Okay, so I am reading (among other things) Food, a culinary dictionary/encyclopedia by the 20th century American food writer Waverly Root. Root was born in Rhode Island in 1903, and was the Paris correspondant for the Chicago Tribune. Its really an odd-ball book. It is 600 pages long, and set up as a series of small articles, but its too well-written and funny to be taken as a reference book. It wants to be read, but its far too long and dry to just hit cover-to-cover. So I am picking away a few pages a day. I started it the day I finished Modernist Cuisine.
Anyway, in the article about flatfish, he is talking about the popularity of Dover sole, and he challenges the notion that it is the greatest of all fish. His point is that all of the dishes cover it with all these different sauces, and different fillings, and that a really great ingredient doesn't need all that.
The quote:
"Foods may be classified, like genetic elements, as either dominant or recessive. Then they are dominant, there are not dozens of ways of preparing them, there are only a few, for the simplest possible treatments are the best, to preserve undisguised their basic individual flavors."
All that, what a great thought, buried in an article entitled 'Flatfish.' What a strange, huge book. Its like an Easter egg hunt.
I chose that image because it juxtaposes ingredients which are exemplars of the two categories Root talks about. Caviar is perhaps the ultimate dominant ingredient. It is great on toast, or blini, or garnishing scrambled eggs or raw seafood, and it is utterly pointless to do anything else to it. The egg, despite its biological similarity, is the opposite. There are thousands of ways to cook eggs, and ingredients that compliment them run the gamut from bacon to anchovies to cheese to chocolate.
Got me thinking... Its the difference between a Louisiana oyster and a Canadian oyster. Louisiana gulf selects are great as a Rockefeller, Oysters Katherine, fried in a po'boy, in an oyster shooter, whatever. And if you're gonna have one raw, it will be on a saltine with horseradish, lemon, and Crystal. But if you have a Beau Soleil on your hands, the juice in the shell is absolutely the only sauce it needs.
And not all dominant ingredients need to be expensive. I challenge anyone to find a way to improve substantially on a satsuma in their season.
Any thoughts?
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” ― E.F. Schumacher This guy came up on my GoodReads suggestions and your post made me think of him. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered is one of his most famous and I think I may read it! Anyways... I have NO idea how to make a satsuma taste any better than when they are in season except for maybe when you get one for free cause it is growing in your own back yard. I have been thinking for awhile and most of the ingredients I thought if were expensive like truffle or certain types of anchovies. I will keep thinking and get back to ya!
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