weekend update June 16, 2013

"Stolen watermelon tastes sweeter"

I think everyone has an rascally uncle who's told them that the best watermelons are stolen, though I haven't been able to learn whose uncle said it first, and even reading Mark Twain's nostalgic reminiscences of watermelons he "retired from circulation" couldn't verify that ill-gotten melons are sweeter than those legally obtained. 

While I've never (to my knowledge) sampled a stolen a watermelon,  I have tasted a salted one, and I can verify-  it is a sort of miracle how salt (and yes, maybe stealing) makes some things sweeter.

Miracle as I'm using in this kitchen on this day means a documented phenomenon that as of yet has no scientific explanation- and by that definition, the effect of salt on sweet is indeed a miracle. Did you know (an this is SO cool!) Scientists have observed, but have not yet unlocked the tasty mystery of salt on sweet. Why does a sprinkling of salt intensify the flavors, especially the sweet flavors, of what we eat? Here's a fun Sciencefare article that summarizes a couple of theories and gives me an idea for a kitchen/lab experiment I'd like to try. Food scientists, explaining by what means salt makes sweetness sweeter.....I've been imagining the scientifically rigorous research....

"So we concur Dr. Ricardo? The batch of chocolate chip cookies
with a pinch of salt is better than the batch without?"
"We concur, Dr. Mertz, but we don't  know why. 
Perhaps if we experiment with the salted caramels..."

All of this imaging happened when I realized that salt and some form of sweetener turned up in almost everything I cooked this week,  a coincidence I didn't notice until my friend Darlene challenged me to find a recipe for the seasoning that Outback Steakhouse tosses onto it's steamed veggies. I think, Darlene, that this is it, a delicious salty sweet butter topping that we tried on broccoli, loved, and will be definitely be using again.

Once I noticed the salt and sweet balance in the vegetable topping,  I looked at the week's recipes and saw the combo everywhere! In the honey/salt brine of the chicken, the soy/sugar sauce of the lettuce wraps, the honey/mustard/bacon flavors of the spinach salad, and the soy/sugar/ginger of the teriyaki sauce.

No absolutely stellar standouts in that line up, and yet a few things that will bear repeating- 

The kale and carrot salad was a genuine and very nice surprise- easy prep, a lovely nutty flavor, and a great way to get in not one but two current superfoods, kale and avocado.

Copying the Outback menu did teach me a new way to season steak, and it was okay....

Yet when I compare the best steak I make to the worst
steak my mother makes, I can only hang my head and try
to be grateful that I'm pretty good with vegetables.

I think I've finally figured out one of her secrets though:

She knows which steaks to make friends with and invite home
for dinner, and which steaks to leave alone on the shelf.
She's a sort of steak whisperer.

The Alice Springs Chicken? Well, it's every bit as nice as a thing covered in bacon and mushrooms and two kinds of melted cheese ought to be, but all that tastieness came with the sort of high fat and calorie price tag that limits it a special occasion type of thing. The real bonus this week was learning a new way to use the leftover chicken- the P.F. Chang's style lettuce wraps. Here they are with Blue Mesa's ginger rice: 

Healthy! Fun! Frugal! Yay!

As I marveled at the pervasiveness of the salty/sweet thing in our own dinners this week, I was left pondering  a few foody factoids:

1) The sweet tooth seems to be an ancient and irresistibly powerful component of human physiology. So old that even the birds and bees do sweets.  In fact, anthropologists tell us that the first recorded human sentence was "hey, I think this fire thing might prove useful" and the second was "hey,do we have any  pie?" 

Consider this cave painting discovered in Argentina:

Which captures a moment 9,000 years ago, when someone said
"hands up everyone who wants a slice of birthday cake!"

2) The diet of the Western world is dangerously high in salt and sugar. Here I could offer you all sorts of dire warnings about both salt and sugar, but it's not that sort of blog. This blog is more likely to echo Mae West's observation that too much of a good thing can be wonderful, or make a weak joke, but I won't do that either. I'll simply remind you that indulging in excesses of salt and sugar will worry your doctor.

And no one likes to see their favorite Doctor looking worried.

3) It's not just on the plate that sweetness is well served with a little salt. Google around and you'll start to notice that a mix of sweet with its apparent opposites adds interest to art, and friendship, and music, and movies, and clothes......

"White dress, pearls and curls for sweetness?" Check.
"Black hat for sass?" Check.
"Looks like I'm ready to conquer the known world."

Which is a good thing to remember on occasions like birthdays, and holidays like father's day, or Mother's day, or anniversaries, or Christmas, or any other magnetic day.

You know, the days that attract memories like a metal surface draws a magnet.

Because sometimes, as those magnetic memories accumulate, things can get

a little messy.

But I hope that for you that the days just past have the right balance.

I hope that in the days to come if (and almost certainly when) there are sorrows and frustrations,
 that they are no more than the few grains of salt
 that draw out the week's rich flavor.

I hope that this week, any sadness dissolves, as salt should

 and you are left with days that taste like one slice after another

of solid sweetness.