Sunday, December 04, 2005

West Texas Nutrition 101 - B


Chapter Two - Drinks, Condiments, Sauces, and Dips

Condiments: Mustard and Miracle Whip are important when talking of West Texas cuisine as they are two main ingredient to the required sidedish to any Bar-B-Q; Tater Salad. Mayonaise is a nasty and dangerous foodstuff and should be avoided at all costs. They are also important additions to that All-American concoction the Cheeseburger, and although I am personally a mustard man myself, the use of Miracle Whip is also acceptable for this use. Ketchup is also a major player as use in fried taters and also can be used to cover up such dubious foods as salmon patties in the attempt to make them palatable. Tobasco sauce might be considered the most important of condiments for giving foods that extra kick. I know of some people who will not even frequent certain restaurants that do not have it available.

Dips and Sauces: The sauce of premeire importance is Bar-B-Q sauce. Some value it so highly that they dip damn near everything in it. A key ingredient to any homemade bar-b-q sauce is beer. I personally go for the semi-homemade approach in bar-b-q sauce by first buying storebought sauce and season it for the appropriate meat. If I am Q'ing pork, I will make the sauce sweet with brown sugar and honey, and if it is beef or wild game I will spice it up a bit with Tobasco and red pepper, but adding some beer to both the sauce and the cook always makes it better.

Almost of equal importance is salsa. From dipping tortilla chips, to slathering on Tex-Mex, to topping eggs, nothing is quite comparable to the sheer perfection of salsa. Many varietes abound. There is the green salsa of tomatillas and jalapenos, the red salsa of tomatoes, onion, jalapenos, and cilantro, and the orange salsa that my dad makes of habeneros and tomato sauce, which will literally melt the container holding it.

Queso is an important dip. My approach to queso at home is also of a semi-homemade nature. I simply take a can of Fiesta Cheese Soup spoon in some Ro-Tel and voila out comes a very passable queso.

Ranch Dressing in my opinion is the crack of condiments. But as most all females in this region devour mass quatities of this stuff, I would be remiss in mentioning it. It is used to steal needed vegatation from real food by putting in salads and dipping broccoli and cauliflower ( I shudder at the very thought) . It is also used for purposes of which I will not mention at this time but if you would like to see another of its uses just check the comment section of my last post and check out Crazy Dans comment.

Beverages: When drinking non-alcoholic beverages, you cannot go wrong by sticking to the big three: Coffee, Iced Tea, and Dr. Pepper (which was invented in and is bottled right here in the state). When it comes to alcoholic beverages, pretty much anything goes. If it gets you off, it's got to be good. Although it is not considered very masculine to order any drink which contains an umbrella. Didn't your mother warn you that you could put an eye out with that kind of thing? But if you feel that you must stick to a very strict social norm just go with the big three: Beer, Whiskey , and Tequila.

Water is a very dangerous beverage as fish fuck in the water and all manner of aquatic life do their business there. I will admit that on certain occasions I have been forced to partake of this liquid. When faced with thirst, I have bellied up to horse troughs and got down and drank from irrigation pipe and stock tanks. The best water that I have ever drank was from a piece of pipe drove into the base of a mountain in Northern New Mexico. The source of this water was from a pond formed by a beaver pond at the top of the mountain and the runoff stream (aptly named Beaver Piss Springs) meandered down the mountain. The water was cold as a witches tittie and if all water tasted like this, I could overcome my misgivings about drinking a liquid teeming with fish spunk.

Fruit juices such as orange juice are approved beverages for children. However if such juices are to be consumed by an adult, it is advisable to add a buffering agent such as vodka or tequila. This is due to the tendency of the acidic properties of fruit juices to break down the protective layer of grease in the digestive tract.

That concludes this chapter of Nutrition 101 and the same guidelines apply to this post. All suggestions for amendments and additions will be given due consideration. Thanks again to everyone for their help on the last post.

14 comments:

Crazy Dan said...

You let us know what you use on Pork BBQ but what do you use to spicy up the BBq sauce of beef?

As far as queso goes I have found that cooking hot jimmy dean sausage and then melting velveta with it and adding Pace Hot Picante sauce with it makes about the best queso in the world.

:P fuzzbox said...

cd: Kicked it up a notch on your suggestion and thanks for the Queso recipe. Orlando's, an Italian restaurant that I frequent, carries a Mafia Queso that uses Italian sausage and is served with garlic bread. It rules!

Crazy Dan said...

I don't know about that Ann your beaver seems to be overworked to be very tasty.

:P fuzzbox said...

laurie: That pretty much is dictated by personal taste. I generally put in about four ounces for a 20 ounce bottle of sauce. I do this so it doesn't thin it out. I put my sauce in a pan mix it up and stick it on the lid of my smoker to simmer.

ann: Maybe so, I have always heard that a little beaver never hurt anybody.

cd: That is just mean. You really need to try going back to Kindergarden and keep trying for that S grade in playing nice with others.

Dear Jane... said...

but what about Simply OJ as a beverage of choice?

:P fuzzbox said...

dear jane: That is a very good suggestion as it is an oversight on my part. I will add my thoughts on this to the post.

Johnny Wadd said...

Wait, there are NON-Alcoholic beverages?

Rocky said...

Great nutritional posts! This was very enlightening. Even though I live in Minnesota, I seem to be on the "West Texas Diet."

Jay Noel said...

That's great, I've never thought of vodka as being a buffering agent.

:P fuzzbox said...

mic: Sadly, I must report that yes there are.

rocky: It sounds like Minnesota must be a health oriented area also.

phoenix: Glad to give you food for thought.

JM said...

I like the your Queso recipe. I'm going to have to try it. I've put salsa on steaks, as opposed to tabasco and also on burgers as opposed to ketchup.
I prefer Mayo to Miracle Whip. Something about Miracle Whip is bland. But if I don't have to, I won't use Mayo.

:P fuzzbox said...

angel jr.: Thanks for dropping in. Tobasco is the condiment of champions but I would suggest using the Mayo as little as possible. You can never be to careful.

CT said...

Thats the only thing I don't like is tex mex, they put BBQ sauce on mexican food nasty, if you ever want real new mexican food, travel to Albuquerque and try some with RED or GREEN Chile, no not Chilli the stuff you put on hot dogs, but Chile peppers... definitely good stuff...

Chuys was the only place in texas that comes close to getting it right...

If you go to Chuys, I recommend the chicken enchiladas, and ask for the hatch green chile sauce... and you will then have an idea...

Cheers,
Craig

:P fuzzbox said...

Actually the Mexican food in New Mexico is good but I am more of a jalepeno pepper person than a chile pepper person. But the Mexican Food in Taos is good and far surpasses the Urban sprawl of Albuquerque. In Northern New Mexico, I once ate burritos made with elk meat. That was maybe the best food that I have ever put in my mouth. But tastes differ from region to region.