It would be true to say our Summer Dining Issue celebrates the diversity of the Las Vegas Valley. But it would also be pat, smarmy, and a little boring. I guess I hang up on how the word diversity — to be sure, a word and value of meaning and significance — just doesn’t capture the deep, complicated backstory of so many dishes we once upon a time called ethnic. There’s another problematic word, but my reservations in that case have less to do with political correctness than precision: ethnic is freighted with dubious presumptions of pure origin — spaghetti from Italy, sushi from Japan, curry from India, etc. — and ignores the back-and-forth of culinary stealing, borrowing, and remixing that results in the favorite dishes we love to eat and, more importantly, showcase on our Instagram feeds. Look back far enough, and you discover that everything is fusion cuisine.
So, yes, diversity, but not a simplistic, schoolbook diversity. Inside this issue, you’ll find Jamaican curry that recast what was already a British/Indian mashup with sweet native spices — frequently served on goat, no less; bulgogi quesadillas born of the happy culinary collision between L.A.’s Korean and Mexican populations; sweetbread tortillas that pay homage to the Romani of Granada; and sea urchin and tomato cream linguine, a wholly unlikely Japanese/Italian combo that emerged in the wake of World War II. If I’m starting to freak you out a little bit, don’t worry: Fortunately, diversity also celebrates tacos, udon, kabobs, sushi, and split loaves of bread smothered in melted cheese (with a fried egg on top).
Amid the parade of must-eat-this and gotta-try-that, it can be easy to forget that the dining experience isn’t just a transactional process of supply and consumption; particularly in the case of global cuisine, serving and sharing food often implicates a personal story of hope, enterprise, and risk. Recognizing that, we also highlight five culinary professionals — Khai Vu of District One and Le Pho, Maggie Reb of La Maison de Maggie, chocolatier Melissa Coppel, Girma Abebe of Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant, and Raquel Flores of Garduños — whose passion for food is intertwined with family and identity.
And sometimes food is simply a longing attempt at connection, at rescue. In Kim Foster’s “ The Meth Lunches” (p. 50), Foster recounts a season of preparing lunch for a man who came into her life as a day laborer to help rehab an aging Downtown home, but who stuck around to become part of a decidedly nontraditional, ad hoc, extended family. That the man happens to be a meth addict — that the grip of addiction is far too powerful for any one person to break — doesn’t stop Foster from inviting him into her family’s life. It makes the meals she cooks for him that much more vital — and fraught. It would certainly be nice to say this is a hopeful story about redemption through the bonding power of food, but that might be pat and smarmy as well. But it is about hope and sober sense in the face of the heartbreak of addiction — and she expresses that hope through a busy kitchen, a hot pan, and a crowded table on the back porch.