On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Found via kass:

What is a food you loved as a child but do not enjoy anymore?

The snack called "bugs on a log": celery spread with peanut butter and a line of raisins on top. Still love peanut butter, still love raisins, no longer care for celery now that I've encountered celeriac.

What’s a food you used to dislike but now enjoy? What changed?

There are a LOT of these. I discovered after leaving my parents' house that I was not, in fact, a picky eater; I just didn't like my mom's cooking or her approach to ingredients. (My mom was a competent cook, but not an inspired one; she didn't enjoy food, and it really showed. She didn't care about things like flavor -- we were a no-salt household -- and she actively disliked spices.) The paradigmatic example is mushrooms; I grew up eating canned mushrooms (including canned mushroom soup) and thus assumed that mushrooms were inherently disgusting. Then I encountered fresh mushrooms, from white button mushrooms to shiitake and portobellos and on into various more unusual varieties, and now I love them... including in my homemade cream of mushroom soup, which is delicious.

If you could eat only one cuisine for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

I have two contradictory responses to this question. One is to reject the premise; I cook most of my own food, and I defy the notion of limiting myself to one cuisine. The other is to say Indian food. :D

What food instantly makes you feel comforted or happy?

There are so many of these! Like kass, I am made happy by any delicious food, especially if it's shared with friends. Comfort is a slightly different thing. A short list: warm bread, my favorite dal recipe, aloo gobi, saag paneer, pork and hominy chili, homemade pizza with sausage and red peppers, hangzhou eggplant, beef bourguignon when it's cold outside, cherry tomatoes plucked from the plant and popped directly in my mouth in late summer, my favorite cookies, rum cake, apple cake.

What food reminds you most of your childhood?

Casseroles. This is the kind of food my mom learned to cook as a girl in a midwestern US working-class family in the fifties: a thousand squishy ways to make a pound of meat feed eight people by stretching it with pasta or rice, onions, canned soup, and cheese. There are many reasons I no longer eat and never make casseroles, but the childhood thing is definitely one of them.

Are there any foods you think are overrated?

Shrimp.

What traditional dish from your country would you recommend to a visitor?

As others have noted, "traditional dish" is an odd phrase in the context of U.S. histories and cultures. Borrowing from kass again -- "seek out a regional specialty in the place where you are" -- I'll recommend some specialties from the regions I've lived in over the last thirty years: buckeyes, deep-fried cheese curds, grilled bratwurst on a toasted bun with saurkraut and onions and very strong mustard, bison burger, pork tenderloin sandwich, corn on the cob -- but also, depending on the city and neighborhood, flautas, mango rundown tofu, red curry squash, drunken noodles, sambusa, empanadas.

Who is the best cook you know, and what makes their food special?

My local friend S is an excellent and generous cook. She and her husband are endlessly adventurous eaters who travel a lot (I always ask them for restaurant recommendations in advance of my own travel); she collects and annotates cookbooks on a wide range of cuisines; in the kitchen, she is both fearless and meticulous. She hosts regular dinner parties and potlucks, bakes all sort of interesting desserts, and is the kind of person I can text on short notice to say "Do you know where I can get [slightly unusual ingredient]?" knowing that the answer is probably going to be "You can find it at [location], and if you need it right now there's some in our [freezer/pantry]." Part of what makes her food special is that she routinely cooks much fancier things than I do, often because she's testing or practicing recipes before a party or gathering. I cook very well, but my meals tend to be one-pot or one-pan-plus-rice-cooker affairs, whereas she is more of a use-every-pan-in-the-kitchen kind of cook. (In fairness, she has someone to do the dishes afterwards, which I do not.)