TAKING SIDES: HUMMUS VS. GUACAMOLE

'um sure you're right

abominations of guac abound (cf Britishes); hummus rarely reaches such depths. #teamhummus

No option for "they're both disgusting"?

guacamole is higher highs, hummus comparatively more of a fabric, i think

they are both sublime. one's much much easier both to make & to get right (guacamole); one's more abundant in the supermarket but a rarer find at its best.

at its best I think hummus absolutely can't be beat. but getting it just right is much much harder than making a life-of-the-party level guacamole.

but the best hummuses I've had (at Zahav in Philadelphia; at some forgotten-name joint in Columbus; the last one I made from Ottolenghi's recipe, my fourth go at it and nearly perfect)...no guac could aspire to those levels for me

OTOH I grew up in a land of abundant good guac

I love avocados, but I've had too much disgusting gluey guacamole in this country. Hummus it is.

(Also, having grown chickpeas for the first time this summer, i have a whole new appreciation for just how hard it is to grow, and harvest, and cook those fuckers.)

Home grown chickpeas!!!

not voting but fp'd emil.y

they are both sublime. one's much much easier both to make & to get right (guacamole); one's more abundant in the supermarket but a rarer find at its best.

at its best I think hummus absolutely can't be beat. but getting it just right is much much harder than making a life-of-the-party level guacamole.

I pretty much agree with all of this. Both are things that I won't even consider buying premade supermarket versions of, since they're so easy to whip up at home.

You know what's better than both, though?

Muhammara aka Anatolian Breakfast. It's picked walnuts in chilli (and cinnamon?) well all kinds of spices. The Turkish food shop only has it occasionally, so every time I see it I just buy up every tub because it is the most delicious thing I've ever eaten on pida.

agree with emil.y 100% - ban this sick filth imo

i feel like the gulf between store bought guacamole & home-made guacamole is so much vaster than between home-hummus & store-hummus. hummus never really got that transcendent for me; i feel like the kind of granular, $4, anonymously-tupperwared hummus you can get at a health food store is pretty much as good as what i can make, whenever i made it at home. whereas with guacamole you are obviously participating in heresy when you buy into an avocado product that masquerades as fresh in spite of its intrinsic weird murky production history.

platonic guac > platonic hummus
pragmatic guac < pragmatic hummus

I had warm hummus in a home in rural Morocco (/braggin) that was like soup and it was like the best thing I've ever eaten. I think the soupy texture was from beaucoup d'olive oil which was so fresh you could taste the feet on it.

melted hummus that tastes like feet #guac #voteguacamole

Hummus fills you up. You are really voting for avocado w guacamole here.

nothing wrong with voting for avocadoes

I had warm hummus in a home in rural Morocco (/braggin) that was like soup and it was like the best thing I've ever eaten. I think the soupy texture was from beaucoup d'olive oil which was so fresh you could taste the feet on it.

this is the thing - I think most people haven't had good hummus. it's rarer, unless you're in the middle east or are really scoping out the good spots in NY or London or wherever. but proper everything-at-its-freshest hummus...nothing compares, it's incredible.

another thing hummus has going for it is good variations - not yr whole foods "this hummus has roasted red peppers!" (heresy) but masabacha (with whole chickpeas and spices) or Egyptian style (with fava beans & hardboiled egg)...these, got at the right places, are sublime

i will commit live murder itt

they are both sublime. one's much much easier both to make & to get right (guacamole); one's more abundant in the supermarket but a rarer find at its best.

at its best I think hummus absolutely can't be beat. but getting it just right is much much harder than making a life-of-the-party level guacamole.

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, September 20, 2014 1:08 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Was gonna type this exact post before I found you somehow read my mind?

i feel like the gulf between store bought guacamole & home-made guacamole is so much vaster than between home-hummus & store-hummus. hummus never really got that transcendent for me; i feel like the kind of granular, $4, anonymously-tupperwared hummus you can get at a health food store is pretty much as good as what i can make, whenever i made it at home. whereas with guacamole you are obviously participating in heresy when you buy into an avocado product that masquerades as fresh in spite of its intrinsic weird murky production history.

― schlump, Saturday, September 20, 2014 1:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

See the kind of health food granular hummus is the kind that I absolutely cannot abide and if you bring that to my house for a dinner party it is going to be the last thing you ever bring to my house

Without trading in claims of authenticity I think this post sums up my feelings about hummus

http://desertcandy.blogspot.com/2007/07/hummus-dilettante.html

In terms of store bought hummus

It's kinda like well are you a Tribes dude or a Sabra dude

A Sabra dude is welcome to take their shoes off in my house any day of the week while a Tribes dude is welcome to miss my door and keep on walking

really really good hummus (to my tastes, at least) is a huge fucking pain in the ass to make and requires starting with good quality dried chickpeas, soaking/cooking them with the right seasonings, skinning each and every one of the motherfuckers which GOD is a right pain in the ass, and then having at the very least a Vitamix-level power blender and exceptional olive oil to make it wonderful.

Great guac means just being able to distinguish between ripe and unripe avocados, then treating them with salt, lime, a little minced onion and jalapeno. Easier to do, harder to fuck up.

Next time any ILXor is in Cleveland I will take you to lunch at Nate's Deli, an authentic Middle Eastern place on W. 25th St. that's been there for decades, where you will have hummus so good you will forget how to even PRONOUNCE "guacamole." I love good guacamole, but a really, really good hummus is like seeing the face of god and then eating that face.

I hate sabra hummus so much

Executive chapters of Scientology in the consumer-grade hummusphere: An ILX investigation

i dunno i just take whatever's mashed up and i can put on shit

it's all good bro

Have to go guac. Some good avos, a bit of cilantro, diced onion (dehydrated with paper towel bc smdh @ soupy guac), and a serrano. So refreshing.

my dad sometimes mentions a piece of cheese he ate, once, forever ago, while he was somewhere as replete with saudade as the spaces people call hummus-hotbeds in this thread. it comes up when he talks about going to buy cheese, everyday cheese, like at the cheese shop on the high street we grew up near, trips i can remember being party to, & how these transactions are occasionally alive with anticipation, unexpectant but irrepressibly hopeful that the inevitable variety in cheese making preparation could make this brie - i think it was brie - of equal significance. & it never is, i don't think, either owing to declining artisanal facility among cheesemakers or else to the synesthetic aura that permeates the memory cheese. & i feel philistinic repping for such attainable hummuses in this thread, like those books that for some reason collate four star movies you might want to watch, but at least i know i perhaps sleep more soundly than those who have tasted the sweeter fruit. i eat hummus & forget about it; if i make it probably some of it yellows around the dish before i've reached it. can anybody rep for dependable, unpilgrimaged hummus over everyday guacamole? i understand that maybe there's something more elemental about the hummus that is made well, something of how disproportionately meaningful it can be to enjoy unaccompanied bread or tomatoes, sometimes, but that guacamole is at once attainable & still just so welcome makes it more important to me, i think.

I haven't had good hummus in a long time so that's what I'm voting for.

Banana guacamole vs banana hummus

Banana edamame hummus on grappa fajita kebabs

guac is a million miles than the best hummus y'all are tripping. hummus is still good but come on.

*better than, obv

schlump's post brings the Horne brothers with their Brie sandwiches to mind

i am sherilyn fenn in this scenario, right

haha

I think guacamole's name really works against it. It's hard to get excited about something with such an unpleasant clump of vowels in its first consonant.

Gwak. It's such a wet, unpleasant sound.

I got gwakked the other night. With guacamole. Yuck!

Oh great. Now I've got "I got mole but I'm not guacamole" running round and round in my head WTF.

Muhammara is incredibly good, i agree. I'll take guacamole over hummus but this thread is making me think i've never had real hummus so i admit i could be wrong.

I was eating Sahadi's hummus AS I READ THIS and I think I still vote guac just for the variety of intense flavors in it. Whereas hummus is kind of a comfort food?

comfort is cool

Bbbbut it's 'wakka' which is a beloved sound to fozzy bears and flocka flames alike

Xp to branwell

the amazing avocado & friends v bean pudding

i love hummus, and i've never developed a taste for guacamole even though i've lived in southern california for eight years. (although i'd say hummus, or middle eastern food in general, is as much a part of the l.a. landscape as avocados.)

I think I love guacamole now more than I ever have at any other time in my life, it's just so lovely. but hummus, as observed, is a comfort food - to me it's the only comfort food that also has these moments of "holy fuck, greatest food I've ever had in my life." at its best, guacamole makes me go "fuck, this is good, this is really really really fucking good." I would be shocked if it ever gave me that "you will remember this meal on your deathbed" feeling I've gotten at least three times while eating hummus.

pointless foods both imo

you have your standard guacamole. but then you can change it up. add some radish and cojita. add some fruit! (dodges thrown tomatoes)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Made some kickass hummus today, thanks thread.

http://i.imgur.com/5N40jVR.jpg

guess that almost balances out the hottie with the hummus (chips) upthread

sadly it is probably against cheer squad regulations for them to eat their favorite avocado-based super bowl tailgate dish

I really hate the way some british people pronounce houmous so it sounds like they eat soil

they often mispronounce guacamole too but that doesn't bother me

I can't parse this. You mean like when it's pronounced hyoomuss?

yeah

ok yeah that is fair

i do this but i'm under no illusions about my savagery. I also pronounce the car company peugeot like "pyooszoh"

give me a good hummus recipe y'all. Please an thank you.

chorizedo

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A close one!

thanks, obama!!

guac was robbed

Rob Thomas' fingerprints all over this corrupt result!

don't know what to believe anymore.

i made the best fucking guac ever tonight. ever. but i voted hummus.

I really hate the way some british people pronounce houmous so it sounds like they eat soil

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/british/hummus
that is the way it is pronounced in Israel. there is no short "u" sound in Hebrew (and i'm guessing Arabic either).

xxxxpost

good for israel

Savages!

hoomoos

aka the tahinidriver

ban

حمّص‎

Arabic looks so badass

this was a tight race, almost some bush-gore level ish. i went with hummus and am glad to see that my vote counted.

so did both of my votes!

i've made a terrible mistake

guac's happening here?

hummust be dreaming

Cedar's is generally pretty good for supermarket hummus, but jfc:

http://i.imgur.com/BhPvS50.jpg

GF

The bandwagon for pumpkin spice foodstuffs is awesome to behold. I am using 'awesome' in its earlier sense of 'immensely frightening'.

Cedar's is generally pretty good for supermarket hummus, but jfc:

i know man, "hommus"

hass avocados have been ridiculously cheap for months, it's been like guac erry day

pumpkin spice avocados

Ay you know what I don't even understand is that pumpkins are not even spicy

Cedar's is a local brand guys, please show some respect

is it possible to buy fresh chickpeas in the US? and is hummus appreciably better when it's made from fresh beans as opposed to canned/dried?

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/wesleyan-university-dumps-sabra-hummus-after-student-campaign

“It’s totally gone now — their guacamole, hummus, everything is gone,” Wesleyan Sophomore, Yael Horowitz told The Electronic Intifada. “It happened really quickly once the dining service committee decided.”

Woah. My cafeteria just started carrying Sabra.

I've seen fresh chickpeas at the Dekalb and Buford Hwy Farmers Mkts in Atlanta, but never anywhere else.

I hope the Wesleyan students find an alternative source for hummus and guacamole!

I think even the best hummus you'll find anywhere is made from dried chickpeas that've been soaked and cooked, not fresh-from-the-vine ones

If you gotta go with storebought instead of homemade hummus, it turns out that Boar's Head is really good.

Sounds like a welcome addition to the hummus racket!

this stuff is dangerous: http://www.rootsfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Roots-Mango-Sriracha-Hummus.jpg

i am pro-wacky humus flavors; recently i had some rosemary sea salt hummus that was insane.

yeah, I am generally in favor, but the Thai coconut curry flavor from Roots is also good but impossible to eat more than a small amount. So it takes the right amount of wacky. I also love black bean "hummus".