What Does Food Taste Like?

[shel]

Last night, Chris Kimball of Cooks Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen fame, did a small segment on CNN, of which I caught the last half. He expressed something that I've felt for quite a while, that we don't what real food tastes like. Before going on, allow me to say that this is a broad generalization.

The point he was making is that so many people buy their food in packages at the supermarket, already prepared at restaurants, take-out places, or food counters in markets and malls. Even when we "cook" many of the ingredients are already prepared for us. Good examples are canned or boxed stocks and broth, seasoned chicken or meat from places like Trader Joe's, heat and serve frozen foods, and so on. Not only are these foods processed, but they are often laden with chemicals, preservatives, or highly seasoned, which often masks the taste of the food itself.

In addition, many recipes todayare "kicked up" and loaded withlots of ingredients to enhance or provide greater flavor, again sometimes masking the taste of the main ingredient(s).

I tend to agree with this premise. When reading many new recipes I see a long list of ingredients, many quite strong and intensely flavorful. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, how many of us know what a plain and simple truly fresh vegetable or chicken tastes like? One of the best chicken dishes I ever had was something called Baak Chit Gai, or Pure Cut Chicken, which was nothing more than chicken poached in some water with a little salt and pepper. Jim Lee, the fellow from whom I got the recipe (and who wrote a great little Chinese cook book, said of the technique:

"There are some foods that are so good in themselves that everything possible should be done to preserve their individual character and flavor. A good prime steak grilled over charcoal or a fresh lobster boiled in sea water come to mind as excellent examples. However, we often ask ourselves "What can I do to dress up this or that food so it’ll be different?" We usually end up adding something, whether it be spices, other meats, vegetables, or sauces. Sometimes it is equally important to know when to subtract, or not add anything, in order to prepare a wonderful dish. In this recipe, chicken is the star, as if it were on center stage with a spotlight on it, and you are the director of the show. And, as the director, you must select the best chicken possible."

I've made Baak Chit Gai several times, but only when I could get the right chicken, and it was delicious - in fact, just about the best chicken dish I ever had. Josephine Araldo's recipes and cooking, as featured in the book From a Breton Garden focuses on simple vegetable dishes, relying not so much on spices as super fresh ingredients cooked and prepared simply to show off their character, not as a base to show off sauces.

Personally, I like simple food, where the flavor of a main ingredient or two shines through in a clear an uncomplicated way. It's wonderful to eat a fresh-picked green bean, or fresh picked corn, or some other vegetable, straight and unadorned, with just a minimum of cooking, or even uncooked.

So what do you think of Kimball's premise? Have youever eaten fresh corn (justpicked) right from the stalk, or an apple picked just a moment before your first bite into it, or a lobster right from the sea? I know some of us have, but I'd suspect that those of us who have may be a distinct minority. It's very difficult for me to get those kinds of foods, even living where I do and having sought out the best sources possible for quality and freshness.

Shel

[KYHeirloomer]

Sadly, I would have to agree with the basic premise. And I think there are two things leading to it.

Sure, all the take-out, convenience, and preprepared food has taken our tastebuds far afield. But there's more to it than that.

You summed it up when you said, "when I can get the right chicken." The fact is, most of the food we get does not taste like it supposed to. Probably the main impetus behind the heirloom veggie and heritage poultry movements are for that very reason. People want tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, and chickens that taste like chickens. And they know, almost inately, that when they can get those things they don't have to dress them up with a lot of other flavors.

[foodnfoto]

Hi Shel
I'm so glad you brought up this issue. I tend to think that food as presented in America today, generally kind of overwrought. There are a number of reasons for this trend in my mind. Certainly the prevelence of prepackaged/prepared foods and fast foods can be blamed. But also, I think the popularity of food shows that focus on professional chefs and chef competitions carry some responsibility too.

In efforts to distinguish themselves, chefs tend to develop dishes that involve wild combinations of unrelated and out of season ingredients presented in shocking and over the top ways. I can't help but wonder whether chefs are motivated by the desire to make something really good, or just to make a name for themselves by being "cutting edge" (ie forgettable within 5 years).

The examples you use of poached chicken and an apple straight off the tree are good ones. It's especially apt for me as I type this with a bowl of apples staring at me that we picked from the orchards last week and 10 quarts of freshly canned applesauce cooling on the kitchen counter. These simple foods nourish the human being in a way that my son will remember when he's 50, the pleasures of which he will share with his own future children and friends.

I don't know how to define this difference and I don't want to disparage the skill and talent of the fine chefs that contribute to this forum. But it seems that the food industry and the population of the US suffers from a mindset of an "everything all the time" attitude. Consequently, the true beauty of foods in their essential forms and the dishes that embody and reflect a regional culinary vernacular and history are being tinkered with and "upscaled" to a point that they loose their relevence and innate nutritive effect.

Maybe I'm just being romantic, but it seems that food has become a kind of theater and some kind of psuedo-art, yet safe and unchallenging in that it's designed to please an immediate desire and yet cannot linger in our essential selves.

[siduri]

I completely agree.
about 35 years ago i moved to italy. I was totally bowled over by the quality of the raw materials i could find here - tomatoes, vegetables of all kinds, meat, bread, it was amazing.
When i was still in the states, back in the 70s mind you, i used to make a tomato sauce by doing a soffritto of onion, garlic, carrot, celery, all that stuff to get a little taste into it. I looked down on people who just fried a piece of garlic and opened a can of tomato and poured it in.
Then i found that most people here in italy did sauce just that way, but the TASTE - it was incredible, even with canned tomato. With good raw materials you don;t have to do much to make things taste good.
People cooked simply because the raw ingredients were out of this world. Meat had no chemicals, the livestock were still fed real food, no chemicals, no hormones, and it was really tasty (if incredibly expensive, about four times what it cost in the states, so i ate very little of it, as most people did - at the time a normal portion of meat was considered 100 gms)
And even that was not as good as it could be. Back in the 70s my husband was doing consulting in Kosovo, and i accompanied him a couple of times. We had meat there that made even the italian meat seem tasteless. The butchers there would have a side of beef hanging in the shop, and if you wanted meat they'd ask "how much?" and would just take a big knife and cut a chunk, you could get sirloin or chuck or rump or filet - different cuts mixed together, it was indifferent to them, they just cut through them all. Bu5t the taste, oh, the taste.

Unfortunately, over the years, the food has deteriorated here, too. We start to find vegetables that are tasteless - tomatoes from belgium for instance, now can you imagine why you would bring tomatoes from belgium into italy???? beer yes, but tomatoes? please! all the same size and all the same taste, that is, none. same for many other things. It's still better than most of what i find in the states, but still, nothing like what it used to be. Bread rarely tastes of anything, it doesn;t rise overnight, but they have additives to the flour that make quick rising, light bread, wioth the taste of sawdust. Its a shame. And this isn;t even talking about the kind of super-industrialized, super-additived, super-convenient food you can get in the states now, that all tastes more of flavor enhancers than it does of flavors!

[foodpump]

Hmmm.... I think we have a bunch of potential recruits for the "Slow Food" movement here.....

[shel]

The other day I was watching Tyler Florence on Food Network, and he was making something that called for canned tomatoes. He suggested using San Marzano tomatoes, and the viewers cold see the can and the label, and we could see the tomatoes he used in a bowl on his cutting board. He was ebulliant about their flavor. Well, the tomatoes were not San marzano tomatoes, but San Marzano BRAND tomatoes, packed by a California company, nor were the tomatoes of the San Marzano type - you could see by the shape of the tomatoe that these were just junk canned tomatoes (and I know how mediocre tey are because I've tried them.

So, what's this got to do with the thread? Well, the point is that some professionals, advertising, magazines, and the media are providing misinformation, and bad information, to the consumer, generally, I would say, because they are chasing $$ rather than quality.

Now, say what you will about Alton Brown and his antics, when he is shown going into a market on his show he often makes a point of noting the poor quality ingredients in some products, and suggests making your own or looking for foods that don't have the additives and phoney ingredients in them. Consumers today need to be educated about what real food is, and perhaps need to care about what real food is.

Speaking of San Marzano tomatoes, I've noticed that at the farmer's Markets and the good produce stores (not produce departments!) California grown San Marzanos have appeared. It's essentially the same tomato as grown in Italy, but by growing here, without the same soil and climate, they don't taste like real San Marzanos (which, from what I understand, even in Itay don't have the same flavor as the tomatoes did some years ago, although they are still quite good compared to other canned tomatoes).

I know people who have never had fresh food, never had a piece of meat from a whole, fresh and unprocessed chicken, or a truy ripe (as opposed to soft) peach.

It is a shame, but perhaps with advent of Farmer's Markets and people wanting to buy locally, this can change, at least to some degree. I hope so ...

Shel

[tessa]

in that we only have 4 million people so we dont tend to overmass produce our foods here. I went to Australia a few years ago and i found the meat and veges a bit tasteless compared to here. We have some of the best tasting live and fresh produce here you can ever taste. Its spring here now and i am hanging out for the first of the outdoor tomatoes. When ever i buy organic the smell of t he veges is so wonderfully intense.

Originally Posted by foodpump

Hmmm.... I think we have a bunch of potential recruits for the "Slow Food" movement here.....

I think the slow food movement is just great, its had lots oflove and attention put back in to the producing of food , and i think that really makes a difference in how the end product tastes/

Originally Posted by shel

The other day I was watching Tyler Florence on Food Network, and he was making something that called for canned tomatoes. He suggested using San Marzano tomatoes, and the viewers cold see the can and the label, and we could see the tomatoes he used in a bowl on his cutting board. He was ebulliant about their flavor. Well, the tomatoes were not San marzano tomatoes, but San Marzano BRAND tomatoes, packed by a California company, nor were the tomatoes of the San Marzano type - you could see by the shape of the tomatoe that these were just junk canned tomatoes (and I know how mediocre tey are because I've tried them.

So, what's this got to do with the thread? Well, the point is that some professionals, advertising, magazines, and the media are providing misinformation, and bad information, to the consumer, generally, I would say, because they are chasing $$ rather than quality.

Now, say what you will about Alton Brown and his antics, when he is shown going into a market on his show he often makes a point of noting the poor quality ingredients in some products, and suggests making your own or looking for foods that don't have the additives and phoney ingredients in them. Consumers today need to be educated about what real food is, and perhaps need to care about what real food is.

Speaking of San Marzano tomatoes, I've noticed that at the farmer's Markets and the good produce stores (not produce departments!) California grown San Marzanos have appeared. It's essentially the same tomato as grown in Italy, but by growing here, without the same soil and climate, they don't taste like real San Marzanos (which, from what I understand, even in Itay don't have the same flavor as the tomatoes did some years ago, although they are still quite good compared to other canned tomatoes).

I know people who have never had fresh food, never had a piece of meat from a whole, fresh and unprocessed chicken, or a truy ripe (as opposed to soft) peach.

It is a shame, but perhaps with advent of Farmer's Markets and people wanting to buy locally, this can change, at least to some degree. I hope so ...

Shel

i think its really important to buy locally when you can , it supports your local economy and community in so many ways, and its great too that we can buy from global markets as well , but buying locally your getting great seasonal foods which inherently tend to taste a bit better than when they have been sitting in a cool store and so therefore arnt as fresh as just picked from your local providor

[bughut]

If you want a good chicken stock you dont boil down the"£!& available in the supermarket, you buy a hen that has some age and flavour then you dont need to add anything more to make it taste of chicken. - A bit of s&p and some decent vege's and you have a broth to cure all that ails you.
Eggs - Please dont encourage the greed of the battery farmers. I used to for the business although i bought organic free range for my family. I now buy free range for the business (across the board its not that much more expensive and i advertise the fact which my clients sometimes remark on.
To get real flavour you have to buy real produce, and if it costs a bit more, pay it and pass the cost on and let you're clients know what they're paying for... Some dont give a$!"^$ but it's your reputation and if you care about this maybe they'll reckon you care about the rest of what you do too and in my experience, they all want to think you care about them.
Carrots :- Please, please buy organic. They really do taste the biz. If nothing else we should be encouraging organic dairy and root veg. So much more also than i have the time, or you have the patience to mention .My pet AARGH! is the %$£"! the producers spray on carrots etc. The residents living around the feilds they spray are suffering terrible medical conditions associated with the phosphates liberally doused on the crops.- And we are meant to eat the concentrated residue found just under the skin. Naah! At the risk of repeating myself, If you want real flavour, buy real food

[phatch]

Plain food can be excellent.

Yet there are great cuisines with a long history of equally complex recipes and flavors.

Neither is greater than the other.

Yes, the better the ingredients, the better the food CAN be, but that does not guarantee success either.

Phil

[bughut]

I agree Phil, but it's a great place to start.
I know organic doesnt have to mean quality and a crap chef can make a total arse out of the best food on offer. Just as a fab chef can can make rubbish taste like nectar.
There's no rules - you do your best...End of...

[DC Sunshine]

Tessa,
I'm hanging out for real tomatoes too - had enough of the so called ones, the @*&% we get over winter. Roll on summer! I grow them on a trellis by the back door - the sun gets on them all day and the lovely aroma coming in the window is fantastic. I'll be out there grazing on them several times a day (late afternoon is best - they're full of the sun by then!)

But back to topic - I agree - you need good basic produce for it to taste good simply prepared. You can't expect a battery hen to taste anywhere near a good free range chook that's been able to move about. You need the contents of your pantry to make the battery hen taste like anything!

The idea that seems to be about lately that more is better just confuses the taste buds and while it applies well sometimes to some really good recipes, complex preparations that turn out wonderfully, it becomes painful when taken to the extreme when overdone over a wide range of foods and products.

The marinating of steak is one thing that I avoid to a certain extent - I make sure I get good steak cuz I want to taste steak. Just dress it with a good oil and salt and pepper and cook - simple, but delicious. Ok yes sometimes you want a different bent on the taste, but that's just me

Taste the food - not the additives.

[AndyG]

I looked up "food" in the dictionary and there was a pic of an Oscar Meyer weiner.

The 2nd def was spam.
Just kidding.

[KYHeirloomer]

In all due respect to the slow foods and similar movements (which I fully support, btw), buying locally grown does not assure flavor. The basic foodstuff has to be right to begin with.

Take hybrid tomatoes. Hybrids are developed to meet the needs of the food distribution system, and flavor is not one of those needs. So flavor is not selected for when developing a new variety.

There are hybrids that do taste good. But in those cases, the flavor has crept in as an accidental byproduct.

Given that, it doesn't matter how close to home the tomato was grown. If if lacks flavor due to genetic reasons, doesn't matter whether it was grown next door or 3000 miles away. It will still lack taste.

The advantage of locally grown in such a situation is that at least you'll be eating it ripe---assuming it was bought at a farmers market, through a CSA, or grown in your own backyard.

The same syndorme applies to fowl and red meat. What you grow/raise is as important as how you grow/raise it. Which is why heritage fowl and livestock is so much on the rise.

I'd also, while we're at it, like to set the record straight on organic vs. nonorganic growing methods. The idea that any particular crop grown organically will taste better is nonsense. There are great and good reasons for growing organically, which is why I do it. But flavor is not a function of growing that way.

Plants need certain nutrients to thrive. The plant, itself, doesn't care where those nutrients come from. Could be manure. Or could be something from Monsanto. If it gets those nutruients, and the proper amounts of moisture and sunshine, it will reach its full potential, whatever that happens to be.

And keep in mind that the bulk of organically grown produce found in the U.S. is not grown by the small, diverse, organic farms we envision, but by the organic divisions of factory farms, which use the same general methods as they do on their non-organic factory farms. The same monocultural orientation; the same choice of varieties; the same food distribution system which is based on harvesting unripe produce.

[KYHeirloomer]

Another aspect of the problem.

We've been so long away from naturally grown stuff that often we don't recognize it. Indeed, even chefs shy away from some of this stuff because they think there's something wrong with it.

I've a friend in Michigan who grows grass-fed, innoculant-free beef. The meat is so dark, as a result, it's almost purple. And she has trouble selling it because it doesn't look like beef.

Recently met some people who raise grass-fed chickens, again, with no chemicals or innoculations. Because of their diet the chicken flesh is almost yellow in color. And, again, it's a turn off for most people who think chicken is supposed to be that insipid, pale, washed out white you find at the markets.

[siduri]

I agree that organic doesn';t necessarily mean better tasting, but some chemical products make plants or animals grow rapidly and that is at the cost of taste - sort of like bread, slow rising bread tastes infinitely better than fast rise. If the plant is in the soil too short a time, it doesn;t have time to accumulate the complex nutrients, it's been fooled into growing on a limited supply, and same for animals.
And i agree locally grown food isn;t necessarily better, if they use hybrids, or as so much in the states is, genetically modified plants, that are developed not for flavor but for other qualities. And i wonder, does the term "organic" imply that the food has not been genetically modified? And you can organically grow a hybrid or genetically modified plant, probably they have already developed strains that grow and are resistant to bugs, so they don;t need to spray them. It's all pretty scary.
As for simple methods as opposed to complex recipes, I want food that i can just eat plain if i want to, but i love to play with flavors and while you may like a boiled chicken breast, and if it's organically grown and corn fed and no hormones or antibiotics in it, it will taste better than a battery chicken, but it's still just boiled chicken breast. I'll vote for good raw materials, and good quality seasonings - butter, not margarine, good, cold pressed olive oil not some mixed seed oil, fresh herbs when i can get them, garlic, onion, etc. But not flavor enhancers, and packaged ingredients.