Paco’s International Smoked Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
“If salt is the odorless spice, smoke is the ephemeral magical invisible spice. You can’t feel it, you can’t touch it, but you can taste it.” ~Chef Seamus Mullen, Tertulia Restaurant, New York City. Have you ever wondered why some people drool when they pass by a computer displaying a fireplace screen saver? They’re not thinking about romance. They’re thinking about barbecue. There’s just something about smoked foods that has excited humans across the millennia. It’s been that way since a lightning bolt struck a mastodon and rendered its flesh delicious. Since then humans have been genetically predisposed to crave the flavors created by the penetration of smoke. We associate fire and the fragrant bouquet of wood smoke with grilling, barbecues and mostly, eating things we love. When my friend Ryan “Break the Chain” Scott told me of an Albuquerque chef incorporating the element of smoke into virtually every ingredient of every dish he creates, my initial inclination was to think Ryan had been smoking something. It hadn’t surprised me to read in Around the World in 80 Dinners that Bill and Cheryl Jamison ate smoked zebra carpaccio in South Africa as much as it did to learn that the…
