In our series-within-a-series Upon Further Review, we update topics from previous episodes of Mossback’s Northwest. One of the most popular Mossback subjects is food — we’ve done episodes about oysters, clams, crab Louie, chicken teriyaki, Dutch babies and Frangos, all foods with strong ties to Seattle. Clam broth was fed to a baby in the Denny Party when they founded Seattle in the 1850s. Dutch babies were a Gold Rush favorite. Chicken teriyaki became a signature fast food in the ’70s.
But times change along with diets and food fads, so Upon Further Review decided to offer an update on Seattle food: What are our signatures today? What will be feeding nostalgia in the future?
Joining Berger in this episode is Rachel Belle, host of Cascade PBS’s The Nosh and the podcast Your Last Meal, to share her thoughts on local appetites.
First up, a Seattle classic: chicken teriyaki. In 1976, a man named Toshi Kasahara opened a teriyaki place near Seattle Center and created what became the standard teriyaki dish: grilled chicken (with the little grill marks on) for under $3. Belle shares some backstory: “In Japan … there's kind of a different version of teriyaki. It’s much more simple. It’s kind of like a glaze that maybe you would put on salmon … not like the thick kind of sweet sauce that we’re known for … and then you get that little iceberg lettuce salad with the really sweet dressing.
“I think the person who has actually brought it back to the forefront is someone who only moved to Seattle during the pandemic, and that is cookbook author Kenji Lopez. And he has decided that he’s going to try every teriyaki joint in Seattle, and he does his Instagram videos about it.”
Their first taste test, as Belle reveals that there are more pho restaurants in Seattle than Starbucks: bowls from Phở Bắc Súp Shop. The herbaceous broth, Belle points out, is kind of like teriyaki in the sense that it’s deceptively simple.
They move on to seafood with a Mossback clip —
Among the party was a new baby, Roland Denny, just two months old. His mother, Marianne, was sick and couldn’t produce milk. And so Duwamish women taught her to nurture tiny Roland on clam broth until she could. It worked. He lived to be a ripe 87 years old, the last survivor of the original Denny Party.
— which leads, via Berger’s Norwegian heritage, to a discussion of the infamous lutefisk, North Pacific salt cod preserved in lye until it develops a distinct texture, a delicacy Belle has long been curious about: “I actually thought that it was served cold because I assumed gelatinous meant cold. But no, this is hot fish Jell-O.” But when Berger added a little butter and salt, Belle enjoyed it even more: “I have to say, I like it … Yeah. You did a good job.”
Next, Berger and Belle trade tastes of clam nectar (the “coffee of the sea”) and matcha, Japanese green tea prepared like a latte with steamed milk, which is encroaching on coffee’s hot-drink domination of Seattle.
Then to the “Seattle dog” and its unique local accoutrement, cream cheese: Berger elaborates on its origins:
There was a man in Pioneer Square in the 1980s who had a bagel stand. And when the clubs closed at 2:00, people would come out and they didn't want a bagel. Being in the bagel business, he started serving bowls, which were kind of a bagel-like thing, and putting cream cheese on it and putting a hot dog in there. And that is reputedly the birth of the Seattle dog.
“Two thumbs up,” says Belle, closing their tour of Seattle food with a recommendation:
“OK, I’m not about to upset the entire state of New York and say that Seattle is, you know, a bagel city. But we have become a much better bagel city … This, for example, is from Hey Bagel!, a company owned by my friend Andrew Rubenstein.
We did an episode on bagels on my show The Nosh. At Hey Bagel!, they will not cut your bagel for you, and they won’t make sandwiches. You just buy bagels and cream cheese, and then you just pick it apart. You tear and you schmear.”
“Thank you for giving us this taste of future history.”
“And thank you for giving me a taste of lutefisk past.”
