If an army fights on its stomach, Zuccotti Park is in for a long, full-bellied siege. But forget chef Eric Smith’s boast of “5-star” cuisine.
The meal I tasted last night — at the East New York soup kitchen where it was cooked, worlds removed from the canyons of lower Manhattan — proves you don’t need to spend a fortune, or even peanuts, to turn out an edible dinner.
You don’t need any money at all when farms, food co-ops and other occupier-enablers are willing to feed the cause without charging a dime.
Can Occupy Wall Street’s affluent participants taste the irony in having their nightly feast whipped up in a poor, crime-ridden Brooklyn neighborhood that has nearly no restaurants at all?
Well, not quite a feast.
The five courses I tried delivered bulk, tons of carbs and no more or less pleasure than at a high-end diner, a low-end bistro — or a Sheraton dining room, where Smith once worked.
Things started out on a feeble note with organic chicken soup with root vegetables, parsley, rosemary and thyme. The protesters better not count on it to whip a cold: the broth was thin and promptly began to separate.
But the kitchen rallied with a hearty salad of roasted beets, aged Tome Bergere sheep’s-milk cheese and chimichurri sauce with a dash of garlic.
Spaghetti Bolognese arrived reasonably al dente, but full of grass-fed beef so tough the beasts must have swallowed stones, too. At least brown rice and beans went down without a struggle.
You wouldn’t expect anti-capitalism cranks to gorge on truffle panna cotta, and so dessert was nuts and banana chips donated by a co-op in upstate Ithaca.
At least I had the dishes fresh out of the kitchen. They faced a long ride to Zuccotti Park. There’s no telling how their mediocrity would withstand the trip.
But privileged protesters starved for attention shouldn’t complain if their free meal isn’t perfect.