive.
“What bothers me isn’t what happens to Rob Ford,” Kahan offers. “It’s what this does to the public image of addiction. It’s a barrier to people getting help. I know the tremendous shame people have when they’re addicted. They’re good people who are dealing with misery and terrible struggles.”
It’s natural to have compassion for an addict. But if anyone has an excess of sympathy, there are plenty of suffering drug addicts in Toronto who aren’t also millionaires or mayors.
In a food processor, purée garlic. Add sugar and process until it is a paste. Add fish sauce and water. Mix thoroughly with chicken wings. Refrigerate in a lidded container for four to eight hours.
In a large pot, heat oil to 350F/180C. Use a heavy-bottomed pot and fill it no more than one third with oil.
In a large mixing bowl, combine rice flour and tempura mix. Strain chicken wings. Set aside marinade to make sauce. In batches, coat chicken wings in flour mix. Shake off excess flour and transfer to plate.
In batches, fry wings for seven minutes (if you add them all at once, the oil temperature will drop and they won’t get crispy). Use a slotted spoon to transfer cooked wings to a bowl lined with paper towel. When all wings are cooked, use a large wok to bring marinade to a boil on medium-high heat. Add nam phrik phao, lime juice and boil until sauce thickens to syrupy consistency, about five minutes. Add wings and stir to coat. Serve with bowls of rice to cut the heat. Makes four generous servings. Email mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter. Watch Corey Mintz prepare this recipe at thestar.com/life.