The ham and stock are going to add salt, smoke and umami. Good veggie stock (I like "Better than Boullion" brand) adds the salt and umami, chipoltes (which are smoked ripe jalepeno peppers) add smoke, umami and some heat.
I think it comes from a having a heavy meat based diet during the enlightenment. When the first cookbooks were being written (by westerners) and the first scientific analysis of senses (same). "Meaty" was just background for any food.
It is kind of surprising to me that you are not big on veggies, you are second generation american from south east asia, right? I bet your mother was a major veggie cook.
On my mother's side I'm first generation Chinese, though my mother came here at age 3 so she's not far off from being native herself. She was the family chef, but wasn't a particularly good one... Plus dad's big on the meat and she cooked what he liked. Mom tells me that the reason I'm not big on veggies is that when I was weaned I loved veggies and hated meat, but I was iron deficient so they scrimped on the veggies and made me eat more meat and that's what I stuck with. *shrug*
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Of course I will have to substitute something for the ham hocks and chicken stock. Dry chipoltes and veggie stock maybe.
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The ham and stock are going to add salt, smoke and umami. Good veggie stock (I like "Better than Boullion" brand) adds the salt and umami, chipoltes (which are smoked ripe jalepeno peppers) add smoke, umami and some heat.
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peopleWesterners understand umami. It's 50% of why I don't like most veggies - the other half being texture.no subject
It is kind of surprising to me that you are not big on veggies, you are second generation american from south east asia, right? I bet your mother was a major veggie cook.
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