Cucumber Waffles with Buffalo Raisin Syrup

Cucumber Waffles with Buffalo Raisin Syrup

A new administration always means some degree of change; elections do in fact have consequences, even for the National Recipe Archive.

Historically those changes have been largely ceremonial, subject to the particular tastes of the incoming prime minister. The outgoing minister, for example, had a fondness for cobblers, and they represented close to half the dishes added to the National Recipe Archive during his time in office. More health conscious ministers had focused on leaner, low-calorie replacement recipes for traditional staples, while still other ministers never acknowledged the department at all, leaving its five civil servants free to use their research kitchen to refine and archive the country’s most important culinary achievements in peace.

In the first weeks after the new minister’s coronation, the department was tense but hopeful. While the rest of the capital was rocked with a seemingly endless stream of Official Edicts that disrupted and disorganized as intended, work at the NRA continued as usual: they refined a truly exceptional eggplant curry and had begun vetting a series of savory pudding recipes about which they were very optimistic. As the minister’s third week in office concluded, the department had begun to hope that perhaps they had been forgotten or, just as good, deemed too trivial to draw her attention.

They were sadly mistaken, and at 2:47 that Friday afternoon, they received the following Official Edict:

An Official Edict on The Equal Importance of Recipes

Whereas our nation has long been plagued by the politics of difference at the expense of the celebration of similarity, and whereas there is no more basic human need than sustenance, it is unacceptable that our nation’s recipes be used to further divide our great people. It is therefore so ordered that effective immediately the National Recipe Archive shall cease to in any way identify any recipe as more important than another. Failure to comply with this order will result in reassignment by the General Inspector for the Culinary Arts (GICA).

The NRA team was as confused as they were stunned. What did their jobs even mean if they were not allowed to distinguish between the importance of recipes? Wasn’t that the entire point of the NRA? Did this mean that every recipe should be archived? None? Perhaps it meant that only beloved, consensus recipes were worthy of being preserved.

Any of those interpretations would greatly limit the scope and quality of recipes admitted to the NRA, but at least their work could continue, and it’s not like there weren’t outstanding recipes that were also broadly popular. The only problem with that version of the OE is that, for obvious reasons, most consensus recipes had been archived years ago, while there were countless NRA worthy recipes which weren’t new but hadn’t been cooked by enough of the right people.

Before doing anything else, the team quickly made a digital copy of the archive and saved it to private servers in case the worst should come to pass. The horror stories of generational knowledge erased with a handful of key strokes had reverberated across the capital, and the NRA was fortunate enough to have a few week head start on ensuring that their labor didn’t suffer the same fate.

The NRA team wasn’t exactly eager to comply, especially since they weren’t sure what compliance even meant, but they were fully focused on preserving their labor and its legacy. Plus, archival recipe work was hard to find even in the best of times.

They agreed that the most judicious next step was determining what the GICA expected of them, and they committed to sending a recipe as a water testing show of fielty. If all recipes were of equal importance, then this was certainly not the time to share their work on all the culinary possibilities offered by Nigerian killichi. They would instead keep it simple so as to best show their skilled but loyal obedience.

Their choice was an extraordinary truffle mac and cheese that was in its final archival stages. This recipe was special: the sweetness of the ricotta swirled deftly against the musky truffles underneath a toasted garlic-panko crust- the key, they learned, was to bake it in a shallow enough pan that every serving had a plentiful portion of each.

It was easy to make at scale and field research suggested that it had an approval rate a full standard deviation higher than the average mac and cheese. It was amazing, but not what the GICA had in mind.

An Official Edict on the Equal Quality of Recipes

Whereas our nation has been called upon to reject elitism in all its forms, and whereas disgusting judgments of superiority are the least and basest forms of pride, it is unacceptable to have our nation’s recipes continue to be reflective of smug culinary narcissism. It is therefore so ordered that effective immediately the National Recipe Archive shall cease to in any way identify any variation of a dish as better than any other. Please see the attached recipe and archive it for official preparation at a non discriminatory level alongside its peers. Failure to comply with this order will result in reassignment by the General Inspector for the Culinary Arts (GICA).

And that’s how the NRA team found itself staring at a recipe for Cucumber Waffles with Buffalo Raisin Syrup. Left with little choice, they followed each step faithfully. The cucumber was gently bruised prior to being food processed, and the buffalo sauce was intentionally burnt and left to sit uncovered at room temperature with a raisin puree for eighteen hours before serving. The waffles themselves were store bought frozen as instructed and then microwaved on high for two minutes before being put in the air fryer to cover up the attending soginess.

The combined decades of experience of the NRA team told them that this recipe would be an inedible abomination, but then when they tasted it, the most remarkable thing happened.

The tanginess of the buffalo sauce painted skillfully against the largely blank cucumber palette, and the clumps of raisin buffalo sauce literally filled in the gaps of the waffles for a chewing experience as interesting as the flavors themselves.

It was a lesson in our presumption, and a reminder that you can make any dish pretty much any way, and most likely it'll come out fine.

— — — —

But of course, dear reader, we are just fucking with you. It was truly and unspeakably horrible- the rare dish that made you feel like you needed to take a shower to be clean of it.

After this monstrosity was served to the new minister and her cabinet and the public spectacle of violent illness that followed had passed, the National Recipe Archive was immediately shuttered, and our jobs revoked with an effort to claw back the last two months of our salaries for the damage we had wrought.

You have clicked on our final recipe, and you now know the story of our final days. How you came upon this archive, we do not know, but we hope you are well, applaud your curiosity, and trust that you will find joy in its contents. This a diverse collection of personal and communal recipes, each with their own long forgotten stories and overlapping traditions. It was our life’s love to care for and curate them, and we implore you to keep them alive and whole.

Sincerely,

The National Recipe Archive