Cooking For Joy
Food Identity Should Be Fluid
Now is not the time for rigid cuisine roles
One of the most useful things to remember when cooking almost exclusively from what you already have in your pantry and fridge is that food identity should be fluid. Yes, I realize that sounds like nonsense; here’s what I mean:
For the purposes of the home cook (especially when we’re actually stuck at home), pasta doesn’t need to be Italian food, stir-fries don’t need to be Chinese food, a taco doesn’t need to be Mexican food, and so on. You already know this intuitively, but think about it. There’s nothing inherent in the taste of spaghetti (flour and water) that says the only suitable things to put on top of it are tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. Cooking things quickly in a blazing hot wok or skillet is not a process that requires soy sauce or ginger. You know what tastes good inside a freshly griddled corn tortilla? Literally anything!
The conventions and expectations around what ingredients are “supposed” to go together are mostly counterproductive to people trying to pull together dinner from whatever they have on hand. Now more than ever, the only rule that we should be following in the kitchen is to make something that tastes good, nourishes, comforts, and brings us some joy. In that spirit, here’s last night’s…
