If the sun comes out and the afternoon is free, the air and light of Los Angeles urges us to go outside and grill food over fire. In my home, that would take shape as a classic carne asada. So when it finally got sunny this week — mercifully — I immediately decided to light up the grill.
I live in a mixed Black, Mexican, Salvadoran neighborhood, and in order for such a place to exist it must contain a family-owned corner market or carnicería. My community has two. If the feeling hits, I’ll first stop at Tito’s Meat Market on East Hyde Park Boulevard, for ears of corn, nopales, chiles, limones and fresh avocados for guacamole. Then I’ll hop across the street to Carnicería La Tapatía for the centerpieces: north-of-the-border style marinated beef, some marinated chicken and maybe chorizo. In short order, an L.A. carne asada is born.
Grilling is a feature of almost every culinary culture, and it’s all reflected in L.A.’s interlocking communities. Filipino skewers. Japanese yakitori. Middle Eastern kebab. Argentine and Chilean asados. Thai satays. And of course, Korean barbecue. All contribute to the great cacophony of how we cook with fire in Los Angeles.
Restaurateur and cookbook author Bricia Lopez offers us a delicious sample of her carne asada traditions, as seen on a recent bright afternoon at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park with L.A. Times Food general manager Laurie Ochoa and plenty of friends. The recipes in Lopez’s new book with Javier Cabral, “Asada: The Art of Mexican-Style Grilling,” should join any of your own carne asada traditions, especially her arrachera verde marinade, which hits that perfect chord between tradition and innovation.
As Bill Addison and Danielle Dorsey note in a fresh guide, American-style barbecue is the province of Black Angelenos who carry the traditions of their ancestors from the U.S. South. Because L.A. is so L.A., barbecue is also increasingly being interpreted and redefined. News-flash: We have a lot of great barbecue in SoCal and don’t let anyone tell you anything different.
In Pasadena, Jenn Harris introduces us to the owner of Garni Meat Market and L.A. Armenian grilling. “Without meat, I don’t have a life,” 64-year-old market owner Alex Khachoyan tells Harris, and, tío, I feel you 100%.
I am aware that one day soon, though, meat might no longer be a viable option for cooking with fire. Vegans and vegetarians are already there. Cooking columnist Ben Mims celebrates the veggie burger and tells us that we don’t have to lose the luster of a grilling moment if we skip the meat.
In a photo essay publishing Friday, Times photographers Jason Armond and Al Schaben and freelancer Shelby Moore team up with Dorsey and explore the state of grilling at L.A. parks right now. As you read it, I suggest calling up a song that to me typifies grilling in SoCal’s beloved public parks, “On a Sunday Afternoon” by Lighter Shade of Brown, and sing along to the phrase, “just waiting for the sun to go down.”
