1492  From Tangled to Hot German Potato Salad Nuevo

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 12:59:24 +0200
From: Peter Bengtson <peter.bengtson@MUSIKELIT.NU>
Subject: Re: From Tangled to Hot German Potato Salad Nuevo

The procedure you describe (visiting Mom, standing next to her,
observing her and _measuring_ the ingredients, developing a recipe and
adding notes on technique, etc) almost exactly parallels what potato
salad chefs Salas and Naveira did. A systematization and inventory of
ingredients and cooking methods. Everybody then promptly called this
Hot German Potato Salad Nuevo, but the two chefs protested and said,
"hey, wait, this is the same potato salad you've always eaten - all
we've done is find out what's in it and how it really is made".
(https://www.totango.net/salas.html)

On the other hand, if you had intuitively soaked up the ability to make
fabulous potato salad as a child whilst helping your mother out in the
kitchen, you would have the equivalent of a Milonguero Potato Salad.
The problem is that your mother didn't make that type of potato salad
for several decades - it was prohibited and/or regarded as
oldfashioned. Now, of course, some chefs have reconstructed several old
potato salad recipes by asking around in your mother's home town with
great success, and are now even marketing the synthesised recipe
internationally (Miller's One True Hot German Potato Salad Viejo). We
can't be quite sure that it is the genuine recipe, it's probably
changed quite a bit in the process, but it's good enough.

Authenticity is a puzzling thing.

/ Peter


On söndag, jul 6, 2003, at 06:52 Europe/Stockholm, Joanne Prochaska
wrote:

> To Guy Williams and other confused souls:
>
> Time to Untangle your brain.
> It is really quite simple.
> Here's an analogy:
> My Mom makes the greatest Hot German Potato Salad, ever!
> I really love it and everyone who has ever tasted it does too.
> Problem: I want to eat it anytime I want to, but I live in some
> faraway
> place, and she lives in Cleveland, so I cannot just drop in for
> dinner. So Here
> are my options:
> 1.) buy the canned stuff and complain that it is not good at all
> 2.) ask my friends at work if they have any recipes for Hot German
> Potato
> Salad
> 3.) Go the the web and search for a recipe
> 4.) Try to make it myself, hmmm how hard could it be??? Potatoes
> and
> bacon and vinegar and ???
> 5.) GO VISIT MOM, ask her for the recipe, and when she says she
> does not
> have it written down, then have her make it, and before she pours that
> 1/2
> glass of vinegar into the pan, MEASURE it first and write it down, thus
> developing a good written recipe, adding notes on technique, so I know
> WHY she always
> uses grandma's 12" cast iron skillet and how to adjust the flavor
> after it
> has simmered for an hour. Then try to make it myself, using her
> utensils, at
> her house, so she can watch me and taste it and help me get it right.
> Then I
> know that I really can make it "as good as she can." And when I hear
> my sisters
> say "nobody can make it like Mom does," I just sit there and smile
> silently,
> knowing that I CAN do it, and it is their problem that, even using the
> recipe
> that I gave them, it does not turn out "right" because they never
> bothered to
> spend the time to have Mom help them perfect the technique. "Oh Well"
> I sigh
> silently, they will figure it out someday. And if not, then when Mom
> passes
> away (she is 92 now), then I will be the only one who can make it
> "just like she
> did."
> Tango: If you want to learn the flavor of it, then go to its
> origins, go
> to Buenos Aires, where they live and breath it. Learn from the
> milongueros
> and the milongueras who have dance it for 50 years. Learn the golden
> age
> tangos that they grew up dancing to 7 nights a week ( and TWICE on
> Sundays) for
> years. Go to tango's roots, go where it lives. Go there yourself.
> Watch,
> listen and learn. It is the only way.
> IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE.
>