quiche

food

Quiche is good, because you can vary it lots of ways and use up things in the fridge. Today I am using up three kinds of cheese (American Parmesan, Mexican Panella and orange American Cheddar). I'm also experimenting with the dried tomatoes that came in a bag from the fruit and veg section of HEB. They're not in oil but seem pretty much like Italian sun-dried tomatoes.

I am the kind of puritan cook who still instinctively feels that cheeses named after Parma or the Cheddar Gorge should either be made there, or choose other names. However, Wisconsin seems to produce quite a variety of different cheese-types now, so they could not all practically be called Wisconsonian, and anyway another part of my puritanism is about cooking in a way appropriate to wherever you are. Which I'm not doing. But cooking with imported cheese would be even worse.

But I like quiche. And I did figure one thing out before coming back to Texas this time, and it's a thing that applies to more than just the kitchen; America is not about learning and becoming part of the culture in the way that, say, moving to Poland or Italy or rural Spain would be. In those places, you slowly pick up the language then adopt everyone else's habits and routines. But in America, there are no habits or routines. Everything is open all the time and you do whatever you want. So the best thing is to bring the positive national identity you had already, and build on that. Being yourself is more American than anything else you can be. And that, paradoxically, is why I am an Englishwoman in Texas.

Quiche, of course, is French. Because British food, of course, is mostly Italian, Indian, French, Greek and Middle Eastern, among other nationalities. Small world.