Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/04/vincent-price-and-boris-karlof.html
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Vincent Price and Boris Karloff both used some weird ingredients in their homemade guacamole recipes
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You make them sound like a couple of monsters.
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I like powdered cumin, chili powder and a half-shot of tequila in mine.
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They had avocados way back then?
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Poor man’s butter.
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(The newspaper article also refers to this as a “sauce,” which is…not how I tend to think of my guac?)
Back in the day, guacamole was called “guacamole sauce,” and “guacamole” was pronounced gwak-ah-mah-lah.
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Good name for a band.
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Shades of The El Camino! You know that the “mole” in guacamole means sauce, yes?
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I should really up my guac game. I just add lemon juice and salt. But the avocados we have to put up with could go brown by they time I assemble and add all of those other ingredients.
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My soon-to-be-sister-in-law’s husband is Latino. She has said she much prefers my guac.
My fiancee asked me what my secret is. It is 2 things:
- General cooking rule: You have to taste it. Ingredients can be variable in salt, sugar, fat content, citric acid content. Especially tomatoes. If you literally follow a recipe every time, you will have some batches better than others.
- You have to add salt. Having enough salt helps bring out all the flavors.
Worcestershire brings more salt and slightly different flavors, the mayo brings fat and some creaminess (some people like that). Adding mayo isn’t that different than adding sour cream.
These recipes basically make sense to me. Nothing that crazy.
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I also find that using fresh ingredients makes a huge difference. I put cumin in my guacamole, and I always toast and grind it just before mixing rather than using pre-ground powder. And use freshly diced tomatoes rather than canned, etc.
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Guacamole is just mayonnaise for millennials, and just as vile as mayo.
Based on it being Karloff and Price I came in expecting to see “blood of bat”, “eye of newt”, or “glass spider leg”.
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my husband always puts freshly toasted and ground cumin, garlic (more than you would think), and cilantro in his, and we always have people asking what makes it so addictive. the sherry is an interesting ingredient, for sure, but vincent price’s all more or less make sense to me, even if i wouldn’t use mayo or worcestershire myself.
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Mine is pretty simple: avocado, lime juice, cilantro, garlic salt and black pepper
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Guacamole is not a sauce for chips. Chips are a delivery system for guacamole.
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Don’t had lemon OR lime to your guacamole. Good avocados are the best. Lime just hides the flavor. Chopped onion, tomato, fresh jalapeno, finely chopped cilantro…fine. But never citrus.
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I start my guac by planting an avocado tree. Once the seventh season’s crop ripens (the first six are all prelude to the seventh, flavor-wise, and everyone knows the eight season is garbage) I gather the avocados (by hand, natch) and sort them by size and type. Then I use a coring tool to taste-test each and every one. If none satisfy, I plant a new tree and start again. From there I use only organically grown tomatoes, onion, red pepper powder made from my own peppers, home-grown roasted cumin seeds, ground, and salt.
Just kidding. I buy soft avocados, mash them, and add some canned salsa and salt until it’s how I like it. Been doing that for 40 years, from the time that I grew up in SoCal. Even when my aunt had a house with an avocado tree, we usually had to buy in the store.
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These both are very James Beard-ish. Although the mayo in Vincent Price’s recipe is throwing me.
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if the lime is hiding the flavor it signals that you’re using too much. about a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lime juice per two avocados reduces discoloration and gives the guacamole a hint of brightness to shine through the fattiness of the avocados. although i can no longer enjoy my recipe since i developed an anaphylactic-shock level allergy to avocados 6 years ago, my recipe is still the favorite of my family and coworkers.
since i can’t do that anymore, my wife tastes it and suggests seasoning corrections. generally salt level since my sense of smell can suss out the appropriate levels of the other flavors of the mixture.
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