I'm watching latex-gloved Dave Frey smear spicy molé powder over the small white wheel of French cheese, a buttery, fresh number called Brillat-Savarin, at 40 percent butterfat among the richest of the triple creams.
I'm watching him, but I'm channeling Elisabeth Rozin, Philadelphia's late anthropologist of ethnic flavor, whose explorations of how salsa (among other things), for Pete's sake, got into Grandma's meat loaf, opened my eyes to the secret travels of foods, and how they've reshaped traditional cuisines.
It wasn't so astonishing that Frey was coating the cheese: You've seen that trick before – ash coatings and grape-leaf wraps, herb marinades and peppery rubs.
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