Photo by Tom Hopkins from www.jacquespepin.net

OK, so several weeks ago, I interviewed iconic chef Jacques Pepin about his new book, “More Fast Food My Way.” So did probably 50 or 60 other food writers, including my old pal Byron Kerman (we worked together at the RFT), who did a piece for the current issue of Sauce. (Scroll down; it’s several items down on the page.)

The bit that especially caught my eye was this:
“I came here in 1959, so that was over 50 years ago, and there was only one salad at the supermarket, and that was iceberg. You couldn’t find any mushrooms at the supermarket. I remember going to New York’s D’Agostino and asking for mushrooms and they say, ‘Aisle five,’ and [in] aisle five are canned mushrooms. You had to go to a specialty store just to get regular mushrooms, and now you have, what, 15 different types? There was one type of salad dressing. There [were] no herbs, you know?”

Compare this to the piece I did two weeks ago:
“When I came to America, there was one salad in the stores, and that was iceberg,” Pépin said in a recent telephone interview from his home in Connecticut. “There were no fresh herbs except parsley. I remember asking for mushrooms, and they sent me to aisle five and it was canned mushrooms. You had to go to a specialty store just to get button mushrooms.”

(He actually mentioned D’Agostino in my interview as well; I pulled that reference out because it would have meant little to a local audience.)

Now, I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with this — if anyone’s ever heard me do my speech on St. Louis dining more than once, they’ve heard the same jokes and the same story about how I became a restaurant critic. I just found it kind of amazing that the wording was so close to identical — not “there was only one lettuce…and that was iceberg,” but “there was only one salad…and that was iceberg.”

In fact, it’s probably more reflective of the need for a good PR person. Pepin’s is Greg Mowery, who sounded like a one-person New York shop, but gave me as much attention as he did the Today show (I only know this because we were on alternate lines one afternoon). Having your client prepped, so to speak, is key to getting your message across.

The other mystery I’d like to solve is when Pepin was in St. Louis with Craig Claiborne. His book says it was a World Series year — that would mean 1982, 1985 or 1987, since he hadn’t yet started writing and touring by 1968, the last year before 1982 that the Birds went to the Series. We did a thorough archive search here at the paper but couldn’t dig anything up.

Keep your eye out for the chef on TV the next couple of weeks as his book comes out, and see if he any of his quotes sound familiar. (He’ll be at COCA for Left Bank Books at 7 p.m. on Oct. 15; you need to buy a book from them to snag two tickets.)