Grazing The Leonard Cohen Food Files Smorgasbord: Chili Dogs, Ice Cream, Chateau La Tour 1982, Tuna Salad, Lagavulin, Silence Of The Lamb Chops, Pastrami Sandwiches, Champagne, Cheetos…

Allan Showalter

Singer-Songwriter-Poet-Icon Buys Hot Dog From Street Vendor

I’m posting this photo of Leonard procuring nourishment (from On Tour With Leonard Cohen by Sharon Robinson) as the festive first course from the smorgasbord that is one of my favorite Cohencentric categories: The Leonard Cohen Food Files.

Leonard proffering food is intimately linked to his fervent graciousness. As I reported in What Leonard Cohen Told Me Backstage In Chicago, food was a major feature in my first meeting with him:

In fact, the next thing I recall is Leonard (note that we’re now on a first name basis) urging me to have something to eat from the pre-concert buffet. This is accomplished by him taking my arm to lead me through the line of covered dishes, opening each of the eight main offerings, describing the contents, and adding his recommendations.

And that experiences led me to conclude,

Should I ever awaken in a post-apocalyptic desert with starving mobs battling over every edible morsel, my plan is to track down Leonard Cohen. If there is food to be had, he will, I am certain, find it and insist that I, as his guest, even if the status of guest is self-appointed, dine from the bounty.

From reading Leonard’s interviews and exchanging experiences with others who have met him, I know his urging food upon visitors, including reporters, fans, visitors… who appear for one reason or another in his presence, is his modus operandi. Brendan Bernhard, for example, claims Leonard “plied me with pâté and gorgonzola, with red wine and aquavit.” The Duchess & I can certainly testify that Leonard & Kezban know how to lay out a spread (for details, see Lunch At Leonard’s In LA – Leonard Cohen & Kezban Özcan Host Nosh For Duchess & DrHGuy),

I am also impressed with the extent of his taste. I suspect that the list of music icons throughout history who favored Chateau La Tour 1982, Lagavulin single malt Scotch, various cognacs, and a well prepared hot dog resolves to one entry: Leonard Cohen.

But, at least three posts on this site attest to the Canadian singer-songwriter’s frankfurter fetish.

And, I just ran across this offering, which features an unrequited request by for a chili dog. It’s also a pretty good story about an getting an interview with our icon of choice.

Twenty-five years ago, almost to the day, I sat in the bar of Toronto’s King Edward Hotel asking Leonard Cohen questions about Art and Life, Truth and Beauty, the Sacred and the Profane. A week earlier, in a different establishment across town, I’d been asking him whether he wanted fries or salad with his chili dog. He’d just come down from the mountain — Mount Baldy near LA, that is, where he’d been rigorously observing an ascetic lifestyle in a Zen monastery — and there he was, in my section, ordering a hot dog and Coke. Fortunately, the restaurant happened to be empty apart from Mr. Cohen and his female companion (the distraction of serving my biggest idol might have doomed my other tables). Not so fortunately, as the chef tardily informed me, we’d run out of chili dogs. After working up the courage to break this news — which (must’ve been the Zen thing) he accepted with admirable composure — I worked up the courage to ask him for an interview. I was a 21-year-old waiter and would-be writer working in downtown Toronto (some things, apart from age, don’t seem to change). The woman I was living with, in a dying relationship, was perhaps an even bigger Cohen fan than myself. When she heard that I’d met Leonard and would be interviewing him at the King Eddie, where he was filming I Am a Hotel, and when it was quite clear that I would not be divulging his room number, she threatened to split up with me. It was one of those let-me-get-this-straight moments: if I refused to provide my girlfriend with the directions to another man’s bedroom, I would be history. But such was the allure of Canada’s “melancholy bard of popular music.” (By the way, Suzie, it was Room 327!)1

And, it’s not just hot dogs that claim his affection in the fast food category. While in Europe, he defended the American hamburger. He is familiar with Krystal burgers, has a taste for McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish, and even employed Wendy’s “Where’s The Beef” slogan in the lyrics of Closing Time (although he did, at least once, misidentify the source as a Burger King advertising campaign).

Of course, his preferences include a full menu of Montreal-centric victuals, such as bagels, smoked meat sandwiches, and Silence of the Lamb chops.

Grocer Of Despair In The Snacks Aisle

He’s big on snacks — like Cheetos. The photo below that Leonard sent me to help out on the restart of my blog went viral with millions of views.

But, that wasn’t Leonard Cohen’s first bag of Cheetos.

Update: A reader points out that the cheesy snack in this case was not Cheetos but Humpty Dumpty Cheese Sticks.

 

And, when he wasn’t shopping for Cheetos, Leonard Cohen was buying Cheese Whiz.

Leonard is also big on sweets (e.g. “I need some chocolate if I’m gonna do this.” Leonard Cohen, Working On Blue Alert With Anjani Thomas) and his fondness for Ice Cream & Frozen Confections merits its own category.

 

And he has demonstrated a penchant for bananas.

Leonard Cohen was a self-professed vegetarian for a few years in the 1960s. On the other hand, in 1975, he & Suzanne hosted Joni Mitchell, Ratso, & Roger McGuinn at their Montreal home for a dinner featuring barbecue ribs.

Cohen In The Kitchen

While I lack the credentials to render an authoritative assessment of Leonard’s culinary skills, based on all reports and according to my friends who know their way around a kitchen, his competence is well established. That’s not surprising, given that one of Leonard’s jobs during his stay at the Mount Baldy Zen Center was to serve as cook (his specialties were soups and a lauded preparation of teriyaki salmon).2 It’s a joy to see anyone perform a task well.

And, when interactions with friends, fans, or interviewers take place in his home, offering food he has himself prepared is relatively standard. In describing an interview at Leonard Cohen On His Poems, Zen, Hallelujah, His 6 Good Songs, Money, America, And The Squirrel, I included the following screenshot and noted

The video also showcases Leonard Cohen as casually gracious host, opening a bottle of wine and topping fig slices with cheese to share with the interviewer.

In a charming sequence of photos taken by Chris Buck during an interview with Michael Krugman for Flaunt, titled Cohen on Wry (published in October 2001) shows Leonard Cohen preparing a pastrami sandwich for the photographer and a tomato and cheese sandwich for the photographer’s assistant.

His tuna salad sandwich has been lauded by Sharon Robinson and Leanne Ungar (sound engineer for Ten New Songs). Leonard Cohen and Patrick Leonard bonded over tuna fish sandwiches at a local restaurant. Leonard himself stipulated that “I can make a couple of good sandwiches: tuna salad and chopped egg salad. And Greek bean soup.”

Leonard Cohen & Potent Potables

Finally, these posts indicate the range of Leonard’s liquor and wine cabinet:

 

Credit Due Department: Photo of Leonard Cohen and Roscoe Beck with ice cream cones taken by and used with permission of Rune Johansen. Photo of Leonard Cohen shopping for Cheetos by Bob Faggen. Chili dog photo by bryan… from Taipei, Taiwan – 起士熱狗堡, 皇后美食館, Queens Cuisine, 台北, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Note: Prints of Sharon Robinson‘s photography can be found at the Morrison Hotel Gallery. Her photo collection, On Tour With Leonard Cohen, can be purchased at most online booksellers.
__________________________

  1. From Encountering Cohen: A Reminiscence On The Eve Of A New World Tour by Steve Venright. Mondo Magazine: August 15, 2008 (original interview date: May 1983). [↩]
  2. Q&A: The New Leonard Cohen by Mark Binelli. Rolling Stone: Nov 8, 2001. [↩]

Leave a Reply