Bayless v. Kennedy: The winner is. . .

The Bayless versus Kennedy competition? Bayless wins. But you already guessed that. I haven't done the tallies for all the individual books, and I'm not even sure Bayless will prevail in a by-the-numbers comparison, but the dread with which I came to approach the Diana Kennedy books can not be overemphasized. In the last week or so of this experiment I only wanted to cook from Bayless because he was friendly and encouraging and didn't bombard me with dishes calling for young iguana and a special mushroom that you can only get in late April in northern Chiapas when it's raining. I made that up, but it's a fair exaggeration.

I'm going to assess the cookbooks one by one and I'll only offer a review if I made ten recipes or more. Is that fair? Ten? Or should it be fifteen? 

Here's the first:

 

Mexico, One Plate at a Time

Rick Bayless

I made 16 dishes from this cookbook:

Worth the price of the book -- 0

Great -- 3

Good -- 10

So-so -- 3

Flat-out bad -- 0

Mexico, One Plate at a Time is a companion to Bayless's TV show, and the ratio of flowery preamble to recipe is definitely too high. On the other hand, there's a useful Q&A section attached to each category of dish and I learned a lot just reading these. I like this amiable, conversational and informative cookbook and will use it again. But I don't think it's as strong as Bayless's other books, and it isn't a shelf essential. 

 

Bayless & Kenndy: Some little white lies

Sometimes I wonder why I am not skinny anymore. And sometimes I wonder why I am not much fatter. 

That is a chicharron from the Azteca market in San Rafael. Diana Kennedy translates "chicharron" as "pigskin," but I think "pork rind" is more appetizing, if not much. The bright orange pork rinds you buy in bags, like potato chips, are foul, but the kind they sell hot and fresh at Mexican delis are satanically delicious. You can get big, crunchy sheets of pure skin or thicker pieces with hunks of meat attached. Yesterday, I asked a woman at Azteca which type she prefers and she gestured with tongs to the meaty variety, glistening under a heat lamp. I took her advice and bought some.

But I now think I should have gone with the skinny skins. I suspect the effect Diana Kennedy was after in her chicharron in green sauce was that of limp, soft bits of rind swathed in thin, tart salsa. I had something like this once on a torta five years ago, and have never forgotten. What I produced with my meaty chicharrones was hearty and tasty, but not what I remembered and not what I had pictured. I have not pictured it for you because pork rind taco filling makes a poor advertisement for itself.

We'll see if anyone in my family reads the blog, because I did not use "rind" in the description of the tacos last night. Not a lie, an omission.

Now for the lying. 

Do these look like pumpkins?

 

When you puree them with brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and cream and bake in a pastry shell as for Rick Bayless's spicy plantain pie they do.

So I called it pumpkin pie. I served this comforting dessert warm, with whipped cream, and Husband was uncharacteristically enthusiastic. "They really know what they're doing with pumpkin pie in Mexico," he said. He's from New England and considers himself an expert on pumpkin pie, popovers, pancakes, potato salad, milkshakes, and grilled cheese sandwiches. All other foods are suspect or pretentious. Plantains? Don't be silly.

Isabel, who eats like a hummingbird and hates bananas, consumed a large slab.

 

After I'd finished my slice, I reached and took a little bite out of the pie plate -- you know, to neaten it up --  a habit that Husband finds irritating. "You want seconds of the pumpkin pie?" he asked as he slid the whole pie plate onto my placemat and handed me a fork. He and Isabel both laughed. It's sweet that they have this bond.

Tipsy: Pumpkin pie? You mean PLANTAIN pie.

Isabel: I just ate banana pie? Gross. 

Tipsy: No, you ate PLANTAIN pie.

Husband: You lied to me like I was 2-years-old.

Tipsy: And I'm not sorry!

Really, they should thank me. It was amazing pie.

Bayless: He sure loves to dance

Author: Rick Bayless

Book: Mexico, One Plate at a Time 

Recipes cooked: quick fried shrimp with sweet toasty garlic

I feel cruel when I do this, but I can't help myself. I'm going to quote Rick Bayless again:

 

"Garlic, that most outgoing member of the onion family, is for those who love living life to the fullest. That's not to say it's just for daredevils, though. Sure, it can be the Stone Cold Steve Austin of the flavor world, but if you know how to coax it along, you'll have the simple, elegant strength of Pierce Brosnan. "

He also likens the flavor of garlic to "the musk of white truffles or the sultry sway of a dance partner on a summer night."

And: "Neither seafood nor garlic is irresolute, but they sing together joyously. Courageously simple and luxurious."

Was his editor drunk? 

Bayless's prose may be purple, but his recipes are meticulously written and seldom fail. To make his delicious shrimp in mojo de ajo you bake the shellfish in a hot skillet then top with a mountain of poached garlic. This decadent dish didn't taste Mexican to me, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It was sweet and rich -- oily in the best sense of the word. I wouldn't say Pierce Brosnan -- more Daniel Craig. Isn't garlic a blond?

I mock, but I do in fact love Rick Bayless.

To go along with the shrimp, I made the spicy stewed chard out of Diana Kennedy's Art of Mexican Cooking.

 

Stewed chard. Just saying those words makes the mouth water. It was actually quite tasty.

Obligatory chicken reference: I want a nifty egg scale like the one Susan Orlean uses at the end of this video.  I also want her house. And her career. And her haircut. I need to get a copy of the New Yorker asap to read her new essay about keeping chickens.