More Letters
Here’s another example — this time a letter from an LA reader attacking my New York provincialism.
In your 9/27/06 Slate article, “A Dumpling Manifesto,” you write, “your best bet [for finding good dumplings] is to seek out tiny shops serving northern-style dumplings…. [They are c]ommon in New York and slowly sprouting up across America…” — as if New York City were the Dumpling Capital of North America, determinedly pushing its culinary influence out into the hinterlands like tendrils of kudzu.
I gather you have never visited the Los Angeles metropolitan area (or, as some call it, the “Queen City of Asia”), specifically Chinatown — the Empress Pavilion, for example — or virtually anywhere in Monterey Park. I suggest you contact Jonathan Gold, food writer for the L.A. Weekly, for some suggestions as to where to find the best dumplings not only in Los Angeles, but in the United States. New York indeed; the provincialism of its inhabitants never ceases to amaze me.
Fair point, though having been to LA I’m not sure New York has a complete monopoly on provincialism.