Testing your culinary knowledge

How many of these dishes or ingredients can you properly identify without doing an internet search: japchae, bigos, pernil, beef suya, channa masala, brodo, branzino, goetta. Pavbhaji. This is a brief list I’ve compiled from reading various recipe sources, principally Sam Sifton’s New York Times cooking column which comes four times a week, and which I eagerly anticipate. The list would be longer, but sometimes I can’t read my own handwriting. These are dishes that come from India, Africa, Asia, Central Europe, and Latin America—and none are common on American tables.

I’m all for culinary diversity, and I love experimenting—tonight’s menu at my house, to welcome a daughter and grandson, will be Indian-ish Nachos. Can’t get more diversified than that. But at the same time, I am coming to believe that American cooking is being left behind in a rush to embrace other cultures. Okay, I admit I am not a fan of tofu, nor do I like quinoa. I am not about to eat a seaweed salad, and I am leery of squid. But I will eat liver and onions or raw oysters and as a child I liked fried lamb kidneys. My local son-in-law thinks I eat a lot of weird things, but I also love casseroles and kitchen-sink soups.

James Beard fought this battle in the sixties and seventies, becoming the great advocate for American food, in spite of his admiration and affection for French ways. Beard studied recipes from ladies aid societies, missionary and hospital volunteer groups, women’s exchanges, even the legacy of immigrants, and he came to embrace such dishes as chowder, fried chicken, creamed chicken a la king, chili con queso, and stuffed oysters. He translated French traditions, such as mousse be it salmon or chocolate, into dishes that the home cook could duplicate. A child of the Pacific Northwest, he championed regional American cooking.

Beard never went so far as to embrace canned soups, that staple of American casseroles, but he did acknowledge the occasional usefulness of mixes and frozen foods. Periodically it’s fashionable to decry canned soups, especially for their high sodium. I have seen elaborate directions for making your own version of, say, cream of celery soup—complicated and not different enough to warrant the trouble. Even Joanna Gaines used Campbell’s cream of chicken in her chicken enchiladas--I recently found the recipe.

American cooking, even recipes that call for canned soups, interests me more these days, so here are two family favorites. One uses that non-food that true chefs detest, Velveeta, and the other, something I would ordinarily avoid—Minute Rice.

Louella’s rice

            With thanks to lifelong friend Barbara Bucknell Ashcraft, who got this from her stepmother—yep, Louella.

1 cup Minute Rice

1 cup shredded cheddar

1 can Campbell’s cream of celery soup

1 cup sour cream

1 4 oz. can chopped green chillies

            Mix and bake at 350^o for 35-40 minutes.

Colin’s queso

In honor of my oldest son who loves this stuff.

1 lb. hamburger

1 lb. sausage (you choose hot, medium, or mild)

1 lb. Velveeta

1 can mushroom soup

1 8 oz. jar Pace picante sauce (again, you choose hot, medium, or  mild)

Brown hamburger and sausage, breaking up the chunks of meat until it is all crumbly. Drain and put in the crockpot. Add Velveeta, cut in chunks, and melt. Add  mushroom soup and picante sauce (really works best if you use Pace).

Serve with tortilla chips. I used to put chips in a soup bowl, spoon the dip over t, and tell the kids it was supper. They loved it.