fusion cuisine, remixes, covers and other good ideas

I have been thinking about music lately. Not because I am about to release an album. Trust me, nobody wants that. But because the more I cook, the more I realize that food and music have a lot in common.

Take cover songs. When Limp Bizkit recorded Faith, they weren't pretending they wrote the song. George Michael already did that. They simply performed it their way. Same lyrics. Same melody. Different artist.

Then there are covers like Weezer's version of Africa. It is still Africa. You know it is Africa. You recognize every note. Weezer simply put on a different chef's jacket and cooked the same recipe.

In the kitchen, that's what happens when someone faithfully recreates a classic dish. You make Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon exactly as she intended. You make your grandmother's lasagna. You make a proper tortilla española exactly the way they taught you in Spain. That's a cover.

But then things get interesting. Because eventually somebody asks: "What if we did it this way?" That's where remixes begin. A remix respects the original but isn't afraid to move the furniture around.

In music, one of my favorite examples is Mo Money Mo Problems by The Notorious B.I.G. The song borrows heavily from Diana Ross's I'm Coming Out. Nobody mistakes it for the original song. Yet the original is clearly there. The groove. The energy. The recognizable hook. The artists took something familiar and transformed it into something new. That sounds a lot like fusion cuisine to me.

In fact, I would argue that fusion cuisine is simply culinary remixing. A Korean taco. A Cuban sandwich made with Japanese milk bread. A burger topped with chimichurri. A Vermont maple-glazed anything. Those are remixes. The original influences are still there, but they've been rearranged into a new composition.

Not too long ago—shameless plug—I posted a dish on social media that started as beef and broccoli. At least that's what it was supposed to be. The beef was griddled. The broccoli became a foamy sauce. The whole thing was served over rice. Was it traditional beef and broccoli? Absolutely not. Was it delicious? My five-year-old daughter seemed to think so. That wasn't a cover. That wasn't even a faithful remix.

That might have been a remix with a sample thrown in. Then there was the time I reinvented guacamole. Nobody asked me to do this. Nobody sent a petition. Nobody held a town hall meeting. Yet there I was, charging an ISI whipping canister with avocado and turning guacamole into foam. I am still not entirely sure if that was innovation or a cry for help. Either way, it happened. And that's the thing about remix culture.

Sometimes you create Mo Money Mo Problems. Sometimes you create the culinary equivalent of that one remix nobody wanted. You don't know until you hit play. Or serve dinner. Lasagna soup is another example. I make a respectable lasagna. The problem is that I never seem to use enough sauce. And no matter how hard I try, there is never enough of that perfect corner piece. You know the one. The corner with the crispy edges, extra cheese, and concentrated flavor. So one day I thought: "What if lasagna became soup?" The answer was surprisingly good. Was it lasagna? Sort of. Was it soup? Also yes. That's a remix.

The same goes for enchilada casserole. I got tired of frying tortillas, rolling them, filling them, and inevitably burning myself somewhere in the process. So I layered everything like a casserole. The flavors remained. The structure changed.

Remix. The food world loves this sort of thing. Sometimes maybe too much. Take the deconstructed Caprese salad. I have seen them. You probably have too. Tomatoes placed here. Mozzarella placed there. Basil foam floating somewhere in the vicinity. A balsamic reduction painted across the plate like modern art. Do I personally want my Caprese salad reconstructed before I eat it? Not really. But I admire the courage. Or perhaps the gumption. Because somebody looked at a perfectly good Caprese salad and said: "What if we took it apart and made people work for it?" That takes confidence. And maybe a little mischief.

The longer I cook, the more I think every chef is secretly a DJ. Some chefs play the classics exactly as written. Some perform faithful covers. Some remix. Some sample. Some mash together influences from places separated by oceans.

And every once in a while, someone turns guacamole into foam and hopes nobody asks too many questions. At the end of the day, the best dishes, like the best songs, respect where they came from. But they are not afraid to become something new. After all, nobody remembers the musician who played every note exactly the same.

They remember the one who made them hear it differently.