It's nice to see carne asada getting some love in the NYT Mag -- hard to imagine this happening on Hesser's watch, somehow. Two major missing pieces though -- 1) It seems strange to write about a food associated with LA taco trucks, generally, speaking, and specifically as part of the narrative for this article, and not mention the controversy involving taco trucks in LA.*
2) Steinhauer makes a point of how important the right kind of meat is:
“Carne asada really is a very different way of thinking about meat and
partly a different way of thinking about cattle,” Pilcher says.
Meaning, nonhighfalutin meat is essential. The vast majority of its
purveyors use flap meat, a cut from the loin of the beef. I was steered
away from the cut by my butcher — who doesn’t even sell flap meat and
pressed me into purchasing skirt steak — but later managed to acquire
it at the grocery store near my house. (Mexican butcher shops carry it
as well.)
I cooked up both meats side by side, and I am here to report that while
a grilled skirt steak is perfectly enjoyable, it does not, not, not
make for proper carne asada. Any butcher who tries to tell you
otherwise should be ignored and, if you’re feeling ungenerous, openly
mocked.
Fabulous, and good to know, but it seems that for the intrepid reader of the NYT, a newspaper focused on English-speaking readers, it would be useful to know what to ask for, in Spanish, at the carniceria.
*More on this TK.
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