Saveur Cooks Authentic American - Editors Of Cook's Illustrated Magazine [6]
Miracle Food
Fried foods like latkes have long been favored during the eight days of Hanukkah because oil is considered symbolic of the miracle that is central to the holiday, which commemorates the Jews’ victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 164 b.c. and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem. (According to Jewish scripture, a single day’s worth of oil kept the temple’s sacred lamp lit for eight days.) Every latke lover has strong opinions about the best way to prepare the dish. Some argue for using a food processor to grate the potatoes; others insist on hand-grating them. Most agree that this rich dish calls for a cool condiment—typically, sour cream or applesauce—and many cooks enhance the classic potato version by adding grated celery root, apple, zucchini, beets, or acorn squash to the mix. Others remain purists, making latkes with reasonably starchy potatoes like russet or Yukon Gold and adding matzo meal or bread crumbs, as well as egg, to help hold the pancakes together. Whatever ingredients you use, slowly frying latkes in oil gives them their distinctive crisp-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside character.
—Joan Nathan
Guacamole
Dozens of styles of this classic avocado dip can be found across Mexico, from elegantly smooth versions to chunky, rustic ones like this, in which diced jalapeños and fresh cilantro add bright notes to the creamy avocado. It comes from the New York City restaurant Rosa Mexicano, which in the 1980s popularized the trend of having servers make guacamole tableside in a molcajete, or mortar.
3 tbsp. minced fresh cilantro leaves
2 tbsp. minced white onion
2 tsp. minced jalapeño
1 tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
3 medium-ripe Hass avocados (about 1½ lbs.)
3 tbsp. chopped, seeded tomato Tortilla chips, for serving
Serves 4
1. In a mortar, using a pestle, pulverize 1 tbsp. cilantro, 1 tbsp. onions, jalapeño, and 1 tsp. salt to a paste. (Alternatively, on a cutting board, finely chop and scrape the ingredients into a paste and transfer to a bowl.) Set the onion mixture aside.
2. Cut the avocados in half lengthwise. Twist the halves to separate them, and remove the pits with the tip of the knife. Place an avocado half, cut side up, in your palm and make 3 or 4 evenly spaced lengthwise cuts through its flesh down to the skin, without cutting through the skin. Make 4 crosswise cuts in the same fashion.
3. Scoop the diced avocado flesh into the mortar or bowl. Repeat with the remaining avocados. Gently fold the avocado pieces into the onion paste, keeping the avocado pieces fairly intact.
4. Add the remaining cilantro and onions, along with the tomatoes. Fold together all the ingredients and season with salt. Serve immediately, directly from the mortar (or bowl), with the tortilla chips.
Love Fruit
Today, they’re almost as common as apples, but avocados have not always been an easy sell. In fact, it took more than 50 years of creative marketing to get Americans to embrace them. Growers—and, more important, the advertisers they hired—had to convince consumers that these exotic fruits were fashionable. How did they do it? Like any successful marketer, they hawked status, patriotism, and sex. Taking their lead from the success of the California orange industry, the avocado growers of California formed their own cooperative, in 1924. Initially, Calavo, as the organization came to be called, positioned the avocado as a substitute for meat. By the late 1920s and the 1930s, however, dieting was on the rise and salads were chic. So, Calavo began to attach new catchphrases to its product—“the aristocrat of salad fruits” was a favorite—in advertisements placed in magazines like The New Yorker and Vogue. In 1943, California Farmer, a trade magazine, ran an ad proclaiming that people with victory gardens (which were patriotically