Download classic flavor pairings Sustainability: summer reading

Culinary Weekly Message
Culinary: classic flavor pairings
Sustainability: summer reading list
Message
•
Play with your food…experiment and learn what foods and flavors play well together.
Monday
•
•
•
•
•
Culinary: Flavor pairing/Food pairing
Knowing flavors that work together for recipes and/or menus can take time and a little
experimenting on your time.
Food pairing - creating combination of ingredients and/or dishes that complement each other
and are pleasing to the senses
What to look for when pairing foods for a meal: Look for complementary colors, a variety of
shapes and sizes, different textures. Choose taste and flavors that complement each other.
If serving a dish that is spicy serve with an item that is a little bland. The two dishes will
balance each other and create an overall better flavor combination.
When creating a dish/recipe, foods that work well together will have major flavor components
that are similar.
Sustainability:
•
In 1962, Rachel Carson published the Silent Spring, which focused on the negative effects
widespread DDT and other pesticide use were having on both humans and wildlife in the
1950s. Although, today she is most known for this book, she was already a popular author
before publishing Silent Spring. Silent Spring is considered to have been an important spark
to the modern environmental movement, and remains a classic for many environmentalists.
One critic at the time of the book's publication correctly predicted that Silent Spring could do
for the control of chemical pollution of our environment what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did
for the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 (Vogt 1962)
Tuesday
Culinary:
•
•
•
•
Asian flavor pairings
Chinese (includes Szechuan, Hunan and Cantonese): ginger, garlic and scallion flavor pairings
could also include; soy sauce, hoisin and sesame oil
Thai: fish sauce, chili and lime other flavors include coconut, garlic, cilantro and peanuts
Vietnamese: lime, lemongrass, fish sauce, soy sauce, chili, garlic & cilantro
Japanese: soy sauce, miso, mirin wine, rice vinegar Other options: pickled vegetables, dashi
broth and sake
Sustainability:
•
Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac – “Civilization has so cluttered this elemental
man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is
growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports
industry.” Published in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a
classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever
published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin
River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's pages. Much of the Almanac
elaborates on Leopold's view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild
land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species. Beautifully written,
quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today. --Gregory
McNamee
Wednesday
Culinary:
•
•
•
•
Mediterranean flavor pairings
Italian: olive oil, basil, tomatoes, oregano and garlic
Greek: garlic, oregano, olive oil, lemon, parsley and mint
Lebanese: garlic, olive oil, lemon juice other flavors include cumin, mint and cinnamon
Spain: olives, olive oil, smoked paprika, sherry vinegar, garlic, bay leaves and saffron
Sustainability:
•
Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - “When
chickens get to live like chickens, they'll taste like chickens, too.” - A national
bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book
asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to
table each of the food chains that sustain us — whether industrial or organic, alternative or
processed — he develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping,
surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound
implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet.
•
Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe was first published in 1971. The 20th
anniversary edition celebrates the original groundbreaking book that preceded current food
writers like Michael Pollan. In her book Lappe outlines the environmental impact of meat
based diet on our small planet and makes a strong case for embracing a plant based diet.
Included are ways to maximize plant based proteins by combining them to form complete
proteins along with recipes that exemplify how to utilize these techniques. Written before the
advent of CAFOs and factory farms, her journey is one that continues to educate and challenge
its readers.
Thursday
Culinary: Baking flavor combinations
•
•
•
•
•
Strawberries and balsamic vinegar, strawberries with milk , dark or white chocolate,
strawberries and mint
Cranberry and orange, cranberry and almond
Lemon and ginger, lemon and raspberry
Chocolate and cherry, chocolate and peanut butter, chocolate and hazelnut, chocolate and
cinnamon
Coconut and lime, coconut and ginger
Sustainability:
•
Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - “People often ask,
"What is the single most important environmental population problem facing the
world today?" A flip answer would be, "The single most important problem is our
misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem!” Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise
political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found
solutions and persisted. Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the
flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed
Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster
to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways.
Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power,
ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas.
Friday
Culinary: Flavor pairings for poultry, seafood and pork
•
•
•
•
Cumin, ground chilies, lime juice
Fennel, orange and red onion
Rosemary, lemon juice and olive oil
Curry powder, yogurt and lime
Sustainability:
•
William McDonough & Michael Braungart Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make
Things- “The average lawn is an interesting beast: people plant it, then douse it
with artificial fertilizers and dangerous pesticides to make it grow and to keep it
uniform-all so that they can hack and mow what they encouraged to grow. And
woe to the small yellow flower that rears its head!” -"Reduce, reuse, recycle," urge
environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as
architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative,
visionary book, such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, "cradle to grave"
manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts
of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must
damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things?
A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its
abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective.