Chef’s culinary journey includes stops in Wisconsin
Raised in Brooklyn, Edward Lee worked the breakfast shift in a diner to put himself through New York University. He went on to open 610 Magnolia in Louisville, Ky., yet the James Beard Award nominee still has a need to tell stories.
He sees food as a bridge and as part of the immigrant story. Connecting people across place and time, Lee’s latest exploration brought the chef on a road trip to Wisconsin with his wife, Dianne, and their daughter for stops in Fitchburg, Madison and Milwaukee.
He chronicles his journey in his new book, “Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef ’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting Pot Cuisine.” This tale of his cross-country trip includes visits to Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge, a fish fry at Kegel’s Inn, and meals by
Thomas Hauck and Tory Miller.
Question: What’s your background?
I’ve been writing for journals throughout my career, and graduated from NYU (New York University) with a literature major. I’ve just been working in restaurants. After 9/11 I ended up moving to Kentucky to do 610 Magnolia.
Q: Writing this book, how have you come to define America’s “New Melting Pot Cuisine”?
To me, there is no new cuisine. It’s is only new to us, right? For example, if Nigerian cuisine is new to me, it is not new in the scope of the world.
What happens in America is that with every new generation we have new waves of immigration. When that happens, we have this incredible gift. You have old immigrant groups mixing with new immigrant groups mixing with people who have been here for centuries. I’ve traveled the world, and that is unique to America.
It’s almost that melting pot is not the correct term, but we’re a simmering pot constantly adding new ingredients all the time. It never ends. That pot is a different set of flavors for every generation. For this generation, at least for me, I wanted to go out and explore what that tastes like.
Q: What makes food a bridge to history? Why do we retain recipes and taste memories for generations?
That is a great question. I don’t know the answer to that. I just know that we do.
My parents came here in 1971. I was born here, I speak a little bit of Korean, not so much. My daughter will speak less, maybe a couple words. Her daughter will probably not speak any Korean.
But I can guarantee that my great-granddaughter will probably be eating kimchi. … Food is so primal, comforting and embedded in our taste buds. It is the last thing we let go of.
Q: Tell us about your visit to Wisconsin. What made Madison and Milwaukee must stops?
My wife is German, by heritage. We’re talking six, seven or eight generations. When my daughter was born, we said listen, she’s half Korean, half German, even if that German DNA is sort of diluted. I want her to know as much about her German heritage as she does about her Korean heritage…
We looked at the migration map, we saw the whole band from Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, is all German. We saw pockets of where that German identity, still in 2018, was strong. We saw that in Wisconsin. It reaches a kind of climax in the Milwaukee area.
Q: One of your stops was Karl Ratzsch’s, which has since closed?
I do believe there is a German revival out there somewhere. Maybe it was a little too soon. I’m very thankful for the meal I had there, because I was able to see it happening in real time. The way (Thomas Hauck) was pushing German food to a new definition, he was making the food more palatable and making the food sexy quite frankly, which is not the word you think of when you think of German food.
I hate that it closed, because I think if given more time and recognition, it would’ve caught on.
Q: What were your other stops?
Bavarian Sausage Company in Fitchburg, I still order sausage from them. We have a very large German population in Indiana and Louisville, Ky. I wish something like that existed here. I talk to some older citizens here, they tell me they vaguely remember German butchers and bakers. What is alarming and sad and part of reality is to realize all of this food culture can be lost in one or two generations.
Q: What did you come to learn about German cuisine? Why does it not get the same interest that other immigrant cuisines might?
There are numerous reasons, each one chipping away at the reputation. Obviously, World War I and World War II were huge factors. … The question I started with in this chapter, was it a success or failure of Germans in their cuisine that their cuisine became so a part of American life that German cuisine totally infiltrated American culture so we don’t think of them as German anymore?
Beer, bread, mustard, pickles. Is that a success of German culture or a failure? That is a fascinating question to me.
Q: What were your other must-see spots in Wisconsin?
I knew Tory Miller, but I’d never eaten at his restaurants. One of the things I found interesting about Tory is he’s Korean, but he’s adopted.
He’d just recently opened an Asian/Korean restaurant. It’s delicious, but I’m sitting there saying none of this food looks “correct” as my grandmother would have defined it.
He said ‘Yeah, it is the Asian people who come in and correct me the most. What do I know? I was raised as an American German in Racine.’ I wanted that personal connection. We spent the day together in Madison, ate at his restaurants. It was a great day.
All the other restaurants, once I got to a place, I just asked locals. Someone sent me to Kegel’s. I looked it up and saw a picture of the mural. Had to go there. "Buttermilk Graffiti" explores the vast blend of American cuisines.
Table Chat features interviews with Wisconsinites, or Wisconsin natives, who work in restaurants or support the restaurant industry. To suggest individuals to profile, email nstohs@journalsentinel.com.