Bunk Moreland (!) on this blog

Well, it seems that (finally) Vraie Fiction is attracting other fans from The Wire. On this post, from more than a year ago, someone commented using the pseudonym of Bunk Moreland. The post was about raw eggs in a tall glass of beer for breakfast. "Bunk" gave an instructive comment, explaining that it may be a hangover cure. He also said he heard about tomato juice being added to the mix. which might be a Rhode Island variation. I need to try it once, if only for curiosity. But anyway, it made me very happy to see that an old post still brings readers and comments.

The Greeks of The Wire

I was thinking about this post recently, and it struck me that the villains in The French Connection, especially Alain Charnier, inspired the The Greek criminal organisation in The Wire. Known as... The Greeks. Which is a bit of a misnomer, as while the leaders are Greek (or maybe not, see below) their staff is from various nationalities: from Ukraine, Israel, Eastern Europe. They control the port of Baltimore, and supply the country with stolen goods, alcohol, women and of course drugs.

Their leader is known as The Greek, an elderly man who runs his shadowy empire from a small café near the port, where he sits around, inconspicuous, never talking when there are visitors. His second-in-command is Spiros Vondas, played by Paul Ben-Victor. At the end of season 2, we learn the Spiros's real name is not Spiros, and that The Greek is not even Greek. I love these villains. They are the most amoral characters of the whole series, the most ruthless too, in a series not short of ruthless people. Under their shopkeeper appearances, they are brutal thugs. For them crime is merely a business which has to be conduct methodically and rationally. This is what makes them resilient, this is what makes them dangerous. You can see what I mean here, in a nutshell, by the way they murder a Turkish sailor. Pure malevolence. More popular shows have tried to make memorable villains, but I have yet to see villains as evil as The Greeks of The Wire.

The Best Sandwich in America (?)

This is a post about guilty pleasures. Tonight I watched an utterly stupid TV program, an d I am actually enjoying it. It is called Adam Richman's Best Sandwich in America. With Adam Richman. I know zilch about the guy. I usually hate, hate, HATE that kind of television program. I mean it is really stupid: a contest with different sandwiches from different places in the US. How braindead is that? That said, I do LOVE sandwiches, I am a real sucker for them. And the episode that caught my attention and made me watch it as if it was a high standard BBC documentary was set in Baltimore and Washington D.C. I visited neither place, however Baltimore was immortalised of course in The Wire and Washington in the novels of George Pelecanos. Who also wrote on the aforementioned Wire. And both Pelecanos's novels and the TV series describe the cultural aspects of both cities, including the food they eat. The contender from Baltimore was a crab sandwich, made in a diner I think I saw in The Wire, the contender from Washington D.C. was a club sandwich made by a French chef.

The club sandwich won, and however intrigued I was by the crab sandwich I agreed with Richman about the club sandwich. I love club sandwich, how "classic" a sandwich it is, this one had an originality to it. It had avocado and a fried egg. My mouth was watering just watching it. I am a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to club sandwiches, I have tried them all around, in greasy spoons in Montreal and here in the UK (I know where to find decent ones and even one excellent open club sandwich). And this one was standing out from all the ones I remembered seeing or tasting. You can find more about it here. I will not watch more of the show, however I love sandwiches. I can eat plenty of junk, but junk TV I watch it at small doses. But this episode, just like a good club sandwich, was a guilty pleasure. And I know where to eat if I ever go to Washington D.C.

Lake Trout and cultural Baltimore

I was watching my favourite TV show today, The Wire, fourth season. And there was a mention of a lake trout, which was what Randy Wagstaff wanted to eat. I thought it was strange a kid from the ghetto liked trout, which I always imagine like a fish for fancy dinners, then I discovered it is a fried fish sandwich. More about it here. Basically, it is quite close to the fish and chips: simple hearty and deep fried. One of the many, many things I love about The Wire is that Baltimore is a character in itself: you learn about its colours, flavours, its culture. And it is done in a subdued, almost subliminal way: no explanation is given, the characters simply order lake trout, or drop raw eggs in their beer, or eat blue crabs. I blogged before that food has an important role in national and regional identities. The show illustrates this brilliantly. I have never seen it done so well on TV, and very rarely in novels. So I have never been in Baltimore, but I discover this city and want to learn more.

Beer and raw eggs for breakfast?

Do not worry: I am not talking about what I am going to have tomorrow morning. No, I will enjoy peanut butter toasts. Simple but delicious. But I am watching the second season of The Wire (again) and this is what the dockers have. They order it as breakfast. It is a startling image, seeing them drinking beer with a raw egg in the morning. As a child I once drank a bit of raw egg by mistake, thinking it was milk, I still remember the disgusting taste. I had a quick look on Google and there is info about it on Yahoo and elsewhere. I have no doubt this is authentic tradition, in Baltimore and probably elsewhere. I wonder if anyone who read this have heard of it outside fiction and witnessed it, or better still, have tried the unusual breakfast themselves.