Maybe it's my own warped perspective, but trundling around town these days on my gastronomic rounds, I've detected a subtle shift in the culinary habits of New Yorkers. Since the events of September 11, my pixieish wife has developed a curious fondness for sandwiches made from Genoa salami and giant slabs of Gruyère cheese. A friend who lives six blocks from ground zero confesses he's been consuming food "like a bear hibernating for winter." After decades of overheated palates and bull-market extravagance, spare, elemental Greenmarket menus (like those you'll find at Craft) are in vogue; vaporous foams and jellies are out. Beef cheeks, lamb shanks, and cheese are the great new gourmet obsessions. Dim sum and stout bowls of porridge are the fashionable foods in Chinatown. Rustic is the word on every Italian-food snob's lips. And the most talked-about haute-cuisine dish of the season happens to be a hamburger, albeit one filled with truffles and foie gras. That's because comfort is at a premium in this new Age of Anxiety, and there's no greater comfort, these days in Fat City, than a good old-fashioned feed.
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