You can see me eat this American food. If you want to retaliate, please put up the photos where you
are eating Japanese gyudon (beef bowl).
CRAB CAKES
My encounter with this secret food happened at my work. A catering person comes with a variety of foods.
I did not believe any of those would turn out tasty. I have a biased view about American foods in general. This
is America--where foods cease to die (and my friends try to correct me saying that there is a great restaurant-to-restaurant
variation in America). I kept this view in Chicago where I lived before, but I finally met this food in Washington DC.
It was crab cakes.
This is how it looks like. I am sorry, I couldn't resist a bite before I tood this photo. When I bit it,
the flavor came alive in my mouth--salty but with lots of vegetable tastes. I have not put lemon juice or the mayonase
source yet. I just enjoy the taste of it as is. Behind the crab cakes--it is rice, long grain type, cooked with
oil, also with almond and oil. It is crispy. While the taste of crab cake is rather salty and makes me water
in my mouth, I immediately went for the rice to counterbalance the taste. Imagine how this rice and crab cake
make a great balance in your waterly mouth.
This time I put lemon juice on it. Imagine how saulty crab cake blends well with lemon juice. And I study
what is in it. It got lots of crab meat. It got vegetables, like celery (see the green things?). Remember
that celery tastes a bit like medicine, but its tastes is nicely subdued by the fact that it is cooked. But it is not
overcooked, so it has a nice residual of that taste, now dancing in your mouth -- with the salty taste of crab meet.
I forget to mention that I take a sip of my coke to water down all these. This is the moment where you feel:
I am so glad to live in America or for American citizens you can say:
"I am glad to be American."
And finally I am adding a decadent taste of mayonase. I think it is mayonase or some kind of tartar source (?)
with lots of mayonase in it. Very creamy with some amount of intoxicating fat/calorie element. Forget diet, your
new year resolution. Life is not worth living without enjoying some fat content in your food.
Imagine now the salty crab meat, lemon juice, and intoxicating mayonase taste are creating beautiful orchestra sounds
in your mouth. Tastes of all ingredients making a riot---the tastes you can only subdue by sips of coke. Chinese Green tea
wouldn't do this job. Also recall the role of rice. Only this type of rice, not sticky Asian rice, can blend well
with crabcake, as it plays a nice supporting role. Japanese rice would interfer and jeopardize the harmony, as it has
a too strong presence of its own.
|
