Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophe Quick Tips, where one man dives deeply in the sea of soups, salads, and steaks, and brings back pearls of insight for our mental necklaces. I’m your Mad Metaphor Mangler and Mental Diver, Jon O’Guin. Today, we’re going to synthesize the theme of this week, and embrace change, as well as reach out and spread what we can. What does that all mean? Follow me!

A Slightly Spoiled Time, with Donald Rumsfield and…knowledge taxonomy

Really quick, I’m going to spoil some of what’s going on in Friday’s post, to give context. Technically, I already implied most of this on Monday, but I just did it in the “next time” tags at the bottom, and I know some people don’t read those. This Friday, we’re going to be covering a British Interpretation of “meatloaf”, as they don’t really eat it there, which uses some ingredients that I have NEVER seen in an American meatloaf before. Such as Pecans and Jalapenos. Look, it’ll be weird and interesting, and we’ll have a talk about it Friday. The important thing is that the meatloaf…basically works. It’s weird, but also perfectly edible.

And that connects to Monday’s post, where we took something somewhat familiar to many (egg foo young) and put it in an unfamiliar context (a sandwich).  Thus, the theme of the week: the familiar unfamiliar. Or the “unknown known” (maybe the “known unknown”) if you want to get all Donald Rumsfeld.

This may have been an unexpected turn for you. IF so, I assure you, non-sequitors are our style here.
Also, since apparently no other person has made this joke:
THE RUMS FELD TUGGER IS A CURIOUS CAT

If you WEREN’T tuned into Iraq War briefings back in the day, and don’t recognize that phrase, we can take a “quick” detour, because while he’s been somewhat mocked for his phrasing, he IS making a legitimate point: Basically, facts can fall into 4 categories: the known knowns, the known unknowns, the unknown unknowns, and the unknown knowns. (Wow, Known became a meaningless series of letters REAL quick.) Weirdly, Wikipedia tries to connect it pretty instantly to the Johari window, an important tool for international relations, personal relations, and therapy, but it’s pretty clear from his comments that he’s not referring to that. (The Johari Window compares your knowledge with the knowledge of others: things are “open” (known by both parties), “a blind spot” (known to other parties, but not you) “facade” (known to you, but not other parties) or just unknown, while Rumsfeld is clearly referring to the idea of “things you don’t know that you don’t know”)

Breaking that framework down, The Tugger is saying that there are things that you know, and you’re aware that you know, like, say, your friend’s names, or how to do basic elements of your job.  Then there are things you are aware that you DON’T know: If you can’t speak a given language, for instance, or details about some celebrities. If someone asked, you’d say “i don’t know”, and you’d say it with confidence.

It’s the last two categories where things get dangerous/interesting. There are things you don’t know, and aren’t aware you’re ignorant of. This is very important in international intelligence (ie, spying), because it means you could be missing very important details or context for actions. For a very blasé/militaristic example (weird combo of adjectives, but stick with me): Imagine if suddenly, a dictator called up his army to do a show of strength with an elaborate parade through the capital. That’s a worrying thing for a dictator to do, since it tends to be something you do right before USING that army, historically. And you’re looking at all the options of who he could attack, what could have pissed him off, when…nothing happens. The army just goes back to stations. And days later, you learn the answer: his son had been having nightmares, so he threw the parade to calm him down. For a more direct example, this is one of the reasons I like exploring food etymologies so much: I think it’s a field that people never considered to investigate. It’s an unknown unknown. (Essentially, what distinguishes a “known unknown” and an “unknown unknown” is that you’ve never even CONSIDERED the second.) Another example is whenever a new technology destroys an existing field of work: that technology’s danger to that industry was often in workers to that field, an unknown unknown. Carriage makers in the 1880’s didn’t know that cars were going to destroy their industry in the next 20-30 years.

“Yessir, this is guaranteed to be the best way to ride in style for the coming decade. There is nothing that will better show that you are a rich man with a lot of money coming in the next 20 years.”

 The last category, the unknown knowns, is an even weirder one, though we’ve discussed examples in the past: Adjective order in English is a rule that almost no one is formally taught, but most English speakers instinctively know. You KNOW that “rubber red big ball” is WRONG, while “Big red rubber ball” is RIGHT, but you didn’t know that you knew that until someone pushed at that boundary. Phonotactics is another good one: many people aren’t aware that they know “nksur” CAN’T be an English word until they see it, say it’s not English, and then you ask them why.  

Bringing it to the Table

What does this have to do with food? Nothing…and…also, quite a bit, because Recipes and dishes can fall into these same categories, and you can discover these same constraints/unknown rules. This was my personal discovery with Roti John. An Omelette sandwich was a thing I didn’t know could exist. Thus it was something of a push of the same concept when we made the St Paul Sandwich. And it drives the same kind of thoughts. After all, now that you know omelet sandwiches exist, it highlights other issues. Think about this: you can make a turkey sandwich, chicken sandwich, pork, ham, beef, egg, omelet…but what about a Tofu sandwich? Not a tofu BURGER, a tofu SANDWICH. IT feels…wrong, to me. Like it breaks the rules. But if I think about it, that’s just because I can’t picture slices of tofu easily. I can picture a sandwich made with thin slices of tofu…I just can’t make that fit the concept of Tofu sandwich.

Though, if this is the thinnest people are slicing their tofu, maybe I have reasons for that belief.

(Nate, by contrast, as no problem with the idea of a Tofu sandwich, he just has that kind of classic middle-class American confusion/distaste for the idea of Tofu, so he acknowledges he’d never think of it unless required to make a lunch for vegans.) And this extends in other directions. There are ideas and concepts that we’ve delegated to one category or another, but nothing STOPS them from being pushed into another.  Bread Pudding is a not uncommon dessert, made of eggs, milk, bread, and flavorings. Then you have breakfast strata, which are mixtures of eggs, milk, bread, meat, and flavorings. The main difference is the ratio of milk to eggs, and whether you include meats. This has led to a push in recent years to make Savory bread puddings. You think of a long stewed soup as a dinner option, but pho is a common breakfast in Vietnam, and congee is breakfast in China. It’s not all that tricky, once you know the basics, to take the form of a dish, and move it to a different function. We’ve already made Savory French Toast, what about Spaghetti and Meatball Soup, where you just make the sauce a little thinner, and add more of it to the bowl?

Maddeningly, all the pictures of Spaghetti and Meatball Soup were copywritten. (Damn you, Betty Crocker, you fictional woman!) So please enjoy this picture of Pot Roast Soup, which conveys the same point.

Why do I bring all this up? Because there’s never been a better time to try challenging your categories and constructions! Firstly, because many of us are stuck at home, so you’ve got the time to mentally mull it over and try the thought experiment end of just trying to think of how you can push your conception of foods, and if you’ve got spare groceries/tinned foods, you’ve got time to try a bit of boundary pushing that might spice up some otherwise humdrum meals.  And SECONDLY, because of a new Internet viral campaign, the Leftovers Challenge, an initiative started by The Burger Show, Mythical Kitchen, Binging with Babish, Joshua Weissman, and Internet Shaquille which I personally decided to take part in, and served as a nice through-line for the week as another example of “the unfamiliar familiar”, and these same ideas about pushing boundaries. The challenge itself is to remind people that the restaurant industry historically operates on fairly tight margins, and that, with the pandemic responses, many small restaurants are struggling.

So the challenge is to go to a local restaurant you love, and just…buy two meals’ worth of food. As in “more food than your household can eat in one meal”. And use the leftovers to push those boundaries and make something new. Explore your unknown unknowns! (That sounded sexual) I bought Italian sausage sliders and garlic bread, for instance, from Spiro’s Pizza and Pasta, a restaurant my family has patronized for literally as long as I can remember.

Of course, the first picture in this damn thing that I took is blurry as shit. I had THREE JOBS, and I fucked one of them up.
That blob in the corner is like, a tablespoon of freshly grated garlic.

And with just some grated cheese, milk, eggs, grated garlic, and herbs, I made a Spiro’s-Sausage-Slider Savory Bread Pudding.

I also had Eggo waffles, hence the syrup in the background.
I got hungry while the bread pudding baked.

My biggest complaint with it? By my standards, I underseasoned it: I didn’t add more than a pinch of salt because I figured with all the cheese (like, ¾ of a cup), and the premade sliders there would be enough, and I didn’t incorporate any red pepper flakes, because I didn’t want to over-spice it. And it’s perfectly fine, it just needs a dash of salt and pepper (or maybe a little grated parmesan) when it’s served.

If you WANT a ‘recipe’: it was two sliders, 2 slices of garlic bread, and an extra slice of rustic white bread (replace with more garlic bread or an extra slider if you want) a tablespoon of grated garlic, 1/2 cup of grated gruyere, 1/4 cup shaved parmesan, 10 cracks of black pepper, a pinch of salt, all tossed together. Place in a greased 8” by 8” pan, and pour over a mixture of 2 cups milk and 4 eggs, beaten together. Set in the fridge overnight, and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. And you can do this with really ANY bread-based food without like, cold vegetables (ie, I wouldn’t try making a “Jersey Mike’s Sub Bread Pudding” with the lettuce and onion still in the mix. Now, a Jersey Mike’s Sub PANZANELLA (a cold italian salad including vinegar-soaked bread), now THAT could work…)

That’s my attempt. I hope you make your own. Let’s support small businesses, and push our own boundaries while stuck at home. And feel free to ask us for help! If you message Kitchen Catastrophe with ideas for what you’re planning on buying to support your local restaurants, we’ll be happy to help you come up with meals you can make with the leftovers! #leftoverschallenge

FRIDAY: THE MEATLOAF COMETH

MONDAY: IS IT FINALLY VEGAN TIME? CAN WE STOP MAKING DISHES WITH EGGS IN THEM?