When it comes to high cuisine, I’m still a rank amateur. I’m not formally trained, but in my self-teaching, I try to follow and absorb the traditions of classic French techniques, especially when it comes to sauces. I follow Peterson, Larousse Gastronomique, the CIA textbook, McGee, and many others, mainly to learn a classic base. Then, I attempt Keller and Bourdain and Colicchio and Ripert to see how classically trained chefs take a traditional technique or recipe, then put their own spin on it. Many of our posts on FotoCuisine have been French culinary standards, like steak and béarnaise with fried potato and braised beef short ribs. Many have also been my groping attempts to take a traditional technique (classic for a reason — it works), and throw something weird into it to see if it still holds up.
In the last six months or so, I’ve realized I am developing something of a personal style, though I still feel I’m a scrambling amateur most of the time. I like to use a technique from a particular region on the globe, then use an ingredient or a technique from another. It’s sort of a fusion style, except fusion has a history of Asian/Californian/American cuisine, and I’m just as likely to avoid Asian and use New Mexican and New England mixed with African and northern European.
With today’s local farming trend, global cuisine may not necessarily be PC. The carbon footprint of Maine lobster with a New Mexico chile cream sauce is probably a little more decadent than the blue crab bisque I made from crabs I caught in my own backyard. But, if I have any motto in life, it is: “Everything in moderation…especially moderation.”
Maine lobster or Hawaiian yellowfin or Alaskan salmon or Prince Edwards oysters are not weekly dinners here at FotoCuisine HQ, while Florida shrimp or fish or local(ish) chicken are. However, as a once-in-a-while thing, I personally don’t see a problem with shipping in food from the far corner of the globe. I think there is a real need to be conscious about carbon and humane treatment of food (sustainability is also a serious concern, but I’m not going to get into that in this post). However, I feel that there’s also a counter-balance to concerns about the environmental costs of shipping, and that balance is the emotional value that any culture gets by experiencing another culture in any way possible.
One of the bonus spin-offs of globalization is that we can experience ingredients and techniques of cuisines that anyone a century ago would never have experienced in a lifetime, and we can do that from a supermarket, ordering from the Internet, or from a local restaurant. We don’t need to do it every day, but any exposure to another culture, from distant travel to a sauce over the chicken on your plate, can only expand one’s experience in life.
I’m getting way too philosophical for this very peasant dish, though. I like Southwestern American cuisine, and I am from northern European ancestry. Every cooking member of my family has their own version of a stroganoff or goulash, based on their ancestry from regions of Poland, Latvia, Russia, or whatever countries used to exist, but have been redefined by a century of warfare. But, I think there’s a similar concept of technique (though not ingredients) between what is popularly called Tex-Mex here in The States, mixed with a vast melting pot of northern Europe.
So, I made a Tex-Mex goulash, from flatiron steak strips, mushrooms, onions, red jalapenos I grew in my yard, and a lot of regional spices and ingredients. I served it in a nest of fried corn tortilla strips, topped with some scallions.
Here’s how it goes….
