Matzoh Ball Posole: A Tale of Redemption and Joyous Miscegenation

Years ago, I was adopted by my redneck flight instructor and his wife. I spent many a happy season romping around the southwest, exploring the landscape, culture, and various culinary offerings. New Mexico cuisine is its own defined subset of Southwestern, with pinion seeds, sopapillas 'n' honey, and the distinctive, Hatch-inspired variety of red and green as its proudest distinctions. I have enjoyed them all for years.

But there is an ugly, red-headed step sister in New Mexican cuisine, one that they accept as their own but which seems to perplex most outsiders - myself very much included. No matter how open minded I am, no matter how I try to give it a fresh chance and a new hearing each time, like the Second Viennese School, posole has always remained a mystery to me.

In every iteration I have ever tasted, the flavorous resemblance to dishwater (or, on meatier days, bathwater) has been inescapable, Not quite thick enough to be stew and not quite thin enough to be tap water, posole has a lack of flavor all its own. The always too few bits of fatty pork serve no purpose at all, and one could be forgiven for thinking that they just got lost, perhaps having fallen out of somebody else's burrito on the way to the takeout window and landed in your backwash.

The sweet nothingness of hominy gives the promise and curiosity, even anticipation of a relatively underutilized staple. But in the end, whatever aromatics or zest these fluffy kernels have to impart on the mash have long since evaporated in the boil, along with my desire to ever order this puzzling porridge again.

And yet, where there is life there is hope.

I have passed by the intriguingly, yet unappetizingly named "Crack Shack," several times during my days in Orange County and San Diego. And when I finally concluded that it was neither a gay brothel nor a ghetto drug den, I hesitatingly took a gander at the menu. Naming aside, they were clearly on to something. With a schmaltzy yet sterilely unsemetic ambiance, they managed to proffer myriad combinations of chicken fat fusion ranging from the tropical to the healthy to the home spun.

And there in the middle of it was a memento from far, far away. A black sheep posole, wandered off from its native habitat in the high desert and settled in amongst the yuppies right here in Southern CA. And as If to brandish its prodigal status, this was no ordinary posole, but indeed a matzoh ball posole. What the fuck, one could say, "WTF" not being a strong enough expression to fully capture the disbelief, bordering on sacrilege (and in which direction one could not yet discern) at this strange miscegenation. But sure enough, there it was on the menu, and what Jew Boy Hillbilly could resist?

10 Bucks and 5 minutes later, there it was in my to go bag. It was slightly smaller than you'd expect, but given my disappointing track record with the gruel, I imagined it would just be that much less to throw out.

But I was wrong. This posole, divorced from kith and kin, had finally found itself. Even without the monotheistic conversion, the flavors and textures of the broth were full, fragrant, and realized all the promise I had dreamed of since my youth for this lonely peasant food, now come to life in coastal splendor. The matzoh balls were an afterthought, and yet their celebration of the now fully awakened flavor was marvelous. They were a cherry on top, as it were, spewing confidence in the validity of a dish that had caused dismay for untold weary travelers yearning for a taste of anything in their long trek across the southwest.

And here it was. Married to a nice Jewish girl, already a bit overbearing in how much of the tiny paper cup she took up, but nonetheless in full realization, the dream fulfilled, the past redeemed of a true posole as it had always been meant to be until some idiot lost the recipe somewhere along the Navajo plain.

There are other worthwhile offerings at The Crack Shack, but somehow just saying Crack Shack makes me not want to eat any of them. The larger than life Uber-kitsch plexiglass chicken that, in any other SoCal establishment would be out on the street to annoy the educated and entice the proletariat, was hidden inside, where it occupied at least a 4 top worth of space that could have more fruitfully been deployed for patrons. But carefree abandon seemed to be the name of the game at this latest iteration of the SoCal roadside classic eatery, and the throngs piling up at the Shack didn't seem to mind waiting at all. They have a good thing going here, and I heartily recommend you stop by and give your tastebuds the fulfillment they have been missing lo all these many years.

Somewhere a wayward tourist in Zuniland is uneasy and disapopinted with his cultural immersion and still doesn't know why. You, my friend, can be his redemption with a puff of matzoh meal and a plastic spork. Complete the circle, part the seas, and let the central/coastal split take one more precious step towards healing. Matzoh Ball Posole To Go. D