Flavors of Cachaça
Cachaça, like most spirits, can run through a range of flavors, depending on how it’s manufactured and aged. Industrial cachaças are rough, chemical-tasting, and sometimes even oily. Smaller-batch unaged cachaças often tasty grassy or funky, like a rhum agricole or a bianco tequila. Aged cachaças take on flavor notes from their barrels, and can taste like Christmas spices, baked or dried fruits, coffee, and/or grass (in a good way).
So now that we know what cachaça is, we can start to discuss whether it’s rum or not rum. The Brazilian government says it’s not rum—to understand why, think of the word protectionism. Cachaça and the caipirinha cocktail have both risen dramatically in global popularity over the last 10 years, causing sugarcane producers in the Caribbean and in Central and South America to produce and market cachaça-like products. Lately, though, artisanal cachaças are increasingly available. These products are made by hand and sometimes crafted in pot stills. They are smooth, rich, and full of complex flavors.

The Cream
Plain whipped cream, lightly sweetened, makes for a great classic pavlova. But I’ve found plates get cleaned a lot faster if you get a little slutty with your dairy. Here are some template recipes for cinnamon, maple, almond creams, and more. But my favorite chocolate cream for pavlova is dead-simple: a quarter to half cup of good Dutch processed cocoa dissolved in two cups liquid cream, then whisked into a light, airy faux ganache. Alcohol works nicely in whipped cream as well.

If you’ve thought ahead and have some lead time, consider cold-steeping herbs like mint or rosemary in your cream overnight, then remove the herbs and whip the cream the next day. Finely grated citrus zest can go in the cream last-minute, as can most spices. Also consider adding other dairy into your cream: sour cream, crème fraîche, ricotta, and mascarpone are all nice.

I’ve found regular sugar, as opposed to superfine sugar, works well on its own, and for a six egg white pavlova, two cups of heavy cream for whipping plenty.

Ready to pavlova? First read this excellent tutorial on beating egg whites, then see below for tips on making the most of your pavlova layers.

Quick! You have 20 people coming over for food and drink tonight and you’ve forgotten about dessert.

You want to bake, you over-achiever you, and none of this cookie or brownie business. That’s for bake sales and office parties. You want a showstopper.

Can I suggest pavlova? I have a few reasons why:

Plenty of people have no idea what it is. You’ll look like a pastry badass.
It scales easily, and is economical enough to make for a crowd.
It’s endlessly customizable.
It’s ridiculously easy to make, and doesn’t require much active attention.
Seriously, if you can turn on an electric mixer and have access to decent fruit, you can make a great pavlova. But in case condition one above applies to you, here’s the story: Pavlova is a cream-topped meringue dessert of Aussie or New Zealand extraction, allegedly named for the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova whose grace and beauty were apparently best captured in a pillow of egg white and cream. In the dessert’s motherland(s), strawberry-kiwi and/or passionfruit are the most common fruity additions; in the West, berries tend to take center stage.

Divide the meringue between the pans and smooth the tops. Sprinkle sliced almonds on top. Bake until the color of the meringues is light beige and the top feels crisp, but the center is still soft, 50 to 60 minutes. Transfer pans to wire rack to cool completely.

While meringues are cooling, toss strawberries with 1 tablespoon sugar. Using mixer fitted with whip attachment, whip cream with remaining tablespoon sugar and remaining teaspoon vanilla on medium speed to soft peak. Keep chilled until ready to assemble.

Run knife along inside edge of pans and carefully invert meringues onto plates. Place one meringue on serving plate, top side up. Spread half of strawberries with juice onto meringue and top with half of the whipped cream.

Place second meringue on top, top with cream, and then strawberries. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve immediately.

Special equipment
two 9-inch cake pans, mixer

Soft layers of meringue sprinkled with crunchy almonds and filled with billows of cream and juicy fresh strawberries.

Notes:Assemble just before serving for best results.
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
2 tablespoons cornstarch
6 large egg whites
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Pinch salt
4 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
1/2 cup (2 ounces) ground almonds
1/2 cup (1 1/2 ounces) sliced almonds
2 pints strawberries, washed, sliced
1 pint heavy cream
Confectioners’ sugar to dust cake

Directions
Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 285°F. Grease and sugar the sides of two 9-inch cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper.

In small bowl, whisk 1 1/2 cups sugar with cornstarch; set aside. Place egg whites in a clean, dry, bowl of standing mixer fitted with whip attachment. Beat on medium speed until frothy. Add cream of tartar and salt. Increase speed to medium high and beat to soft peak.

With mixer running, slowly add sugar/cornstarch mixture. Continue to beat to stiff peak, 3 to 5 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add vanilla. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in ground almonds with rubber spatula.

Though the spelling varied from establishment to establishment and publication to publication, it’s undeniable that a new form of cured beef suddenly appeared on the American market in the late 1890s, and it did so all across the country. On March 14, 1899—in the same year that Sussman Volk’s provisions shop first appears in a New York City directory—Stein’s Grocery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, advertised a list of “Delicacies Received” that included “smoked roulade, smoked breast, knockwurst, pastroma, goose liver sausage” and other products. Just a few days later, on the opposite side of the country, Flourny’s, a grocery store in Macon, Georgia, advertised a lengthy list of items that began with “[s]moked salmon, hard salami, smoked breast, pastroma, bologna.” To write about chili is to court controversy; few subjects in American culinary life are so contentious. Chili is for Americans what paella is for Spaniards, or Bolognese is for Italians. It seems like everyone knows exactly what they think chili should be, and everyone knows that everyone else is wrong.

What people are generally referring to when they say the word “chili” is chili con carne, a dish made by stewing red meat (either ground, chopped, or left in discrete chunks) in a chili-pepper-based sauce that almost invariably contains cumin.

The text of the bill offers other rather convincing arguments as well. Inhofe, who now represents his state in the US Senate, cannot claim credit for this idea; similar joint resolutions had been introduced by other members of Congress in the previous seven years. Representative Manuel Lujan Jr. of New Mexico unsuccessfully introduced several bills in the 1980s to name not only chili, but also “chile,” the country’s official food. In 1988, Representative J. J. Pickle of Texas introduced legislation of his own, calling for “chili without beans” to be labeled the official food of the United States, a bold yet ultimately futile move to impose upon a nation Texas’s preferred chili-and-meat stew.

I’ve not been able to track down Gombright or Gambrecht, but the other two producers named above were large, well-established houses. Moses Zimmerman, a German Jewish immigrant, opened a butcher shop on Houston Street in New York City in the 1870s. By the 1890s, he had a three-story factory that occupied almost an entire block of Houston Street; later, he added production facilities in Philadelphia and Boston. Pastirma was just one of the many items in the portfolio of a firm that advertised itself as “Manufacturers and Dealers in The Celebrated Vienna Bolognas, Sausages, Salamis, Cervelat, etc. Packers of Tongue, Smoked and Pickled Beef.”

Chicago’s David Berg & Co. was a major operation, too, and, like Zimmerman, Berg was a German Jewish immigrant who founded his business just after the Civil War. Billing himself as a purveyor of “kosher meats and sausages,” Berg offered a line at the turn of the 20th century that included bologna, frankfurters, fresh and hard salami, paprika speck, goose fat, smoked beef, and—most relevant to us—what the firm tended to spell as “pastromer.” David Berg & Co. changed hands several times over the course of the century before Chicago competitor Vienna Beef bought it in the 1990s. Its brand of hot dogs and Polish sausages, long a staple at Wrigley Field, is still on the market today.

On May 4, 1897, Louisa Luetgert, the wife of the well-known Chicago sausage dealer Adolph Louis Luetgert, was reported missing. Police began to suspect the sausage-maker himself, and when they searched his factory, they found the following items in the sediment at the bottom of a large sausage vat: a tooth, two corset steels, and two gold rings, one of them engraved with the initials “L. L.” On May 17, Adolph Luetgert was arrested and charged with murder, accused of killing his wife and dissolving her body in lye.

The case became a national sensation, splashed on the front pages of newspapers across the country, and the lurid details of the crime and Luetgert’s pending trial captured the morbid public imagination throughout the summer. On August 6, the Topeka State Journal reported that sausage-makers in Chicago were beside themselves with fury over the case, and not because they sympathized with their fellow craftsman Luetgert.

“The sausagemakers declare,” the State Journal reported, “that when the first alleged discovery of the residuum of Mrs. Luetgert was made public, the appetite for sausage fell off to an extent that nearly bankrupted them. The butchers, their customers, they assert, would make purchases of pastroma, or pepper roulade of beef, but would shake their heads darkly when sausage was mentioned.”

Notices of this sort started showing up in Richmond, Virginia, in May of 1899, and in New Orleans in 1900, many of them in advertisements for Jewish grocers or for department stores that maintained delicatessen sections. Within a few years, a similar slate of sausages, cured meats, and cheese was being sold in dozens of cities throughout the country, including Des Moines; Omaha; Denver; Paducah, Kentucky; and Charlotte. Notably absent from this list are any cities in the state of Texas.

Also noteworthy is that the delicacies advertised were not made locally. Stein’s Grocery in Santa Fe proclaimed that its selection had just been received from “M. Zimmerman” in New York. Phillips Delicatessen in New Orleans called itself the “Headquarters of David Berg & Co.’s Celebrated Kosher Goods,” while Miller Van Ness Co. in Charlotte announced, “Don’t forget we are handling Gombright’s lines,” which included wurst, “pastroma,” hard salami, smoked tongues, and frankfurters. In a later ad, Phillips revised the spelling of its supplier’s name, touting a “[f]resh lot, Gambrechts sausages.”

By this point, American pastirma had evolved from air-dried beef to a brined or pickled product, cured with lots of pepper. It’s very common to see ads parenthetically describe pastirma as “spiced beef” or “peppered beef,” and one 1906 grocery ad hawks “[s]ome more of that delicious pickled beef Pastroma.”

Part of the appeal of the pastrami-originated-in-Texas theory is that pastrami today is a form of smoked brisket, which is, of course, also a staple of Texas barbecue joints. In the early decades of the 20th century, though, this preparation was applied to many different cuts of beef. In 1906, D. Taub’s Delicatessen Store in Bay City, Michigan, advertised “Pastroma breast,” “Pastroma shoulder,” and “Pastroma roulade,” all for 35 cents a pound. In 1921, the Hygrade Provision Company of Brooklyn offered five varieties of “pastroma”: “Smoked Pastroma, Shoulder; Smoked Pastroma, Breast; Smoked Pastroma-Roulade; Smoked Pastroma Payes; Smoked Pastroma, Flank.” This is the first explicit reference I’ve found to pastirma or pastrami being smoked, but all the major dealers carried various smoked sausages and meats, and experimenting with smoking pastirma would have been a natural thing to do.

It took less than 10 years for pastirma (or pastromer, or pastrami, or whatever we want to call it) to spread across the country, but the speed and breadth of its transmission aren’t actually all that surprising. In this period of American culinary history, as industrial food production, national distribution networks, and mass marketing were rapidly maturing, it was quite common for a newly introduced product to appear on the scene and almost immediately become a trendy national hit (see also, for instance, the popularization of pimento cheese).

Those German-American sausage-makers were certainly behind pastrami’s wide distribution, but why did their companies see the need to add yet another cured meat to their already-broad lines?

The answer may be simply that pastrami is delicious. But I’d argue that there’s more to it. The very first reference that I could find to pastrami (using any of its spellings) being sold on the American market appears in August 1897, and it does so in an odd and somewhat gruesome context.

Putting it all together, I think we can lay to rest the idea that pastrami originated in Texas. If it had been born there, it would have been the creation of a butcher or meat-market proprietor who was slow-smoking his own meats, and we could expect to see that innovation advertised first in local papers. Instead, the very first mention of the meat in Texas that both Vaughn and I have found appears in the Dallas Morning News of March 22, 1908, by which time it had already been sold for almost a full decade in many other cities around the country. Even there, the ad is not for a local butcher or meat market but rather for Sonnemtheil’s grocery store, and “Spiced Pastromer” is listed under the heading “Delicatessen Department,” smack-dab between “smoked sturgeon” and “cooked corned beef.”

Is it possible that sausage-makers in Chicago and New York, faced with a depressed market for their sausages after the gory exposition of the Luetgert affair, turned to the pastirma preparation recently brought to America by Romanian immigrants?

It is a bit far-fetched, perhaps. But it makes about as much sense as pastrami being invented in Texas.

In his Gran Libro de Tortas, Roberto Arturo Ayala T. lists the five components of a great sandwich: bread, spread, filling, garnish, and ingenuity, but also points out that a great sandwich is not necessarily a giant sandwich, and that tortas can be eminently simple. In the Yucatán, specifically in the town of Merida, tortas are made of nothing more than a bolillo (a plain, slightly crustier roll with just a single rib down the center, as opposed to the three humps of a telera), and cochinita pibil, the slow-roasted pork dish typical of the area, made with achiote paste and sour orange juice. The rich, meaty juice from the pork drips into the bread (hence the need for a bit more crust) and acts as the spread. A little acidic, spicy salsa or a few pickled purple onions provide contrast, but this sandwich is truly just two parts: meat and bread. Cohinita pibil is so full of natural talent that what it needs more than anything is for all its teammates to get out of the way so it can score all the touchdowns.

Any dish that comes with plastic gloves should give you a hint that what’s coming is good. The torta ahogada—drowned torta—is a sandwich that you need protection from: the sauce poured over the sandwich is ready to set your lips and mouth on fire. A native of Guadalajara, and Jalisco state in general, the torta itself needs protection from the tomato and spicy pepper sauces that try to soak it through. For that, it is traditionally made on a birote salado, which is a salted crusty roll, more like a baguette than a telera. The crispiness of the outside holds the bread together, cuddling the carnitas (shredded pork) within. The sauce soaks through, though, getting its spicy hands on the flavorful meat, tying the sandwich up into a rather messy package of meat, bread, and sauce all melding together.

“The torta ahogada should be more popular,” says Tellez, touting the sandwich’s reputation as a hangover cure. “Maybe people are put off by the fact that it’s a sandwich drenched in insanely hot salsa, but it works.” For those looking to tame the heat on the sandwich, it can usually be ordered with a higher ratio (media will get you half) of tomato sauce to spicy pepper sauce.

How can you improve upon the glory that is crunchy, sticky, rich pork rinds? By putting them inside a sandwich, obviously. In this specialty of León, in the state of Guanjuato, crushed up chicharrones are the meat inside a bolillo roll, softened with sliced avocado. Like the guajalota, it’s nonsensically named for a bird. The name could, perhaps, be explained by the fact that the spicy pico de gallo within shares the bright red shade of the macaw’s plumage, but writer Joe DiStefano of Chopsticks and Marrow tells us it’s because “it’s so spicy you’ll squawk like that tropical bird when you eat it.” The spice of the pico de gallo is only as sharp as the crunch of the pork rind, both of which are ameliorated by the avocado and mild bolillo roll. “Nobody has cracked the cemita bread code in the US, definitely not in New York,” says Tellez of trying to find the right roll for this sandwich—which she calls one of her top three things to eat in Mexico. Instead, she suggests a trip to Cemitas Beto in the Mercado La Acocota in Puebla.

The cemita, the specialty of the sandwich-centric town of Puebla, is as complicated as the torta Cubana, but where the Cubana is messy and varied, the cemita is orderly and neat, its many layers working together for the best taste. The cilantro-like herb papalo is the pop in a cemita, the flavor that makes you sit up and take notice, to realize this is no ordinary sandwich. Its minty flavor cuts through the layers of meat (often beef milanesa and ham), avocado, pickled chipotle peppers, onion, and quesillo. The quesillo, the stringy cheese that is so wonderfully melted on a torta, is not griddled in the cemita, but instead pulled, giving those waiting in line for a cemita the opportunity to watch the mesmerizing act of many people whose sole job it is to shred mounds and mounds of cheese for sandwiches.

The eggy bun, also called a cemita, distinguishes the sandwich: crunchy and golden brown on the outside (with a smattering of sesame seeds), soft, a little dry, and just barely sweet on the inside.

While cemitas might be the pride and joy of Puebla and the star of the sandwich show, the pelona is the understudy just waiting for its moment in the limelight. What the cemita has in size (which is a lot—twice as much as a pelona) the pelona makes up for with its unique, uncomplicated combination of shredded beef and crispy bread.

The name means “baldy” and the bare top of the bread does shine proudly, like a tall bald man over a mess of shredded beef, lettuce, and chopped avocado, though the name actually comes from the lack of sesame seeds, which are found on its crosstown rival, the cemita. The bread takes a dip in hot oil, rendering the outside as ready to shatter as a first-generation smartphone screen. When it does, though, the thick layer of crema catches every last crumb of fried bread, taking it down as it drips through the tangle of shredded beef. The small size of the sandwich helps to keep everything together as it is quickly demolished—any larger and the fried bun might fall apart before the end of the sandwich.

With the growth of tortas to (literal) new heights, something had to take over the reins as official snack sandwich, and marinas have seized the opportunity. The small size keeps these from getting too complicated, so the fillings tend to have the spread and filling mixed together, such as ‘Russian Salad’ (a chicken salad with mayonnaise), chicken in mole sauce, mushrooms in chipotle, or tuna salad. The two-bite sandwiches are made using hojaldras, which are a small, shiny rolls, rich with eggs and were traditionally made for the holidays. Santibañez’s recipe suggests challah or brioche rolls make a good substitution. Due to their size and easy assembly, these are far more common to serve when entertaining at home than to find in a restaurant, since the buns are simply split and filled with chicken in mole sauce or similar. There’s little that makes for a better street food than hot carb-on-carb action, and the tamal-stuffed bolillo known as a guajolota drives yakisoba pan, the Mission burrito, and apple pie made of Ritz crackers to the back of the starch-overload line.

There’s hardly a more welcome sight on a morning street corner than the woman standing behind a giant metal steam pot with a bag of bolillo rolls next to her. The idea is to turn the tamal into a handheld food, into the on-the-go specialty that tortas symbolize. Putting the hot tamal into a room temperature bun makes it grippable. But the fact is, these are not small or easy to take with you—especially not while sipping atole, the hot corn drink that is traditionally taken with tamales (in or out of torta form). There’s very little to the standard Mexico City version of the sandwich: simply a tamal shoved into a roll, the fillings of the tamal giving the only break from the softness of both the white bread and the cornmeal of the tamal. Yet, it is the double-doughiness that offers comfort, with the torta catching any crumbles of tamal cascading away. Like tamales and atole on their own, the guajolota is a morning food, presumably to allow you an entire day in which to try to nap off your carb coma.

Another diminutive Poblano specialty, chanclas come in pairs, like the sandals for which they are named. Sure enough, two small chancla breads (similar to teleras, but without any humps) set afloat in a sea of red chili sauce do end up looking a bit like sandals. Inside each roll are shredded meat, avocados, and onions. Smaller than the torta ahogada, of which the chili-drenched sandwiches are reminiscent, they are also a little quicker to fall apart, because they are on a soft white bread. They come with a cooling drizzle of crema on top, which eases the pain of the of the vivid red chili sauce in which they are drenched. If there were an award for messiest street food, the chancla would put up a good fight, but there’s spicy, meaty reward for digging into the puddle of nearly neon-red sauce to fish out one of these “sandals” of bread and meat.

The pambazo takes the torta ahogada one step further, soaking the bread (which again shares a name with the sandwich) in a chili sauce, then frying it. Inside, fried potatoes and chorizo join refried beans, meat (ham or shredded beef are both common), cheese, and lettuce. It is not a lightweight sandwich.

The bread (and sandwich) take their name from the words pan basso, or low-class bread. It is a type of roll made from less good wheat, with more lard or butter than most, making it soft and all the better for a dip in a guajillo chili sauce before meeting the hot oil. The sauce imparts a bright-red glow to the bread, the frying spots it with dark, crisp bits to contrast the soft beans within. It’s a jumbled sandwich inside, with potato (diced and sautéed with the chorizo) jockeying for space between the meat and the bread with shredded lettuce and crumbles of soft white queso fresco. It’s only the thin drizzle of crema that pulls the whole mess together—this needs to be eaten quickly before it all falls apart.

My first words in Turkish: nar suyu, “pomegranate juice.” You couldn’t walk a block without a sign on the corner for fresh pomegranate and orange juice, and in the less touristy parts of town, a glass squeezed in front of you would cost just 2 lira (a little over $1).
My favorite meat is lamb. My favorite vegetable is eggplant; favorite fruit, pomegranate. Form of carbohydrate? Fresh flatbreads. My favorite food group is dairy; favorite form of dairy: yogurts and fresh cheeses.
Favorite way to eat seafood, as simply prepared as possible. And favorite mode of eating? Lots and lots of little bites of things.
All this, to say: I was destined to love eating in Turkey, where I got my fill of all of the above, and often in small, snackable portions. Here are my 16 favorite foods in Istanbul.

Ingredients
Save Recipe
1/2 pound dried chickpeas (1 generous cup; 225g)
2 ounces picked fresh cilantro, parsley, or mint leaves, or preferably a mixture of all three (about 2 cups; 55g)
6 scallions, white and pale green parts only, sliced (about 2 ounces; 55g)
2 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons; 10ml)
1 teaspoon (about 4g) ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon (about 2g) ground coriander seed
2 teaspoons (about 10g) kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
2 to 3 cups (480 to 720ml) vegetable oil, for frying
Tahini sauce, hummus, and/or zhug (Yemenite hot sauce) for serving

Using dried chickpeas eliminates the need for flour or other binders, giving you falafel that is light and crisp.
Letting the falafel dough rest after grinding allows starch to seep out, making it easier for the balls to retain their shape.
Making small balls gives you a better ratio of crisp exterior to moist interior.
Falafel often has good flavor, but a pasty, heavy texture. What I’m after is falafel that’s shatteringly crisp on the outside and light, fluffy, almost crumbly on the inside, while still remaining very moist. Light enough that the balls can be eaten completely on their own without having to be shoved into a sandwich full of ingredients designed to distract you from their typical mushiness. (Of course, if you want them in a sandwich, they should hold up in there just as well.) I like my falafel to taste of chickpeas, but also to be packed with herb and spice flavor. Falafel that needs only simple condiments—tahini and hot sauce—to taste great.