Flavors
Interesting combinations of flavors that I have experienced and even enjoyed
:
Combinations that I have tried and survived, though I do not recommend them:
Note on chile vs. chili:
The two words do have a common origin, but the meanings are so different that the New Mexico Legislature designated "chile" as the proper spelling for the "real thing".
Chile is the stuff we grow and enjoy in New Mexico. It is the fruit of a pepper plant, I'll look up the fancy name some time, and it provides vitamin C and probably lots of other good things. It can be used red (ripe) or green, and either whole or dried. Usually it's whole (or cut up) green, or dried and ground up red. Drying green chile has to be tricky, but occasionally I can find some powdered green.
Chili is something altogether different. It's the concoction served in truck stops from Mystic to Lompoc, made with red beans, ground beef, various spices including cumin, and maybe if you're lucky some red chile. As well as being sort of food-like, it has medicinal purposes, to wit: if your stomach is real upset and you want to unload, but it just won't quite, go to the nearest truck stop and get a bowl of chili. Hey, it worked for me when I needed it.
Bacon and Blackberry Jam on Whole Wheat Toast
I have this most mornings with my eggs and spuds. When blackberry jam
is not available I substitute grape jelly, but I've settled on blackberry
as THE best way to do this treat. Yummers!!
Licorice ice cream with pineapple sauce
Early 70's, Baskin-Robbins, banana split I think it was; you got three
kinds of ice cream and three sauces. I don't know how to spell the sound
that all the people in the place made when I announced my choices,
but I know it'd be all vowels. But it was good!!
Chocolate sauce and beer
Hershey's Syrup, called "black lightning" by hard core chocloholics, does go with beer in a nondisgusting way. Or at least so I thought back then, mid 70's, when I tried it. And a couple of years later, a certain young lady whose family name happened to be Sweet had mentioned this combination to one of her brothers, and he thought it was crazy. So when I dropped by one day, she asked me, in his presence, if I had ever tried it, and I said "Of course ã hasn't everybody?".
Green chile and plum jelly
I roasted the chile myself, and I made the jelly.
Of course there was bread involved; the scenario was a sandwich on toast. I think it was Oroweat's wheat berry bread, of which I think highly. Hey, I think I have a picture of that one somewhere. If I find it I'll scan it in.
Pears and Graham crackers
Notthing real odd about this one, two mild flavors, and they work together OK.
Cold chili and warm grape kool-aid
I had a paper route for a while when I was in junior high school -- a hopeless situation in which to try to excel, since I always got complaints (by way of the main office) from one guy -- a real old Swiss guy named Gottlieb Someting-or-oder who wanted his paper there by 4:30 AM -- and I didn't get them myself until 4:45 at best. Anyway one morning this is all I could find to eat. Gak.
Green chile schmear on garlic bagel
Mentioned elsewhere on this site, the combination I thought would be good turned out to me not so, as both flavors were strong and did not harmonize. Certainly one could cook any number of excellent dishes with these two ingredients, but bringing them together abruptly in this way was a bust.
You can blame all this on me, and get all sorts of excruciating detail (on almost any subject) at my home page.