Most people eat some combination of food that is good for them and food that tastes good. Finding the balance between the two is a lifelong journey. This is the story of that struggle.
"Have a burger once a week." — Michael Pollan to Roy Wood Jr. on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Roy Wood Jr. loves burgers and fast food. His quest was to find out more about the alternative meat choices. Michael Pollan suggests Wood try some of the plant-based alternatives.
Wood's quest takes him to San Francisco to Impossible Foods. He tries the Impossible Burger at Impossible Foods. "How did you make the plant burger taste like the meat burger?" In the angel-devil scenario, the devil points out Wood is too old to switch sides.
Wood stays in San Francisco to go to Just Inc. to try real meat from cloning. "What we do is find the best tasting cows in the world. We take cells from those cows. You put that cell line in a bioreactor. The bioreactor enables the cell to double. At the end of it, you have raw meat." — Josh Tetrick, CEO, Just Inc.
He tries a chicken nugget that would cost about $50. Wood points out that a 6-pack would be $300. Tetrick points out that they don't have a burger yet.
Wood points out the plant burger costs more than the "fart burger" i.e., comes from cows.
Pollan's idea of limiting meat consumption to once a week is labeled as "crazy" by Wood. "You should be in comedy," Wood says to Pollan.
Wood refers to "broke-ass carnivores" such as himself. Ignoring the fact that eating hamburgers with buns means you are not a carnivore, Wood hits on the issue in the marketplace. People can switch if the costs are comparable. Those who can afford the Impossible Burgers aren't people likely struggling with food costs. The cloned meats will come down in price over time.
The true efficiencies in switching to alternative meats will come in getting the price point to be seen as viable in the average consumer. This is grossly unfair given that mainstream meat production is subsidized by cheap feed and practices that sacrifice quality and taste. Fast food burgers should cost twice as much but the reality is that consumers won't pay that much.
The "good news" is that the alternatives don't have to taste as good since the quality marker is a typical fast food burger.
Pollan may have the solution: eat better quality meat but eat less meat.
video and photo credit: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Editor's note: The following is a slightly condensed version of a feature from our sister blog, CanadianCrossing.com. The full feature can be found here. The column is reprinted here with full and complete permission.
Eggs for breakfast make sense. Eggs for lunch? The brother thinks eating eggs for lunch is weird. The sister thinks eggs for lunch is fine. Then again, the sister thinks her brother's girlfriend looks like their mother. That might be a little weird. Eggs anytime is fine.
Another Tim Hortons trading cards zamboni ad with Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon is not that exciting. What is exciting is the new addition to the ads. Recently retired NHL Hockey Night in Canada legend Bob Cole is the voice of the Tim Hortons ad. You have to love that Cole is 1) still working; and 2) is still a part of the NHL even via an ad for a donut shoppe. Take that, Rogers.
"If food matters to you, you're a food lover."
Food lovers might not be into canned cranberry sauce. The Loblaw's ad lets us know you can be a food lover who is into canned cranberry sauce. Aimed for Canadian Thanksgiving, the ad can work for the American readers for the U.S. Thanksgiving.
Jon Hamm thinks he is a real Canadian in this latest incarnation for Skip the Dishes. Hamm thinks he is now a Canadian citizen and wants to celebrate by having food delivered.
Turns out Hamm's citizenship was denied even though he bought a Moose Jaw, Yellowknife, and a Sault Ste. Marie (whatever that is). These ads have been hilarious. Hopefully, more Americans will find out Hamm is funny.
How the [bleep] did Pepsi get the rights to the old Hockey Night in Canada theme? TSN/Bell Media got the rights to the song when the CBC let the rights go free. Having the song play in a soft drink ad reduces the impact of the song when played for real. We see what Pepsi gets from it but Bell Media's motive can't just be money. If the song had to play in an ad, that song should run in a Canadian company commercial.
The relatively low standards of North American fast food is the platform where Harvey's can brag about being the first national fast food chain to offer 100% Canadian beef in an angus burger with no antibiotics, steroids, or added hormones.
I haven't had a Harvey's burger for a very long time, mostly because I haven't found a location lately. I would likely want to find a place, such as one I found in Toronto, where I could get all of that AND have the burger cooked medium-rare (because they grind their own beef). In a pinch, I might try this burger.
At Wendy's Canada, you can get jalapenos, onion tanglers, and avocado on any dish. This concept is aimed at burgers but French fries with onion tanglers sounds really good. Onion tanglers look like what Americans would call onion strings. Cliff's Notes and Cole's Notes are the same idea but the former is American while the latter is Canadian. You can go over those notes while at Wendy's with a jalapeno burger.
videos credit: all the respective companies photo credit: Choose.ca
If we consider "ethnic food" to be insulting as a concept, then the ethnic food aisle in the grocery store should hang out with the dinosaurs.
Or does the ethnic food aisle serve some useful purpose, no matter how awkward the concept is in late 2019.
As a white person of a certain age, I wouldn't profess to know the damage the concept of "ethnic food" entails in some communities. I grew up some time ago in a small town where the "exotic" food was Mexican, Italian, and Chinese.
When mainstream grocery stores first put in an "ethnic food aisle," they were seen as progress to carry foods from different countries not traditionally stocked at the store.
If a grocery store had 12 aisles, 11 of them were for "regular food", "American food". There would be part of an aisle devoted to Italian since Italian food didn't fall into ethnic or regular. Italian food essentially was defined as spaghetti, red sauce, and green cans of grated "parmesan" cheese.
I live in a large city where there are a lot of "ethnic" supermarkets. There are no "ethnic" aisles in these supermarkets. Supermercado became a word in my vocabulary for primarily Mexican supermarkets. I have frequented East Asian, African, South American, Eastern European, and Middle East markets without leaving the city limits.
I also frequent "mainstream" markets with ethnic aisles. They are my favorite part of the store. The cool foods are in the "ethnic" aisle.
I do get the perception of the color of skin associated with "ethnic" foods. Though Scandinavian foods fall into ethnic and the people are pretty white. British foods end up in the ethnic section. Mexican food is making its way outside the ethnic food aisle.
"Ethnic food" can also be foods that Americans don't generally understand. Let's be honest: Americans aren't the most enlightened people when other cultures are involved.
This is my argument for an "ethnic food aisle" in a way. The aisle is a way to say "these foods exist. Travel a bit by going down the aisle."
If grocery store data showed that people were avoiding this aisle because of the "strange" foods, that would be a compelling case for not having an ethnic food aisle.
The logical alternative would be to scatter those same foods in different areas of the grocery store so consumers would go down every aisle. Some foods could easily fall into categories in other aisles. Other foods might struggle to find a logical spot.
The "ethnic food aisle" has changed as American tastes change. Some foods have moved away to other aisles.
"If you go to the ethnic food aisle, that is sort of the last bastion of racism that you can see in full daylight in retail America," said chef David Chang on his Ringer podcast in July.
The stigma of feeling different because of different foods is a real pain experienced by second-generation immigrants and others.
The Canadian sketch troupe Tallboyz had a sketch on its CBC television show this fall about a restaurant set in a secondary school cafeteria complete with lunch shaming.
The food would be outstanding but served with a bullying or shameful factor that would take you back to awkward childhood moments.
Tim Carman's story in The Washington Post points to a different reality. Sales of international food items did better when there was an ethnic aisle in the grocery store. Customers knew where to find the foods because they knew where to go.
The United States (and Canada) are countries where the grocery store experience is more multicultural. Sometimes that comes with pitfalls such as the "ethnic food aisle." Many countries have more of a homogeneous shopping experience.
A compromise might be to keep the convenience of an "ethnic food" aisle but reduce the stigma of the foods in the aisle.
Educating consumers about the foods might be a nice way to bridge cultures. A museum type experience where people can press a button to hear a story about the foods in front of them. A tap of a smartphone to a QR code can lead someone to a Web page that explains the food. Consumers can take pictures (subject to grocery store policy), go home and do a Web search and find out more about that food.
Explore an atypical supermarket on a rainy weekend afternoon. Look at labels; there may be a foreign language as well as English on the label. Buy something and create a weeknight meal tied to that food or culture.
Shedding the walls of "ethnic food" is easier when we experience something different than what we used to having. If you love ravioli, try pierogies or pot stickers. If you like a club sandwich, try a shawarma. If you love fried chicken, try Korean fried chicken.
Traveling the world in food doesn't require a passport or shots. All food and no food is ethnic food.
"I thought you guys were all trying to force me to eat healthy. But I've learned that a lot of this stuff is made in a factory and processed with tons of salt, just like all my favorite foods. Spaghetti O's, Rice a Roni. Here I was thinking what you wanted was stuff from a farmers market. I just didn't want my food to change. School cafeteria meat is processed crap that comes in a box. And this is just processed crap that comes in a box. I don't have a problem with it. All I wanted was to be able to eat the same garbage I always have. And this is definitely garbage. And hey, if it happens to be more ethical and sustainable, well, I guess I'm fine with that too." — Eric Cartman, South Park, Let Them Eat Goo
The message from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone is that fake burgers are heavily processed. Eric Cartman keeps having heart attacks just from the idea of eating plant-based foods. After his first heart attack, the school goes back to eating meat. After his second heart attack, a mysterious man comes to town to set up plant-based replacements for all the meat in town under the label of Incredible Foods.
The substance is green goo that is shipped through pipelines, hence the episode title Let Them Eat Goo. The goo man is serving "synthetically modulated plant protein" where "shitty food" is served by people who already eat "crappy food."
The secondary arc in the episode is Randy Marsh's Tegridy Burger from Tegridy Farms using the waste products from marijuana production to make a plant-based burger. They start selling their Tegridy Burger outside the Burger King and its Impossible Burger.
The Tegridy burger tastes really awful but the more you eat it, the better tasting the burger gets. The implication is that eating the Tegridy burger gets you high. The actual Tegridy Burger slogan is "Tastes like shit, you won't care."
We did talk about the processed level of the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger. Our argument was that if you ate the burgers every so often, you would be fine. Most of the ingredients are pretty obvious, which is why we labeled them as processed not ultra-processed.
You could take a portabella mushroom, remove the stem, marinate the mushroom with balsamic vinegar and some garlic powder. Put the marinated mushroom on the grill, outdoor or indoor, and place on a hamburger bun. Not processed and makes for a nice sandwich.
Processed food from better ingredients is better than processed food from lesser ingredients. There are plant-based foods that are minimally processed and processed to the hilt. Make a choice but make smart choices within that choice.
Cartman fought the battle over plant-based meat 2 seasons ago when he fooled his vegan girlfriend Heidi into eating Kentucky Fried Chicken under the guise of Beyond KFC.
Parker and Stone are mocking the whole plant-based experience but more specifically the idea of replacing processed foods with processed foods. The taco meat filling at Taco Bell is also processed. Eating more simple can involve meat, vegetables, and mostly a bit of both.
Getting caught up in the mania that is the Food Network and Cooking Channel is really easy. You can have either channel in the background as you are working on other things.
You will hear about the restaurants cooking up local ingredients on those shows but what about those local growers.
Tastemakers is a 13-episode series running on PBS looks at those local growers. Host Cat Neville takes us all across the United States takes us inside to the growing practices so we learn what makes these food creators that much more special.
Fermentation, ice cream, oils, seafood, and cheese are some of the fun topics. We even find out about heliculture, a fancy word for snail farming.
In the first episode, we learn about seam butchery that follows the seams of the muscles to the bone. Traditional butchery has cross cuts that produce multiple muscle groups. Seam butchery isolates those muscles so that the meat is one muscle.
Seam butchery cuts costs by giving customer exactly what they want. Traditional butchery might produce tough and not-so-tough meat, so you have to choose between overcooking and undercooking a part of the meat.
"I'm Cat Neville and I've been telling the story of local food for about 20 years. In that time, I've seen the American food movement explode in tiny towns and big cities from coast to coast. In Tastemakers, I explore the maker movement and take you along for the journey to meet the makers who define the flavor of American cuisine."
Neville's presentation style is more of a guide letting the farmers and makers speak to their process. She is laid-back but speaks up when needed to guide the narrative. Neville follows the path of products with pleasant surprises.
In a tofu episode, we learn about okara, a byproduct from tofu making. Loyola University in Chicago studies how the okara can help out other growing processes.
Some episodes show more rural settings and then find restaurants that use the products. Other episodes are set in urban settings, such as an episode about a tofu company in Chicago and shipping containers turned into hydroponics in Boston.
The series has a wide variety of episodes. If fermentation or oils aren't your scene, you might be more into bread making or charcuterie.
The series showcases solutions that are rather incredible and awe-inspiring. Broken Arrow Ranch in Ingram, TX, harvests game on Texas ranches in a humane, sustainable way. They have a government meat inspector on site in a portable mini-lab that ultimately improves the finished product and reduces the suffering of the animals.
You can gather more information about the show and its episodes. You can also nudge your local PBS station to show the program if it's not on in your market.
Comparing Anthony Bourdain to Ernest Hemingway is easier than it should be. The love of life. How it all ended.
We don't remember either of them for how it ended but how life was lived. This is the spirit behind the movement by fellow chefs José Andrés and Eric Ripert, longtime friends of Bourdain, to name June 25 as Bourdain Day.
The 1-year anniversary was earlier this month but June 25 was picked for Bourdain's birthday.
Anthony Bourdain's legacy lives within us. Travel more to learn about people through food. Read one or several of his books. Write your own book and dedicate that book to the spirit of Anthony Bourdain.
You can join a group on social media devoted to Bourdain. Post a significant memory of Bourdain on Twitter with the hashtag #BourdainDay. Eat a really good meal and think of him.
Failure is when you don't try. — somebody famous, probably
If you recall our column from 2 weeks ago, we profiled an amazing burger, a rarity in our travels. If you are kissing princes, you kiss a few frogs (all with consent, of course).
So let's talk about another Cooking Channel and Food Network burger we found in Santa Monica, CA.
Texture is a primary reason why you might or might not like a food. Sauteed mushrooms taste good; raw mushrooms, not so much.
The Plan Check Burger may look like a regular cheeseburger but plays with the idea of texture: ketchup leather, schmaltz onions, and a crunch bun.
The burger includes mixed pickles and Americanized dashi cheese.
I discovered this burger thanks to Hayley Duff's obsession with hipster food. She acted out her obsession on The Real Girl's Kitchen by replicating the burger right down to the ketchup leather. (You can find her recipes). I remember that her Finnish model friend Laura was there to help.
I had the Father's Office burger in my head even before I made it down from San Francisco. I didn't think about the Plan Check burger until I accidentally walked past the Santa Monica location of Plan Check Burger at Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Blvd.
One characteristic that I don't normally put on burgers that both Santa Monica burgers had was cheese. I prefer hamburgers to cheeseburgers but had to try each one as is. Dashi cheese sounded intriguing even if the cheese was Americanized.
Unlike the Father’s Office burger, the Plan Check burger was about familiar tastes but different textures. Let's see what we got.
The burger did look like a regular cheeseburger even if the ketchup was square. Biting into the burger revealed a taste of a regular, above average cheeseburger.
The burger was juicy (greasy?), which was good. I couldn't taste the ketchup leather so I tried a bit of the ketchup leather separately. The ketchup leather was wonderful by itself but lost in the burger.
The Americanized dashi cheese dominated the taste without any visible dashi taste element. The cheese wasn't as bad as actual American cheese but there was no zing or flavor to be found. The other ingredients might have shined minus the cheese. Schmaltz onions sounded wonderful but you couldn’t spot them in the overall taste. The pickles were apparent and good. The crunch bun was invisible except for a negative texture experience.
The point of the Plan Check burger could be that the burger is supposed to taste like a regular cheeseburger. Guessing is fun unless you are hungry.
The fries were average, too salty, and not worth finishing. The fries come with the burger at Plan Check while the fries were extra at Father’s Office. The better fries were worth the extra money.
The Santa Monica locations aren't the flagship for either burger, but that shouldn't matter too much. Both burgers offered unusual tastes and flavors. As someone with a fussy palette, I liked the idea of a burger to dazzle my taste buds. Father's Office won this battle because I could sense the tastes. The cheeses were a huge plus in the Father's Office burger and a gigantic minus in the Plan Check burger.
If I were going to pull a Hayley Duff, I would modify the Plan Check burger with a new plan.
Keep: Ketchup leather, Schmaltz onions, mixed pickles Add: Mustard, preferably stone ground Switch: Simple potato bun in for the panko-laden variety Toss: the cheese, dashi or otherwise
This may sound like I am defeating the point of the Plan Check burger and showing I can do this better. This misses the true message of the Plan Check burger and the Father's Office burger. Applaud those who are rethinking food, whether we like the end result or not.
I wouldn't have thought about ketchup leather or Schmaltz onions. I might like dashi cheese if I ever have it. I was tantalized and tempted. The Plan Check cheeseburger was still an above average burger. Your tastes may vary.
The quest is the important task to discover new and exciting ways to make food fun and tasty. The Father's Office experience was a really nice stop in my burger search. The Plan Check burger was good but not great. They both was inspirational for what we can do with food.
I have not found the perfect burger. I thought I saw the perfect burger on television. I’ve seen a lot of "great" burgers on television so I was skeptical.
My obsession with the Cooking Channel and Food Network leads me to see lots of attempts at burgers that I would never eat. Odd combinations, mostly trying to cram too many ingredients, distracting us from what was supposed to be the primary point: the meat.
When I travel, I try and do food/restaurant research to pick and choose nice spots. When I was trapped a few extra days in California due to the polar vortex, I decided to spend a few days in Los Angeles.
I ended up staying in Santa Monica. I didn’t have much time to do research for either Santa Monica and Los Angeles.
I reached into the deep crevices of my brain and remembered an odd combination that I liked for a burger in Culver City.
The Office Burger at Father’s Office was the only burger that combined my favorite cheeses: blue and Gruyere. The arugula seemed fine. The burger also has a bacon caramelized onion jam cooked for a long time. The bun was more of a roll with the sides cut off. This seemed like a burger for adult tastes.
Sang Yoon was also known for having no exceptions. Most places don’t care what you do with their burgers. Yoon cared. This intrigued me. False bravado is horrible but real bravado is exciting.
I first found out about Father’s Office through Bite This with Nadia G, goddess of Bitchin’ Kitchen, who is from Montréal, one of my favorite eating cities.
I didn’t have to go to Culver City for the burger since Father’s Office has a Santa Monica location.
The route to Father’s Office went through the Third Street Promenade (think outdoor pedestrian mall) through quite suburban streets before you get to 10th Street and Montana.
Walking into Father’s Office, you realize you are in for a dark environment. You also have to order at the bar. I did not care since I really wanted this burger. The upsell to skinny fries with garlic aioli was not on my mind, but I couldn’t resist.
The burger arrives in a basket with a good size portion of fries. The burger is cut in half.
The burger felt more like a sandwich than a burger. The tastes were a lovely but odd blend of sensations never before accumulated. They felt like adult tastes for a sophisticated palette.
It was a bit dark to tell if the burger was medium-rare. The first half felt a bit overdone but the second half had a better temperature. I realize that isn’t logical but it was so dark, I could only rely on my tongue.
The fries turned out to be a lovely choice. Some of the best fries I’ve had in awhile. Thin and crispy was a good combo and the garlic aioli was well-made.
The Father’s Office burger is a gourmet gem of a sandwich, much less a burger.
The Food Network and Cooking Channel can lead you to above-average fare when you are traveling. Your mileage may vary on what you find appealing. I was thrilled to find a burger that matched my sophisticated tastes where I didn’t have to put it together. Sang Yoon managed to come up with something I enjoy that I didn’t have to imagine.
The Burger King Super Bowl ad used footage from the 1982 film 66 Scenes of America from Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth. The fact that the Heinz ketchup doesn't pour well lends authenticity since Heinz promoted the thickness of its ketchup throughout the 1970s. The Whopper is also very minimalist, so if there are other ingredients, they aren't visible.
We are invited in the ad to #EatLikeAndy, which would be inviting if we could consume the product from that time. The bun Warhol eats likely didn't have high-fructose corn syrup and the ketchup would have been free of high-fructose corn syrup. That burger would taste better than the current model.
Leth said in an interview that Warhol initially suggested they use McDonald's.
Unlike most companies who use dead celebrities, you could likely conclude that Warhol would appreciate the idea of using the footage in an ad.
The target audience of younger people may not be that familiar with Warhol. If people are going to #EatLikeAndy, they will eat a small bite of a Whopper and not eat any other Burger King food.
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Kristin Chenoweth was in the latest Avocados from Mexico ad with a reverse play on dog shows where human performed the tricks. The guacamole was incorporated in the ad unlike a lot of food ads. This ad was closer to the best than the worst of the Avocados from Mexico ads. The hard part is that avocados haven't looked as good in the stores and have gone up in price. Then again, the avocados I saw in the Santa Monica farmers market last week looked gorgeous. I would pay more to get the avocados of old.
Chenoweth added sparkle to the ad and nice on the part to have a female lead in the series of ads.
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Super Bowl ads can be good to publicize a little known company. Devour frozen foods from Kraft Heinz have been around for about 3 years. That was literally news to me. The ad features a couple where the husband has turned into the "3-minute man" — a double entendre that ties into the food porn mentality of the company. The entrees are more exotic than typical frozen food.
The ad was rather good to spark curiosity. However, frozen food doesn't inspire food porn IRL.
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Chance The Rapper combined with the Backstreet Boys to remake I Want It That Way for the new Flamin' Hot flavor for Doritos. I remembered the song but had to look up which boy group did the song. Yes, I recognized Chance better than the Backstreet Boys. Flamin' hot snacks have a certain niche appeal and this ad will help out that flavor. That said: Cheetos (fellow Frito-Lay product) does it pretty well. A good ad for the target audience for the product.
Corn syrup came up in a non-food ad for Bud Light. The Budweiser product noted that Miller Lite and Coors Light had corn syrup while Bud Light did not. Corn syrup is different from high-fructose corn syrup but having corn syrup in a beer does seem odd. Then again, there are beers outside of the 3 listed options that taste better and don't have corn syrup.
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Pringles had another stackables ad. The concept hasn't changed, incorporating jalapeno, cheddar, as well as sour cream and onion. The problem is that people aren't going to buy 3 different canisters to produce these combinations. The ad hits the target audience but will get lost in the wave of Super Bowl ads that were more clever.
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Planters had a really good ad, complete with a Planters peanut-shaped vehicle and a funny Charlie Sheen cameo. Mr. Peanut saves a guy from eating kale chips, giving him mixed nuts. The only drawback was having Alex Rodriguez in the ad. Planters promotes protein; Rodriguez is known for (allegedly) using steroids. He didn't get strong (allegedly) from eating nuts. Rodriguez doesn't add anything to the ad and is a detriment.
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Drink and candy ads were:
Michael Bublé for Bubly. This felt like a spin-off on the Bai Super Bowl commercial with Justin Timberlake and Christopher Walken. The latter ad will be better remembered than the 2019 spin-off.
The Bon & Viv Spiked Seltzer ad was a bit muddled in the beginning and kept thinking this was a goof ad. If this ad keeps running, the ad may improve with more visiblity.
The Pepsi ad with Steve Carell, Cardi B, and Lil Jon fell within the Pepsi ad spectrum where the ad is about visual distractions. I've never seen a Pepsi ad to this day that reflects on the quality of the actual product. The commercial also likely suffered being at the end of the first quarter when people are running for the bathrooms.
Christina Applegate was in a cute spot for the M&Ms chocolate bar. This ad actually incorporated the product since the M&Ms were stuck together in the chocolate bar. Was fun watching the actress who played Kelly Bundy be the mom. A good ad that will need more exposure in the coming weeks.
Most cooking shows are about how to cook a specific recipe with a few tips along the way. Good Eats and the new Good Eats: Reloaded are grand exceptions though consumed a bit about the science of how cooking happens.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is a 4-part series on Netflix from Samin Nosrat, author of the book that inspired the series. The series helps you to understand cooking breaking things down to the 4 core elements.
The series takes us around the world as each episode is devoted to a region suited to the element:
Salt
Japan
Fat
Liguria, Italy
Acid
Yucatan, Mexico
Heat
Berkeley, CA
Salt
Nosrat tells us salt is prevalent in every world cuisine. We seek salt not just in crystals but in foods that contain salt, such as olives, cheese, pickles, and capers. Salt also provides umami to dishes. She shows us how in Japan, they make salt from seaweed.
Nosrat teaches us there are 3 basic decisions where salt is concerned:
when to salt (Salt meat in advance and do on all sides. Season meat on the bone the minute she gets back from the butcher.)
layering salt (Use less salt on the meat if you are going to marinade with salty ingredients. You can get other flavor benefits from salty ingredients.)
how much salt (The less time food spends in the water, the saltier the water has to be.)
The third decision gets us back to a battle we have had over time about the absolute need to salt the pasta water.
Many cooking shows told of the need to have a lot of salt in the pasta water, but no one explained the concept as well as Nosrat did. In our earlier experiments, perhaps we didn't use enough salt to be able to tell. If you do something because a TV chef tells you to do something, you aren't really learning but doing. With Nosrat, you are learning why to do something.
Fat
Nosrat shares with us that fat provides flavor and texture as well as amplifying other flavors. The key is how to harness its magic.
She points out fat has 5 distinct textures: creamy, flaky, crispy, tender, and light. Fat transforms simple ingredients into a great meal.
We see the collecting of olives that are turned into olive oil. We see the foccacia become buttery and crumbly thanks to the olive oil.
The parts of the pig are on display and how the fat from the pig produces wonderful pork products with that glorious fat. We learn about the milk from the red cows that is sweeter and fatter ultimately turned into Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
We see in a simple ragu dish of the number of fat options, including soffrito (olive oil), beef, pork, and beef fat. Nosrat let us know that fat can transform simple ingredients into a great meal.
Acid
Nosrat teaches us that acid brightens food and balances flavors in dishes. The episodes focuses quite a bit of sour oranges and sweet lemons.
Fermentation also adds acid to dishes such as pickles, vinegar, and red wine. Browning also produces acidity. Marinating a food in acid is more effective in a short-term burst and produces distinct results as opposed to cooking in acid.
Nosrat points out that atypical foods such as coffee, chocolate, bananas, and honey qualify as acidic. She tells the story of her first Thanksgiving dinner in the United States and working cranberry sauce into other dishes to get that acid effect.
Heat
Heat takes us to where Nosrat got started at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA where she was taught to pay attention to the food not the fire. There were no settings on the ovens so you had to learn to use other senses.
We see steaks cooked at Chez Panisse over a fire with the steak cooked more than halfway on first side and browning all over not just doing it for grill marks.
This also happens when Nosrat cooks buttermilk marinated roasted chicken. Since the heat is in the back of oven, put the legs toward the back. When the legs are relaxed, the chicken is done.
Nosrat makes a rice dish with her mother: Persian-ish rice with tahdig. The dish involves steaming and frying, producing the rice at the bottom that is crunchy in a very good way.
Even if you are watching an episode of one element, the other elements make cameos in the other segments. Fat will be in the Salt segment while salt plays a part in the Heat segment. We learn in the Heat segment that the same saltiness comes from 1 tsp. of Morton kosher salt and 2 tsp. of Diamond Crystal kosher salt.
The cuisines are defined by the fat and salt that they use.
Nosrat shares her own personal story having grown up in Iran and working at Chez Panisse. Her ability to speak Spanish and Italian (she used to live in Italy) help her help us gather more information. She is very personable, curious about food no matter how spicy or unusual. There is a lot of laughter and all of that laughter feels natural and warm.
She talks about how you don't need fancy ingredients to cook good food. The salad she makes in the Heat episode is white beans with a bunch of roasted vegetables, a few herbs, and a simple dressing. Most American kitchens aren't serving that kind of a meal. Salt Fat Acid Heat is trying to change that dynamic.
video credit: YouTube/Netflix photo credit: Salt Fat Acid Heat
There is no right way to finding the balance of food, just your way. My typical breakfast is whole wheat spaghetti with homemade sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and a naturally low-fat Italian cheese sprinkled on top. Works for me.
