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Hey there, everyone.
It's Samin, and I have some sad news to share before we get to the episode.
After Rishi and I finished recording last week, his mom, Kantha Aunty, passed away.
way. As you can imagine, it's been a terribly heartbreaking time for Rishi and Sumesh uncle and the entire here way family.
And also for me, who's become something of an ancillary here way over the years.
Rishi asked me, our team and a couple friends to get this episode finished so we could get it out before Thanksgiving as a tribute to his mom.
And it just so happened that we'd already recorded a bunch of interviews with our family members, and so there already happened to be several mentions of his mom's cooking in the episode.
So it feels like a really nice way to honor her.
I also wanted to read you a couple lines from the obituary Rishi wrote about her.
Kantha was an excellent cook and a lover of spicy cuisine from all over the world.
She expressed her love through cooking and insisted on feeding everyone who came into her her house.
When the Hereways began an annual tradition of hosting Thanksgiving dinner in their home in Peabody, Kamta would make Indian food alongside the American staples, which were less familiar to her.
A highlight for her family and the friends who came to visit was her mango pie, a hybrid dessert that would one day be written about in the New York Times, adapted from her recipe.
It was a dish that represented her well, making a home in America, but always connected to Indian culture, food, and community.
Rishi and I asked my editors at the New York Times to take the mango pie recipe down from behind the paywall for the holiday so that we could encourage you to make the dish as a tribute to Kanta Ante.
We'll link to the recipe over on the resources page, but know that nothing will make Rishi and the whole Huawei family happier this week than sharing a little bit of Kanta Ante's cooking with you.
And if you feel so inclined, you can make a donation in her name, Kanta Hiawei, to your local food bank.
She would have loved that.
You know, at the end of every episode, I say stay healthy, eat well, and take care of each other.
And right now, I mean that more than ever.
Okay, so on to the show.
I hope it brings you some comfort and joy.
This is Home Cooking with Samin Anthi, Rishi Mama, and Mia Shapur.
Thanksgiving with Family Edition.
I'm Samin Nasrat. And I'm Rishi Kesherway.
And we're home cooking.
And that was Asha, my five -year -old niece.
And this is episode 13 of our four -part series, which is also part two of our Thanksgiving saga.
And like Asha said, this is our Family Edition.
And just like Thanksgiving, we've got way too many guests.
Besides Asha's cameo just now, we're going to be joined later by Samin's twin brothers.
Very exciting. Plus, my dad's going to come back to say hi, and we're going to be joined by our friend Tracey Clayton, not family by blood, but she's part of the podcast family.
Yeah. We've been begging her to be on the podcast ever since we started it.
In the last episode, we answered a bunch of questions that people had sent in, and we talked about foods that people were trying to make for Thanksgiving.
This time, Samin, I wanted to ask you more about the foods that you are personally most most excited about for Thanksgiving, what they are and how you make them?
I'm excited to talk about this because, like I said, I did not grow up with this holiday, so I don't have a lifelong relationship to it.
But as we all know, I love to eat.
Probably the thing I look forward to the most is making the stuffing, which I think probably a lot of people feel that way.
And not to like bash box stuffing mix, but that was what I had a relationship to at first, and I really didn't get boxed stuffing mix.
I really did not understand that, and so it wasn't until I had homemade stuffing and then eventually got to make it that I was like, what the heck is this?
Wait, okay, so stuffing is my favorite part of the meal.
Being culinarily behind a few steps, I go boxed stuffing mix as my starter.
Okay, tell me about your relationship to of stuffing let's start with there first of all it's a love love relationship okay i love stuffing stuffing loves me back okay we deeply understand each other awesome do you have a brand allegiance pepperidge farm stuffing was kind of the iconic stuffing for me but that's always just the base for me because for me what i really love and this probably goes with my feelings about upma actually is I want it to have a little bit of crunch to it.
And so I will chop and saute onions, and I also add cashews.
Very Indian of you.
Yeah. I mean, our Thanksgivings were these Indian crossovers.
And so my mom used to make the stuffing, and that was how she would make it.
She would add these cashews and onions to it.
And maybe she even, I'm not even sure, maybe she might've even done a whole on podni with like - All the spices.
Yeah. Some mustard seed and stuff like that.
But there's still a little bit of that.
This is my way to get to a really delicious outcome quickly.
I'm kind of maximizing.
I'm trying to be pragmatic and get as much flavor as I can with as little effort as I can.
But I'm open to you helping me step up my stuffing game.
Well, can I ask another question?
This is going to expose my naivete when it comes to box stuffing mix.
But isn't box stuffing mix literally just essentially pre -made croutons and seasonings?
Yeah. Okay. So it's just like some spices that you're paying for?
You're paying for some spices mixed in with some stale bread.
And probably some MSG is in there too, I would guess.
Hopefully. One would hope.
To me, I think probably besides stock, I think the essential flavorings in a stuffing that that really define Thanksgiving are celery.
To me, you cannot have stuffing without celery.
So I would add celery to your onion.
That smell of celery and onion cooking in butter is like the smell of Thanksgiving to me.
And then I think thyme and sage.
I think thyme, sage, celery, and butter is stuffing to me.
And probably I would guess in that dried herb mix is dried sage and dried thyme.
But I think fresh sage and fresh thyme would add something else too.
And those are good herbs to have on hand for all sorts of Thanksgiving dishes.
Okay. What about some of the essential ingredients that come in the box stuffing that you're missing, like where is your reduced iron, niacin, thiamine, the mononitrates?
When do you add the folic acid?
Yeah. When do I add that stuff?
Oh, man. Well, I will say my favorite version of stuffing has prunes that are soaked in stock and or white wine, and prunes are really healthy, and also very good for your digestion, as we all know.
So they probably have all that stuff.
What is the bread that you use in your stuffing?
My mantra is work acid in at every opportunity.
And so when it comes to stuffing, I really prefer to use a sourdough bread because then even the base of the stuffing has some tang in it.
So I'll choose a country loaf if I can get my hands on it, and I'll get that in the earlier part of the week to let it grow stale.
After a day, maybe I would tear them into pieces that are about the same size in order to let them you know get stale as rapidly as possible and evenly as possible I would then like lay them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and even then like if the oven's not on I might just to save space just put them on the oven rack and let them dry out and then the drier the bread is going to be the more absorbent it's going to be and the more delicious stock and flavor it will be able to absorb.
And the more stocky flavor that absorbs, the more flavorful and delicious your stuffing will be.
Do you ever make the sourdough?
Absolutely not. Under no circumstances.
What about this year?
Because you've been doing a lot of sourdough baking.
That was like episode two and then it kind of ended.
I mean, the sourdough starter is still existent in my house.
It's dormant though, I will say.
I remember I really wanted to do a thing called like stuffing of the month or whatever because i think you could have a seasonal like monthly stuffing we should have stuffing of the month club oh that would be good you know there could be a springtime one with asparagus and there could be a summertime ones with cherry tomatoes and eggplant huh it's essentially just like what tastes good with bread by the way if i can take a little bread tangent just for a second why not i know we've talked a little bit about freezing bread in the past, but that has now become our strategy in the house.
Lindsay bakes the bread.
As soon as it comes out and has finished resting and cooling, basically we immediately slice it and put it in a bag and put it in the freezer.
And then anytime we want to have a piece of bread, we pull it from the freezer and - Go straight to the toaster.
Straight to the toaster.
And it is as fresh as the first day.
Yeah, perfect. Right out of the freezer, even like a week later It really, it's like a little time machine Where that super fresh bread can now last in that super fresh state For days and days and days and days The freezer, it's a time machine Exactly I feel like you could be a voiceover artist for freezers Can you do a little freezer commercial right now?
Yeah Time, it's a tyranny that haunts us all The ravages of age are endless and inexorable but one machine stands in its way, the freezer.
Agents. He's available.
Call me. Okay, we have a stuffing -related question that I wanted to play you.
This comes from Kate.
I'm wondering if there's any way to make stuffing cooked outside a turkey taste as good as stuffing cooked inside a turkey.
In my family, the stuffing cooked inside the turkey is never enough for everyone, so we always have to make two batches.
And the stuffing cooked in a separate dish is always just so much less delicious than the stuffing cooked inside the turkey.
I've also heard that cooking stuffing inside the turkey is not that safe in terms of bacteria in case it doesn't get hot enough.
So do you have any ideas about how to make all the stuffing outside the turkey but still have it be as delicious?
I do have so many ideas.
is I've never actually made the stuffing in the turkey because I've heard that it's dangerous and because I'm a control freak and I want to control the cooking of each element of my meal.
And the best way to do that is by cooking things individually.
And so I've never seen stuffing cooked in a turkey and I've never eaten it.
You've never eaten it?
No, I've never been at a meal where it's been cooked that way.
Oh, so I have had both versions.
Oh, do tell. In my family, we would always do too.
My mom is a lifelong vegetarian, so we always have lots of vegetarian options for Thanksgiving.
But I would say there is definitely a difference, even though I'm not much of a turkey eater.
One thing I'll say is when the stuffing is cooked inside the turkey, it has a dark meat kind of flavor to it.
It's definitely got some umami to it, like a salty umami that I think people probably really love and definitely does not get replicated in the stovetop stuffing, even though that is my main stuffing.
What I would often do is do the outside of the bird stuffing, but then I would still put gravy on it.
Yeah. I mean, that's essentially where I'm headed here.
Okay. So Kate, I think the answer to your question is the same as the advice that I would give to anyone making stuffing, which is to make as flavorful a stock as possible.
and i think that this is also helpful for making the gravy too and this is something i do the day before thanksgiving or even two days before i think it's really important to have a lot of bones for making a really delicious gravy and a really delicious stock and sometimes just that that what you cut off your turkey is not enough.
But what makes a rich stock is bones.
That's what makes something really gelatinous and gives it that sort of jelly -ish quality when it's cold.
And also what makes it dark and that umami flavor that you were talking about, Rishi, you know, like that rich, meaty sort of dark meat flavor, that comes from the roasting.
So sometimes that might mean buying an extra turkey wing, buying an extra turkey neck, buying some extra chicken feet buying some extra chicken bones and you want to have some raw bones you might want to have some roasted bones that maybe you've been saving from all your roast chickens that you've been eating you're going to be making you know what chefs call like a double stock so like this is that one time a year where home cooks do restaurant level cooking in a way they're doing like french culinary stuff so if you really want to do it like the real way what what you do is you make a regular
chicken stock or a regular turkey stock or a mixed chicken and turkey stock.
And then you have some separate extra bones that you roast and you get them really dark.
So I would do that on a baking sheet at 400 degrees and get those bones like really golden and beautiful.
Maybe even add some onion and some carrot and some celery onto that tray and get everything really dark and beautiful.
And maybe there's even some like little dark bits on the tray that you can deglaze with some water or white wine.
And then all of that dark stuff goes into a stock pot, and you pour the stock that you already made over it.
Oh, and that's why it's the double stock?
Yeah, and then you spend a whole second day cooking it a second time.
And then it becomes a twice -cooked stock.
You might even reduce it a little bit, and it becomes this incredibly rich, dark, flavorful thing.
It's almost like reinvesting the dividends.
Exactly. Exactly. Now, can I trouble you for a vegetarian option for anyone who might find that your description of roasted bones a little gruesome?
Yeah. What could you do to get that same kind of really flavorful, rich, umami kind of deep flavor on your stuffing at a purely vegetarian level?
I would say I really hope you're not averse to mushrooms because I think that's the key.
Again, Thanksgiving is a time when people really like to use luxury items. Yeah.
And this time of year, there are a lot of chanterelle mushrooms available and certainly on the West Coast and all sorts of other kind of wild mushrooms. But I have to say, like, I am so partial to the classic cremini to the like button, brown button mushroom.
I love a button mushroom.
I love it. It's one of my favorites.
So yeah, I think the key is to make, again, a really flavorful stock and also to build as much umami into the stuffing foundation as well, as much as possible.
And so vegetarian ingredients that are rich in umami, definitely mushrooms are at the top of that list. People use mushrooms for gravy too.
You can make a gravy out of mushrooms. Yeah, I think mushrooms are the answer to everything unless you don't like mushrooms or are allergic to them.
so can you give me the three sentence guide to making a vegetarian stock with mushrooms yeah i would say you clean them up so do a quick rinse brown them whether in the oven or on the stove and then use them in your stock you know along with your other vegetables and you want to make like unlike a chicken stock you really only need to simmer for about 40 minutes max i would also Also sneak in a little bit of maybe tomato paste.
That's another source of umami.
I might even sneak in a little bit of nutritional yeast, another little source of umami, if you're not averse to that.
A little soy sauce.
Oh, kombu, the Japanese seaweed.
That's also a great source of umami, which is a classic sort of thing to add to stocks and broths, which really has this kind of like understated, almost invisible to the tongue when you taste it by itself.
But then it's this kind of secret layer of umami.
You know, when you taste it along with other stuff, it heightens everything else.
You don't have to do all of these, but these are all just like possible sources of umami that you can sneak in.
do you ever use a bullion cube or is that cheating no absolutely if you are better than bullion is as we you know we started this whole podcast with that well i hope that helps kate i think that that sounds like you've got a couple options to make some delicious stuffing that still follows the anal retentive side of samin's control freak nature i hope so i'm getting some real juicy information straight from samin's brain here and so i feel like this would be a great time to invite your brothers on so I can get some more.
Oh no. We're gonna talk to Pasha and Bahadur, my younger brothers.
They might have some bones to pick with me.
Just add them to the stock.
Just add them to the stock.
Thank you guys for joining us.
I'm so thrilled to finally meet you.
I've heard so much about you.
Since I don't get to hang out with the three of you together, I've at least gathered you here all on this recording.
I mean, you're kind of like the the fourth sibling honestly kind of pretty much then i i have some catching up to do who's snoring oh there's i have like three bulldogs behind me yeah well do you remember the first time you had anything that samin ever cooked has she made food for you yes i remember the chicken pot pie it was the chicken pot pie in like second or third year when she came back she was at berkeley for second or third year i remember and we were all excited because she worked she's like oh yeah i worked at It's Jay's Pannis, and that's what we used to call it in our house.
And it was like I'd never had chicken pot pie that way where you make, like, the biscuits almost like dumplings on top, and I was like, this isn't chicken pot pie.
I'm like, what is this?
Because, you know, in my mind, I mean, we never even – We never grew up having chicken pot pie.
But in my mind, you picture that, like, Marie Callender's, you know, the big thing with the lattices and stuff, and I was like, only later did I come to discover that that was, like, like that was like the Ina Garten way of making chicken.
Like it was better.
But when I was young, I was like, what is this garbage?
And so everyone was like, really nice job, Samin.
And they're like, where's the rest of the meal?
Where are all the condiments?
Where's all the other stuff?
And I was like, no, it's a one pot meal.
I was like, I made the biscuits from scratch. And they weren't impressed.
I mean, everyone was really nice about it.
But it was just one of those like, wah, wah.
Well, and it was, like, different spices that we weren't used to, you know?
Like, our palate was, like, you know, cardamom and sumac and, like, Persian food, and, like, this is, like, totally different.
This is, like, sage and, like, all this other stuff.
Definitely, like, it was a mistake.
I misjudged the audience, you know?
But do you have any memory of eating a dish that Samin made that you liked?
The earliest memory I have is, I think, like, 2008 or something, give or take.
I came up to Berkeley to actually visit a different friend, and I didn't even tell her I was coming here, and she was working at this place that doesn't exist anymore called Ecolo.
I sort of figured out how to get there on the bus and went down one day and showed up.
So I hung out in the kitchen, and she let me hang out, and it was cool, and at some point, she's like, well, what do you want to eat?
So she gave me the menu, and I looked at all this stuff and saw this fancy Italian food that I have no experience with, no palate for, because I'm like a pleb.
And so I'm looking at the thing and like, she's like, oh, you should order the oxtail.
And I'm looking at this one, like oxtail.
It's like, I didn't even register with me.
And I see the last thing on the menu, which is there for like all of like the jerks who have like no sophistication and no culture.
It's like, there's a hamburger.
And I'm like, at the time I was really into hamburgers.
So I'm like, yeah, I'm going to order the hamburger.
And she like made fun of me for ordering the hamburger.
So it was a really good hamburger.
And then so I started eating my hamburger and then she like takes it out of my hand, Anne starts eating it, and she's like, yeah, it's a really good hamburger.
I don't remember that, but I believe you.
Samin and I have bonded a little bit over our moms, both our moms being really excellent cooks and also very critical people.
You three didn't grow up celebrating Thanksgiving traditionally, but I know food was such a big part of your family life.
Is there a day when you really get nostalgic for being around each other and eating a big meal together?
I'd say like Persian New Year, yeah.
Yeah, our version of that probably is Persian New Year, which is really like all holidays wrapped into one.
Pretty much, yeah. Because it's a two -week -long celebration that happens in spring.
Yeah. And there's a lot of food involved.
And there are so many different sort of food -related parts of it, and we had so much joy and laughter.
Bottle, bottle, remember when Pasha almost set the house on fire on aid?
Wasn't that me? No, it was Pasha.
What did I do? I was a pyro, but what did I do?
you lit the kleenex on fire from one of the candles at the half scene because i like to watch the kleenex rise because there's like a special sort of um table filled with all sorts of things symbolic items for persian new year and one of them is candles and fire and having light and posh fully was and still continues to be a pyromaniac so i think he was in second grade And he lit a Kleenex on fire and then dropped it on the rug.
And then we just had this, like, burnt spot on our cream -colored rug for, like, years.
The reason I was asking is because every year we would host Thanksgiving.
That was, like, the big gathering at our house where we would cram, like, 40 or 50 Indians into, like, a 1 ,200 square feet.
and uh and so every year this is the time of year when i get really i mean i miss my family all the time but especially on thanksgiving it just doesn't feel the same when we're not together but the one good thing about having this kind of virtual holiday is we get to celebrate it with all kinds of people who we might not normally see so thank you both for coming and joining us and uh talking to me so fun and filling in some of the jigsaw puzzle pieces of my picture of samin too For sure.
Thanks for having us.
Samin, I feel closer to you already.
Wow. Well, then I guess it's only fair for me to return the favor.
I thought we could talk to my dad, since now he's a veteran of this podcast. Your dad is basically the third host of this show.
He really is. And he could give some insight into some of where my Thanksgiving ideas came from, because he'll remember better than I do.
Oh, I can't wait to hear.
Okay, let's talk to my dad, who's, by the way, a food scientist, whose background is in meat.
And so we should ask him some turkey questions.
Oh, it'll be kind of like calling the Butterball Hotline.
That's right. Hi, Dad.
Hi, Rishi, and hello, Samin.
Hi, Sumesh Uncle. Dad, when was the first time you ever cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving?
So we purchased our house when Rishi was about two years old.
And then we had excellent neighbors.
So the company I used to work for, KM Foods, they used to give to all the employees turkey to take home for Thanksgiving.
So in 82, we gave it to our neighbors.
And then they said, how about coming and joining us?
And their kitchen and anything was so small, but they had accommodated all of us.
And then when we were walking from the backyard from their house, Rishi said, Dad, how about making turkey ourselves next year?
You can do it. So I said, OK.
Okay. And then I looked it up the mom's cookbooks and the cookbook she had was Joy of Cooking.
Oh, yeah. And I looked at the recipe for marinating turkey and we used that recipe to make the first time turkey in our house in 83.
Since then, you've made turkey pretty much every single year up until the first Thanksgiving that you spent here at our house when you and mom came to visit.
Yeah. Me and Lindsay and I remember I said, Dad, as the turkey expert, do you want to make the turkey this year?
And you said, no. I said, since I'm in your house, it should be made your way.
You know, it was amazing.
It was the first time I'd ever seen my dad not take on the responsibility.
You know, like my dad's normal way of operating is that he will do everything for everybody, whether you want him to or not.
this was the first time ever in my life that i'd seen my dad sort of step back and say yeah you know what it's not my problem this year i'm a guest you all can figure it out and it made me so happy oh i don't know to see my dad assert something that he actually wanted like to give himself a break it was awesome oh that's amazing also the idea was like i want to taste the turkey a different way than what normally I have made it, you know.
That's true. Okay, well, Dad, thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving.
To keep up with all of Dr. Sumesh Hirway's antics, you can follow him on Instagram at Sumesh Hirway, which I have to say is mostly just a thread of me.
It's true. You dominate his Instagram feed, that I, and I will say I'm definitely not at all jealous.
Okay. So we've talked about turkey with my dad.
We talked about stuffing.
What else is on your ideal Thanksgiving table?
Okay. This is the last time I'm going to talk about acid and I'm not talking about LSD because I've never actually had that.
So. Okay. LSD in this case stands for last Samin dish.
Yeah. Last Samin dish.
So I I really feel like cranberry sauce, as wonderful as it is, apparently is divisive, which I had no idea.
Last episode, I realized some people don't even like it.
So it is really important to offer another condiment because the more condiments, the better.
And condiments are sources of acid.
So a while ago, I started just making a fried sage salsa verde and bringing that to the table because it was a way to incorporate, again, again, that like sagey Thanksgiving taste into a nice sort of vinegary, herby, fresh flavor, acidic flavored thing to bring to the table that you could spoon over pretty much every dish and it would just sort of elevate the flavors, bring some brightness and yeah, freshen everything up.
It's pretty simple.
I'll talk us through it really quickly here and then we'll link to a recipe.
So it's just some chopped parsley that I cover with olive oil and put in a a bowl.
And then I take some shallots and dice them up.
If you don't feel like you can dice them, you could just mince them.
And then I put those in another bowl and cover them with some red wine vinegar.
That's called maceration.
So I let them sit for like at least 15 minutes.
Then comes the fun part, which is frying the sage.
I use a small pan. So I'll have a bunch of picked sage leaves, like maybe 20 leaves.
And I'll have those ready.
And I'll have a little baking sheet or plate lined with paper towels ready and then i'll set a little tiny frying pan with about i don't know a centimeter of canola oil or another sort of neutral oil in it on a medium flame and i'll bring that up to temperature and i the way i test the temperature to know that it's ready to fry is i'll put one sage leaf in it and as soon as that sage leaf sizzles then i know that it's ready so then I can add all the rest of the sage leaves or as many as will be submerged you might have to do it in two batches because the pan is small but I'm trying to not waste
oil yeah and then I'll use like a tongs or a slotted spoon to make sure everything sort of goes and as soon as you put all those leaves in it'll sort of go and how do you spell that k -h -l -g -a -l -g -l -g -l -g -l -g -l -g Okay, got it.
Kind of bubbles up and steams up.
Sounds a lot like Popeye's laugh to me.
No, that's a yoo -jee -yoo -jee -yoo -jee.
Oh, my God. Okay, sorry.
Anyway, so you fry your sage.
And then as soon as the bubbles stop, you pull the sage out.
And they might be kind of droopy.
The leaves might seem kind of droopy and sad.
but you let them dry out on your paper towel and as soon as they cool off they'll get really crispy and beautiful so you sprinkle them with salt and then right before you come to your table you mix the parsley with the shallots that have the red wine vinegar on them and you make sure that salsa verde mixture of like parsley oil shallots and vinegar has salt in it and it tastes right and And then at the very last moment, you can crumble the fried sage into it.
It crumbles into like the finest little airy thing.
And so once it's in the salsa, it kind of crumbles and dissolves and becomes part of the parsley.
And then the fried sage melts into the olive oil of the salsa verde.
And it's just so delicious.
And it's so good. Awesome.
If you like home cooking and you want to hear more from the two of us, I wanted to tell you about a new episode of my series Key Change, where I interview guests about a song that changed their life.
It's a new part of my music podcast Song Exploder, and I had Samin on as a guest. She told me about the impact that the song Untouchable Face by Ani DeFranco had on her.
Here's a little clip of our conversation.
Oh, I've bleeped out some of the words for this because we don't swear on home cooking, but it's a pretty important part of the story.
So when you go to listen to the full episode, you'll hear the uncensored version.
So we went and the concert was Ani DiFranco.
Had you heard Ani DiFranco's music before?
No, I had no idea who this person was.
And she performed this song, Untouchable Face, which in Untouchable Face, she swears.
She says, f*** you and your untouchable face.
And I had no idea what the song was about.
I just heard the f***, you know, which to me was so scandalous.
Like, I'm just like, you know, good brown kid.
Like, I was like, who?
I was sort of scandalized.
What was the reaction of the other people in the room?
I mean, everyone else knew all the words and was singing it along.
And this was hardly scandalous music for them.
People were listening to way more intense stuff.
And so not only are you in a room where the singer is dropping an F -bomb, everybody around you is singing along with it?
Oh, yeah, totally. And so, you know, you kind of probably by the end of the song, I was also singing along.
Yeah. So that's the clip.
I actually think it's a really moving story and shows a side of Samin that you might not know.
To hear the rest of our conversation, look for Samin's episode of KeyChange on Song Exploder, wherever you get your podcasts, or go to songexploder .net slash keychange.
I hope you listen. Thanks.
If you're a fan of home cooking and the way it's all put together, but like me, you wish it had a little less Rishi in it, Let me recommend Rishi's other podcast, The Brilliant and Magical Song Exploder.
Rishi's the host, but he cuts himself entirely out of the interviews.
He does with amazing musicians like Janelle Monae, Robin, Fleetwood Mac, U2, and more.
So you just hear them talking about the creative process behind the making of one of their songs.
I was actually a fan of Song Exploder way before Rishi and I became friends.
Two of my favorite episodes are the ones with Solange and Sylvan Esso.
The show is so carefully and thoughtfully made, and it's just really inspiring for anyone who creates things.
Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
So for me, one of my essential dishes that we haven't talked about yet is cornbread.
But to get into it, I want to invite our friend Tracy Clayton to join us because she has some very different opinions about cornbread than I do.
Oh, OK. Oh, I can't wait to hear.
Tracy, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
I know you were a little bit reluctant because we were talking about how One Thing by Amory is the best Thanksgiving song because you can say gobble, gobble, gobble.
Absolutely. And I brought up cornbread as a Thanksgiving dish.
And you said, quote, I'm going to test the limits of our friendship.
Ready? I don't actually like cornbread.
And before learning too much about why or who hurt you.
This does not feel like a safe space.
No, it's a safe space.
It is a safe space.
I thought, OK, let's wait to get into this and talk about it on the podcast. So thanks for doing it.
I know you're doing it under duress.
I am. Why don't you like cornbread?
I think it's just that I don't like the taste or the feel of it.
I like bread. I love bread.
See, now I feel like I have to defend myself.
I love bread. OK, that's not the problem.
I love bread. But cornbread's not really bread.
OK, OK. I'm with you on that.
I'll give you that.
OK, so it's starting to feel a little safer now.
Yeah. But yeah, it's the graininess of it for me.
It's very much a texture thing.
I am a person who if I can't get with the texture of something, even if it's delicious, like mushrooms, I don't mind the taste of mushrooms. But mushrooms feel like a fungus, even though the only fungus I've eaten is a mushroom.
If that makes sense.
Like, I just I don't enjoy it.
So there's that. And I think that the consistency of cornbread and like it's cut into squares in my brain is like, oh, cake.
And so then when I take a bite, my brain's like, why did you do this?
This is not cake. You lied to me.
And I'm just like, I'm sorry.
I don't I don't know why I did this to you.
But my one caveat is that I do enjoy sweet cornbread.
And this includes the very controversial Jiffy.
I do like Jiffy. I'm going to say it.
wait is this controversial I didn't even know that it was controversial because I was gonna say I get yelled at all the time for it but aren't you from Kentucky yeah that's right because you're a southerner and I think Rishi doesn't understand Rishi doesn't understand like southern cornbread I think yeah she thinks Jiffy is cornbread oh okay you're like I like sweet cornbread like you carved out an exception like I didn't know that cornbread could not be sweet well from what I understand from like the homework that I've done in the south, the farther south you go in this country, the thinner and more
crumbly and less sweet cornbread becomes interesting.
And the farther north you go, and basically the wider the recipe, the sweeter, the fluffier, and the more cakey it becomes.
Hence, like the more like jiffy cornbread mix, or even more like a cake.
And so what Rishi likes, and what a lot of people what I like is almost a dessert.
And I almost think if you served Rishi what you grew up being served as cornbread, he probably wouldn't like it either.
Yeah, no, that doesn't sound good at all.
Dry, crumbly, and not sweet.
I don't want that. Cornbread to me is just like a slight variation on yellow cake.
Yeah, I think that's how it should be.
Something amazing happened earlier this year.
I don't know, are you familiar with the writer Ocean Vuong.
He is an amazing writer and poet.
His mom is from Vietnam, and he writes a lot about being like the child of an immigrant.
And so he wrote this amazing Instagram story that I will link to, where he basically reveals the like philosophical quandary of what is a cornbread and what is a Boston Market cornbread because he tells the secret recipe of Boston Market cornbread is that it's half cornbread mix, half vanilla cake mix.
And that's why you like it so much. and that's why it's your ideal cornbread is because it literally is half yellow cake mix.
That is the smartest thing I've ever heard of in my life.
Ever. Bravo Boston Market.
Bravo. How about Bravo to my palate?
Also that, yes. I tasted it and I was like, I'm getting notes of vanilla cake mix.
It's a little Betty Crocker.
Literally when I saw that, I was like, I need to go taste this magical cornbread.
It's so good. It is so good.
It's really good. So my cornbread largely relies on Jiffy or some other store -bought cornbread mix that is definitely sweetened.
And then I add jalapenos to it.
And sometimes little bits of sweet corn kernels.
It is really good. And then sometimes I'll do a blueberry cornbread.
What? Is that legal?
You put blueberries in cornbread?
Is this still cornbread then?
I don't know. I don't know.
I feel like you're pushing some limits here.
I don't know. But is that what you do for Thanksgiving or is this just like a riff?
No, the jalapeno cornbread is what I do for Thanksgiving.
That is one of my Thanksgiving dishes.
The jalapeno cornbread is so good because it's sweet and spicy.
It's like sweet and spicy cake.
That I can understand.
Tracy, can I ask, if you're not into cornbread, like what do you look forward to at Thanksgiving?
Oh my goodness. I'm looking forward to my mom's au gratin potatoes.
Ooh, tell us. Describe them, please.
Oh my gosh, there's just so much cheese and then there's more cheese and then there's some milk and then there's some more cheese and maybe some flour or something to thicken it up.
Are they like brown and crispy on top and then creamy on the inside and cheesy on the inside?
They're brown, but not crispy.
It's sort of like the whole thing is sort of kind of creamy with just the right firmness of potato.
Also just a good old yeast roll.
I love a yeast roll.
Are they pull apart rolls at your house?
hmm i love a pull -apart yes oh oh they're ones that you buy not make oh yes if it's me then i definitely buy them okay why is it called a yeast roll and not just a roll listen it's a southern i don't know i assume i was yeast as opposed to cornbread which does it is it for thanksgiving saving or do they do it for like easter oh no oh man i'm just trying to understand where the name came from i don't think it was easter you know they pull it out and they're like they look at the dough and they're like oh he has risen yeah oh no it keeps happening it keeps happening tracy help me okay okay so to
get to get this card back on the roll before it goes anywhere else.
The great thing about a yeast roll, it comes in this little tin pan and like the bread's all in there and all you have to do is like put it in the oven and brown it.
But what you do is you put some extra butter on the top first and then put it in the oven and it comes out and it's just brown and soft and just buttery and just delicious.
I can eat like, it's so good, it's so good.
I could eat a pan right now.
Do you make, with the leftover ones the next day, do you make a little like turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches?
No, why haven't I never thought of that?
Last year, I remember we that's what we did with our leftovers was we made because I had made Parker House rolls.
You were Sister Schubert?
I was Sister Schubert.
And so with our leftover rolls, we made little turkey sort of like, you know, we just had all the leftover things.
We made those turkey sandwiches and it was so good.
That sounds so good.
But you know what, I think I think a reason why my brain has never gone there is because I have adopted one of my mother's traditions.
Every Thanksgiving, what she likes even more than the actual Thanksgiving meal that she cooks the day of Thanksgiving is the turkey sandwich that she gets to have either immediately after dinner because she's been serving everybody else and hasn't eaten yet or the next day.
and it's just like plain old white sandwich bread goo gobs of turkey mayo or I guess in Kentucky it's probably um it might be Miracle Whip still and just plain laced potato chips and like a beer and it's the happiest that I see her I love it happy Thanksgiving Tracy happy Thanksgiving to y 'all too thank you so much for joining us I'm really glad we could get down to the bottom of this cornbread mystery yeah thank y 'all Wow.
Tracy Clayton is the co -host of two great podcasts that are out right now.
One is My 90s Playlist and the other is Back Issue.
Which I love. I love Back Issue.
It's so good. Yeah.
It's so funny. I mean, as you just heard, she is a delight.
All of her projects are fantastic.
Samin and I are devotees of her podcast, Another Round.
And you can follow her on Twitter, where she is, again, a delight.
Or on Instagram. She is at BrokeyMcPoverty.
Which is also maybe the greatest handle of all time.
The best. All right.
Well, Samin, rounding out my traditional Thanksgiving is something you know very well, mango pie.
I'm sure we've talked about mango pie on our show before, right?
We definitely have. We probably have talked about it, but we've never told the origin story.
Well, mango pie is something that I grew up with as a traditional Thanksgiving dessert.
Zerg. But then I introduced it to you and you ended up writing about it for the New York Times.
So I feel like it might be nice if you tell the origin story of the mango pie.
Okay. So the year was 1985.
And come the year away, Rishi's mom started making mango pie around the time when Rishi's family started hosting a hybrid Thanksgiving at their home Once they purchased a home in Peabody, which is the weird way that Massachusetts people pronounce Peabody.
And it's near the Pepperidge Farm store.
The Pepperidge Farm outlet in Middleton.
The Pepperidge Farm store is wicked close to Peabody.
Yes, exactly. And so the mango pie was made with a Keebler crust and Cool Whip and Philadelphia cream cheese and one can of Alfonso mango puree.
And then you mix that ingredients with gelatin, pour them into two crusts, and then ta -da, you have mango pie, which is the perfect hybridization of American and Indian traditions and flavors at this holiday.
It's kind of like key lime pie in its texture and presentation, only instead of that sort of bright green color, it's a bright orange color.
And instead of tasting like key lime on steroids, it tastes like mango.
on steroids and rishi and his friends would be in his room playing like video games and then at the end of the night like he'd come out and he'd be like okay i'm just gonna eat one little slice and then he'd go back to his room and then come back and be like i'm just gonna eat one more little slice and then by the end of the night he'd eaten three quarters of the pie yeah but it is very cloud like so you don't actually feel kind of you don't really feel gross because it's very no it's true it's so light it's like mango air yeah exactly that is absolutely a great summary of mango pie.
But then in recent years, my mom's health has not been great and she's not able to make all these delicious things anymore.
And we've talked about that a little bit.
It's why my dad is now, you know, in charge of so much more of the cooking and air frying.
And when it came time to have Thanksgiving, it fell upon me to make the mango pie for myself or else I wouldn't really be having Thanksgiving.
So a couple of years ago, I was making mango pie without any help from my family.
They weren't coming that year.
And as I was preparing the pies, it coincided with a visit from Samin.
You came to see me at the house and I got to tell you this whole story and explain the magic of mango pie.
Yes, it was delightful.
And I was like, isn't this just the greatest symbol of the diaspora in food form?
Here is my soul, my immigrant child soul in food form.
It's a Thanksgiving pie made of mango.
And I was like, your soul is made out of Cool Whip and Keebler crust?
Absolutely. You did not yet know me so well.
It's true. It's true.
I was like, really?
But I had trouble getting the mango pie to come out exactly right.
So after you left, I started calling you and texting you and getting advice from you.
And you helped me figure out how to make the pie.
And I was like, Samin, this should be a podcast. You should help people.
And now here we are.
So the mango pie is really integral to home cooking.
Yes. Samin then took this recipe that she was charmed by and said, I'm going to write about it for the New York Times.
And I was like, great.
and then she's like oh but i'm gonna you know fancy it up no that you're okay first of all i did not say i'm gonna fancy it up okay you just did it without telling me no i think we have had this argument in this podcast before probably but just like a good thanksgiving we're gonna make people sit through an argument they've already heard before feels appropriate i was like i could not for my column like for subscribers make them pay for a recipe that used cool whip and a pre -made graham cracker crust so i made my own graham cracker crust and i used whipped cream i mean i guess i understood that to
me i'm like well the way to make it happens to be your ingredients are a store -bought graham cracker crust and that's just one of the ingredients but it was amazing because then when the fact checker called you like because i put your quote about like how offended you were in the story and then when the fact checker called you he was like completely on your side he was so charmed by like he was like you know he's right and i was like there's no problem with his opinion i just it was so wonderful for me and for my family to see this story bastardized mango pie in the new york yes in whatever form
just the fact that said that it was adapted for my mom i mean it was really a moving moving thing and a beautiful thing that you did for my family and that was before that was before your dad on an instagram otherwise that's right exactly that was really the big first step of you becoming an official hear -way that was really wonderful and so if people want to see samin's you know bougie uh coastal elite version of the mango pie then you can go on cooking .newyorktimes .com and find it listen if you want you can just substitute all of the graham cracker and butter for a keebler all the whipped cream
for a cool whip and uh leave the whatever other crap i put in there out and then i just make it rishi's way the thing is it's gonna be good no matter what it's gonna be delicious i hope all of you make it it was so exciting when this article came out and all of a a sudden people all over Instagram were making my mom's mango pie.
It's amazing. And sometimes tagging us in it.
And so I could see just this stream of beautiful mango pies.
I even made it on morning television in England.
That's, yeah, it's unbelievable to see a little piece of my family history in that context.
However, one of the things that you mentioned is that this recipe contains gelatin.
And we actually got questions from a couple of folks asking about a vegetarian alternative.
This is Rebecca from Chicago, and I have a question about the mango pie recipe.
I would love to make it, except I keep kosher, and that means I don't use real gelatin because it's usually made from pork.
So I'm curious about how do I make that recipe using vegetarian or vegan gelatin options.
I know there's agar, which I think is made from seaweed.
There might be some other stuff out there.
And I would love to know how I can adapt that for myself being kosher.
So thank you so much. Rishi, I'm going to let you answer this because your mom's vegetarian, and I know she has an answer.
That's true. Every year, my mom would actually make another pie for herself that didn't have gelatin because, like I said, she's a lifelong vegetarian.
vegetarian and so she would use just like rebecca mentioned she would use agar agar is that what it's called in english definitely the indian pronunciation but i love it so please continue we would just replace the gelatin with that and as rebecca mentioned it's made from seaweed but i don't actually know that much about it can you explain more first of all let me ask you this how do you pronounce it i've always pronounced it agar agar okay but that doesn't mean that it's right Right.
I like your version.
So you can use the Uggar Uggar at a one -to -one ratio as a replacement for gelatin powder.
I think it totally works.
In my mind, the texture is not exactly the same, but it's certainly a great solution for anybody who otherwise couldn't eat this pie.
It's still delicious.
Sounds good to me. I hope everybody gets to have some mango pie for their Thanksgiving.
Perfect. Okay. So while we're on the topic of pie, I thought I should tell everybody about the worst pie I ever made.
This is such a classic story of my relationship to recipes.
So this was maybe at this point, maybe 10 years ago, I was having Thanksgiving with my friends who are a bunch of cooks.
And they said, oh, you go ahead and you make the pies.
And I was like, okay, cool.
What pie does everybody want?
And they were like, we don't really like the Thanksgiving pies.
Why don't you make chocolate pie?
And I was like, okay, cool.
cool. I was like, chocolate pie sounds awesome.
And so I'm like, okay, awesome.
What is the best chocolate cream pie?
So in my mind, I was like, okay, for my ideal chocolate cream pie, it would have a chocolate cookie crust. And then it would have a delicious chocolatey sort of custard or chocolate pudding type of filling.
And then it would have a wonderful whipped cream topping.
I will pass on the whipped cream topping, but okay, you do you.
Okay. And then it would have sprinkles for fun.
Chocolate sprinkles.
I mean, I don't think I had chocolate sprinkles at that time, so I think I used rainbow.
Okay. That was really the peak, the version that existed in my mind.
Everything went downhill from there.
So, first I had to go to multiple grocery stores because Because did you know you can buy the wafers that are like the equivalent of just the cookie part of the Oreo?
They're like round chocolate cookies and they're in most but not all grocery stores.
Yeah. I had to go to three grocery stores to find them and then I got them and I ground them up and made them into a cookie crust as one does with graham crackers with butter and sugar.
Sounds great so far.
But I made the crust way too thick and I baked it way too long.
So it ended up being rock hard. Wait a second.
You started off this story by saying this is an example of your relationship to recipes.
Were you following a recipe?
I looked up how to make a cookie crust because what I do is I like look up multiple recipes and then I sort of find fault with all of them individually.
I'm like, oh yeah, that, no, no, no, no. I'm going to change this.
I'm And so without having any grounds, because I haven't actually made them all, I just make like, you know, on the fly judgments about why it's not going to work.
And so then I ended up baking them for way too long and making the crust way too thick because I was worried that like the filling that I would eventually make was going to be wetter or soggier.
And I, you know, I had these sort of like reasonings in my mind.
So then next, instead of following some like, you know, internet's favorite chocolate cream cream pie, I knew that my favorite chocolate pudding that I love making is the tartine from the tartine cookbook.
I love it so much. And had you made it before?
I've made it a million times.
But I always reduce the cornstarch in that recipe because I like it to be a little bit less stiff when I make the pudding.
And because I don't like things to be super jello -y and stiff, and I was like, oh, my dream is that this pie will be sliceable, but perfectly, automatically like just like melt in your mouth yeah yeah yeah oh god i can see where this is going and so i did the same thing when i made the pudding for the thing i like just took some amount of cornstarch out and i was like oh this will be perfect so i like put them in the fridge to set for many hours and still they weren't quite set like when it was time to bring them over to my friend's house for thanksgiving at the time i was living in this apartment
that was in the back of this house so I had to like carry the pies out the back of the house out the back gate we were gonna walk to my friend's house which was like two blocks away and the pie just to the street was so wet and jiggly that I was like there's no way we can walk like it's gonna drip all the way but from these two blocks so I made us get in the car and drive like as slowly as possible and then there were so many drips once we got there there was like this path of chocolate drip from the like where I got out of the car all the way down the sidewalk because it was going out of the off
the edge of the edge of the just like all the way up this up like the path all the way to their front door into their kitchen in through their house into their fridge and at that point I was like I don't know what to do so I just put in the freezer in hopes like maybe it would freeze yeah we ate the whole meal and then it still wasn't really set and so then we came out and then what had happened was because I had put the whipped cream and sprinkles you know like the color from the sprinkles had run into the whip like right like all like runny stained color and these are all like famous chefs of the bay
area right and then then we're like cutting into this pie and it's like looks so gross and there's just like runny chocolate like pudding everywhere and then the crust is rock hard so it's like this This runny chocolate mess that's so gross.
Yeah. This like stained artificial color sprinkle thing.
This whipped cream that's like melty gross.
And then the like rock hard crust that you cannot even cut through because it's too thick and too overbeated.
Did anybody actually end up taking a bite of it?
I don't know. I mean it didn't actually taste bad but it was just so disgusting looking.
It was one of those things like I have never lived this down.
It is so gross. and the chocolate drip sustained the sidewalk for like months oh my god it was like your walk of shame commemorated i just lived in shame that's great now that the thanksgiving meal is done do you have any other traditions that you do on thanksgiving like the post thanksgiving ritual or anything like that well either pre or post i like to go for a hike what are you going to do this year i'm really excited i'm going back actually to Shrimp Jenga.
Oh, Shrimp Jenga Palace.
We should definitely make a sign for their ranch that says Shrimp Jenga Palace.
I don't even think that they know that they're Shrimp Jenga's at ground zero because I don't even think that they've ever heard this podcast. Probably better.
Yeah. But it's a citrus ranch and a pomegranate ranch. So I'm excited to use some of those ingredients.
I don't know. What about you?
I'm glad we talked about leftovers over with Tracy, because definitely one of the traditions for me is, you know, the fun of the day after Thanksgiving.
Oh, for sure. So Thursday would be the day where we would cram all of our Indian friends into our house.
Friday night would be the night that I would get together with my friends who were also, you know, home from school, you know, during college and stuff like that.
That would be the day that we would all get together after having fulfilled our familial obligations.
And usually we would play celebrity.
What's that game? I've heard of it, it, but I don't know that I knew it.
Celebrity is where you have two teams, but everybody puts a bunch of names of famous people in a bowl.
And then you divide up.
And then when it's your team's turn, you take a name out of the bowl, and you have to get your teammates to guess who you're talking about without saying their name.
Yeah. And it's really fun.
Here, we can play a sample round if you want.
Okay, I'm not going to be good at this.
Wait. Okay. I'm going to propose a version of this game that might be more palatable for Samin.
we'll do famous foods okay instead of famous people okay okay okay okay okay so I'm gonna describe a food and then you have to guess what it is okay okay okay okay okay um okay so this is a sandwich blt it was featured in the movie chef where Roy Choi hamburger no Roy Choi showed Jon Favreau yes you're just guessing sandwiches yeah I haven't seen that movies oh okay okay you go now okay this is a dessert it's very famous from my big fat greek wedding oh my gosh in a special pronunciation i haven't seen that movie oh we're really missing each other's references okay it's a dessert that has a hole
in it a donut no it has a special pan that it's baked in uh like an upside down cake that's one of the words it's a cake it has a very funny spelling and that's why it has a funny pronunciation and that's why it was in my big fat greek wedding it has a funny spelling oh bunt cake yes a bunt cake we did it i really hope that this becomes a tradition now we can do oh my god this could be alternative celebrity we're gonna start food celebrity yeah that's it for this episode thanks so much for listening and special thanks to rishi's niece and my new best friend asha who introduced the episode today we
make this podcast with the the help of Margaret Miller, Zach McNeese, Gary Lee, and Casey Deal.
And Mamie Reingold makes the artwork.
Extra special thanks to Helen Zaltzman and Ian Chilag, who stepped in to help edit this episode at the drop of a hat.
If you don't already listen to both of their podcasts, you totally should.
Helen's is called The Illusionist, and Ian's is called Everything is Alive, and they are both fantastic.
We're a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independent podcasts.
You can learn more about all the Radiotopia shows at Radiotopia .fm.
Let us know if you have any cooking -related questions, especially if they're cookie -related.
That's right. We're doing a cookie -themed episode next time.
Just record a voice memo and send it to us at alittlehomecooking at gmail .com.
Our website is homecooking .show, where you can find recipes and transcripts for all of our episodes.
You can follow Rishi on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway.
and samin is at ciao samin and sumesh uncle is at sumesh hereway yeah if you need even more samin in your life follow his feed and if for some reason you still haven't gotten enough of me you can listen to the interview i had the honor of doing with secretary hillary clinton for her podcast you and me both which is now available stay healthy eat well and take care of each other we're going to take a little time off so it'll be a little bit longer before we come back but but we'll be back in December.
Until then, I'm Samin.
And I'm Rishi. And we'll be home cooking.
Radiotopia from PRX.
