"Best of the Black Pot" on Kindle!

I was checking on Amazon, and discovered exciting news! The Kindle version of "The Best of the Black Pot", the best Dutch oven cookbook evarrr, is now available! It's only $5.99, so it's significantly less than the print version, too! Check it out.

The only drawback is that I can't sign it, so you won't be able to re-sell it on eBay for millions of dollars and retire to the Cayman Islands.

Sorry.

But you will be able to carry your favorite Dutch oven Cookbook wherever you go!




Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

...Tastes Like Chicken, Part II

In the previous post, I talked a bit about the thoughts and experiences that led me to want to be able to study, analyze, and, ultimately, talk about the flavors I am tasting in a dish.  I did a bit of research and reading as well.  A great book that I strongly recommend to anyone that wants to truly explore cooking is “Culinary Artistry” by  Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page.  This book has described a lot about creativity in the world of food, on lots of levels.  Great book!

It turns out that scientists say that the human tongue can taste four things: Sweet, bitter, sour, and salty.  There is some debate over a fifth flavor, vaguely named “Umammi”.  It’s supposed to be a sort of savory flavor.

As I was reading, researching, and tasting, I thought I would add a few.  Not scientifically, so much, as practically. These are things that I sense are elements of dishes I eat.  I’m not sure why, but drawing on the analogies I made in the last post, I think I’d like to call these “Tones”.


Here they are, with some descriptions:

Mark’s Flavor Tones

Sweet

This is the obvious first thing to me, since I tend to eat a lot of sweets.  I probably shouldn’t, or at least, I should make the sweets I eat more healthy, but that’s a discussion for another day.  This one is at the top of my list because it’s one everyone will recognize.  Here are some examples of sweet things:

• Sugar
• Honey
• Fruits
• Chocolate
• Spices that go with sweet, like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger (These might not be sweet themselves, but they tend to bring out the sweet tones in a dish).

Savory/Salty

As I was starting to learn to cook, the term “savory” often confused me.  I learned to describe it as “things that were not bitter, sour, or sweet”!  In most cases, this flavor comes from meats, although many meats also bring some sweet or other tones to the song as well.  As I’ve been formulating this system, I’m learning that the tones work together, and are not always in isolation.

• Meats
• Salts
• Spices that go with meats, like paprika, pepper, garlic

Tangy/Sour

Things that are “tangy” or “sour” usually contain acids.  These tones can really liven up a dish!  Some ingredients that carry these tones could be:

• Tomatoes
• Citrus, especially lemons, though oranges have sweet tones, and grapefruit have bitter tones as well.
• Vinegar

Bitter

The funny thing about bitter tones is that we don’t like them.  In theory, we developed the ability to taste bitter as a defence mechanism to steer us away from eating poisons and other harmful things.  So, why would we intentionally cook with these tones?  When you combine them with other tones, they add depth and the whole becomes delicious!

• Some herbs, like parsley
• Some spices, like nutmeg, or cardamom
• medicines

Spicy (hot) piquance, picante

There are some foods that, evolutionarily speaking, surprise me.  Take, for example, an habanero chili pepper.  At some point, some prehistoric ancestor of ours took a bite of it.  Heat like that would have lit his tongue on fire.  It would have felt like it was biting back!  So, what thought went through that neanderthal brain that made him want to take a second bite?  Or a third?  At what point in the epochs did we decide that this was a good thing?

I don’t know, but I’m glad we did!

• Black pepper
• Chili peppers
• Cinnamon
• Ginger

Cool 

There are very few foods that create the sensation of cool in your mouth, but it is such a distinct sensation that I think it deserves to be labeled as its own tone.  Plus, I love it!

• Mint
• Mentol
• Wintergreen

Undertone

This is one that I added to the list on my own, not at the suggestion of a book or science.  The undertone is like the canvas the painting is painted on, or the quiet background noise that the music plays over.  It’s the bread of a great sandwich.  It’s not a strong flavor, and it can be difficult to identify, but you would miss it if it wasn’t there.

• Bread
• Rice
• Potatoes
• Cooked beans

As I’ve started to think of the dishes I taste in terms of these flavor tones, I’ve found that even mundane eating sometimes becomes an exploration. When I’m paying attention, I start to notice things that were always there, but not identified, not in my awareness.  Food tastes more interesting!

My Dr Pepper, for example, has a strong sour tone, with just enough sweet to make it palatable.  There’s a hint of bitter there as well, and it fades off into a lingering salty/sour.

I don’t know if me blathering on about this is helping, but it has been fascinating to me, and thanks for letting me share it.  Now back to the recipes!





Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

...Tastes Like Chicken, Part I

I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to get a little heady for a few posts.  I hope it's ultimately helpful to you as well.


Last night I was out at a restaurant with my wife, and she smiled her knowing smile, and pointed out the irony in the dish I had ordered.  It had both broccoli and asparagus, both vegetables I hated as a kid.  Not just disliked, either, but violently rejected.  And now, here, I had ordered a plate with both of them combined, and I was happily eating them.

I’ve been doing a lot of thought and study about flavors lately.  For a long time, I’ve wondered what makes me like some things and not others.  And why the things I can’t stand are things that others love. Why did I hate some things as a kid and like them now?

My study started as I was writing the spices and flavorings chapter of “Black Pot Beginners”.  In it, I suggested mixing individual spices with butter and spreading it on a neutral-tasting bread, to be able to learn what each spice really tastes like.  The results often surprised my palate, and opened my eyes.

So, I started thinking about the flavors I was tasting, and I started formulating, in my own mind, a way to analyze and discuss flavors a bit better, mostly as a way to clarify them in my head, and to understand a dish better.

That led me to two analogies:

One: As I studied music, lo, these many years ago, I learned that notes are combined to form chords, and that each chord functions in different ways to move the overall song forward.  There are names for the functions of the chords: Tonic, Dominant, Sub-dominant, Leading-tone, etc...  This allows musicians to use a common language when talking about the music.

Two:  In the world of perfumes, the scents that combine to form a perfume are also referred to as “notes”.  They come out to the senses gradually.  “Top Notes”, for example, are the first things you smell when you put on the perfume.  It’s also what you smell in the store. They can dissipate very quickly.  “Mid Notes” come out soon after, and transition into the “Base Notes”.  These come on after about a half hour, and linger for the rest of the evening, giving the lasting impression of the perfume.

It occurred to me that these analogies can also apply to the culinary arts as well.  The flavors blend like chords, and have function in the dish.  They can also, in some dishes, come on in layers, and even create lasting impressions, even after the dish is eaten.

As I started to think about this, I started thinking about the food I was eating.  I started to notice flavors, and notice the way those flavors combined.  I started eating differently.  Or, I should say, I started enjoying it differently as I ate. I started to formulate the words and thoughts to describe the things I was tasting.  Those formulations started to coalesce into a more coherent system.  So, in Part II of this topic, I’ll show you the system I’m discovering to help me to describe the recipes I’ll be writing about in the future.





Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.