Diversity in the Kitchen and on the Table
I have spent most of my adult life living and working in resort towns, primarily in two locales: the ski areas of Colorado and beach towns up and down the Jersey shore. Many resort areas have great restaurants, and some like Cape May are great restaurant towns that entice foodies to visit. Yet most resort areas lack a key ingredient for the people who live and work there: diversity. Most people who visit resorts have a narrow focus of what they are looking for in a dining experience. If you’re visiting the shore, seafood is most likely at the top of your list. Additionally, many of Cape May’s visitors are coming from more populated areas or cities where they have an abundance of food choices so they want what they can’t get at home—which for the shore means seafood prepared the way it has been for the last century.
There is much irony in the lack of food diversity in resort towns since restaurants are staffed by an eclectic array of personalities, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. They often don’t make enough in wages to even dine in the restaurants that employ them, never mind achieving the near-extinct American dream of opening their own restaurant featuring the cuisine of their native lands. This leaves the year-round residents with a dearth of diversified dining options.
Diversity doesn’t mean traditional foods need to go away—quite the opposite; diversity means a dining landscape inclusive of local traditions with other styles peppered in. England is not known for their unique cuisine or even any flavor in their traditional foods, which is surprising since they colonized half the globe for spices and never used them in their native foods. But they embraced the cuisines, spices and flavors from across the empire, and to this day, you will find curry and kabob shops side by side with those serving fish and chips and steak and kidney pie.
To be fair, places like El Pueblo Taqueria serve outstanding flavors, and there are some good sushi and Chinese restaurants on the Cape.
So how does a foodie combat the palate fatigue from limited food choices? Cook at home. The internet can deliver spices and ingredients at reasonable prices and has an excess of recipes and video tutorials to help diversify your culinary repertoire. Expanding your culinary palate doesn’t mean every meal has to be exotic or from a foreign country. Try making a Louisiana or South Carolina style gumbo; they share a name but are very different. Explore the different styles of barbecue or dare I say, pizza. America used to be proud of being a melting pot culture. There was a time when pizza and pasta were considered exotic foods.
Where to start in expanding your taste? Tacos. Put away the hard shells, sketchy seasoning packets, and processed cheese. Street tacos rule and some types like al pastor are a mixture of Mexican and middle eastern cuisines. (Contrary to recent opinions, America isn’t the only country that accepts immigrants.) Warm some corn tortillas, shred some Acme rotisserie chicken, add a little pico de gallo, queso fresco, and a little Mexican crema (sour cream). You will never go to Taco Bell again, and your gastrointestinal system will thank you. Diversity can be achieved by a desire and a mindset for trying new-to-you things rather than settling for what you have always eaten. We may call it Chinese, Mexican, Hungarian foods, but in those countries, they just call it food.
This month try these dishes to expand and broaden the foods you enjoy. Tacos al pastor, pad Thai, Brazilian tropeira (beans and collard greens), and Carolina low country gumbo.
