FOOD

  
"Things I Believe About Food"

1. Food is a Basic Pleasure. While nutrition is certainly an essential consideration when it comes to food and cooking, ultimately it is an experience calling on all five senses from beginning to finish of a
meal. Rising from the hunt and the foraging for sustenance, our senses are the first and most important connection to food. The smell of fresh produce at a green market, of cheeses when they are ripe, the tactile freshness of fruits and vegetables, the sounds of crunch, the circus of colors all come into play well before anything is ever tasted. It is axiomatic that we eat with our eyes first. Food should look beautiful from beginning to end. Vegetables should snap, crisp and pop with life,
their color should be inviting and rich. Inhale pineapple's perfume, fondle peaches, let flavor languish on the tongue. Food not deeply enjoyed is probably not as nourishing to our bodies, much less our
souls.

2. Food Is Not Medicine. Again, nutrition notwithstanding, the idea of food as panacea to me smacks of a puritanical world to which I just can't subscribe. It has always struck me as ironic that what passes for "health food" stores are frequently shelf upon shelf of pills. And the idea that "If only" we eliminate this offending food, or that offending ingredient then...what? We'll live forever? We'll never get sick? I just don't buy it. No one gets out of here alive. Like they say, "If all the world's a stage, I want better lighting." I want to eat well and widely while I'm here. In fact, I would mind dying from an overdose of morels sauteed in Plugra butter. Yes. ..some things are probably "healthier" for you to eat than other things. There is a quality of life issue. Moderation in all things, even moderation, is one answer. Like sex, after all, we've adjusted to the limits of latex; but if avoiding HIV meant never having sex of any form again, I doubt whether people would be so willing to forgo its primal and spiritual pleasures.

3. Recipes Are Limiting...and really a fairly modern development. Our ancestors probably just knew what to throw into the pot. They could bake without a measuring cup and did so in a fire-driven oven with no thermostat. "Can I have the recipe?" I have never hesitated to give someone a recipe -- if one even exists, usually I am making it up as I go -- because I don't see anything proprietary about good food, and I know that every individual is going to come up with something different. Some of the best things I have ever cooked and eaten were either mistakes, or necessitated by invention. There are classic combinations that are very good guides, but those are just suggestions. M.F.K. Fisher appealed to us to eat "with bold knife and fork" ...and she was talking as much about life as she was about
your dinner. Food is about gusto. No basil for pesto? Or parmesan? Got feta and oregano? Greek Pesto! It's all about personal taste and circumstances, which leads to....

4. If It Tastes Good Apart, It Will Probably Taste Good Together. My favorite, and simplest strange brew was introduced to me by the Welsh playwright, Emlyn Williams (The Corn Is Green) who sat next
to me at dinner one night and when presented with a bowl of vanilla ice cream, proceeded to grind fresh cracked pepper over the creamy whiteness in a black mockery of snow. The sweet/spicy, cold/hot play was stunningly delicious. And who would believe upon first hearing of it that a classic Tuscan infusion of olive oil with anchovies and mint could be so ambrosial on grilled portobello mushrooms? Or that you can make ice cream flavored with thyme instead of vanilla? Chocolate and
tarragon, I promise you, tastes wonderful. Mom was wrong. ..PLAY with your food! Food should be fun. This isn't nuclear science, after all, nothing is going to blow up. How bad could it be if you use a
little common sense in your combinations? And if it does taste just dreadful, there's always peanut butter and scrambled eggs (OK ...or tofu).

5. Food Is Best Shared. For me, food and cooking is one of the most essential components of community and sharing. Nothing is more cohering than a meal shared. nothing is more elemental than nourishing the people we love. The sin of Sodom was not an overabundance of sexuality, but a lack of hospitality. I have nothing against eating alone and, living in New York, I do it fairly frequently even though I live in community. I do not like "business meals." Neither activity is properly attended to. There's a reason that virtually every spiritual path in the world includes food and the sharing thereof
in ritual. Sitting together, sharing food, is a sacred act. It is ground, connecting and transcendent all at the same time. Not to mention we have better digestion and generally eat better when we eat with our families and friends. There is, indeed, a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk.

6. Eat New/Eat Locally/Eat Seasonally. The secret to eternal youth (or just an active mind) is to continually challenge your brain. ..and your palate I I have always taken it as a personal challenge when I hear someone say "I don't like" and believed that what they are really saying is "I have never had prepared well. " This is bold knife and fork stuff again. But if I hadn't kept trying okra I probably would still think it is a sort of slimy thing to eat and now I crave it. Local food supports local farmers and fishermen. But it is also another way to connect with the earth (or ocean). And eating seasonally also means you are probably eating locally, since that is what the local farmers and fishermen are bringing to the market. For obvious reasons it's fresher, and therefore better. But it also encourages local growers to expand their planting repertoire. Italians have almost a dozen different kinds of broccoli, each specific to a different month of the year. Imagine how much richer the market would be if we could encourage that kind of diversity. Even now we are able to find bouquets of lettuces that only a few years ago were unheard of. 

I frequently go to Maine in the summer and have been amazed at people who come up from the cities and immediately start seeking out the "best" two or three star restaurants in the area. It's not that I don't think these cooks aren't probably turning out commendable food. But it seems odd to me not to seek out the local places that will, for a fraction of the cost, give you a 1 1/2 pound lobster that is so fresh it probably still has seaweed on it, a dozen steamers, a couple ears of fresh summer corn and a half dozen Main potatoes. All served in a mesh sack at a wooden picnic table under pine trees with a horseshoe pit nearby. Even if you're only interested in the corn and the potatoes, fine dining doesn't get much better than that.

7. Salt Is God. My most common complaint about food that I eat on other tables is a lack of seasoning. The most commonly ignored and slandered seasoning, of course, is salt, historically and physiologically one of the most important seasonings and minerals we can consume. Like water, it is one of the most omnipresent elements in the universe as well as our bodies. There's a reason for that. Frankly, nothing tastes worse than an unsalted dish. And conversely, nothing tastes more foul than food that has been over-salted. It is a fine hand that knows how to use salt with subtlety.

One problem is that, thirty years ago, or so, there was something called The Framingham Study, conducted by the American Heart Association in Framingham, Massachusetts. The idea was to follow people and their diets and see what effect it had on their health, heart health in particular. The data was sketchy, even over the long run. There seemed to be some connection between salt and hypertension, but this was true only for about 20% of the population. Problem was, they couldn't determine with any certainty which 20%, so their solution was to slander salt and promulgate the idea that it was harmful to the health of the general population. It just ain't so.
That said. ..my personal bias is for kosher salt. It isn't iodized like table salt, has a larger grain and, most importantly, tastes significantly better. Do your own taste test sometime. ..a little in each palm. .and you will see what I mean. And it takes less kosher salt to achieve optimal seasoning. The salt itself isn't "kosher" per se, either. It is simply the kind of salt that is used to kosher meats. Just didn't look as good to label it "Koshering Salt" I suppose. I'm equally fond of sea
salt, but again, it is a different taste and feel. But whatever salt you use, please. ..use a cellar, keep it in a small bowl and use your fingers when you season with it. TOUCH your food. No other single ingredient can as effectively enrich the flavor of the food you eat as the judicious use of salt. It should not be the first flavor you taste, but simply provide a platform for the underlying natural flavors of the main ingredient.

8. Indulge Cravings. The body has wisdom the mind does not understand. Who knows what the connection is, but nothing feels so good as a craving fulfilled. If I suddenly crave broccoli rabe with
garlic I make it or find it as soon as I can. And I'll keep eating it until the craving has been satisfied even if that means I eat that for dinner for a few days running. It's where I find myself on the Meat/No Meat question, too...If your body says "I don't feel good when I eat meat" ...fine. Don't eat it. Even as an omnivore, there have been times when I just don't feel like eating meat. I survived childhood on peanut butter.

9. Keep It Simple. The best food is simple food, uncomplicated by too many ingredients or masked with sauces. Those things are fine, too, sometimes. But at peak season, nothing beats the pure flavor
of ripe food. Most sauces and elaborate seasonings were developed to deal with food past its prime. With the wide availability of fresh food, this is not longer a necessity, even though it has been enshrined in the culture of food. Fresh food, a little salt [see #8], but not too much, maybe a sprig of the appropriate herb (which would be the one you have, probably), some good olive oil and a table full of friends. A meal of fresh garden tomatoes, hearty bread, oil-cured olives, some goat cheese and tender baby greens is as good as it gets.

10. Organic Is the Only Way to Go. It may not taste any better. It may not look as pretty. But for the health of the Mother planet, we have to stop poisoning the water and the soil with toxic chemicals.
Period.

-- Bow Young, in RFD magazine