Simple Foods for Simple Dudes

Making some decisions about how to cook

(*author’s note: I use “Dudes” here — referring with honor to people of every stripe: women, men, gender nonconforming individuals, all religions, creeds, national origins and ethnic affiliations and heredities, LGBTQIA+ and cisgender folks, grown-ups and strangely clever kids, folks of every varying degree of any ability, etc. — much in the way I might say to my delicate and powerfully, quietly strong mother, “Dude, did you see how fast that bird was flying?” because it rhymes well with “foods” and gets across the point of what I hope you are about to read. Consider it a working title.)

Don’t you miss the days when everything just seemed simple? And I’m legitimately not old enough to be even nearing the corner of Curmudgeon. When I think of American food culture — I think of two eras. BFN (Before Food Network) and AFN. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Food Network, and we need it. It’s fun and valuable and when I’ve had the honor to appear on it I’ve loved every minute of it. And I want to be on it again.

The point of this demarcation as it relates to simplicity is less about FN than it is about content and its place in our elaborately unfolding food culture. Think of those few BFN-Era stars — Julia and Jacques come particularly to mind, as would Jeff S**th if he weren’t the first food celeb to be officially canceled, and other venerable if lower-flying talents like Daisy Martinez (although flying a bit higher now, in the TV world) and Lidia Bastianich (who also, incidentally, is flying quite high in real life, probably too high for you and me to see). These are talented folks, indubitably, but what made it simple was content. There wasn’t any, really. When I grew up, there were 5 channels on a clear day and we never lacked something to watch. Now, if it’s an eating-on-the-couch night, my dinner gets cold if I don’t have a plan of attack for dinnertime Netflix that’s pretty much laid out before my meat is even salted (2 days before!).

The rise in content corresponds with a rise in technology: we can find out about the 92 million foods we “should” (follow me for a later essay on why I hate this word) make, and we can get ingredients for them. For our grandmothers, many of them, lemons were an exotic luxury. Now we can not only find out HOW to use makrut lime leaves, we can also get them and try it.

In this glut of knowledge, content, and availability, how’s a dude (see *author’s note) to choose?

To quote a famous drag queen and not-yet-quite-friend of mine, I’ve… made some decisions. These decisions are helping me form a codex of my own. I’m not going to go too far out on a limb (unless this piece turns out to be more epic than expected and goes REALLY well) and say “my voice in food” because that presumes that anyone wants to hear my voice in food or in anything; rather, a set of paradigms and ideas / ideals that help me understand the food I make and eat and serve and share, and that help me decide how to go about these very pleasurable processes.

Decision #1: “Good” > “Authentic”

Take a spin on the old Google. Search for “mole recipe” — and for “lebkuchen recipe” — and for “chicken paprikash recipe” (or for any of about 2 million others) — and you’ll see a schmear of this word “authentic” popping up both in the search results as well as in additional suggested searches. It’s clear we’re pretty obsessed with “getting it right” and that we’ve decided that “authentic” means the same thing.

Another development in the modern, AFN Era, concomitant with content, is a whole new system of semantics. For anyone who grew up or came of age in the 70s or 80s — do you remember when “gourmet” meant fancy, special, rich, good? Now there’s a small bodega around the corner from my apartment called something like “Uptown Gourmet Deli” that sells basically cigars and potato chips, so I’m not sure it means that anymore. Then there was “artisan” — look, I’ll eat as many dozens of those delightful Pirouline cookies as the next guy at any holiday party — but the title “Artisan Rolled Wafers” seems dubious to me. (The tin has lately been changed to “Creme Filled Wafers.”) Did we really think there were a bunch of elder people practicing the craft handed down from their forebears and masters, in making these addictive and perfect holiday treats? “Artisan,” I think, had become the new “Gourmet.” That seems now to have been replaced by “Craft,” although that may have gone as quickly as it came.

I would like to postulate that all of these terms, and myriad others, are meant to convey “it’s really, really good.” I guarantee you (and if you need me to make good on this, go ahead and propose a research trip to rural Hungary and we will find out together in a very fun and memorable way whether I am correct): You can love chicken paprikash and visit a small village in Hungary where 7 different grandmothers are making it weekly the way their 14 different grandmothers taught them and using local ingredients that are seasonally appropriate — unassailably authentic — and not only taste seven very different versions of the same, authentic thing, but also find a version you really, really don’t like.

Let that one be authentic. Let authentic have it. Bring me the GOOD one.

To make myself clear, which I admit I need to do sometimes, due to my rhetoric and copious (though hopefully correct) use of punctuation: I believe that authenticity in food, in all our traditions, is extremely important. I also believe that if I expect to make a tortilla that I have the daring to consider truly, deeply “authentic,” I’d better have an idea of WHY that food came to be in Aztec culture, how to nixtamalize corn, and the rigors of an apprenticeship as a young person in any particular village or town or city learns over years to make an authentic tortilla. Can I expect to reduce that history and skill-building to a quick internet search, trying to find perfect “authentic” recipe? Probably not. Can I make a GOOD one, though? Well… why not?

Decision #1, then, as I make food and grow, and exercise whatever voice I have, is that I will not allow my perception of what is “authentic” to drive my decisionmaking in the kitchen. I will learn all I can about the origin of a dish if I wish to truly understand it or call it by its proper name (just wait until I’m on about Snickerdoodles); and endeavor to honor its traditions and essence. And I will then proceed to focus on making “good,” pleasing, nourishing, whole, simple food that people (I, chiefly) will like to eat. This accomplishes two things. For one, it allows me to avoid the presumption that I can understand and recreate with any degree of accuracy a dish with a storied history involving struggle and necessity and honor and generations of tradition, or that my version is as authentic as your Hungarian grandmother’s. But that’s just bluster. Much more importantly, it turns my focus to the food and to the ingredients at hand, and lets my priority be using them to their best effect, and to making food that is GOOD.

To wit: If you were committed one day to making what you’d decided would be an authentic chicken paprikash, and when you were at the market the only chicken left was on “Manager’s Special” (i.e. 15 minutes before its final-final expiration time), but there were glistening, plump, fresh turkey thighs promising turgid and exquisite succulence sitting just to their left… how committed are you now, to “authentic?” Don’t call me unless you’re having turkey.

Recipe #1: “Really, really, good guacamole”

I usually plan on one avocado per person, plus one extra for every 4 or 5 people total. This makes way too much guacamole per person but you’ll indulge. Also you can squeeze lime over the leftovers, cover closely with plastic, and have the next day. I plan on 1 lime for every 2 avocados.

Ingredients, ish:

• Chiles, dried: 1–2 (I love morita; chipotles are fine too, as are guajillo, ancho, pasilla, etc.; use just 1 if using larger chiles like ancho)
• Onion: 1 medium
• Garlic-2 cloves
• Actually Ripe Tomato, medium: 1
• Serrano, or Jalapeño, or whatever fresh chiles you like: 2
• S&P: abundantly to taste
• Lime: 2
• Perfectly Ripe Avocado: 4
• Cilantro: a bunch (taken either as the supermarket unit of measure or the general meaning)

Instructions, ish:

1. Think of this more as a shopping list.
2. Rehydrate your dried chiles with some water just off the boil. Let them sit, submerged, for about 30 minutes. (I like to cover them with water in a glass measuring cup and then use a slightly smaller glass measuring cup to keep them submerged. I also occasionally like to toss in a touch of “authenticity” and dissolve some piloncillo in the water first.)
3. Mince onion and garlic to your liking, followed by tomato and serrano (including or leaving out seeds of either or both as you like); mince the chile quite fine. Add each ingredient to a bowl as you mince it.
4. Drain the rehydrated chiles and discard any pulp and seeds. Mince fine and add to the bowl.
5. Season well, and squeeze the juice of one lime over the mixture. Mix, and let the mixture marinate a bit so the flavors mingle.
6. When ready, scoop the avocado flesh into the bowls. Add the juice of half the remaining lime, and mash to the texture of your liking with a potato masher. (You could also leave one or two avocados out, mash the heck out of what’s in the bowl, and then add the remaining avocado and mash it more gently, leaving it in larger chunks.)
7. CHECK THE SEASONING! Adjust acid, salt, pepper, spice to your liking.
8. Place in a serving bowl, make it look nice, and squeeze the juice of half a lime over the top.

TIPS

• The addition of rehydrated dried chiles will give this a much deeper, complex, and improved flavor; it will also darken it slightly so you may need to assure your guests that it’s not oxidized or old, just that it has some brown-er ingredients. If they don’t like it, invite different people.
• 99% of your guacamole game is going to be doing one of two things: 1) Buying perfectly ripe (and always Haas / dark, bumpy, green-to-black skin) avocados, or 2) Buying hard-as-rocks avocados (still Haas) and waiting for them to ripen perfectly (they will), and making the guacamole at that instant. Hold the avocado in your palm and press securely with your thumb. If it doesn’t yield, keep looking. If your thumb breaks the skin, forget it. It should yield and feel like the inside is soft and smooth, but it should not feel like a small bag of goo.
• Finely chopped pepitas (green pumpkin seeds) make a super nice — and, fine, you asked for it, authentic — addition.
• I sometimes pinch in a whiff of cumin and / or oregano… but now that I’m out of the ones I was lucky enough to pick up at Mercado Medellin in Mexico City, I’ll probably hold off.