Next time they road-trip to Baltimore, two well-known food writers won't get to eat the local delicacy they just talked up on national radio. Lexington Market squirrel, alas, does not exist.
On National Public Radio's The Splendid Table last weekend, Jane and Michael Stern raved about Lexington Market, saying it was better than San Francisco's Ferry Building Marketplace.
The Daily Record noted the Sterns' compliment on a blog earlier this week. That caught the attention of my colleague Jean Marbella, who'd just visited the Ferry Market on vacation and enjoyed a rosemary-pine nut shortbread, in no small part because the vendor vouched for the virtuous provenance of every ingredient.
How can the high temple of San Francisco foodie-dom possibly rank behind Lexington Market, where the food-origins ethos is more don't ask, don't tell?
The Sterns may have a monthly column in hifalutin' Gourmet magazine, but their specialty is road food. They like Lexington's down-home grub. It just might not be quite as down-home as they remember.
The Sterns and Splendid Table host Lynne Rossetto Kasper were going on about the artisan this and gourmet that for sale at the Ferry Market.
"It's kind of this endless cornucopia of the best of the West Coast," Jane Stern said. "However ... I'm putting a vote in here for the Lexington Market in Baltimore, Maryland. Because just as the Ferry Building in San Francisco is kind of an upscale eater, yuppie dream, the Lexington Market has the greatest soul food and the greatest crab cakes and the greatest old-fashioned chocolate layer cakes. It's not expensive, it's funky and it's just a little more my style."
They talked some more about the layer cakes and Faidley's crab cakes, which really are for sale in the market. Then they veered into fantasy.
Jane Stern: "As we were eating our cake and crab cakes, I couldn't help notice that the stand to our left was selling - having a run on - squirrel."
Kasper: "I beg your pardon?"
Jane Stern: "Yup, muskrat and squirrel."
Faidley's famously sells muskrat as well as its renowned crab cakes. But squirrel?
"They sold squirrel in 1776, OK?" said Bill Devine, part-owner of Faidley Seafood. "And they probably sold it in 1936."
But not since, he said. It's doubtful Faidley's was having "a run" on muskrat, either. At $6.95 apiece, muskrats are priced to sell, but hardly anybody buys them anymore, Devine said. Ten years ago, Faidley sold 2,000 to 3,000 a year. Now, the number is down to 400 or 500.
