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Are there limits to fusion cuisine?
By adamg on Thu, 03/05/2020 - 2:06pm
Anna's Taqueria is offering corned-beef and cabbage burritos. Some people are not enamored.
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Comments
seasonal
Don't they do that every St. Patrick's Day? I seem to remember it happening before.
Yep
I've had it before. It's okay but they usually go way too heavy on the mustard. They treat it like their sour cream or salsa on a normal burrito.
That sounds delicious
Maybe I can ask for the mustard and hold the corn beef.
They've had this for years
They're...fine? I mean it's just corned beef and cabbage in a wrap instead of on bread, I don't know why that's so objectionable to people.
Because if you call it a
Because if you call it a burrito the masses who can't peel their eyes off their iphones long enough to see what they are getting in said burrito and shocked at what they bite into...
Sounds ok
But not as good as the corned beef egg roll I once had.
KTSE
As much as Mexican food has been appropriated and tweaked for other cultures' enjoyment, let's let them celebrate St. Patty's day and pay homage to our Irish bros and floes
With all due respect, it's St
With all due respect, it's St. Paddy's not St. Patty's.
St. Patty's Day
August 25th.
Sound yummy to me.
Sound yummy to me.
If you're going to present yourself as an Official Guardian of
the Burrito Canon, I'm going to have to see some sort of badge or other credential.
Ya don't like the idea, don't eat it, but find something else to be a pedant about. I wouldn't put ketchup on a hot dog, myself, but how about you do you and I'll do me, okay, Professor?
(Sure, if I spot you cruising into the Park Plaza P.F. Chang's when there are dozens of great traditional Chinese joints at one-fifth the cost right around the corner, I will silently judge you as a rube and a philistine. But only silently.)
I agree with you in principle
A chacun son gout as they say in France... “to everyone his or her own taste.”
But there are certain lines that must never be crossed. For example, serving some tomato-laden stuff and calling it “chowder” warrants the assembling of a mob and the distribution of torches and pitchforks.
Thats a traditional Long
Thats a traditional Long Island (NY) clam chowder.
Manhattan clam chowder is not good, I agree. But
the Manhattan is a much superior cocktail to Boston’s eponymous and roughly contemporaneous Ward 8. (I still have a Ward 8 every time I vote, as that’s where I live. More often have Manhattans, with the original rye whiskey.)
What's in a Ward 8?
n/t
Ward 8
A little sweet for me but I've had some good variations that replace some of the orange juice with something like Campari to give it a bit more bitterness.
It's not the burrito
It's the taqueria for me that kills it. People rave about Anna's but I think they're below average and go for El Pelon when I need my burrito fix.
As a California native
it's my responsibility to come here and say that all burritos in Boston are bad. Point me to a decent taqueria so I can add another place to my list of places to complain about.
I have some favorite taquerias, most of which
have Mexican ex-pat owners and chefs, but I don't particularly care for burritos.
Just for tacos: Taqueria El Amigo (Waltham), La Victoria (Arlington), Rincon Mexicano (Somerville), Taqueria Jalisco (Eastie), and Angela's Cafe (two Eastie locations).
Our Mexican immigrant population is pretty small. More and better options for Puerto Rican, Dominican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Colombian, and Brazilian food here.
Your opinions on
Los Amigos Taqueria in Coolidge Corner?
Or
Maria's Taqueria on Tremont?
Have not been
to Los Amigos. I reviewed Maria’s way back in 2009 when it was new and I had the Cheap Eats beat for the Boston Phoenix, maybe my favorite gig as a critic — more freedom to roam all over Greater Boston. The great lower end of our dining scene never gets enough coverage.
(That gig was so long ago that taking phone pics of my meal made one owner come out and nervously approach me. He thought I might be a health inspector. I said no, just taking pictures to remember what I eat: all good, relief! Now it’s bad if you’re not taking pictures.
It used to bother me, going back to a place I’d raved about and not seeing the review tacked up somewhere. Then it dawned on me: they don’t read my paper, probably were bewildered by that month-long influx of white people ordering the same seven dishes.)
I remember liking Maria’s, maybe said something like, “your best post-club one-a.m. dining option outside of Chinatown”, maybe praised them for two tortilllas per taco — something I used to be militantly in favor of but have since softened on. But I haven’t been back in years.
Cool
Thanks!
California Cuisine
Your comment is appropriate, as the burrito properly belongs to California Cuisine, not Mexican.
Hey dude
Don't @ me. I just think that corned beef is a horrible thing to do to a brisket.
(and don't start with pastrami because THAT IS DIFFERENT DAMMIT)
Magoo sez
Gagamaggot. Magoo.
I wouldn't eat it... But
I wouldn't eat it... But mostly because I don't like any of the ingredients or burritos lol.
I honestly don't see the issue though. If you didn't say it was what it was would it really stand out? It's not like they are pulling a KFC and serving chicken with a donut bun...
Sounds potentially good.
Sounds potentially good.
Not my favorite
Pandering to the Irish ? I can't imagine the flavors in a burrito ..
Come on over to Roxbury Crossing, we have Nachlo, a Pakistani / Mexican restaurant, it's pretty damn good too.
Good to know about Nachlo; I’d missed
that one! Allston has a couple of Mexican / Korean joints I kinda like.
Never understood
I just don't get why the world ruins perfectly good corned beef by pairing it with disgusting cabbage.
[Slight tangent: Why do we write "corned beef" when EVERYONE says "corn beef"? ]
Studied some linguistics once
The anatomy of the mouth makes it very difficult to pronounce “corn beef” and “corned beef” differently from each other without an exaggerated pause, because in between ending the “n” and starting the “b” the tongue kind of passes through “d” whether you are trying to say it or not.
See also, “mash potatoes”
It's called corned beef because the beef has
been corned, i.e., wet-cured, so-called because the brine was once made from large-grained salt called corns.
I bought me some Prague Powder #1 (a/k/a/ pink salt) and pickling spices and corned a big brisket at home a couple of years ago. The results were pretty great! I should do that again this year.
Are you me?
I was just thinking I should do the same a few days ago when I found my pink salt and juniper berries from the last time I brined my own brisket too.
You used to be able to go to
You used to be able to go to the market, pick out a piece of meat , the butcher would drop it in the brine, and a week later there you go. Probably cant do that anymore.
I've cured my own corned beef
I've cured my own corned beef for years. It's really good. You can buy the spices at Penzeys, and you just basically add salt, brown sugar and water (and Prague Powder if you want it to stay pink). I use Alton Brown's recipe and just substitute the Penzey's spice combination for whatever he recommends (they're pretty similar IIRC).
Once you've turned brisket into corned beef, you can also rub it with black pepper and coriander and smoke it to get pastrami.
corned=salted
The etymology of corned beef is from corn's meaning of a small nugget (as in peppercorn) and it was also once applied to the more typical coarse salt of the day. Since it's a past tense verb it is essentially the same as saying "salted beef" so "corned beef" would be appropriate regardless of how people pronounce it.
As a trivia side note it was usually corned pork that was eaten back in Ireland. In old immigrant NYC the Jewish owned markets obviously didn't sell pork so corned beef became more common in the Irish immigrant community there and has since become the standard.
Yes, the traditional cut of pork used for corning
in Ireland is the back loin, which cured is what the British Isles call bacon and we call back bacon or Canadian bacon. (Our belly bacon is their streaky bacon.) "Bacon and cabbage" is a common name for the dish.
Like California rolls in Japan, Irish pubs catering to American tourists now feature corned beef.
Um,
"conbeef"'
Thanks for the education
So much good info in this thread and a good chuckle at the end!
Corned beef on St Patrick's
Corned beef on St Patrick's Day is itself a fusion cuisine. It's a Jewish food that was picked up by the neighboring Irish community in NYC.
Corned pork
I think more accurately is that corned pork was a traditional Irish dish but since the Irish in NYC went to Jewish butchers they couldn't get pork so would salt beef instead.
should
drop it into a deep fryer for better measure and serve it at Guy Fieri's new joint.
Are there limits? No, but it’s always about execution.
In my estimation, Anna’s Taqueria already doesn’t produce a satisfying meal in the taqueria canon. Furthermore, I feel they are largely responsible for Boston’s reputation for mediocrity in this area.
So if they can’t nail the basics, why would I want to try their fusion?
Anna's is good. I've eaten
Anna's is good. I've eaten plenty of burritos in California, some better and some worse. Boston has a reputation for many things, not all of it warranted by current facts on the ground; Anna's is better than the best burrito you can get in large swaths of the country. New York and Chicago aren't known for their burritos, either.
Whatever makes you happy.
Seriously, who cares?
Agressive apathy
I swear that there is an agressively apathetic supervillian somewhere who has created a swarm of evil robots that wander the Internet, interjecting "who cares?" into every conversation. When I achieve supervillain/hero status myself (I know it's coming soon, I'm just not sure which it will be), I'm going to unleash my own swarm, which will track down all these comments and delete them