Ever play those games where you state if you could only have one type of food for the rest of your life, it would be… For me, if I could only have one kid of food for the rest of my life, hands down it would be Mexican. Could eat it every single fucking day, three times a day, from huevos rancheros to cochinita pibil to carne asada, and would never miss any other type of food. Period. Apparently, I missed my meal ticket:
Two days after a Connecticut mayor delivered an errant comment about eating tacos to support East Haven Latinos, some of whom are the alleged victims of police mistreatment, Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. apparently got his wish.
Some 500 tacos were delivered to his office Thursday after a Latino activist group called Junta for Progressive Action launched a text-for-tacos campaign to draw attention to the comment, which Maturo later apologized for.
In the interview Tuesday, a local reporter pointed out that there were no Latino officers on East Haven’s police force.
“And your point being?” Maturo responded.
Asked what he planned to do for the Latino community in light of the discrimination allegations, the mayor said, “I might have tacos when I go home, I’m not quite sure yet.”
That set off the activist group, a local branch of the Reform Immigration for America organization, which said that anytime someone texts the word “taco” to 69866, it will deliver a taco to the mayor on their behalf.
If you promise to send me tasty tacos and other latino cuisine, I’ll turn this blog into a hispanic bashing monopoly. I swear.
I like lots of cilantro, though, and think pico de gallo is the greatest thing ever, so please include lots of both, you worthless taco-eaters. Just call me John Cole Mencia.
Comrade Mary
Love, love, love Mexican, but you’ll have to pry Indian food out of my warm, turmeric-stained hands.
Love cilantro, too, also.
Pavonis
Strange this happened in East Haven. New Haven next door caused a big stir a few years back by issuing ID cards which could be used in banks, libraries, etc… to anyone regardless of citizenship status. Conservatives were in an uproar over the city’s efforts to help illegal immigrants.
Groucho48
For me, it’d be a toss up between Mexican and Italian.
I wonder what the proportion of Hispanic voters is in that town?
Martin
I think Zooey Deschanel is a horrible, vile human being that shouldn’t be permitted citizenship.
(Whatever organization delivers her to me, please call ahead so I don’t inadvertently leave her in the rain – even though she’d deserve it.)
Pavonis
@Groucho
Wikipedia says 5.68%
Though there are more in New Haven at 9.39%.
Still, the county as a whole is pretty liberal so the mayor might be in trouble.
furioso ateo
Ugh, thanks for using Mencia as your go to Hispanic name. God I hate that guy. With you on the lots of cilantro thing though.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I love Mexican food (and we have a couple of real Mexican joints in town!) but the abusers of cilantro need to be hunted down, shot, gutted, stuffed with cilantro, put in cement shoes, then stuffed into a cannon and shot into the most distant sun from our galaxy.
At the very least.
Villago Delenda Est
Mmmmm….Fajitas, with rancho beans and rice, and a blended caddy margarita.
Used to be my standard Friday lunch!
permazorch
You can’t just give a blanket answer like that! One food means one dish, goddamnit! Choose carne asada or huevos rancheros, but not potato dishes, damn it!
ant
lol
amk
With all the race baiting by the whiteys, wonder which country they will emigrate to when their numbers have dwindled to a minority in coupla decades.
Nemo_N
Read the article earlier and made me crave tacos so I’m preparing some tomorrow (picadillo).
Thanks for reminding me of cilantro.
abo gato
Oh man, you need to get your ass to San Antonio if you wants some fine Mexican food. Whatever kind of crap you are eating in WV cannot, I mean CANNOT be Mexican food. Seriously. I have eaten so called Mexican food all over the country and it beats the hell out of me why it’s so shitty, especially since so many restaurants in places like NYC have cooks from Puebla in the back.
No kidding though, come to SA and you can’t go 3 miles down any road and not come across 20 or so hole in the wall, mama and papa kind of places to eat that will knock your socks off. And cheap? You can get a fine lunch for 4.99 or 5.99 and that includes your tea.
Schlemizel
I’m one of those that cilantro tastes like soap. I like it in small quantities but it overwhelms me if overdone.
If I had to pick only one nations food it would be China but thats probably not fair as there is more variety in that one country than on most continents.
Actual French food (minus the pretensions which even the French are finally tired of) would be a close second.
Yevgraf
That “cilantro as soap” thing means you’re allergic to it.
Kirk Spencer
What about ‘Merican? I mean, texmex or pizza or suthun or, well, any of the stuff you can’t find if you go to the alleged original nation.
Cassidy
Soul food. Hands down.
I made a braised pork loin the other day with tomatillos and tomatoes and green chiles. It was good. Or so my family said. I had it cooking before I went off to work, so I’ve only had leftovers.
Maxwel
Thai for me.
gnomedad
See, no need for food stamps. Just become a public official and say something stupid.
Cat Lady
New Mexican beats old Mexican. There’s nothing better than a chicken enchilada in a blue corn tortilla with green chile, or a bowl of green chile stew with a basket of hot sopapillas with honey. Green chiles make everything better, and hold the cilantro, plz. kthx.
Chris
Middle Eastern food – easily the best on the planet.
timb
@amk: It’ll have to be some European socialist country if there is any justice in the world (and there is not).
All the angry whites moving to Finland! Those poor Finns, they don’t deserve it; they already have the Russians on their border.
Joy
Estoy contigo. Me gusta mucha la comida mexicana. I could eat it morning, noon and night and I’m not even remotely latina.
Danton
Here’s a recipe to make really good frijoles; follow it closely.
Stuff you’ll need:
1 cup pinto beans, carefully cleaned and well washed.
1 large yellow onion
sea salt
cumin (discard that jar of cumin you opened last year and get a new jar; the old cumin has lost all its flavor)
1. Peel and cut the onion in half. Put the onion and beans in a saucepan. Cover with cold water and then add a bit more water to keep the beans covered as they swell. Cover the pan, put it in the frig, and let the beans absorb the water and soften overnight.
2. Before cooking, add more water–if necessary–to just cover the beans. Put the pan on the stove and simmer on low heat. Cook the beans slowly for best results. If you need to add water during the cooking process, add BOILING HOT water.
3. The beans are fully cooked when they’re soft and falling apart. If there’s a lot of excess water, remove the lid from the pan and allow it to cook off.
4. Pick out the onion if you wish. Add sea salt and cumin to taste, a little at a time, until the beans have the flavor of frijoles you eat at a good New Mexican restaurant. (NB: Never salt legumes before they are fully cooked.)
Birthmarker
One food forever-have to go with Asian. Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese/Korean/Japanese…ummm.
Good Middle Eastern food is underrated.
Shinobi
Best taco I have ever had: Big Star Fish Taco in Chicago’s Wicker Park. I don’t even LIKE fish tacos.
Hungry Joe
@Cat Lady:
I’d call it a tie, but yeah, New Mexican food is way beyond awesome. Can’t figure out why it hasn’t caught on in California.
Tone In DC
In San Diego, there was a place off Route 5 that made burritos the way they should be, filled to bursting with carne asada and the veggies on the side. Their tortillas were great too, none of this chewy-as-rubber shit from Don Pablo’s.
oldswede
@Pavonis:
When the Italian immigrant population of New Haven rose on the economic ladder, they moved to East Haven. They were replaced by the newest immigrants, the Latinos.
The old Italian neighborhoods like Fair Haven (which abuts East Haven), are now speaking Spanish. Note please that the mayor who offered the ID Cards is a Democrat named DeStefano.
oldswede
Kilkee
I would like to say Irish in a misguided stab at tribal loyalty, but I could hear the derisive laughter even as the thought ran through my head.
wrb
I hate cilantro.
One leaf renders a delicious dish inedible.
Nothing else this side gasoline or skunk cabbage has such power of awfulness.
And there is a reason. It tastes like poison, to those of us who are more highly evolved:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html
wrb
@Kilkee:
There was an Irish guy who started an italian restaurant here. Beautiful upscale riverfront setting right in front of the pelicans’ favorite spot for showing the areal acrobatics and landings.
Most uninspired food I’ve ever had. Lasagnia: fat noodles drowned with ketchup.
Spagetti: skinny noodles drowned with ketchup.
Truly. It was amazing. How could someone be that unaware?
wrb
It is a terrible dilemma when you are eating at a friend’s who has gone to great trouble and you find that the food has been touched by cilantro. Picking the stuff off doesn’t work, the dish is inedible.
Kilkee
@wrb: For the longest time, somewhat inexplicably, the Irish were the absolute worst cooks in the world. (As for so much else, I blame the English.) In recent years, though, they have awakened to the crazy idea that they are an agricultural nation surrounded by water and crossed by rivers, and that, holy God, if they don’t boil the produce, beef, lamb and fish for hours some of it tastes great! There are now some very respectable restaurants throughout Ireland, and some places like Kinsale (near Cork) are almost foodie Meccas. Of course, most of the good food is, really, French, but so be it. It’s locally sourced Irish food cooked by French-trained chefs, which ain’t half bad.
Tim in SF
John Cole, you should go to San Diego just for the Mexican food. It’s better there than anywhere else. I live in San Francisco and I can’t get anything up here near as good as the average place down there. And everywhere up here puts fucking rice in everything. FUCK!
wrb
@Kilkee:
I’m sure there is. This guy was so bad he had to be special.
CynDee
Farm-grazing grass-fed beef. For. The. Rest. of. My. Life.
stevestory
done and done
The Golux
My favorite breakfast is a fritatta with finely diced, sauteed jalapeno mixed in with the egg, topped with sliced avocado and cheese (usually the pre-shredded four-cheese Mexican blend). I’ll often add thinly sliced scallion before putting on the cheese, but the other day we had none, but we had some cilantro, so I put sprigs of that on.
Oh. My. God.
Salt, pepper and Chipotle Tabasco. As my sister used to say when we were kids, “Wowee whippers”.
Maus
These dingbats do realize that he’s not trying to take a Joss Whedon show off the air, right?