Author: CuisineWriter
The Very Basics of French Sauces
Photo by jules:stonesoup Sauces are, of course, a crucial element of French cuisine, and the French cook can recreate the canon of sauces from a limited set of techniques and ingredients. Here’s a quick run down of some very basic sauce-stuff: Basic French Sauce Descriptions Béarnaise: A relative of hollandaise, béarnaise is a reduction of […]
French Cuisine
Despite a common pan-gallic chauvinism, French cooking is not a monolith: it ranges from the olives and seafood of Provence to the butter and roasts of Tours, from the simple food of the bistro to the fanciful confections of the Tour d’Argent. However, it all shares a seriousness about food. Throughout the country, French cooking […]
On the Best Foie Gras
Photo by acme “We grade all foie gras in three groups,” said M. Barbuer. “Extra are the best one. They go into whole blocks of foie gras naturel, the finest, most expensive variety. People in your country always confuse it with Pâté de Foie Gras and Crème de Foie Gras, for which we sometimes use the […]
Foods You Can Eat with Your Fingers
Photo by Kelly Hau Artichoke The artichoke is actually the leaf-enclosed flower bud of a plant that is in the thistle family. It is usually served steamed with a dipping sauce. To eat it, pull a leaf off, dip it, scrape the flesh from the base of the leaf with your top teeth, and discard […]
Achiote and Annatto and what Sprouts from the Seed
Photo by Bill Gracey The small yet seemingly impenetrable achiote seed, which is often commonly named the annatto seed, is available worldwide both as a whole seed and in ground form. It is a highly-regarded ingredient in both Hispanic and Indian cuisine for its subtle bitter and earthy flavors along with its gorgeous burnished copper […]
Olive Oil
Olive groves line the rocky hillsides of Italy and the Mediterranean coast. For millennia, the region has produced gorgeous olives (they were a favorite street snack in ancient Rome) and olive oils (tools for making olive oil that date back 4500 years have been found in Crete). The average age of southern Italian olive trees […]
Frederik Henry Harvey
The Harvey House Concept Frederick Henry Harvey was appalled by the conditions travelers endured in the United States as compared to his home country, England, where there was a long tradition of hospitality on the roads. So, he developed a restaurant that would provide a respectable, comfortable place for travelers to enjoy their meals, and […]
Lemongrass
Photo by odonata98 (Kimberly Reinhart) This herb, which is native to Malaysia and grown throughout Southeast Asia and California, is one of the most important in Southeast Asian cooking. With the great popularity of the food of that region, lemon grass has made its way onto countless ingredients lists for all sorts of dishes. It has […]
Mediterranean Cuisine
Photo by lukasbieri Flavors of the Mediterranean The Mediterranean is the deep, blue heart that gives life to the countries that surround her. To speak of “Mediterranean Cooking” — to make one language describe the couscous and dried fruit of Morocco, an Egyptian breakfast of ful, cool yogurt soup from Syria, Greek octopus salads, Italian […]
The Importance of Poise at theTable
Photo by Andrew Bardwell “But as for Queequeg — why, Queequeg sat there among them — at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast […]