Food: DIY Basics, Part 2, by Robert Fuller
In Part 1, we mostly covered the equipment you’re going to need in order to be able to fulfill your dreams of preparing delicious and highly nutritious meals for family, friends, kindred spirits, and fellow travelers in this dream we call life.
Food is one of the facets of life that tends to bring people closer together. There’s nothing quite like a sumptuous meal shared over candlelight and engaging conversation. The act of preparing food for such a meal is at best an act of love. The shared experience of enjoying the fruits of that kind of act of love is one that creates bonds between people in ways that can be quite profound.
In the previous section, before we discussed the equipment required for your new foray into the land of culinary adventure, there was brief mention of ingredients, which is the topic that's the primary focus of this section.
Really, the first rule that you should follow, to the best of your ability, is to buy or grow the highest quality ingredients possible. After all, as the 1801 statement by Reverend Jonathan Swift clearly says, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” There's also that acronym so well-known to those geek computer programmer types: GIGO. That's “Garbage In, Garbage Out.” The point being, of course, that if you don’t use as high quality ingredients as possible—especially if you were to use ingredients that are noticeably inferior, substandard, or worse—your attempts at food preparation will necessarily suffer the consequences.
The other ingredient-related precept, that of having a well-stocked spice cabinet, is one that will become clearer to you over time, in the event that it’s not already obvious.
So then, in the wide world of ingredients, one of the first things you might notice is that there are so many different ingredients available! They're often classified into various food groups—which can vary in number, as to the basic food groups, between 4 and 12, if not more.
Not to belabor that point (as to how many food groups there are, or what they are), but these ways of categorizing foods or ingredients normally include dairy, grains, fish & meat (protein foods), fruits, and vegetables—and perhaps others.
While the notion of food groups is to a greater or lesser extent worthy of consideration in the present circumstance, it’s not really what you should put your primary focus on in the fine art & science of food preparation in all its diverse and wonderful forms.
It’s really more about texture and flavor combinations, after all, isn’t it?
There are many different sources of flavors and textures in the world of food, but perhaps one of the most potent and variegated sources is that magical world of herbs & spices.
After all, my second of three bullet points in the beginning of Part 1was to have “a well-stocked herb & spice cabinet”.
You can easily find the most popular and often-used herbs & spices in your local grocery store or in a supermarket. They generally come in dried, usually powdered form, in those rather small bottles that seem to cost an arm and a leg.
Let’s not dwell too much on that for now, however. The main thing is that you go out there and start yourself that herb & spice cabinet, if you don’t already have one—which you should. Hey! Don’t you dare be a slacker! Not on my watch! We’re talking food, dude! Dawg! This is your very health and well-being we’re chewing the fat about! And your tastebuds! So get hip with the program!
Once you’ve acquired some of the most basic essentials for your herb & spice cabinet, you should start tasting them individually, to the maximal degree possible, and learning their characteristics.
You can also start experimenting with combinations of two or more of them, and take notes as to your favorites. One very nice-n-easy way to help this process along would be to buy yourself a nice chunk of the normal brick of mozzarella cheese that you find in supermarkets. Mozzarella is good for this kind of taste-testing, because it’s relatively neutral in flavor, which allows you to do a quick taste comparison between various herb & spice combinations (or pretty much any other toppings you'd like to experiment with).
So what you do with that nice hunk of mozzarella is you slice it up nice and thin, and then you do a bit more slicing of those thin slices so that you end up with thin slices that are about a square inch in size. Then you can arrange them on your very nicest display plate in a most exquisite geometric arrangement—and then what!? Simple: Just start placing each of your toppings of choice, each one in some way differing from the next, on each of your thin mozzarella squares in turn.
Once you have this exquisite tasting mosaic lined up—and after you’ve posted your masterpiece on Instagram—it’s pretty straightforward: Chow down! But now this isn’t some kind of all-you-can-eat buffet (word to the wise—don’t!); no, you're here for the very serious, down-to-business purpose of discerning what kinds of effects these toppings have on your well-honed palate. And then you're going to take careful note of which toppings or combinations tickle your fancy the most. Promise?
That last bit, about taking careful note of those taste combinations, that’s really key to how you're going to advance your culinary abilities.
A brief caesura here for a listical of some of the most basic herbs & spices that you might want to consider having in your foodie arsenal (these are in no particular order):
Sea salt (or regular iodized salt, if you must)
Black pepper
Ground cayenne pepper
Paprika
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Dried thyme leaves
Parsley flakes
Dried basil leaves
Ground turmeric
Cumin powder
“Everything bagel” seasoning
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Ground coriander
Ground ginger
Ground cloves
Ground fenugreek
Dried marjoram leaves
Dill weed
Ancho chili powder
Saffron* (according to some, one of the most expensive food items!)
Okay, so not all of these fit the bill as being “basics”, and it’s by no means anything other than a starter list. And not all of them are essentials. It's just a way to get the conversation started.
The asterisk (*) by “saffron”? No, it’s not about Barry Bonds’s juicing! It's there because of the pricetag of $10,000/pound mentioned in the link on that same line. The asterisk is there because the way saffron works is that you add very tiny amounts to whatever you’re cooking. If you don’t follow that suggestion, you may very well find that the fragrance and flavor of these very potent sex organs of the crocus flower end up overpowering most of the other flavors in your dish.
You’ve already been instructed or coerced to experiment with various combinations of these herbs & spices, and to take careful note of the flavor combinations and which ones are your faves.
With a relatively short list like the above, you should easily be able to figure out which twosomes or threesomes attract your attention. You should focus on the individual characteristics of each of the herbs & spices, and find combinations where the individual elements complement each other in some sense. The Art & Science of Roasting Seeds & Nuts, in the part that references add-ons, includes quite a few suggestions that you might find useful.
The main point relative to herbs & spices in the “Roasting” section is that you should spend time analyzing the flavor characteristics of each herb or spice, whether simply as sweet vs. savory, or taking into account the five (or more) taste categorizations (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami).
Using this information that you gather experimentally, once you start to understand those flavor characteristics of each individual ingredient, you can use your imagination to find for yourself a number of flavor combinations that maybe no one’s really ever thought of.
One go-to of mine is garlic powder and black pepper, both of course savory in nature, but with a bit of spiciness added to the mix with the pepper. But even in the short listical above, you can see quite a few “what-ifs”, as in, “What if I were to mix paprika and cinnamon?” Only one way to find out, which is to try it!
I’ve just taken my own advice, and I mixed equal parts of paprika and powdered cinnamon. The result is intriguing; It’s either like cinnamon with a smoky or earthy taste, or paprika with just a hint of (slightly spicy) sweetness.
This brings up a crucial point when you mix herbs & spices (or other ingredients): proportions.
I mentioned two potent examples in my “Roasting” article: turmeric and cayenne pepper. When used sparingly, as with other strong-flavored herbs & spices, it’s easily possible to add that extra “edge” to a dish where it’s hard to tell what the source of it is (unless you know the ingredient list), yet it ends up adding that touch of mystique to the flavor characteristics of the dish.
I’m going to try wrapping up this consideration about herbs & spices with a quick look at some of the herbs & spices I’ve personally become aware of recently, and then we’ll talk about some other seasonings and condiments. But I must remind you that the “Roasting” article I keep mentioning also has lots of information about these and similar ingredients.
This is just a short list, and many of the items in the list are ones that I’ve bought from our local corner store, La Grande Market, and they’re typically either the “El Valle Spices” brand from San Fernando, CA, or “Rene's Mexican Products” from San Jose. (Full disclosure: I haven’t yet tried all the items listed below, nor do I know what all of them are best used for.) Here's’s the list:
Piloncillo (Sugar cane)
Cal (Lime)
Linaza molida (Ground flax seeds)
Anis estrella (Star anise)
Chile ancho (Ancho chili pods)
Gobernadora (Chaparral herbs)
Rosa de castilla (Rose buds)
Gordolobo (Mullein flowers)
Azafrán de bolita (Zafron)
Achiote molido (Ground annato)
Actually, during a recent walk, I procured four other ingredients from La Grande Market:
Ciruelas pasas (Prunes)
Eucalipto (Eucalyptus leaves)
Laurel (Bay leaves)
Oregano entero (Whole oregano)
The items listed are by no means a guide to what you should buy once you have some or most of the basics covered; they’re merely to illustrate some of the possibilities. If you have stores or markets near you, especially those that are locally-owned, that carry herbs & spices that are unfamiliar to you, it might be worth trying some of them out.
Now it’s time to put in another plug for my friends at The Splendid Table, who have done so much to inform so many of us about so many of the finer points regarding food and ingredients.
Episode 789, “World of Spices with Sana Javeri Kadri and Ethan Frisch”, talks about the importance of spice companies who honor their commitments to their farmers and suppliers, and to fair trade practices in general.
But the real eye-openers for me were the parts of the discussion that centered directly on sources, with a real emphasis on freshness and other factors that we don’t usually think about when we buy those tiny bottles of dried, powdered, and ground herbs & spices from the supermarket.
Please have a listen if you can to this episode; it’s very well worth your time. But you should also visit the websites of the two companies featured in this episode, Diaspora Co., and Burlap & Barrel.
Here’s Diaspora’s description of who they are: “We’re growing a better spice trade by sourcing the highest quality spices paying farmers an average 3x-5x the commodity price, and freshly milling and blending each spice and masala for maximum potency and flavor.” If you’re a foodie and that doesn’t grab your attention, I think you might want to consider a new career choice.
Not to be outdone (and this is one of those relatively rare positive examples of what might be called rivalry), Burlap&Barrel states: “Welcome to a world of incredible flavor. ★ Single origin spices sourced directly from small farms. ★ Award-winning flavor. ★ Guaranteed to Wow!”
This is as good a segue as we’re going to get to another very important topic, that of high-quality ingredients. As you will soon see, the quality and sourcing of fruits & vegetables, as well as grains & legumes, is of crucial importance for your health and well-being.
However, for the time being, we will take a minor detour from consideration of those ingredients in order to further explore the world of seasonings and condiments not yet discussed.
My article on “Roasting”, oft-touted already, has plenty of useful info on these other seasonings and condiments, so here, I’ll just give you a quick overview, and you can refer to that article for other ideas and details.
Many of the remaining seasonings and condiments belong to the set of ferments, which are very much flavor enhancers, but which usually also serve to add nutritional value and make digestion easier. The best ferments also add positively to the microbiome of the gut, which has in recent years been viewed more and more as a crucial factor in one's overall health.
But, before we go there, there’s this: Virtually any food ingredient can be utilized as a seasoning or condiment. Keep that in mind in your culinary adventures.
Examples of sauces and ferments:
Soy sauce
Ponzu sauce
Fish sauce (Red Boat)
Worcestershire sauce
Balsamic and other vinegars
Tempura
Teriyaki sauce and marinade
Hoisin sauce
A very wide variety of hot sauces (such as the classic favorite Tabasco)
Maggi (available in a wide variety, both powders and liquids, with many regional variances)
Various types of other bouillons
Sweet syrups, such as honey, agave nectar, and maple syrup
Citric acid, lemon juice, lime juice, and other citrus juices
Wines and other alcohols
Extracts, such as vanilla, rum, almond, raspberry, and others
Both Maggi (name of a company that originated in Switzerland, is now owned by Nestlé, and has offices in many different countries, each with its own unique take on the seasoning) and the various other bouillons are MSG-based. (Episode 755 of The Splendid Table has a fairly lengthy section on Maggi—and also a segment on what makes Red Boat such an exceptional fish sauce—all of it well worth a listen.)
Other seasoning and condiment suggestions (including a few spice mixes):
Mensaf (or Mansaf)
Zaatar Shami
“Everything bagel" seasoning
Tahini
Halawa
Pumpkin dip (or sauce)
Tomato paste
Capers
Pesto sauce
Horseradish sauce
Wasabi sauce
Feta cheese vegetable fat
Soft cheeses and spreads
Grated cheeses
Roasted seeds & nuts, such as cumin, fennel, anise, and sesame
The moral of the story: Use your imagination, think outside the box, and push the envelope!
I particularly recommend finding a good international market or two, such as Fruit Basket #3 in my locality, which is where I procured several of the ingredients in the above list. Ask the proprietor if you have any questions about a particular food item, how good it is, and what kinds of things it’s used for. One of my favorite finds recently at Fruit Basket #3 was their dried jujube dates, but this find didn’t really sink in until I decided to simmer jujube date pieces in butter, and discovered what I call insta-candy. It’s so good! And check out the health benefits of jujube dates.
But the halawa was excellent, as well. It took me a while to really warm up to it, but I finally got it when I used it as a seasoning in a salad with various veggies, canned mackerel, citrus juices and apple cider vinegar, and various other ingredients. The Fruit Basket #3 proprietor recommended topping a bit of the halawa with feta cheese vegetable fat, so that’s why I bought that item. But that item proved to be a wonderful addition to steamed-then-roasted potatoes in combination with other ingredients, and in fact, with the addition of enough liquids to the mix, it actually made for a very nice potato soup!
Earlier, after misspelling halawa as “halawi” (twice!), I discovered that there’s a halawi date.
Ah, well! You learn something new every day! As Stephen Daedalus said in James Joyce’s Ulysses, “Errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
Now for the ingredients that are most closely associated with main courses, entreés, side dishes, salads, desserts, and so forth. First, the fruits & vegetables, plus the grains & legumes. (Later on, finally, a quick rundown of the various meats, including poultry, fish, seafood, and any other ingredients that are comprised of animal flesh, with a segue into other animal-based products.)
One of the main considerations, as usual, has to do with the quality of the ingredients you buy, as well as where you source them from. It’s important to find vendors you can trust, and to buy food, as much as possible, that is not polluted by extraneous chemicals and other substances such as unnecessary antibiotics and the like. If you live in a state or region where the laws governing the regulation of organic foods are strong and reliable, then buy organic whenever possible; I recommend at the very least trying to find foods that are pesticide-free.
If you have a local farmers market, that's a great place to start. You can luxuriate in the best that your region has to offer, and often you can get organic produce and other foods at prices that won’t break the bank. You will also be buying, in most cases, whatever is in season, so that you can enjoy the differing tastes of food throughout the months of the year. And you will be helping to reduce greenhouse gases because the food you buy doesn’t have to travel as far to feed you.
And when you visit your local farmers market, you’re very likely to find food items that you haven’t experienced before, so it’s a great place to treat yourself to a wide variety of new ingredients. Also, the vendors at these markets tend to vary from time to time, so every now and then, you’ll find someone selling something new. (The flip side is that vendors also move on to new ventures and new locations—and you’re going to miss them when they do. We used to have a fish and seafood vendor, an egg vendor (with eggs from a variety of birds, eggs ranging in size from quail to duck), and a few other favorites of mine who moved on. Sigh... But we now have an excellent mushroom vendor, as well as the usual assortment of vendors offering great organic produce, so that’s a consolation.)
The San Francisco Bay Area is also home to probably dozens of farmers markets, many of them accessible via BART, and there are numerous other purveyors of fine culinary goods. So we’re not hurting here in this area.
Many parts of this country also tend to have some really nice roadside stands, often carrying just a single specialty, like apples. And what’s more and more the rage nowadays is the “farm direct” type of paradigm, where you can get home delivery on a regular basis; or, in many cases, you can just hop in the car and visit the farm yourself! (That way, face to face, eye to eye, you’ll know you can trust them.)
One of the most awesome episodes of The Splendid Table, in terms of how it (literally) hit home for me, was Episode 716: Farm, Garden, Cook. Leah Pennington, founding co-director of Soul Fire Farm, based in rural Rensselaer County in upstate New York less than ten miles from where I grew up, along with the rest of her team, is promoting, among other things, Afro-indigenous centered farming practices. As she so eloquently explained in this episode, which first aired in 2020, many if not most of the sustainable farming practices that are still widely used actually had their origins in Africa. And one of the compelling points that she brought up was that many of the enslaved persons who were wrenched from their ancestral homes in Africa were chosen by the people who did this horrible, forced removal precisely because they, the enslaved persons, were known to possess valuable knowledge and abilities in the practice of agriculture. Pennington also told a really moving story about inner-city youth from Albany, some of whom had never been to the countryside; one of them, a young black boy, when the bus arrived at Soul Fire Farm, was totally reluctant to even get out of the bus. So he was convinced to take off his shoes after a while, and when his feet touched the muddy ground, he told those who were there that he could feel the presence of his grandmother!
Rensselaer County is roughly equidistant (150 miles each) from New York and Boston, and it’s about 30 miles east of Albany, near the Vermont and Massachusetts borders. The town where I grew up was fewer than 2,000 people, and it was mostly white. So when I heard about this wonderful farm, Soul Fire Farm, and what they’re doing, it really warmed my heart.
And this is a marvelous lead-in to another way you can procure incredible, healthy ingredients: an online store, like that of Soul Fire Farm. (But you already knew that, didn’t you?)
Finally, you can find many types of fine ingredients at other local markets, including international food markets. The one I’ve mentioned around here, Fruit Basket #3, has a wide variety of legumes, pastas, seeds, grains, and many other toothsome goodies—some of which you’ve probably never heard of. I’ve already mentioned a few items, so I won’t belabor the point, but the grains & legumes they carry are excellent, and I’ve grown to love them.
One of them that’s an especial favorite of mine is the Whole Wheat Flakes, by Sadaf. They’re a great little alternative (or addition) to your usual oatmeal, as a heart-warming hot cereal way to start the day. And you can air-roast them in your 4-in-1 Hamilton Beach toaster oven, to really excellent effect. Add butter to the air-roasting, and it’s a deal! (It becomes that mysterious Buttered Popcorn Syndrome.)
You can also do other interesting things with the legumes they sell, besides just cooking them in the usual fashion. For example, with mung beans, it’s pretty easy to sprout them. You can then add them to salads and other dishes, or you could try fermenting them, if you’re brave enough.
(Caution: If you don't know what you’re doing when it comes to fermentation, err on the side of just that: Caution.)
As for meats, including poultry, fish, seafood, and other animal flesh, my assumption is that you probably already know your preferences, so I’m not going to say much about the standard cuts of meat, except to give a few suggestions I’ve tried out myself.
I don’t tend to be the type of guy who goes out and buys the nicest hunk of steak or prime rib and fries it, or grills it out in the backyard, so if that’s your thing, then you probably already know the ropes about the best way to do that.
I’m more the type who likes to find cuts of beef or other meats that are suitable for making stews and dishes in the slow cooker. So I normally go for a chuck roast or chuck steak or something similar, a cut of meat that's not going to break the bank.
If you’re able to fire up your slow cooker stew on the “Low” setting 8-10 hours or so before you do your daily rise-n-shine routine, you will feel blessed to have the whole house or apartment just filled with the best aromas!
As for chicken, I recommend organic, if possible. One of my favorites is ROSIE Organic Chicken, available in various cuts. It’s great in the slow cooker, as well, but probably not as a stew. But there are plenty of enticing dishes you can make with it using your slow cooker, so just try some of them out.
When we used to have a fish monger at the local farmers market, I would usually buy one or two tubs of fresh bay shrimp, at $5 each, and they would typically be used for a mouth-watering ceviche.
However, don’t overlook various types of canned fish, whether for ceviche or for other purposes. My best go-to for a canned fish “ceviche” is King Oscar canned mackerel. And, like tuna and similar types of fish, it's a fatty fish that's just chock full of the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids!
There are so many different types of meat and animal flesh products that it’s hard to keep up with all of them. So I’ll just mention a few others I've tried that were pretty remarkable.
I’m a big fan of smoked salmon, so every now and then I’ll splurge and get some. It goes very well with anything you might associate with the Mediterranean diet, including lots of different cheese varieties, olives, capers, pasta, ... The list goes on. Just use your imagination.
I’ve also recently gotten into a few different types of ground meat, which can fairly easily be made into sausages, without the casing. Just add a nice mix of your favorite spices, mostly savory, and mix them in thoroughly, and shape the results into balls, patties, or links. Since I’m a lover of gamey meats, a favorite of mine is ground venison. There’s also a ground “Ragyu beef”—actually a mix of Ragyu with a more standard type of beef—that works pretty nicely, as well. You can actually get products like these, and many others, at discount shops like Grocery Outlet, for a reasonable price.
And don’t neglect the other types of canned meat, or packaged sliced meat items, like salami, which can be added to various dishes with good effect to give them that extra something. One of my recent all-time favorites was mousse truffée, essentially like a paté, and made of two different types of liver with nice little chunks of truffle added in. For any of you out there who are enamored of anything “truffle”, please seriously consider this! The paté aspect of it can be rather overpowering, but it certainly makes a nice spread on a baguette or as part of a cheese, meat, and olive plate.
If your locally-based, locally-owned grocery store has a deli department or butcher, you can get lots of good stuff there, and you're buying it from someone you can trust. There’s nothing like sliced pastrami from one of these shops, and it’s sure to beat the pants off the usual fare you get at the supermarket.
Our last visit for now is mainly to the land of animal-based products, such as dairy and eggs, but with also a brief look at grain-based products such as breads, tortillas, and the like.
Milk and eggs are fairly standard staples, but they do come in different varieties, so you should look out for ones that you haven’t tried yet, whenever you have the chance. Also, if you’ve ever tried organic milk (especially whole milk), unless I’m mistaken, you will be certain to taste a pretty substantial difference between organic and non-organic. No spoiler alert here; just try it for yourself! And eggs are not just chicken eggs in varying sizes; you can get quail eggs, duck eggs, ostrich eggs, and probably at least a few other egg varieties from our fine-feathered friends.
And with regard to milk, let’s not forget our other milk-giving friends besides cows; after all, their milk, such as from goats or sheep, is widely used in some of the tastiest cheeses out there!
Dairy products are a huge topic all their own. There’s various degrees of fat in milk (skim, 2%, whole, and probably others), and there are numerous cultured liquid milk products (buttermilk and yogurt being two of the most obvious), as well as quite a few different types of cream. And we haven’t even touched all that much upon the behemoth of them all: Cheese!
Cheese is perhaps one of the most celebrated of food items, and in recent years, there's been a flood of artisanal activity in the arena of cheese creation, of concocting ever new varieties and taste sensations in the shape and substance of this cultured (mostly) dairy concoction.
A fair representation of the land of cheese is far beyond the scope of this modest article; there are so many thousands upon thousands of cheese varieties that it makes the eyes glaze over!
But we are all to a certain degree, at least, aware of the role of cheeses in the history of food preparation, including cooking... And of course, pizza. And many other of our esteemed comfort foods, of course.
Suffice it to say, for now, that there are a few cheeses recently that have really captured my taste buds.
One of the most notable was Wild Morel & Leek Jack. If you try this, you will not believe it! It was out of this world!
There’s also a couple of great cheeses from Celebrity Sheep: Fig Chili, and Yuzu Citrus.
And the Buholzer Brothers makes an excellent Horseradish Havarti.
These are just the tip of the iceberg (no, not lettuce!)...
It should be up to you, if you’re some kind of cheesehead, to find the varieties that, so to speak, really get your goat (or make you sheepish, or have a cow)... In a positive sense!
But there are also a few other more commonplace families and varieties of cheese that need mention, for one reason or another. There are the cheddars; the Parmesano, Reggiano, and similar varieties; the blue cheeses; the Goudas; and the mozzarellas.
These are a mere fraction of what is out there, but the mozzarellas (along with their close cousins the Jacks) are a really good cheese to have in-house. Because the mozzarellas and Jacks are fairly neutral in flavor, they both make really good bases for taste-testings and taste-comparisons of various ingredients, with the extra ingredients being added either singly or in combination.
The final visit, ingredient-wise, in this article is a very brief look at the world of breads, tortillas, and such-like. As with many other foods, these come in many different varieties. So we're just going to consider a very minute subsection of these foods, just to get the ball rolling and your taste buds warmed up.
My crazy, funny, lovable friend Brian, a math major at UCSB, used to say “Toast! How aristocratic!" So this very commonplace, yet versatile basic food, according to umami expert Raquel Pelzel, has much more to offer than you might think. Get ready to be gobsmacked!
I remember hearing about TOAST: The Cookbook when half-awake, half-asleep, drifting in and out of slumber, one recent morning, on either NPR or BBC, but I couldn’t for the life of me recall who had written the book or which exact radio program it was on. But the taste of toast remained in my buds, and its crunch in my ear, so I’m pretty sure that it was Raquel Pelzel’s book that caught my attention in whatever wee hours of whatever morning it was.
Then, as for grain-based baked goods, especially the ones involving wheat, you have to give at least lip (as in yummy!) service to all the countless varieties of not only breads, but also things like croissants, brioche, baguettes, many different types of rolls, not to mention pie crusts, pizza crusts, the breading used in onion rings and so many other things... The list is virtually endless.
And it’s not just wheat, either. Consider the whole world of grains used in baking. Here’s a few by domaselo.com, most of which I’d never heard of; and they’re ancient, heirloom, and common!
And kitchenaid has quite a nice list of fifteen different grains that can be used for baking.
And please don’t ignore the indispensable Wikipedia, either on types of bread and baked goods or, for that matter, multigrain breads.
Then there’s the world of flour and corn tortillas and similar flatbreads that we all know and love from various types of cuisine from Mexico and elsewhere. Now, I’m not by any means going to present myself as any kind of expert on these flatbreads and similar products. But I will testify that I’ve become more endeared to them recently for various reasons.
But before I get to that point, it must be said that the number of varieties of corn or maize is just phenomenal. In Mexico alone. This is in part a plug for diversity in and preservation of seed stocks, especially all those tasty heirloom varieties. Mono-cultures just don’t cut it! That includes all the not-so-best-practices of Big Ag. (Depletion of soil. Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. You all know the drill...)
So, fellow foodies, we all need to stick together and stand together to insist upon best farming practices going forward. The Big Ag stuff just won’t cut it anymore, for many different reasons.
Now, as to the one relatively minor point I was going to raise regarding tortillas, which is that I’ve recently become drawn to making little pizza-like pies using just a 6-8” tortilla or two and maybe a few choice veggies, topped by cheese, and of course baked in the toaster oven. The initial baking or toasting of the tortilla can be done at a lower temperature with just the tortilla itself with some olive oil brushed over its entire surface, after which the veggies might be added and baked at roughly the same temperature. The final layer of cheese of choice would be added then baked at perhaps a slightly higher temperature. (A really simple alternative? Just do a single 5-minute bake session or two, with the only topping being your cheese of choice.)
I can elaborate on the “tortilla pizza” concept in a separate article. But now it’s time to wrap up.
My final word, for now, my Summation, Your Honor, in this Food Chapter, is simply this: What I’ve been primarily striving to do in presenting these succulently mouth-watering Ingredients to the Jury is to show them as Evidence, to bring them all into the same Food Court, so that they might be rightfully and Lawfully considered as to their Merits, and as to how they might find Means to join in a kind of Holy Matrimony of culinary Bliss. May it be so! (Translation: Be inspired by these ingredient lists to create your own successful culinary experiments. And make good use of your shopping trips to whet your culinary-creative imagination.)
So be it. De bon goût. ¡Y buen apetito!