Florida (con)Fusion Cooking

www.distinctlyflorida.com

The strong identity of any people is their cooking culture. What influences that is the environment and the spirit of their own palate. Florida has had a long history of many different peoples from the Native Americans (Timucua, Calusa, Apalachee, Creek who came to be known as Seminoles, Tequesta, etc.) to the Europeans, Asians, and Africans. Every culture has contributed a little something to our cuisine in Florida and depending on where in the state you stop, you can be treated to quite a different take on what nature has to offer. It is with this in mind that I present what I have come to think of as FLORIDA ConFUSION COOKING. It is our version of fusion cooking, just a little mixed up and hopefully in a fun way. It is a play on words because in Spanish "con" means "with" and so we are all with each other in this adventure. My first fusion meal is called the Florida Cracker Tortilla. It takes the wonderful mix of bacon, onion and collard greens and adds it to the tradition of a Spanish tortilla or omelet. These are served in Spain at any time, not just for breakfast and can be made very large and cut into sections for tapas. Below is a single serving recipe.

FLORIDA CRACKER TORTILLA

2 strips bacon
2 eggs (scrambled with a little splash of milk or cream if you like)
1 T. diced onion (or to taste--I like a lot and I use frozen for convenience)
2 T. chopped collard greens (or to taste and I use frozen for convenience)
salt & pepper to taste

Fry your bacon until very crisp. Drain & reserve most of the oil leaving some in the pan for the vegetables. Saute the onion until just starting to caramelize then add the collards and continue cooking until they soften. If you need to add a little of the bacon fat back to keep the vegetables from sticking, go ahead. Crumble your bacon evenly over the vegetables and then pour the scrambled eggs over the whole bacon/vegetable mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook until the bottom is firm. To get the top of the omelet cooked, you will either need a tortilla pan (also known as a frittata pan) or you can slide the omelet off the pan onto a plate, invert the pan over the plate so that the uncooked part of the omelet is now facing the pan and the plate is acting as a "lid" and just flip. Continue cooking and should have a perfect unbroken omelet.