Feed Me: Sazon at home

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By now you've probably heard that the CEO of the largest food company marketing to Latinx communities in the US decided to praise Trump at the White House. Trump called Mexican-Americans rapists and drug dealers. He separates brown families at the border. He calls El Salvador a shit hole country without once acknowledging US involvement in their problems. He treats Puerto Rico as if it's not even part of the US. And he does the same to the brown people who are in this country. All of them. But the CEO of Goya pushes forth his Spanish background and sides with the racist and cries foul because a boycott has been called. Well, like Julian Castro pointed out, free speech goes both ways.

The beans and other canned products are easy to substitute. Bush's black beans are cheaper and store brands are cheaper still. And they all taste the same. The actual Mexican brands of refried beans have always been better and cheaper - I recommend Sierra.

But what about seasonings? If you look around the web there's a remarkable number of homemade substitutions being offered and one of the big surprises is how easy some of them are. Why have I been paying Goya so much for so little?

It turns out that I've been putting sazon in my chili for decades without knowing it. Check this out:

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I usually put fresh garlic in my chili and always some variety of fresh onion. Salt and pepper is standard seasoning. Oregano (or Mexican oregano) is common as is cumin. Achiote (paste) is a must for me. The outlier is coriander. If this graphic is British they'd be talking about cilantro leaf but I'm pretty sure they mean ground coriander which is the seed from the same plant. I wasn't the only one playing around with the coriander.

If you do follow that pic I recommend dropping the salt and pepper. It's always better to season with salt as you cook and pepper loses its power after it's been ground.