Saveur magazine has come out once again with its "Saveur 100" list in its January/February 2010 issue. The annual food roundup of "great food finds" is this year for the first time entirely reader-generated. Readers were asked to celebrate their favorite "person, place or thing in the world of food" in 1,000 words or less.
Coming in at #91 on the list is "Wisconsin," an ode to some of the state's best foodstuffs penned by Middleton resident Dan Florey. Or, only sort of penned....
Reached by phone on Monday, Florey describes his interest in food as "amateur" and his Wisconsin list's inclusion in the magazine as "kind of a fun thing." But, he notes, the twenty Wisconsin food items listed in the magazine did not come from his original letter to Saveur, which had to do in part with the Germanic influence on the state's culinary culture.
"They picked them," says Florey, a structural engineer. "They asked me for permission to embellish," but he did not see the actual list before the issue went to press. And while the included items are good ones, Florey says that if he were picking them, they'd be a little different: "Nueske's bacon," Florey says without hesitation, would be on the list, as well as Madison Sourdough. Rye from Miller's in Milwaukee (included in the Saveur list) is good, but Madison Sourdough "is the best bread in Wisconsin" Florey declares.
Florentiners and Nussknackers from Clasen's Bakery in Middleton were included, as were meats from Ruel's Meat Market in New Glarus and the Wisconsin Cran-bic lambic from the New Glarus Brewery; the full list is available here.
