Edward Behr - 50 Foods: The Essentials of Good Taste

T his is a book about tastea guide to deliciousness. Ive tried to tell the things that will turn the reader into an instant connoisseur, which is a contradiction in terms, of course. It cant be done. But I hope to give a good head start.

My choices may provoke arguments over which are the top fifty foods, but I dont claim that mine are the absolute best and most delicious. The world has too many great foods for anyone to settle on a mere fifty. I chose them because I know and love them and they provide a broad sensory range. Most are raw materials, but someham, bread, cheesehave been fermented or otherwise transformed. In fact, six of the fifty are cheeses, and you may wonder: why so many? The answer is that cheese is probably the best food, just as wine is the best drink, and even six doesnt cover all the wonderful basic kinds.

Ive tried to present clear, simple, practical information about buying, using, preparing, and enjoying. I focus on aroma, appearance, flavor, and texture. For each food, I tell what the best means, when thats clearoften theres more than one best. I tell where the foods come from and the methods used to make them. I give the signs of top qualityindications of freshness and ripeness, best season, top varieties, proper aging. I tell things to avoid and provide questions to ask. If the food can be stored, I tell how, even how to mature certain soft cheeses. This isnt a cookbook, but if the way to prepare, serve, or eat something isnt well-known, I explain ithow to open an oyster, why the best way to cook green beans is boiling, how to clean a whole salted anchovy, when to eat and when to discard the rind of a cheese. I name the complementary flavors.

50 Foods has plenty of advice and opinions, but most of my conclusions are dictated by facts. During the more than twenty-five years Ive been writing about food, Ive often made wrong assumptions, and Ive learned to be skeptical of both received wisdom and my own ideas. I try to be clear when I offer pure prejudicein favor of tart apples over sweet, green asparagus over white, classic baguettes over modern sorts, young skinny French-style green beans over fatter kinds, dry-aged beef over meat sealed in plastic.

I strongly believe that food tastes more delicious when its closer to nature, something that after years of careful tasting seems to me obvious. By closer to nature, I mean made using simpler processes, generally lower technology, and without deceptive additions.

Yes, some MSG or a trace of artificial flavoring may possibly improve the taste of something in an absolute sense. But even if thats true, how can we fully enjoy a food if we dont know where the flavor comes from and understand just how good nature can be on its own?

Industrial processing tends to simplify flavor. Advanced technology creates vast quantities of low-cost food for a mass market, while its cost-cutting and controls eliminate the extremes of both bad and good. Skilled traditional methods are almost always superior. Generally theyre simpler and less powerful, and they leave more flavor intact. If there is a catch, its that low-technology food is more seasonal and variable, coming in a much wider range of quality, sometimes the highest of all but now and then just awful. Traditions evolve, of course; sometimes we can improve them. With scientific insight, artisans can understand what really works, refine old methods, and achieve more consistent high quality.

Ive included notes on wine because theres no better drink with food. Wine provides counterpoint, refreshment, and relaxation. Almost any simple wine without defects will do that, assuming its somewhat lightlight in body and flavor, low to moderate in alcohol, and low in tannin. It helps if the wine also has a pleasing acidity. Lighter wines tend to go with a wider range of foods, and with them it matters less whether the color is white, pink, or red. If you want, stick to light, simple everyday wines and ignore my sometimes expensive recommendations. Theyre not essential, although their more particular flavors go better with the food in question, and a few combinations really soar.

You cant always have the best food, but with the information in this book you will eat better every day. Knowing good food is part of a complete understanding of the worldpart of a full enjoyment of nature, a full experience of the senses.

ANCHOVIES

A cured anchovy represents the very essence of a big tastestrong if you use a lot of anchovies (and why not?)a timeless flavoring used by rich and poor, by those living near the water and those far inland. The taste is freshest and best when the anchovy is taken straight from the salt and cleaned just before use. The flesh is red, not brown like that of an anchovy from a can. The salt and complicated, emphatic flavor make anchovies highly useful. The combinations are as simple as an anchovy mashed into garlic-rubbed, olive oilcoated toast or chopped anchovies in a tomato or beet salad. Cured anchovies often boost flavor in the same way as a piece of dry-cured ham, fermented soy, or Southeast Asian fermented fish paste or sauce (the last two being based on anchovies). And just a few minutes cooking over low heat reduces a cured anchovy to a paste and the flavor to something so subtle that in a sauce, such as for braised beef, it can hardly be identified. Its an umami underlining.

The narrow fish with their silver sides and green or blue-green backs, which quickly turn gray out of the water, are also delicious when just caught. Full of oil and quick to turn, theyre cooked on the day theyre caught, often within hours. The taste is rich but delicate. The fresh fish are so cheap and plentiful that they dont often appear in cookbooks. Around the Mediterranean, theyre cooked in simple ways, such as dusted with flour, deep-fried, and served with salt and a sprinkling of vinegar or lemon juice. In Turkey along the Black Sea,