anthony: how does the joke begin? three men in a bar? but it s not a bar. imagine the bronx a corner bodega, or maybe a luncheonette, a diner, three men, strictly by coincidence, find themselves in the same place at the same time. sitting at the counter is afrika bambaataa. across the room is melle mel. door opens, and who walks in? dj kool herc. three men who created the musical style that s become the soundtrack to, well, the whole wide world. do they all nod at each other? lament how all of them got screwed over, cut out of the big money? or just laugh at the absurdity of it all? hip-hop it came from nowhere else. it could have come from nowhere else but the bronx. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha, la, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la, la, sha, la, la, la, la anthony: this is the br
Food writer and author Alicia Kennedy chronicles a week of eating in her hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico, for New York Magazine’s long-running “Grub Street Diet” column.
anthony: justin fornal, aka baron ambrosia, has taken it upon himself to serve as the bronx s culinary ambassador. baron ambrosia: let the dinner begin! baron ambrosia: this is the porcupine. woman: ah! anthony: an evangelist for the cause of introducing the manifold splendiferous delights of this mighty borough to the ignorant, well, like me. he s got a show on the tv and he throws parties where he serves creatures that would make andrew zimmern turn grey and slump unconscious to the floor. showman, iconoclast, explorer, and gourmet. baron ambrosia: the bronx is so multi-faceted, but for some reason, this is the first place i always take people because this just oozes and emanates, kind of, that flavor of the bronx. anthony: and he knows what i like places like this.
massive housing projects conceived as utopian solutions to stacking the poor into centralized vertical ghettos were also his bright idea. he did leave some pretty impressive damn works behind, though, like the triborough bridge, flushing meadows park, the verrazano bridge eh. the bronx happens to be the home of the two largest parks in new york city pelham bay and van cortlandt, and you see stuff here you probably ain t seeing in central park. the garifuna come from honduras, guatemala, and belize, and they trace their ethnic group back to a single slave ship that crashed off st. vincent, and whose freed africans then mixed with carib-indians. where is home for many of the garifuna community living in the u.s.? you guessed it, the bronx. baron ambrosia: living in the bronx you re able to, kind of,
what kind of fish is this? callita: bluefish. anthony: bluefish! oh, awesome! i love bluefish. and some nice smoked neck bones with bananas and yucca. that s, uh, officially awesome already. ooh, that s tasty. that s really good. an under-exploited fish, one of my favorites. you know what i ve noticed already? the bronx is big. how ludicrous and shameful is it that i can literally see my house from here, and i basically have no [ muted ] idea where i am. baron ambrosia: and no fault on your own, but i think that s kind of what keeps the bronx so amazing is that you have all these in-touch ethnic enclaves. anthony: i didn t know there were hondurans here, much less, uh, 200,000 garifuna. baron ambrosia: right. anthony: no clue. baron ambrosia: right. anthony: i ve been saying the neck is the next big thing for years now. still waiting.