FESTIVAL AMERICANA
Make American-style food great again with an easy-to-prepare spice mix
In the mid-1980s I lived in New York’s Brooklyn, in a divey apartment in what was then a very rough neighbourhood. Brooklyn is seriously gentrified these days but back then you had to climb over various passedout bodies on the pavement to get through the gate, and the bunch of prostitutes who hung out across the other side of the street used to try to solicit me.
It was, however, that particular moment of time in the United States that heralded the arrival of the celebrity chef. Manhattan’s new temples to gastronomy offered up sumptuous menus with price tags that would empty a seriously endowed pocket as fast as you can say “may I have the bill please”.
Occasionally I got to experience this when a rich “maybe beau” would pick me up with his driver in the limo and wine and dine me at the iconic Tavern on the Green in Central Park. The rest of the time I was living on the smell of an oily rag, subsisting largely on whatever cheap produce the farmers’ markets had on offer, like leeks, potatoes and pumpkin.
Around the corner you could get a damn fine slice of pizza for 70c, which I would occasionally splurge out on. Tex-mex food was another option, tasty plates of nachos, tacos, quesadillas and fajitas dished up for small change. Paul Prudhomme, the super-sized chef who put Cajun and Creole food into the mainstream with his blackened redfish, published his first cookbook, Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen (1984). I purchased this book while I was there and brought it back with me. Prudhomme’s food was far more down-to-earth and rustic than most of the lofty food produced by other “celebrity chefs” at that time. He passed away in 2015 but his famous “magic” seasoning mixes live on and have sprouted a multitude of lookalike versions.
July 4 is upon us and with it, a chance to celebrate American cooking. Here are some everyday dishes that draw on a simple-toprepare smoky spice mix that I can guarantee will become a champion in your pantry.