Recipe: Jicama Salad

Jicama Salad (vegan and probably gluten free)

I am kicking around some ideas for posts about restaurants here in Topeka (where I am visiting my parents for the holidays), but I have to share this recipe with you first. I made it for the first time about two years ago. It is not an original, but I have made minor modifications. The original is here at What We're Eating, a lovely website. A small but notable swap is capers for anchovy paste, which makes the recipe vegan (and a bit cheaper to make). I apologize for the poor picture quality, the only camera I have with me is on my phone.

The most time consuming thing about making this is cutting up the jicama.

Ingredients:

The Business
1 jicama, the one I used was probably the size of a grapefruit and a half, and yielded about 2 cups of julienned goodness
1/3 red onion sliced thinly, or however much you'd like... don't go overboard or you'll overwhelm the rest of the ingredients
1 granny smith apple, shredded, don't substitute here because the tartness is important... so I guess substitute at your own risk
1/2 cup or so carrots, shredded
1 jalapeno, seeded and sliced, I sliced it down the middle and took out the innards then did small slices on each half
1/3 cup cilantro, or to taste
1/3 cup peanuts, ground

The Dressing
3 limes, juiced up
2 1/2 tablespoons chili garlic paste, if you don't keep this stuff on hand then you are making a big mistake. I basically put it in everything I make. Everything.
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
Roughly 10-15 capers, put through a garlic press
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, put through a garlic press, OR 1 teaspoon of dried ginger
black pepper to taste
3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (the original calls for asian peanut oil, which I would absolutely use if I had any... note to self: get some)

Instructions:
Put the first set of ingredients in a bowl.
Put the second set of ingredients (sans oil) in a small bowl and whisk them together.
Slowly whisk the oil in with the rest of the dressing ingredients.
Pour the dressing over the rest of the stuff and toss it all together. I used tongs to do this. Beware, though, I pinched my palm with the tongs!

Introduction

Welcome to my blog, City of Pigs.

What’s with the name?

Socrates: “They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves… drinking of the wine they have made… of course they must have relish—salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation” (Republic 372).

The above is an initial description of how people in Plato’s ideal state would eat. After providing this description, Glaucon chastises Socrates for the diet, saying that it is identical to the food one might provide for “a city of pigs” (Republic 372d). Socrates then agrees to add cakes and other luxuries, all the better to see how injustice will arise in the state. “In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life” (Republic 372e-373a). John Stuart Mill famously invokes both pigs and Socrates some 2000 years later, “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question” (Utilitarianism Ch 2). Apparently Socrates would have been quite satisfied with the pig’s diet (though perhaps not its intellectual life).

I tend to agree with Socrates. Bread, cheese, olives, and figs? Sign me up! This penchant for (or, perhaps, idealization of) a simple diet is somewhat common among philosophers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes of his own preferences, “I did not know, and do not know even now, better cheer than a country meal. Anyone may feel sure of entertaining me handsomely with milk-food, eggs, vegetables, cheese, black bread, and tolerable wine” (Confessions Book 2). This blog title (like all of philosophy, says Whitehead) is just another footnote to Plato.

Who am I?

I like to eat, cook, and learn about food. I am also getting a PhD in philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I call myself a foodie, but only in the sense indicated by the first sentence of this paragraph. I don’t eat meat, by the way. I suspect I ought to give up eggs and cheese, too.

What will I write about?

Restaurants: Boulder was recently named America’s Foodiest Town and I like to get out and experience what the town (and environs) has to offer. This blog will serve as a discussion and review of restaurants, new and old.

Recipes: I like to cook when I don’t go out for food and sometimes I’d like to share my successes with the world and get tips from others. I bake sometimes, too, but I'm considerably worse at baking than I am at cooking.

Other: I don’t know, we’ll see where it goes. Maybe I'll even take up some philosophical questions regarding food! Or, maybe I won't.