50 Ways to Love Your Food
50 Ways to Love Your Food
Owen at Tomatillo was inspired, brilliantly, by a column by Nigel Slater entitled "The top 50 things every foodie should do." It was an interesting list, but a bit too specific and, so, impractical in many cases. For instance, "Eat lunch at Le Grand Véfour" in Paris may be a great idea but it's doubtful I'll ever have the opportunity.
Owen's stroke of brilliance was in suggesting that readers of his food blog contribute to a more practical list. The result is posted here.
It seems to me that you can't truly appreciate something you don't understand. Both Slater's and Owen's lists begin with, "Make Toast." A simple enough thing, but it has the advantage of demonstrating clearly how much there is to understanding.
First, the bread must be fresh and thick and have body and character and crumb -- even better if you make the bread (another item on Owen's list). Then you gain an understanding of the living nature of bread and the simplicity of its ingredients. You learn how the living body of bread smells and feels. You see it grow before your eyes as thousands of tiny plants eat and digest and produce waste and reproduce. At the end you bake the bread, killing the yeast and setting the final form and your house smells better than it ever has or will until you bake bread again. It transforms your abode from house to home.
If you're like me, you'll wait no more than 30 or so minutes before cutting off a slice and tasting it -- even though you know it will taste better later.
The next morning you cut a second slice and toast it. The exterior gradually turns a rich caramel brown as Maillard reactions occur. Flavors become more complex and richer heightening the bread's savor while the interior remains golden, and sweet. Perhaps you're lucky enough to toast the bread over wood and gain that unique flavor element. But however you toast it, the bread's flavor changes -- and so does it tactile characteristics.
The interior remains soft, but the exterior becomes crisp offering a pleasant contrast in the mouth. And then, ideally, you spread a bit of fresh butter on one side and things become even more complicated.
You have a crisp, dry side; a soft interior; and a crisp, oily side. You have the rich savor of the exterior and the sweetness of the interior. You have the unctuousness of the butter and perhaps some saltiness. This is what a piece of basic white-bread toast offers you. This is genuinely a simple crust of bread. How extraordinary!
Of the 50 items on Owen's list I can cross off 24 as definitely "done." Then there's one I'm unsure of. Have I ever tasted wine out of a barrel? Probably, I've been to a lot of vineyards and not always as a tourist. But I'm inclined to think that if I'm unsure of doing it then it didn't count because I clearly wasn't focused on the experience.
A couple of others simply don't interest me. I'm not a chocolate fan so I couldn't care less about 25, 31, and 36. And No. 38 -- create a cake recipe -- is primarily interesting from a food science POV. Then there are those that require I give up bachelorhood: 20 and 48. I realize there are thousands of women dying to share a mango in bed with me but they're simply going to have to live with their disappointment.
So that leaves 15 items to accomplish. And doing so really appeals to me. I've been thinking about making cheese of some sort for awhile now. Grilling a pizza sounds like fun. I've no place to build an oven at the moment -- but that could change. And volunteering in a soup kitchen is just a good idea.
So, Owen, thanks a bunch for bringing us this idea and thanks to everyone who contributed an idea for something I haven't done yet.
Owen at Tomatillo was inspired, brilliantly, by a column by Nigel Slater entitled "The top 50 things every foodie should do." It was an interesting list, but a bit too specific and, so, impractical in many cases. For instance, "Eat lunch at Le Grand Véfour" in Paris may be a great idea but it's doubtful I'll ever have the opportunity.
Owen's stroke of brilliance was in suggesting that readers of his food blog contribute to a more practical list. The result is posted here.
It seems to me that you can't truly appreciate something you don't understand. Both Slater's and Owen's lists begin with, "Make Toast." A simple enough thing, but it has the advantage of demonstrating clearly how much there is to understanding.
First, the bread must be fresh and thick and have body and character and crumb -- even better if you make the bread (another item on Owen's list). Then you gain an understanding of the living nature of bread and the simplicity of its ingredients. You learn how the living body of bread smells and feels. You see it grow before your eyes as thousands of tiny plants eat and digest and produce waste and reproduce. At the end you bake the bread, killing the yeast and setting the final form and your house smells better than it ever has or will until you bake bread again. It transforms your abode from house to home.
If you're like me, you'll wait no more than 30 or so minutes before cutting off a slice and tasting it -- even though you know it will taste better later.
The next morning you cut a second slice and toast it. The exterior gradually turns a rich caramel brown as Maillard reactions occur. Flavors become more complex and richer heightening the bread's savor while the interior remains golden, and sweet. Perhaps you're lucky enough to toast the bread over wood and gain that unique flavor element. But however you toast it, the bread's flavor changes -- and so does it tactile characteristics.
The interior remains soft, but the exterior becomes crisp offering a pleasant contrast in the mouth. And then, ideally, you spread a bit of fresh butter on one side and things become even more complicated.
You have a crisp, dry side; a soft interior; and a crisp, oily side. You have the rich savor of the exterior and the sweetness of the interior. You have the unctuousness of the butter and perhaps some saltiness. This is what a piece of basic white-bread toast offers you. This is genuinely a simple crust of bread. How extraordinary!
Of the 50 items on Owen's list I can cross off 24 as definitely "done." Then there's one I'm unsure of. Have I ever tasted wine out of a barrel? Probably, I've been to a lot of vineyards and not always as a tourist. But I'm inclined to think that if I'm unsure of doing it then it didn't count because I clearly wasn't focused on the experience.
A couple of others simply don't interest me. I'm not a chocolate fan so I couldn't care less about 25, 31, and 36. And No. 38 -- create a cake recipe -- is primarily interesting from a food science POV. Then there are those that require I give up bachelorhood: 20 and 48. I realize there are thousands of women dying to share a mango in bed with me but they're simply going to have to live with their disappointment.
So that leaves 15 items to accomplish. And doing so really appeals to me. I've been thinking about making cheese of some sort for awhile now. Grilling a pizza sounds like fun. I've no place to build an oven at the moment -- but that could change. And volunteering in a soup kitchen is just a good idea.
So, Owen, thanks a bunch for bringing us this idea and thanks to everyone who contributed an idea for something I haven't done yet.
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