Hey Hipsters, Ed Levine — Unironically! — Will Show You What’s Real

Ed Levine is becoming a big pain in the ass (.pdf) (EL = “Ed Levine” to EB = “Edible Brooklyn”):

EL: Let’s hit Coney Island. That’s a place hipsters haven’t discovered it yet. It’s a little far from Manhattan, but I mean hello! It’s oceanfront! And it’s totally accessible by public transportation.

. . .

EL: . . . Brooklyn is fascinating because it’s NOT homogenous but works anyway. It’s so varied and that variety is in the food in the best possible way. Smith Street is fine and I’m happy that young chefs can open their own places. But people need to get out of those hipster enclaves and see what this borough is about. People need to get outside themselves.

EB: Get outside themselves?

EL: People go to a Thai restaurant and think they’re exploring. This place is becoming insular. It’s not all about Franny’s and Planet Thailand and Marlow & Sons, though I love those places. It’s a class thing. [Totonno’s Pizza owner] Cookie’s not your sorority sister but that’s precisely why your life will be richer if you meet her. Andrew (the chef and owner of Franny’s) has cooked in fine restaurants, but didn’t even visit Totonno’s before opening Franny’s. He’s in this place, but he’s not of this place.

EB: What do you mean, “it’s a class thing?”

EL: You know, there’s Brooklyn (he drops his voice two octaves and throatily pronounces the word as if his name is Vinny) and there’s Brooklyn (he enunciates politely like a charm school graduate). People who live in the latter don’t want to venture into the former, they see it as somehow beneath them. But food is our common ground. It’s an easy path to get outside yourself. You’re probably not going to buy the potency elixir in a Carribean neighborhood, but you might buy the jerk chicken. That’s what’s so exhilarating about Brooklyn. Go for a day to Dyker Heights or East Flatbush or Bensonhurst. You don’t have to change your whole life — just experience something real for an afternoon.

EB: You keep referring to what’s real. What does that word mean to you?

EL: It’s probably not the right term, but by real food, I mean food from previous generations with nothing faux about it.

. . .

EB: So what’s your message to the people you call Brooklyn’s hipsters?

EL: Experience something new, whether jerk chicken or Italian Bensonhurst, foods good enough to make you cry. You’ll see very different kinds of dive bars, that are much less affected. You’ll learn that great food can come out of a completely different aesthetic and cultural milieu from what you know. You’ll expand your universe.

This from the man who thinks that the best pizza in the country is in Phoenix, Arizona . . .