What exactly is American food?

I love all the Southern food popping up here and, if we ever travel to Atlanta or Dallas or someplace in Tennessee, it'll be grits and gravy with our breakfast and chicken-fried steak and greens for dinner.

Joe( Pass the biscuits, please)Nation

PS: for right now, here in the city, I'm going to see if I can find a decent steak dinner.

Thufferin' Thucotath . . .

One of our "go to" plces to eat is a restaurnt that was opened by Herr Foods (they make potato chips) as a noble experiment in the hospitality industry.
The restaurant is down by the state line to Md in a town called Oxford Pa.
The restaurant specializes in "home cooked fare" , what Id call "Southern Momfood".
We ate there the othjer day and I had a chicken fried steak with lumpy mashed taters and fresh snow peas. It was so great. It was a taste that made me think of the best chicken fried steaks Id ever had. This was right up there.
Also, the HErr company has a huge farm right next to the restaurant where they raise Simmental and ANgus cattle .Imagine a chicken fried steak that was made with angus cuts . It was crisply coated, and covered with a spicy red-eye.

Dessert was fresh sweet potato pie.

Soon time for shad roe wrapped in bacon and fried up like a pig in a blanket. Thats a springtime Easstern SHore meal.

Also, its the season for fried 'arster dinners at the various fire houses on the Delmarva Peninsula. These are always served up with potatoes in cheese (au gratin is too fancy a name) and for dessert , they always serve up big hunks of red velvet cakes and ice cream.

Back in Germany, people tend to identify "American food" with McDonald's. That would mean hamburgers, French Fr---I mean, Freedom Fries, milk shakes, and a Diet Coke to watch the calories. So if your co-worker's real question was, "where can I find a good hamburger here?", I suggest you find him a good diner where he can have one. I know you know some in New York, because you've shown them to me.

If your Chinese friend is curious to actually explore American food, I suggest that you teach him that "American food" is really a patchwork of regional foods. You're in New York, so I suggest you start by taking him to a deli. (Since Chinese people are more likely than us Caucasians to be lactose-intolerant, a nondairy kosher deli may be the safest place to start.)

Moving on from New York cooking, I suggest local food from elsewhere in the US: Tex-Mex, Southern BBQ, Cajun, Caribbean (because much of the food they serve in Florida is basically Caribbean.)

The blurry line between Floridian and Caribbean brings me to all the cooking America's immigrants brought with them. You know their varieties in New York better than I do. I especially like the bastardized ones. For example, while I've never been to Coogan's Irish-Guatemalan place (hint, hint), I love the idea of Coogan's. It's the kind of place you only find in America.

Bastardization leads me to a related point you may not know: Immigrant food tends to self-bastardize. It often differs remarkably from home-country food. For example, German restaurants in America basically preserve the recipes that their first owners brought with them when they immigrated, usually in the 19th century. Accordingly, the food in an American "German restaurant" will likely seem old-fashioned to us modern-day Germans, usually in a good way. With this in mind, your coworker may well be amused if you take him to an outside-of-Chinatown Chinese restaurant. Many of the dishes are likely to surprise him.

And now you know exactly what American food is. This German has been happy to educate you.

So called Tex-Mex is a good idea, that hasn't been canvassed here yet. They have a wonderful cuisine in northern New Mexico, which has many unique dishes. Thirty years ago, there was a restaurant on Rte 84 between Santa Fe and Taos, Ranch de Chimayo. The family had very wisely converted the hacienda into a four star, white table cloth restaurant. If you wanted to be sure you'd be seated, you made reservations--from two weeks to a month in advance. In warm weather, they had outdoor seating in what had been the enclosed garden of the hacienda--reservations from two to three months in advance. Strolling mariachi band, the works.

Then there was a drive up greasy spoon on the Chimayo Road, Mom's. We drove up once, placed our order, and pulled up to the window to pay and wait for our food. The girl in the window must have been 13 or 14, so i decided to talk to her.

Mom's, huh? Who is Mom?

Whatchumean?

I mean, this place is called Mom's, who is Mom?

I don't unnerstand . . . Mom . . . she's my mom. You ain't makin' no sense

Now that's what ya call home cookin'.

Down at the feed store, you can buy dog food in 25, 50 and 100 pound bags. You can also buy pinto beans in 50 and 100 pound bags--that's home cookin', too.

Here's a kind of white bread list of the cuisine of northern New Mexico--a lot of it is standard "Tex-Mex."

It's not what i would call a good list of the dishes common in northern New Mexico, but it'll do for a start.

We used to go down to the Cafe del Arroyo for standard diner fare--but New Mexico style. You order your eggs and bacon, and you get hash browns and biscuits, too--then the waitress asks you "Red or green?" At the end of the meal, she brings everyone sopaipillas with honey.

One of my favorite dishes common to northern New Mexico is flautas.



I can eat me a plate of a dozen of those, no problem.

sopaipillas with honey at every meal in the Tex Mex home cookin tradition.

Not fear, just disgust.

<shudder>

All great yummy answers this morning from Thomas, FM and Set.

Joe(Thanks, [burp] everyone)Nation

Damn . . . now i'm really jonesin' for some sopaipillas and honey . . .

Indeed. I'm going to have to visit the taco truck and see if they have flautas.

Apparently, the are also called taquitos. I'd never heard that in New Mexico, but that's what Wikipedia says, and we all know they are never wrong.

Taquitos is what I grew up calling them in Texas. Either way, they sound extremely good right now.

One of our neighbors makes them from scratch. They are heavenly. I've asked her to let me know the next time she makes them so I can come watch.



In the meantime, here are some recipes--one baking powder version and a yeast version. The baking powder one is more of a savory version while the yeast one is the sweet version.


Sopapillas - New Mexico Sopapillas

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 to 6 tablespoons lard or vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cups warm milk (approximate)
Vegetable Oil (for frying)

Preparation:

In a large bowl, blend together the flour baking powder, and salt.

With a pastry cutter (unless you are one of those, like my teachers, who always used their hands) cut in the lard or shortening.

Add the milk all at once, and mix the dough quickly with a fork or by hand until the dough forms a mass.

Turn the dough onto a well-floured board and begin to knead the dough by folding it in half, pushing it down, and folding again. It should take about a dozen folds to form a soft dough that is no longer sticky.

Cover the dough with a towel or plastic wrap to let it rest for approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

Divide the dough in 1/2, keeping the 1/2 you are not working with covered with plastic wrap or a towel so it does not dry out.

rolling sopapilla dough


Roll the dough half you have chosen on a floured board with gentle strokes. Roll the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. The more you work the dough, the tougher your sopapilla will turn out. However, to keep a sopapilla well puffed after cooking, you may want to work the dough a minute or so longer.

Cut the dough into rectangles that are about 10-inch by 5-inch. Divide the triangle into a 5-inch squares, and then cut this into a triangle. NOTE: If you find the dough beginning to dry as you work with the remainder, cover this loosely with a some plastic wrap.

Do not attempt to reform and roll the leftover dough scraps. They do not roll out well on the second try. You can cook these dough scraps along with the others, and they taste just as good.

Heat some vegetable oil in a large skillet or a deep fryer until the oil reaches about 400 degrees F. NOTE: Check the temperature of the oil with your digital cooking thermometer.

Carefully slide the first sopapilla into the hot oil. Submerge the sopapilla under the oil. It should begin to puff immediately.

NOTE: Sopapillas - They either puff or they don’t puff. Their puff is what makes it a sopapilla - but don’t despair as both can be eaten. If your sopapillas are not puffing properly, the temperature of the oil may need to be increased or decreased. Environmental changes in temperature and altitude can make setting the temperature tricky at times.

Using a slotted spoon, turn the sopapilla over to brown the other side. Sometimes this can be difficult, as the sopapilla will want to stay on the side it was on. A little coaxing with your slotted spatula will help this. Hold it for only a moment, and it will adjust to the side it is on. Once both sides, approximately 2 minutes per side, are browned, remove the sopapilla to a surface to drain (paper towels or a draining rack will both work).

Sopapillas can be kept warm in a 200 degree F. oven for up to 1 hour. They refrigerate well and can be reheated in a 350 degree F. oven for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

Makes approximately 2 dozen Sopapillas.

---------------------------------

Sopapillas with a Side of Honey

Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon of butter, melted
1 tablespoon of sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
vegetable oil
sugar
cinnamon
honey

Method:

Mix the yeast with the warm water and let it sit for five minutes.
Combine the flour and salt.
Add the butter and sugar to the yeast/water mixture and then slowly add to the flour and salt.
Knead for two minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic.
Rise in a covered, greased bowl for one hour or until dough is doubled in size.
After dough has risen, punch it down, and on a floured surface, roll it out into a 1/4-inch thick rectangle.
Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut out 3 inch squares, and then cut squares on the diagonal into triangles.
Heat up three inches of oil in a big pot to 375 degrees.
Fry two triangles of dough at a time in the oil for one minute on each side. The dough should puff when it hits the oil.
Drain, and then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
Serve hot with honey.
Makes about 18 sopapillas.

and low fat too

"and low fat too "


qué...?

They are similar to a beignet except they use water rather than milk and eggs and are sweetened with honey rather than powdered sugar.

I like the yeasty kind. We always add 2T of sugar to just give em ahint of sweetness.
They are so great fresh like puffy donuts. We always roll em out into triangualkr shaped flat pieces that then puff up when deep frying. SO cool.

That and a enchilada pollo {with a fried egg and a big steamed Sandia chile on top}.

<double shudder>

gimme the scrapple and keep that south-western stuff