A Texan Sandwich and an Arizonan Hot Dog
They're truly international
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We have more travel fantasy this week - unless you live in Tucson or Houston, in which case, prepare to go nuts on these two internationally-inspired local favorites.
And check out this week’s podcast episode! Fan favorite “Top Chef” contestants Lee Anne Wong, Nini Nguyen, and Melissa King talked about their hopes and dreams for the restaurant industry. And gave up some tiny behind-the-scenes secrets … as much as they could with a Bravo publicist on the line, at least. Listen here or on your favorite podcast player.
Please forward Smart Mouth to your most culture-hungry friend!
Photo: El Guero Canelo
Melting Pot in a Bun: The Sonoran Hot Dogs of El Guero Canelo
By Jeff Kronenfeld
Daniel Contreras wasn’t always the hottest Sonoran hot dog hustler in Tucson. Once, he was a red-headed boy in Magdalena de Kino, Mexico dreaming of baseball stardom. Though he never made it to the major leagues, he hit a home run when he opened a food cart in 1993. Now, Contreras has three restaurants and a meat shop in Tucson, plus a bakery in Mexico.
The restaurant chain, El Guero Canelo, translates to something like “the cinnamon blonde,” a nickname inspired by Contreras’s ginger locks. His signature item, bacon-wrapped franks, come buried under pinto beans, fried onions, fresh onions, tomatoes, mustard, mayo, and jalapeño sauce. These syncretic sausages won an America's Classics award from the James Beard Foundation in 2018.
While Contreras helped popularize the Mexican American street food mashup north of the border, he didn’t invent it. Exactly where and when the Sonoran-style dog first appeared is subject to debate. Many communities in the Mexican state of Sonora, just south of Arizona, claim to be the birthplace. Gregorio Contreras, Daniel’s son, heard someone from the state of Nayarit created it. Bruce Kraig, Professor Emeritus in History at Roosevelt University in Chicago, supports Sonora’s claim. In his book Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America, Kraig places the dish’s first appearance in the 1950s.
A 2009 article in the New York Times points to ads run by Oscar Meyer in 1953 as the earliest evidence of bacon-wrapped tube steaks. The paper speculates the ad may have inspired Mexican food vendors. However, a Sonoran dog is more than meat.
It starts with the right buns, according to Gregorio. Inspired by Mexican bolillo bread, the buns look like tiny inflatable kayaks made of dinner rolls. Contreras’s recipe was perfected over a quarter-century-long process of trial and error. To ensure maximum perfection, all the restaurant buns and tortillas are made in the bakery Contreras owns in Mexico.
Despite COVID-19, the loaf-loaded trucks continue trudging north. All three locations are open, albeit with limited hours and only for takeout. When we finally get past the ninth inning of the pandemic, El Guero Canelo will still be cooking. The Contreras firmly believes that if you grill it, they will come. 🌭
A ‘Tex-Desi’ Classic Is Created
By Nicholas Hall
I never saw a menu during my first meal at Himalaya in Houston’s Mahatma Gandhi District. Instead, chef and owner Kaiser Lashkari approached the table, looked me up and down appraisingly, and told me what I would be enjoying that day. He wasn’t wrong. This might seem like a strange way to greet a new customer, but Himalaya has always been a little bit different. When Lashkari opened in 2004, he placed his desk in the middle of the dining room, answering phones and paying invoices as steaming plates of biryani wound past him to waiting diners. Though the desk is now gone, Lashkari is still a front-of-house fixture, greeting his regulars with a warm smile and perhaps telling them too what they’ll be eating that day. Maybe the chicken hara masala, bright green and alive with cilantro and chiles, almost shockingly flavorful. Or the lunch special, a cafeteria tray overflowing with chicken and lamb curries, dal and rice, which you will almost certainly be finishing the next day. Or maybe, if you’re lucky, there will be something new on the menu. There often is. Kaiser is a restless soul.
While the bulk of Himalaya’s menu is devoted to a sweeping array of beloved Indo-Pakistani classics, there is also a small but growing section devoted to “Friendly Fusion.” Don’t let the scare quotes put you off; Kaiser has an uncanny ability to meld flavors and foodways into creations that feel new and vital, yet somehow as if they should always have existed.
It started in 2016, when a local food writer suggested Lashkari try his hand at southern American-style fried chicken. He did, lacing both the buttermilk soak and the flour dredge with garlic, ginger, and garam masala, creating an instant Houston classic. Next came chicken fried steak with a coconut- and cumin-fragrant gravy served on the side. Soon after, a Tex-Desi “parathadilla,” sandwiching intensely spiced ground lamb and paneer between buttery, flaky parathas, served with a masala-flavored take on pico de gallo. Most recently, Lashkari reworked his fried chicken to build a sandwich to rival your preferred Instagrammable model. Why spend more than two months developing a recipe only to roll it out during a city-wide shelter-in-place? “I decided to release the sandwich during lockdown because it was easier to eat in the cars in the parking lot,” says Lashkari, who has also offered to cater kids’ lockdown birthday parties at reduced rates or even free while his city is struggling. And that just might be the best thing on the menu. 🐓
This newsletter is edited by Katherine Spiers, host of the podcast Smart Mouth.
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