Rib Eye Salpicón with Spicy Dipping Sauce
Rib Eye Salpicón with Spicy Dipping Sauce
How can a salad and a tostada be problematic? Let me explain.
Some people say a tostada can be a salad, but do they even know what that means?
One of the reasons I started FRESCA was because I needed to write about the things that pissed me off —not bury them. My therapist says it affects my solar plexus and that’s why my stomach hurts when I get mad. So here is one of the things that pisses me off: tostada salads.
A few weeks ago, I was reading Emily Nunn’s The Department of Salad where she ponders if “turning tostadas into a salad—killing two birds—would not be a fabulous idea/glorious disaster/delicious prank like the taco salad.” In her newsletter post, “A Tostada Can Be a Salad!,” she inadvertently takes the reader on a textbook example of the white gaze in food.
I’m referring to the way in which white people, who have historically held power and privilege, often dominate and shape the way food is produced, marketed, and consumed. The references she quotes in her post, “Mexican Salad” all come from white women, even with the realization that “tostadas are truly a Mexican invention,” Nunn gives the “poor” white woman on TikTok a break. I’m talking about the woman who claimed to have invented “flat tacos.” Let me tell you that “Christina Columbus” (as all of us call her) is not just a poor white woman who got it utterly wrong by calling tostadas “flat tacos,” her white gaze perpetuates stereotypes and cultural appropriation.
When white food writers and white chefs present foods from marginalized communities in a way that caters to Western palates and stereotypes, it does not accurately represent the cuisine and the people who created it. The white gaze not only leads to a lack of diversity and representation in food, but it leads to the erasure or appropriation of culinary traditions.
This all hits differently the day before ‘Cinco de Mayo,’ the flagship holiday of cultural appropriation. Last year, Mexican-American journalist, Lesley Téllez, wrote “A Letter To Other Mexican American And Chicanx Food Writers On Cinco de Mayo” for a feature on Delish. Delish even issued a mea culpa for “reducing Cinco de Mayo to a colorful, queso-filled excuse to eat and drink Mexican food.” White supremacy is a sneaky one. It leads to the flattening of cultural differences and the suppression of unique and diverse culinary traditions.
Instead, try salpicón de res. The original Mexican salad on tostadas.
Mexican Food Anthropologist, Ricardo Muñoz Zurita, writes about the different styles of salpicón in Diccionario Enciclopédico de la Gastronomía Mexicana. In Campeche, salpicón is made with diced fish and its livers (wowowow). In Comitán, Chiapas, it’s made with shredded beef and venison. In the Soconusco region of Veracruz, it’s made with pejelagarto (garfish). In my hometown of Puerto Vallarta, salpicón is similar to the style of Tabasco, always with crab meat mixed with onion, celery, and serrano. What is the one thing in common that all of these regional variations of salpicón have? The protein is seasoned with lime juice and vinegar.
In my recipe for salpicón de res, I take a shortcut in favor of flavor (gasps!). The flavor and smokiness of a quick, hard sear on a steak, and the texture of the golden brown crispy crust wake up this classic dish. Am I turning it on its head by making it with rib eye instead of the traditional way of boiling the meat and painstakingly shredding it? Perhaps! (please forgive me, salpicón dioses). But we had some rib eye steaks in the freezer from our recent trip to Mexicali and well, rib eye shockingly works. Just make sure to trim off any excess fat from the steak as you’ll be eating it room temp and no one likes to eat cold fat pearls.
The sliced steak, crunchy endive, and quartered radishes get tossed in a spicy sauce of vinegar, lime juice, serrano, and garlic. The steak sits in this addictive sauce for 15 minutes, but no more than 30 minutes as acid can break down meat fibers turning it mushy and gray. But the real kicker is the extra sauce that gets spiked with cilantro and shallots. You'll have the time of your life drizzling it all over the salpicón and spooning them onto tostadas.
Serve this salpicón to the people you love as you continue questioning the narrative of stereotypes and accurately represent the cuisine and the people who created it. And for the record, if you want to celebrate a Mexican holiday, make it el Día de la Independencia on September 16.
This week’s recipe playlist is a vale madre mixtape for the solar plexus.
P.S. Make sure you check out the cooking notes at the end of the recipe for sage FRESCA advice on how to ethically source and buy corn tortillas, cooking notes on baking tostadas, and the best store-bought tostadas in SoCal.