SPRING 2005 ETHNIC COOKING NOTES

First Meeting
It's important to understand that all food is good within the standards of the cultures that developed and use a particular style. Hard though it is to make sweeping generalizations about cultures, we all have a pretty definite sense about what is good food for ourselves, even if we don't agree with someone else's assessment.
Part of learning to play with the foods of the world involves a suspension of disbelief that someone can enjoy something objectionable to us. We all are born with the same sensory equipment, with the slight exception that certain groups in Asia have been found to be less sensitive to bitterness than most other groups. So widening our culinary horizons is partly a matter of understanding how others like the foods they like. Sometimes it's a matter of eating foods in a different way, eating very rich or spicy foods with lots of bland rice. Or a systematic program of desensitization of the palate to chilis by incremental steps until taste is no longer overwhelmed, but heightened. In any case, the goal should be to discover the delight that is meant to be found. It makes little sense to re-create a given dish with a certain "objective" level of spiciness measured in Scoville units, when the authentic experience of the dish is a pleasing sharpness that drives you to refresh your palate with a bite of rice. A teaspoon of jalapeno chili that works for one diner will most certainly drive another from the field in tears of very inauthentic pain.
So, to transmit the sense of another cuisine is inevitably to translate. A word that is a blessing in one culture may be pronounced the same way as a curse in another. So too, the wonderfully complex redolence of a durian in Thai cuisine may "objectively" resemble nothing more than rotting chicken within American cuisine. Many cuisines make much of certain dishes that outsiders are unable to appreciate. Sometimes the abhorrence is based in the idea of the food. Many Americans would never knowingly eat a puppy no matter what actual tastes and textures that consumption entailed. The mind is the final arbiter of Goodness.
But since minds around the world and through History, even with the slippery support of Science, are unlikely to ever agree for long about the absolute Goodness or Badness of various foods, it seems reasonable to try to examine the nature of Goodness in food on the basis of sensory experience.
We evolved as a species able to process and eat an astonishing variety of foods, including many, like bitter cassava, that are deadly to most forms of life in their untreated form. We have even pioneered the use of "foods" like Olestra and Diet Coke that are totally devoid of nutritive value, and are nevertheless accepted as Good by some people.
So I think it wise to try to isolate out the sensory elements of Goodness in food, to see how they change in emphasis from culture to culture, in the hope that we can approach some wildly different cuisines on their own terms. If the delights of some cuisines are more recondite than others they are none the less real. In a world filled with inequality, oppression, hardship and pain, the search for delight, the possibility of the physical reality of delight drives our dining, from the first sweetness of mother's milk to the last oily caress of Extreme Unction. For our cooking to aspire to less would be a waste.
Triage
Dining is a relationship; if a souflée falls in the forest with no one to taste it, who's to say it failed? Since we are looking for Goodness, and since we are ourselves, we can only assess others' cuisines after we have assessed our own. Making Good food is a precondition to any meaningful culinary exploration, because that is what all cooks try to do. The foods we choose and the techniques we use to manipulate them can only be understood if we understand those choices in service of Goodness.
That is to say, if a cook is in a cooking triage situation where through time pressure, accident, insufficient resources or whatever not every detail of a meal is going to be perfect, it is important to decide which details are more important than others to the enjoyment of your eating audience (customers, guests, family...). It is beyond the scope of this piece to discuss the larger context within which food is served. The dictates of hospitality, the different kinds of eatiences, different standards of sanitation, the ways in which different kinds of serving setups (and serving narratives) affect one's perception of foods; these variables often overshadow the concrete evidence of the foods themselves. This is why wait staff are on the whole the best paid members of the restaurant fraternity.
But within the slightly more circumscribed challenge of producing viable and coherent constellations of foods and drinks which reflect what is seen as appropriate within a given culture, there are rules for cooking about what can and what must not be ignored. These rules came about in response to six primary factors:

• Food availability----indigenous animals & plants, imports
• Technology---cooking methods & scientific process/progress
• Seasons & climate---menus prepared according to ingredient availability; droughts & famines
• Religion---customs, rituals, & taboos
• Socioeconomic class---nobles? merchants? laborers? peasants? slaves?
• Politics---foreign influence, immigration patterns, regulations & rationing (Semiconscious plagiarism alert)
The outcome of these factors is that every culture has rules for selecting and preparing foods which absolute determines whether a given meal and the foods it contains is Good.
So once again, it becomes clear that we can't really talk about cooking without dragging all this other stuff into the kitchen. Food is never just food. The most seemingly innocent choices we make in cooking can trigger ramifications which make our search for Goodness in food seem hopelessly naive.
But food can be good and is good. That is the one constant cross-culturally. If we cannot escape our biases, at least we don't have to. Nor should we. Because nothing is sadder than knowing lots about food, but not knowing what you like or when you are going to like it. The more we can illuminate what we do like in terms of tangible stimuli, the better equipped we are to find those likes and avoid those dislikes in the context of the above six factors.
Luckily, what stands out as and example of a glaring lack of care for a representative of one culture while looking at the culinary products of another may simply be something simply beneath notice in another.
The hairs in a cup of Tibetan yak butter tea may be terminally distracting for us, which is unfortunate if it turns us from realizing the commonalities with miso soup or even hot buttered rum and offers us a new and unfamiliar route to delight.
Four elements of Good Food
In American usage, the provisional hierarchy of sensory attributes of food is roughly as follows: Texture, Decoration, Flavor, Aroma. That is to say, within a given dish unless Flavor is appropriate, we are unlikely to appreciate its Aroma, unless the way it looks it appropriate, we are unlikely to appreciate its Flavor and unless its Textures are appropriate, we are unable to appreciate its Decoration. Lets examine each in turn.
Texture
Definitely the most important to American eat-iences is the appropriateness of the textures of the foods we eat. 30% of Americans cannot distinguish Coke from SevenUp or red from white wine blindfolded. But we can all make very precise distinctions between the mouthfeels of identically flavored foods, identical in the sense that the ingredients are the same. A good example is the difference between mayonnaise and salad dressing (or, less appetizingly, between a correctly made mayonnaise and a "broken" one).
Compared with other cusisines, ours finds only a small range of textures appropriate, and even those are often linked to certain foods. Calamari with the texture of bubblegum jettisons all claims to goodness Most of the really rude things Americans say about food refer to some inappropriateness of texture. Slimy, gritty, stringy, sandy, tough, runny, stodgy, heavy, gummy, dry, wilted, doughy, hash, slippery, fibrous, pulpy, chalky, bone-y, mushy, grainy, thin, curdled, broken (as in sauces), spongy: woe betide the American cook whose choice of ingredient or technique leads to any of these. The response is likely to be immediate, and negative, no matter how appropriate the effect may be within the order of a different cuisine.
This predominently tactile term also engages the sense of hearing, as the characteristic sounds foods make as they are chewed is part of the experience of different textures. Think for a second of the difference in sound between drinking hot chocolate, licking melted chocolate fondue off a strawberry, biting a crisp chocolate curl, crunching into a high-end chocolate bar with a good snap, and chomping on a chocolate jawbreaker. Because the texture of a food dictates how and how fast the flavoring elements of a food reach our tongue, we in America generally (and not really incorrectly) are talking about texture and flavor when we talk about the "taste"of a food. Still, it's well worthwhile separating out this food characteristic, as it is the hardest one to control, the one whose successful implementation is most likely to have our friends cheering and our enemies gnashing their teeth in envy.
Within the range of textures we enjoy, a variety is important. We all know how little charm a liquid diet brings to the table, whatever the flavors. Making a hash of something is a perjorative referring to little uniform pieces and textures that even has a widely accepted metaphorical sense.

Everything we do to food affects its texture, even just cutting it into pieces (ask a sushi chef.) As we study different cooking techniques used around the world, it's important that we bring them into service of American tastes. All the iconic American foods, like apple pie, ribs, salad, even eggs over easy, are recognizable by careful attention paid to texture.
Some foods have textures that are much easier to manipulate than others, and still have an interesting range of textures. Roast beef is a good example. Some texture changes are even reversable, like a thick soup that can be thinned out. Apple pie, on the other hand, is an example of a range of textures basically impossible to adjust after it has started to cook, with texture changes in the ingredients that like most are irreversable. Plus, two texture changes are going on simultaneously in different directions; the apples are going from crisp through mushy to succulent and the crust is going from doughy to flaky.
Obviously, it is much less risky to assemble a dish with complicated juxtapositions of textures by breaking it down into elements with only one element that needs to be controlled at a time. This is why the elaborate plated desserts now in vogue are actually much easier than a "simple" piece of pie.


Decoration
Seeing is believing, as they say, so because it is the element of dining which is capable of mass duplication and marketting, the way foods look has come to dominate the discourse of Goodness of food. Presentation has become a major measure of the amount of care which has been paid to the cooking. The English, with their famous insistence on the quality of the serving ware over the quality of what is served, have passed along this ineluctable modality of the visible to us.
An example of how the prioratizing of sensory input occurs blindsided me at my restaurant some years back. Some cookbook publishers were dining and ordered a couple of our dinners which we presented in the Indian manner with about a dozen different dishes of contrasting flavors, textures and aromas coming together with meticulous last second preparation on the same plate. Just like my five-year old son, these aesthetes sent their dinners back to the kitchen for more "careful preparation" because some of the foods were touching each other. It's easy to see that folks making their living by pushing two dimensional images of food--a sort of food pornography--were sensitized to food visuals to the point that they trumped all other aspects of dining. It was impossible for them to even pay attention to anything else.
When we scan food for its visual appropriateness, we quickly move beyond its physical reality to questions of what we think about it. Unusually colored foods, like yellow heirloom tomatoes for example, have meanings beyond the abstract visual composition of a plate tied in to socio-economic markers and class differenciation. It has to be disingenuous to discuss the color of truffle shavings as a garnish, just as the obligatory parsley spring at Denny's has a very different meaning than a chervil chiffonade at a high end French restaurant.
It is great fun to set up a visually dazzling array of forms and colors in food. Still, if the textures, aromas, and tastes of the foods suffered while the visuals were fussed with, perhaps something of the uniqueness of dining has been sacrificed. If visuals are really that important to you, perhaps you should consider other media.
Flavor and Flavor Saturation
Oddly enough, flavor is the easiest of the sensory categories to get right, because there are no inappropriate flavors, per se. If this seems untrue, it's because textures and aromas are often mistaken for flavors and our culture particularly is sloppy about the the distinction. We even use the word metaphorically to refer to totally a-sensual categories, as in "Ham is not to my taste." If we separate out the sensations that occur on the tongue and a limited extent, the palate, we can only taste 6 or 7 different tastes. Some authorities put the number at four, leaving out Hot, Rich, and Skanky. For practical reasons, the seven belong together.
For food to taste Good, all the flavors--Sweet,Tart, Salty, Bitter, Hot, Oily(or Rich)-- need to be present to some degree. Some Skanky-ness (which is variously discussed as umami or even body) will generally be found as well. The threshold of each flavor needed to achieve this Flavor Saturation is very low. We are not used to thinking of the Bitterness in pastries (which comes from the flour if not from added spices). Even folks who say they abhore Hot/Spiciness taste the warmth in meat gladly, if not with relish (which would of course make the spiciness more explicit.) This is not to say that all food should taste the same. Au contraire, a masterfully conceived meal will have a constantly changing flavor palette, as we quickly become accustomed to a flavor and cease to taste it--being much more attuned to changes in flavor than a steady state--until other tastes have intervened.
Different cultures see different intensities of flavor in different parts of the meal. For example, the French like Hotness/Spiciness mostly in their beverages (Wine, Cognac). French and Italian foods both need wine for the flavors of a meal to be fully saturated. Some cultures, like Thai, put a high level of sweetness in their entrées, while most European cuisines keep most of the sweetness in the dessert course.
Unlike texture, flavors in dishes usually lend themselves to late-stage modifications--a dash of salt, squeeze of lemon. Many commonly used foods have all the flavors present, are flavor saturated, so their additional will render any food flavor saturated. This at least partly explains the popularity of ketchup, hoisin sauce, glace de viande, worchestshire sauce, butter
When one flavor is very intense, the other flavors need to be bumped up to balance it. It's impossible to remove flavors once they have been added, however. In some cuisines, it may not be possible to balance certain strong flavors without an unacceptable overall intensity, so when adjusting flavors, it is a good practice to split out a small portion and experiment with it, test for the flavors that might be missing. Then, adjust the whole batch.
All foods have these same flavors, and can be classified according to them. The following chart is not exhaustive, just an illustration of the idea.

Sweet
 sugar Universal
onion, fried and/or simmered (and a little bitter)
 honey Universal
 molasses (and bitter) America
 cream (and tart and rich and slightly warm) Europe
 fried garlic, light (and somewhat bitter) Universal
 fried onion, transparent (and somewhat bitter) Universal
 mirin cooking sake (and hot) Japan
 sherry, marsala (and hot &slightly bitter & tart) China, Spain, Italy
 fruit, dried (and sometimes slightly tart) Universal, especially Persia
 fruit, fresh (and sometimes very tart and bitter) Universal
 miso (and salty and slightly hot and sometimes bitter) Japan
 paprika (and sometimes slightly hot) Spain, Hungary, India
 red bell pepper  Universal
 maple syrup  America
 white pepper (and hot) especially Indonesia
 tomato, especially cooked (and tart) Universal
 caramel (and slightly bitter, less sweet than sugar) Vietnam
 mustard seed (and hot and bitter)
 fennel, anise (somewhat sweet) India, Europe
 licorice, star anise (very sweet but not sugary) Southeast Asia
 barley malt Europe, hippy
 red/orange chili (and very hot)Tropics

Sweet Smelling
 cinnamon cardamon rosewater orangeblossom water lemon blos
soms ouzo, pernod cloves rum sherry vanilla bitters citrus zest
Negative Sweetness Very hot or very cold foods taste less sweet
Hot/Spicy
chili flakes, cayenne (& sweet &bitter when fried) Universal
 fresh red/orange chili peppers (and swee) Universal
fresh green chili peppers (and bitter) Universal except Europe
 horseradish (and bitter ) Europe, China, Japan
 fresh ginger (and sweet) Asia
 black pepper (and bitter)Universal
 white pepper (and sweet-smelling) Africa Indonesia
 raw onion (and bitter) Universal
 chives, scallions (and bitter) Universal
 viet mint Southeast Asia
 alcohol Universal, less common in tropics
 wine (and sweet, tart) Europe
cinnamon (and sweet) Universal
 cresses,nasturtium leaves and flowers
 pink pepper, California Pepper
 allspice (and sweet-smelling) Turkey, N. Europe
 mustard seed (and sweet and rich and bitter)
mustard, prepared (& sweet &tart & salty & bitter)
Negative Hot ness
 youghurt (and tart) India
 cucumber (and bitter) India
 coriander seed India Indonesia Latin America
 fresh mint India Indonesia MidEast
 cloves (sweet-smelling) India Africa Indonesia
 szechwan peppercorns, fagara China
 carnations (and sweet-smellling)
 cilantro, coriander leaf Tropics
 fresh basil Italy SouthEast Asia
 parsley, flat-leaf  Italy MidEast Persia
 fresh tarragon  France, Persia 
Rich/Oily
olive oil  Mediterranean basin, Philippines, Americas
 sesame oil, roasted (and sweet aroma) China
 lard (and bitter if not fresh) Americas, China, tropics
 sesame oil, unroasted  Persia, India, Burma
 sunflower oil Turkey
 goose fat  Europe
 suet  England
 bacon (and sweet and salty) Americas
 nuts  Universal
 peanut butter (and salty) Africa
 tahini (and bitter) MidEast
 fermented bean pastes (salty & bitter) Japan, China, Burma
 caviar (and salty and bitter) Russia, Japan, Europe
 sausage (and sweet and salty and hot) Europe, Americas
 cream cheese (and tart and sweet) Europe, Americas
 avocado (and a little bitter) Americas, tropics
 butter (and sweet and salty and tart)
 ghee (butter oil) India
niter kibbeh (spiced butter oil) Ethiopia
 Negative Oiliness 
 liquifiy or emulsify the fats
 Bitter
tahini (and sweet and rich) MidEast
 chocolate and cocoa(and sweet and rich) New World cuisine, baking.
coffee(and sweet) often drunk with American food
 tumeric(usually fried to eliminate rawness of taste) South and Southeast Asia
 artichokes(makes other foods and beverages taste much sweeter) Europe
 lemon and citrus peel, zest (sweet and hot aroma) Universal
 spinach
tea
 brandy, rum, eau de vie(and very hot and sometimes sweet) Europe
 red wine(more astringent and hot and tart and sometimes sweet) Europe
 garlic, fresh, raw(and hot) Universal except Northern Europe
 garlic and onion powder(and sweet, sometimes too bitter ) America
 garlic, fried(less bitter, very sweet, unless burned, not sweet) Asia except Japan
 scallions, raw, and onion, raw(and hot) Universal
 green peppers and chilis(and hot) Universal
 asafoetida(and sweet when fried in oil) India, ancient Rome
 mustard seed(and sweet and hot) India, North Europe
 mustard, prepared(and tart and salty and hot and sometimes sweet) Universal
eggplant  Universal
bitter almonds, almond extract(and hot and very sweet aroma) Universal
 capers(and salty and tart) Europe, MidEast
 olives(and salty and rich and variably sweet) Mediterranean basin
 caviar(and rich and somewhat sweet and salty) Japan, Russia, Europe
 coriander leaf/cilantro All tropics except Indonesia
 rue ancient Rome
 watercress(and hot) Universal
 flowers, edible, most (and sometimes sweet-smelling)
 bitter melon (very very bitter) Southeast Asia
cucumber (and sweet) Universal 
bitter orange (and tart and sweet-smelling) Mediterranean basin
greens including lettuce (and sometimes sweet) Universal
Tart/Sour
 lemon (and a little sweet) Universal
 lime (and a little bitter and a little sweet) Tropics
 tomato, raw, unheated (and sweet)
 tamarind (and sweet) Tropics
 vinegars (and some are sweeter than others) Universal
 grapefruit (and somewhat sweet and bitter)
 youghurt (and rich) MidEast, India
 cheeses (and rich and salty and sometimes bitter) Europe, Americas
 omeboshi plums (and sometimes salty) Japan
 butter (and rich) Europe, MidEast, India, Americas
 sour cream (and rich and somewhat sweet)
 pomegranate (and sweet &bitter) MidEast, India
 mango powder (and somewhat sweet) India
 wine (and sweet and hot ) Europe
 pickles (and salty and sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet) Universal
verjuice Persia, Ancient Europe
 Salty
 salt  Universal
 butter (and rich and tart and sweet) Europe, Americas
 soy sauce (and a little bitter) North Asia
 fish sauce (and a little more bitter)SE Asia
 cheeses (and rich and tart and bitter) Europe, Americas
 anchovies, anchovy paste (and rich & bitter) Italy, Greece, Europe
 miso (and sweet and bitter) Japan, China, Burma
 olives, American (and rich) America
 olives (and rich and bitter) Mediterranean basin, MidEast
 caviar (and rich and bitter) Russia, Japan, Europe
 black beans, salted, preserved (and rich and bitter)China, Thailand
 pickles (and tart and sometimes bitter and sweet) Universal
 seaweeds (some are saltier than others) Japan, China
 preserved lemon (and tart and bit ter) Morocco, MidEast, India
 ham (and sweet and rich) Europe, Americas, Far East
 bacon (and rich and a little sweet) Eu rope, Americas, Far East
 jerked beef (and rich and a little bitter) Americas, Europe
Negative Saltiness
potato
flour
Skanky
Soy Sauce (and salty) E&SEAsia
Anchovies, salted (and salty) Italy
Cheese (&tart &rich & salty & sweet)Not E&SEAsia
Miso (and salty and sometimes sweet) E&SEAsia
Fish Sauce (and salty) SE Asia, Ancient Rome
Cured Meats (&tart &rich & salty & sweet&bitter)Universal
Worcestshire Sauce (&tart &rich & salty & sweet&bitter)UK, USA
Techniques for Asian vs. European cooking styles complex vs. simple ingredient
Europeans tend to work from a few complex ingredients with more than one taste.in simple combinations.
Asians tend to work from many simple ingredients with one predominent taste in complex combinations, often with very small amounts of very potent flavorings
Unpacking flavors: Blenderizing
Optimal consistency for smooth paste just thin enough to blend
Cover blender with cloth when blending hot liquids
Garlic paste
fresh chili paste for optimum flavor control
Whether using a mortar and pestle, a blender, meat grinder, food processor, the object is to release flavors locked within tough cell walls without lengthy cooking
Concentration of Flavors
Stock becomes demi-glace. This can be done separately from the cooking of the main element of the dish, as is often done in French cooking. When cooking things quickly done, the use of a strainer to remove delicate, overcookable items, then cooking down the sauce, then re-adding the solids prevents overcooking and maintains more attractive textures.
Or during the cooking process if you have enough heat to reduce sauce before food is overcooked.
Liquids evaporate as a direct function of the amount of heat applied; meats and vegetables cook more as a function of the thickness of the pieces regardless of the cooking temperature.
Aroma
Much more discriminating sense than taste, we can distinguish 1000's of different aromas.
We tend to have a very emotional reaction to strong aromas. But not all cultures agreed on the desirability of fermented fish aromas, or fermented milk aromas (for examples)
Aromas can be implicit in the main ingredients of a dish, added separately as aromatics, or created by cooking processes, such as browning, smoking, and fermenting.
The other elements make food Good, aromas have the potential to make food Wonderful.
The whole question of inappropriateness is very important with aroma. Durian, for example, has an aroma so bad to most Westerners that they never get beyond it to understand why the fruit is so popular in SE Asia.



Techniques Discussed
Quickly Cooked Meat/Chicken/Fish /Veg Dish
Deep frying
Braising
Blending/Unpacking flavors
Concentrating flavors
Quickly Cooked Meat/Chicken/Fish /Veg Dish

Wok Protocol
Safety: Propane doesn't dissipate like natural gas, so extreme care necessary when lighting
Heat modulation with liquid
Heat assessment Pre-heating with regular stove How to tell if pan is too hot/cold
Concentrating flavors without overcooking meat (high heat)
Meat for wokking needs little connective tissue or cut across grain
Poultry for wokking cut with grain to maximize succulence(explosion of contained liquid into mouth during chewing)
Food cooks at a rate more dependent on the thickness of the piece than the amount or type of heat applied. Pieces twice as thick take four times as long to cook, pieces cut in half cook four times faster. This is why precise cutting can be so critical with certain high intensity styles of cooking
Deep frying
Be careful? splashed hot oil is not like splashed hot water. Don't drop batter from height.
Overheated oil tastes bad and is dangerous. Peanut oil is a high temperature oil. Hydrogenated oils are even higher temp, but there are health disadvantages
Importance of maintaining correct oil temperature to prevent excess oiliness (low temperature) burned outside/raw inside (high temperature)
Good techique for precise control of browning because of heat stored in hot oil as well as cooking medium transmitted heat of fire to food
Not necessarily high fat technique
Braising
Maillard Reaction--browning for depth of flavor. Without enough heat to evaporate moisture as it emerges from food, no browning takes place. This is why institutional cooking is so often blah. There isn't enough heat to brown large amounts of food. Barbeque is one way around this problem; tremendous amounts of heat. Not stirring stuff too much when you're trying to brown it is a good idea. Better a little browning on one side than none at all.
Meat for braising needs connective tissue; that's what gets succulent as the water reacts with the connective collagen, turning it into gelatin
Distinction between browning and tenderizing: high temp changes and low temp changes

About culture and cuisine
Researching the culinary history of a particular country involves more than identifying traditional foods in current cookbooks. What people eat in all places and through all ages depends upon the six primary factors
• Food availability----indigenous animals & plants, imports
• Technology---cooking methods & scientific process/progress
• Seasons & climate---menus prepared according to ingredient availability; droughts & famines
• Religion---customs, rituals, & taboos
• Socioeconomic class---nobles? merchants? laborers? peasants? slaves?
• Politics---foreign influence, immigration patterns, regulations & rationing
All of which will affect the selection and use of cooking techniques and ingredients to differenciate one group from another: yo mama's food doesn't taste like my mama's

Hospitality Industry.
There is something so outrageous about juxtaposing the concept of "hospitality" which is about sharing what you have and honoring what your guests mean to you with the concept of "industry" which is about buying and selling and making customers feel inadequate with what they have so they'll pay you to get what they need to be whole from you. Merchandizing with price appeals, status appeals, social justice appeals, nostalgia appeals and every other appeal has become the sine qua non of most eating experiences in this country.
To some extent, the techniques we use in cooking affect the nutrition of the foods we produce. Boiling increases the assimilability of certain starches (sorry, raw foodies) and high temperatures decreases the amount of Vitamin C in foods.

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