The result is both bracingly fresh and a bit unsettling - the sensation of nibbling cold gelatinous flesh off of a pig’s hoof making me glad I didn’t order the cow version - although it’s ultimately not much different than a plate of pork belly.
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In most cases, souse refers to a variant of head cheese, an aspic of skull padding and organ meats pickled with vinegar. Picadillo, throughout Spain and Latin America, points to a swirling of spiced ground meat seasoned with tomatoes and peppers, plus various aromatics and spices. In Panama, as I learned from a recent visit to Crown Heights’ Panamanian Independence Day festival, things are a little different. There, souse instead refers to the other extreme of nose-to-tail eating - pickled feet, usually of the porcine or bovine variety - a denomination which actually applies all over the Caribbean. Historically connected to that other souse, it demonstrates an inventive way to make use of spare parts, via a spicy, citrusy preparation that can now also be prepared with chicken feet or conch. Sharing the vinegary base of the European variety, the one here also comes smothered in quick-pickled cucumbers, ribbons of white onion and rounds of Scotch Bonnet pepper, the entire thing immersed a tincture tinged with lime. Further flavor is provided through the addition of culantro (aka Chadon Beni), cilantro’s brawnier cousin.
The result is both bracingly fresh and a bit unsettling - the sensation of nibbling cold gelatinous flesh off of a pig’s hoof making me glad I didn’t order the cow version - although it’s ultimately not much different than a plate of pork belly.
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As a committed lunatic, I spend an undue amount of time trawling Yelp pages and MenuPages listings, seeking out the strange and the unique amid the torrents of food selfies and vaguely described menu items. Last Thursday, while immersed in a messy spread of browser tabs on local Caribbean restaurants, I stumbled upon what seemed like an ordinary French bakery, clicking through to the listing mostly to keep up my frenzied momentum. Amid the croissants and omelets listed on Richol’s menu I noticed a strange item, simply labeled ‘agoulou,’ which neither I nor any internet content written in English seemed to recognize.
Most bodega signs are cluttered, confusing, clashingly coded pieces of art, defined by a helter-skelter approach to food presentation. This, however, is a work of art, presenting a beautifully united front and getting the message with total directness. Layered neatly beneath a clear horizon line, this smorgasbord of sandwiches stands like a gang of beefy-armed bodyguards, ready to back up the bold 'Best Food in the Neighborhood' claim. One sandwich flows into another, avoiding overlap and crowding. The colors are even matched, the stock food images looking genuinely edible. Bonus points for the stacked layout of chips on the shelves inside, furthering the impression of order while subliminally suggesting a partner for all these hefty sandwiches.
Apologies for leading here with a picture not really related to the topic at hand, but this one all starts with Keith. I’ve been obsessed with Scotch Eggs ever since I witnessed the rotund weirdo (and unquestionable superior to his American counterpart Kevin) munching one during an early episode of the original British version of The Office. The Scotch Egg, as I discovered, is the irresistible combination of an entire breakfast packed into one concentrated ball, an egg jacketed with sausage meat, coated with breadcrumbs and deep fried. Not always appetizing when sold cold next to the sandwiches at a Tesco, but a respectable part of British cuisine nonetheless. They can also be classed up a bit to lighten the load on the arteries, as I learned after baking a batch of these last year, forsaking the oil and coddling the eggs in the skinned insides of some nice Cumberland sausage.
The term Rastafarian invokes a whole lot of cultural associations - primarily reggae, dreads and those baggy tri-colored hats - but ‘natural eating’ likely isn’t one of them. Yet the Ital (pronounced ‘eye-tal’, as in ‘eye-talian’) diet is as important to the traditional Rasta lifestyle as the famous ganja use or Babylon and Zion, its focus on fresh, basic ingredients exemplifying the movement’s back-to-the-land approach. Impressively forward thinking, the group’s original 1930s regimen prized purity over processed ingredients: substituting sea for table salt, fresh produce for canned, eliminating dried, pickled or otherwise preserved foods. This doubled as a rejection of the Western values early proponents saw as corroding traditional Jamaican culture, and jibes with the religion’s separatist bent, heavily inspired by Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African philosophy. Early Rastas sought to slough off the shackles of a colonial system by looking toward role models other than their reviled British overlords, landing most singularly on Ethiopian king Haile Selassie, who became viewed as a quasi-deity. This meant the rejection of imported convenience products and modern chemicals and a renewed focus on the fruits of their own island - fruit, vegetables and fish - while introducing health foods like tofu and soymilk, which in the early days of the movement were produced by Rastas themselves, befitting their interest in rustic self-sufficiency.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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