Top 3 Things I Won’t Eat

Why do publications insist on posting stupid lists of obvious things that you should eat for health reasons? Whole fruits, fish, and grains, derp derp! It’s not rocket science, but people love not having to think about their nutritional choices and instead having “experts” tell them what to do.

Eating for health is simple, and it’s ridiculous that people even need Michael Pollan’s “Food Rules” to tell them what to do. If you’re too fucking lazy to read “In Defense of Food,” or even to glance at the cover of the book, which states his motto, then you’re fucked.

Rather than obsessing over which type or nationality of cabbage you’re eating, how about you put some effort into helping out people who don’t get a choice in that regard? Being all twinkly-eyed and acting like “ooooh local fooooods are so good for me AND my local economy!” and paying out the nose for your CSA while people in your city go to bed hungry every night is a pile of crap, and you know it.

You could, maybe, try to work with local farmers or restaurants to redistribute their excess food — and there is always excess food that is wasted nearly every week — to food shelves and soup kitchens in the city. A big reason why they can’t or won’t do it is transport issues, so why not volunteer to take up that load for them? If you’re not holding your farmer accountable for that sort of thing, what the hell kind of “community” are you purporting to be a part of?

The question of culinary ethicality has been plaguing me since I took a turn toward vegetarianism in high school, and it seems to have rarely gotten a thorough philosophical treatment. (I haven’t read “Eating Animals” yet, but I’m planning on it.) At the moment, I believe that it is most important to consider the kind of labor that went into producing your food.

It’s a consideration that is often eschewed as “too ugly” or “too much trouble” to think about. But you know what? Even the most fuzzy wuzzy-looking CSA could have slave-like working conditions for the people who pick your arugula. As a benefactor of that labor, you have a moral obligation to find out.

I’ve been going on for too long, so I’ll save you the near-obligatory explanatory paragraphs. If you’ve gotten this far, it won’t be much effort to find out what’s up!

1. Bananas

2. Floridian tomatoes

3. Coca Cola/Pepsi products

Further viewing: The Ugly Truth Behind Organic Food, Bananas!, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Farm-Fresh Vegetable Tamales

He carries tamales,
And a few maize ears…
And out in the pond,
There is no salamander,
Nor frog nor fish
He would not devour

– Mateo Rosas de Oquendo

This poem, by a 17th Century Spaniard in Mexico, denigrates tamales as the food of the lower class mestizos. I quoted it in a paper that I wrote about the colonial Mexican culinary scene to stir up my professor, who was half-Mexican. The paper was basically like, “Mexican food rocks! Spaniards were assholes!” It seems like all of my papers end up like that.

The fact that tamales are still around despite Spanish efforts to eliminate them from the Mexican diet speaks to how appealing they are. Making them definitely has to be a community event — otherwise, that mountain of corn husks ain’t getting filled any time soon. I found a recipe for the dough at Veggie Num Nums, and improvised the filling. We didn’t really have meat or cheese, so this time the filling is vegan.

Another thing we did differently was the corn husks. Traditionally, you use dried out corn husks, but we had plenty of fresh ones to use. I asked Rick Bayless on Twitter (yes, yes) if that was kosher and he said it’d be fine. They made smaller tamales but the green husks made a pleasant contrast to the yellow tamale dough.

Sitka, one of the kids at the farm where I worked, helped us out. The poor kid might have had swine flu, but he promised that he washed his hands before assembling the tamales. Hahahaha! I’m not sick yet, so I think I should be fine. (Famous last words…)

Tamale Dough (Lifted from Veggie Num Nums)

• 2 cups masa harina
• 1-2 C stock
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 C olive oil, frozen (I didn’t freeze mine and it was fine.)
• salt
• chili powder

I kind of threw everything into a food processor until it got doughy, and that seemed to work fine. Remove to a bowl. That’s all!

Vegetable Filling

• assorted sweet peppers
• onions
• chili powder
• olive oil
• corn

Saute until the peppers and onions become tender. Throw everything into the food processor and chop up. Cut the kernels off of the sweet corn and put aside.

To assemble, spread a tablespoon or more of the dough onto a corn husk. You can use several different methods, which are outlined here. I used the first one because I thought it was the cutest and most simple. Once you fill the husks with dough and filling, steam them for about 20-40 minutes, depending on their size. The dough should firm up quite nicely.

What Dreams Are Made of

Flour, vegetable oil, water and salt. Well, shit.

During her time at Grinnell last semester, my anarchofreegan doom metal friend Emily instituted Tortilla Tuesdays, nights when she would make mounds of tortillas by hand in exchange for attendees’ fixins. Before then, I had never even contemplated making tortillas. It seemed like something that should be left solely to the specialists.

But it’s so simple! It’s like trying really hard to figure out what to get your mother for Christmas and settling for a generic candle that’s she’s kind of OK with when you could have just asked her in the first place. In the end your mother thinks you don’t love her. This is the same thing.

The recipe is so easy that I’m going to write it down from memory right here:

Flour Tortillas

• 2 C flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 C vegetable oil
• 3/4 C boiling water

Combine the first three ingredients in a bowl and mix them together while the water boils. Make an indent in the mixture and pour the water in. Mix it with a spatula for the first 30 seconds or so until it cools down, then use your fingers.

Once it gets to be the consistency of dough, roll it into little balls with a 1-inch diameter. Set them down in a baking tray or something and cover with a cloth for 45 minutes. Once their time is up, roll out each one to your desired thickness and toss ‘em onto a hot skillet. I believe the cooking time is 20 seconds, flip, 10 seconds, flip, 10 seconds and you’re done. [Edit: Actually, Emily corrected me on this one. It's 10/20/10 seconds.]

They come out really nice and chewy, just how I like them. And you can top them with pretty much whatever — Emily likes them with peanut butter and jelly, or you can go for more Mexican-inspired things.

This guy over here has homemade refried beans, guacamole and salsa. Fuck yeaaaahhhh these are so good when you’re drunk!