“
When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families' tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
“
We've done so much together, wherever I go and whatever I see, I think of you. Newborn babies; the pattern on the plate that you can see under a paper-thin slice of sashimi; fireworks in August. The moon hidden behind the clouds over the ocean at night. When I'm sitting down someplace, inadvertently stepping on someone's toes, and have to apologize. And when someone picks up something I've dropped, and I thank him. When I see an elderly man tottering along,and wonder how much longer he has to live. Dogs and cats peeking out from alleyways. A beautiful view from a tall building. The warm blast of air you feel when you go down into a subway station. The phone ringing in the middle of the night. Even when I have crushes on other men, I always see you in the curve of their eyebrows."
"Yet I must remain calm, detached. It's a little like trying to ignore a plate of delicious food when you're really hungry. When it beckons you, there's no problem with enjoying the aroma and appreciating it with your eyes, but at some point you have to separate yourself and realize, like a professional waiter does, that it's not your own. It's my job to ignore those plates heaped with delicious morsels and just carry them where they need to go.
”
”
Banana Yoshimoto
“
Sooner or later your fingers close on that one moist-cold spud that the spade has accidentally sliced clean through, shining wetly white and giving off the most unearthly of earthly aromas. It's the smell of fresh soil in the spring, but fresh soil somehow distilled or improved upon, as if that wild, primordial scene has been refined and bottled: eau de pomme de terre. You can smell the cold inhuman earth in it, but there's the cozy kitchen to, for the smell of potatoes is, at least by now, to us, the smell of comfort itself, a smell as blankly welcoming as spud flesh, a whiteness that takes up memories and sentiments as easily as flavors. To smell a raw potato is to stand on the very threshold of the domestic and the wild. (241)
”
”
Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World)
“
Tortolita, let me tell you a story,” Estevan said. “This is a South American, wild Indian story about heaven and hell.” Mrs. Parsons made a prudish face, and Estevan went on. “If you go visit hell, you will see a room like this kitchen. There is a pot of delicious stew on the table, with the most delicate aroma you can imagine. All around, people sit, like us. Only they are dying of starvation. They are jibbering and jabbering,” he looked extra hard at Mrs. Parsons, “but they cannot get a bit of this wonderful stew God has made for them. Now, why is that?”
“Because they’re choking? For all eternity?” Lou Ann asked. Hell, for Lou Ann, would naturally be a place filled with sharp objects and small round foods.
“No,” he said. “Good guess, but no. They are starving because they only have spoons with very long handles. As long as that.” He pointed to the mop, which I had forgotten to put away. “With these ridiculous, terrible spoons, the people in hell can reach into the pot but they cannot put the food in their mouths. Oh, how hungry they are! Oh, how they swear and curse each other!” he said, looking again at Virgie. He was enjoying this.
“Now,” he went on, “you can go and visit heaven. What? You see a room just like the first one, the same table, the same pot of stew, the same spoons as long as a sponge mop. But these people are all happy and fat.”
“Real fat, or do you mean just well-fed?” Lou Ann asked.
“Just well-fed,” he said. “Perfectly, magnificently well-fed, and very happy. Why do you think?”
He pinched up a chunk of pineapple in his chopsticks, neat as you please, and reached all the way across the table to offer it to Turtle. She took it like a newborn bird.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (The Bean Trees (Greer Family, #1))
“
I didn't understand for a long time, but what attracted me to MtAoFC [Mastering the Art of French Cooking] was the deeply buried aroma of hope and discovery of fulfillment in it. I thought I was using the Book to learn to cook French food, but really I was learning to sniff out the secret doors of possibility.
”
”
Julie Powell (Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen)
“
The sweet-smelling aroma of the island spices still hung in the air. It filled his nostrils and titillated his appetite all over again. His appetite drove him mad for something much more than food.
”
”
Luke A.M. Brown (The Non-Silence of the Lamb: Contemporary Version)
“
Annie believed taste and aromas had the power to transport people from the present to other places. Sometimes this was a journey to a different mood, but it was also a form of time travel.
”
”
Hannah Rothschild (The Improbability of Love)
“
The Warrior's Diet Three Rules of Eating:
Rule #1: Always start with subtle-tasting foods and move to the more
aggressive foods.
Rule #2: Include as many tastes, textures, colors, and aromas as possible in your main meal.
Rule #3: Stop eating when you feel much more thirsty than hungry.
”
”
Ori Hofmekler (The Warrior Diet)
“
I love words as food. It fills up my appetite with parsley, mint, and species. It has a way of keeping my immune system stronger - my senses alert, my feet tapping, and my soul smelling the aroma of imagery.
”
”
Christina Strigas (A Book of Chrissyisms)
“
[A portion of the audience members are getting really curious about the taste of ‘Murim dumplings’.]
I sensed Yu Jung-Hyeok [999] flinch ever so slightly on my shoulder.
In the meantime, I handed the dumplings over to Shin Yu-Seung and Yu Jung-Hyeok as well.
The latter frowned and shook his head. “I don’t eat food made by other people.”
“Other people didn’t make this.”
He seemed deeply puzzled by that. Most likely, he had no idea what I was talking about. He then glared at the [Murim dumpling] resting before his eyes with some suspicion, but eventually made up his mind and cautiously reached out to it.
And very slowly, so very slowly, as if he was studying his new enemy, brought the dumpling near his nose.
“….This aroma??”
That’s right, eat that damn dumpling, you bastard.
Yu Jung-Hyeok continued his pained deliberation over and over again, and in the end, brought the dumpling towards his lips very slowly. As if he was tearing into the neck of the enemy commander, he took a small bite out of it.
”
”
Singshong (싱숑)
“
My patients focus every ounce of their energy on getting me to share their feelings, acquainting me with every nuance of their anger and pain. Yet I must remain calm, detached. It's a little like trying to ignore a plate of delicious food when you're really hungry. When it beckons you, there's no problem with enjoying the aroma and appreciating it with your eyes, but at some point you have to separate yourself and realize, like a professional waiter does, that it's not your own. It's my job to ignore those plates heaped with delicious morsels and just carry them where they need to go.
”
”
Banana Yoshimoto (Lizard)
“
The aroma of chicken broth and beef pie wafted into the parlor. She set down the tray of food on the low table next to him. “Are you all right?”
He grunted.
“You don’t want to eat anything?”
“No.” He did not want to tax his stomach for the next twelve hours.
“So what now? Are we going on the run?”
He removed his arm from his face and opened his eyes. She was sitting on the carpet before the low table, wearing his gray, hooded tunic, but not his trousers. Her legs were bare below mid-thigh.
The sight jolted him out of his lethargy. “Where are your trousers?”
“They had no braces and won’t stay up. Besides, it’s warm enough in here.”
He was feeling quite hot. It was not unusual to see girls in short robes come summertime in Delamer. But in England skirts always skimmed the ground and men went mad for a glimpse of feminine ankles. So much skin—boys at school would faint from overexcitement.
He might have been a bit unsteady too, if he were not already lying down.
“You never answered my question,” she said, as if the view of long, shapely legs should not scramble his thoughts at all.
”
”
Sherry Thomas (The Burning Sky (The Elemental Trilogy, #1))
“
But there is an unbounded pleasure to be had in the possession of a young, newly blossoming soul! It is like a flower, from which the best aroma evaporates when meeting the first ray of the sun; you must pluck it at that minute, breathing it in until you’re satisfied, and then throw it onto the road: perhaps someone will pick it up! I feel this insatiable greed, which swallows everything it meets on its way. I look at the suffering and joy of others only in their relation to me, as though it is food that supports the strength of my soul. I myself am not capable of going mad under the influence of passion. My ambition is stifled by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in another way, for ambition is nothing other than a thirst for power, and my best pleasure is to subject everyone around me to my will, to arouse feelings of love, devotion and fear of me—is this not the first sign and the greatest triumph of power? Being someone’s reason for suffering while not being in any position to claim the right—isn’t this the sweetest nourishment for our pride? And what is happiness? Sated pride. If I considered myself to be better, more powerful than everyone in the world, I would be happy. If everyone loved me, I would find endless sources of love within myself. Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others. An evil idea cannot enter a person’s head without his wanting to bring it into reality: ideas are organic creations, someone once said. Their birth gives them form immediately, and this form is an action. The person in whom most ideas are born is the person who acts most. Hence a genius, riveted to his office desk, must die or lose his mind, just as a man with a powerful build who has a sedentary life and modest behavior will die from an apoplectic fit. Passions are nothing other than the first developments of an idea: they are a characteristic of the heart’s youth, and whoever thinks to worry about them his whole life long is a fool: many calm rivers begin with a noisy waterfall, but not one of them jumps and froths until the very sea. And this calm is often the sign of great, though hidden, strength. The fullness and depth of both feeling and thought will not tolerate violent upsurges. The soul, suffering and taking pleasure, takes strict account of everything and is always convinced that this is how things should be. It knows that without storms, the constant sultriness of the sun would wither it. It is infused with its own life—it fosters and punishes itself, like a child. And it is only in this higher state of self-knowledge that a person can estimate the value of divine justice.
”
”
Mikhail Lermontov (A Hero of Our Time)
“
Instead of religious discourse being a type of drink designed to satisfy our thirst for answers, Jesus made his teaching salty, evoking thirst. Instead of offering a scientific explanation that would convince, or publicizing the miracles so as to compel his listeners, Jesus engaged in a poetic discourse that spoke to the heart of those who would listen. In a world where people believe they are not hungry, we must not offer food but rather an aroma that helps them desire the food that we cannot provide. We are a people who are born from a response to hints of the divine. Not only this, but we must embrace the idea that we are also called to be hints of the divine.
”
”
Peter Rollins (How (Not) to Speak of God: Marks of the Emerging Church)
“
You know Pastor, baking is a real art. Especially bread baking. There is something so divine about it. It is a pure alchemy. And all alchemical elements are there: flour that comes from the earth and represents material, water that you mix with flour to make the dough, air released by the yeast fermentation that makes dough rise, fire that bakes the bread. It is fantastic. And the aroma of hot bread released during baking is the most pleasant fragrance for our senses. Think about that for a moment, Pastor. Any food aroma that we like, no matter how much we like it, gets overwhelming after a while, and we open the kitchen windows and close kitchen doors so the smell doesn’t get into the living room. Any smell, but the smell of freshly baked bread. Did you ever hear anybody complain about the smell of baked bread? Nobody, Pastor! Nobody. You hear people complaining about their neighbors frying fish, roasting pork, barbecuing sausages, but nobody ever complains about the smell of baked bread. And you know why? Because it is divine. It is magic – the magic of the craft.
”
”
Stevan V. Nikolic (Truth According to Michael)
“
What sets a professional nose apart from an everyday nose is not so much its sensitivity to the many aromas in a food or drink, but the ability to tease them apart and identify them.
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
She can tell if her cornbread is done, and all the rest, by their aromas alone—that, or the angels mumble it straight into her ear. It’s not the clock that tells you when it’s done; the food does.
”
”
Rick Bragg (The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma's Southern Table)
“
The aroma from Mom’s chopped herbs and sprinkled spices swims through the house. The pots are shaking to a boil; the oven is warming. I get Mom to try a few words. And while I am teaching Mom, she is teaching Maxine what a pinch of that and a dab of this means. While we wait for the food to cook, Mom adds in lessons on love and tells Maxine the remedy to a broken heart. Tells her how to move on. Mom looks at me, says, “You paying attention? You’ll need this one day.
”
”
Renée Watson (Piecing Me Together)
“
The windows in the soup kitchen are never opened, and for that reason the aroma of old meals lingers in corners and rises from the table tops - which are never washed - when the steam from the freshly cooked food brings them back to life.
”
”
Joseph Roth (Hotel Savoy)
“
In the early months of World War II, San Francisco's Fill-more district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” The Yakamoto Sea Food Market quietly became Sammy's Shoe Shine Parlor and Smoke Shop. Yashigira's Hardware metamorphosed into La Salon de Beauté owned by Miss Clorinda Jackson. The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. Where the odors of tempura, raw fish and cha had dominated, the aroma of chitlings, greens and ham hocks now prevailed. The Asian population dwindled before my eyes. I was unable to tell the Japanese from the Chinese and as yet found no real difference in the national origin of such sounds as Ching and Chan or Moto and Kano. As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco's Harlem in a matter of months. A person unaware of all the factors that make up oppression might have expected sympathy or even support from the Negro newcomers for the dislodged Japanese. Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins. But the sensations of common relationship were missing. The Black newcomer had been recruited on the desiccated farm lands of Georgia and Mississippi by war-plant labor scouts. The chance to live in two-or three-story apartment buildings (which became instant slums), and to earn two-and even three-figured weekly checks, was blinding. For the first time he could think of himself as a Boss, a Spender. He was able to pay other people to work for him, i.e. the dry cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses, etc. The shipyards and ammunition plants brought to booming life by the war let him know that he was needed and even appreciated. A completely alien yet very pleasant position for him to experience. Who could expect this man to share his new and dizzying importance with concern for a race that he had never known to exist? Another reason for his indifference to the Japanese removal was more subtle but was more profoundly felt. The Japanese were not whitefolks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn't have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.
”
”
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1))
“
The books had been purged. She imagined them in a heaving fire, spitting and exploding with lives dedicated to food: plumes of gold and green smoke would light the sky, the aromas of feasts of ages past infusing their memories into the universe."
The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
”
”
Jennifer Ryan
“
I just let the apples soak up the roses' scent."
"You what?!"
"This takes a teeny little while to do, but... first, you take the petals off the damask's and wash them gently. When you've washed a whole big fluffy pile of petals... you dump them all into a big pot of water! Let that boil down, and you get a sweet, pink rose syrup!
While that was reducing, I lightly heated thin apple slices in an extract I made from boiled apple peels. Then I poured the rose syrup over them and let them soak for 30 minutes. That way the delicate pink color and sweet scent of the roses gently seeped into the apples.
Just boiling the lot of them together into a mush like a barbarian is hardly royal, you know.
An elegant and relaxing bath in rose-scented water. That is much more fitting for the Queen of Roses. If I had to give a name to perfect my new dessert, I'd call it...
The Queen's Apple Tart!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 28 [Shokugeki no Souma 28] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #28))
“
I lay there unable to move, reading about disasters in the far corners of the world. What could I do? Write letters, send checks. But there will never be a time when terrible trouble is not stalking the earth, and I began to see how important it is to appreciate what you have.
For too long I'd been waiting for the wonderful. But there is so much joy in everyday occurrences: a butterfly in the sun the first crisp bite of an apple, the rich aroma of roasting meat. Maybe I had to break my foot to open my eyes, but I finally understood why cooking means so much to me. In a world filled with no, it is my yes.
”
”
Ruth Reichl (My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life)
“
technologists sometimes exploit the synergy between the two. By adding strawberry or vanilla—aromas we associate with sweetness—it’s possible to fool people into thinking a food is sweeter than it really is. Though sneaky, this is not necessarily bad, because it means the product can contain less added sugar. Which
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
The chicken kebab is moist and fragrant; the chicken chunks fall apart when I bite into them, and the aromas of turmeric and parsley flood my senses. I have to close my eyes to take in all the flavors- spicy, salty, meaty. The doogh is equally delicious; I swear I've never drunk something so creamy, so minty, so refreshing.
”
”
Sandhya Menon (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
I’m a big believer in cooking your own meals. It makes it much easier not only to ensure that you eat fresh foods but also to follow the second rule of eating (see previous chapter), which advises incorporating as many colors, tastes, textures, and aromas as possible into one’s meal. Beyond those benefits, I feel that cooking celebrates self-respect, and it’s especially important on the Warrior Diet. Through cooking, you can control exactly what you put inside your body. It’s a creative process, where you use trial and error to determine what you like.You can use different herbs and spices to increase or balance flavors, aromas, and textures.You’re not a scavenger on the Warrior Diet.
”
”
Ori Hofmekler (The Warrior Diet)
“
Salmon Meunière, piping hot and steaming with the rich aroma of butter!
Sautéed squid liver, boldly fragrant with the scents of garlic and soy sauce!
And a gleaming mound of glittery salmon roe marinated in soy sauce!
"It's a parade of the ultimate in gourmet ingredients!
Somei Saito senpai has created a brand-new culinary gem with his Buttered Seafood Rice Bowl!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 28 [Shokugeki no Souma 28] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #28))
“
as dogs rely more on smell than taste in making choices about what to eat and how vigorously. (Pat Moeller estimates that for dogs, the ratio for how much aroma matters to how much taste matters is 70/30. For cats, the ratio is more like 50/50.) The takeaway lesson is that if the palatant smells appealing, the dog will dive in with instant and obvious zeal, and the owner will assume the food is a hit. In reality it may have only smelled like a hit.
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
smell is the only sense that goes straight to the brain’s cortex—the olfactory nerve is close to the part of the brain that deals with emotions and memory, which is why the smell of food evokes nostalgia and memories, and also why no Michelin star chef can compete with your grandmother’s dal. After all, it is not objective taste and aroma that matters but the fond memories associated with it that come rushing back when you eat a good home-cooked dal.
”
”
Krish Ashok (Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking)
“
Smell the aroma of beautiful food, then
go to the latrine and sniff. "What happened to you?" Your dung will answer,
"My beauty was a lure, a trick to get inside you."
Every matter particle does the same
enchantment. Try to see the beginning and end at once. Would you willingly wear manacles
just because they're made of gold? Admire the genius of an artist, but also watch what
happens to him or her in old age, how the expert craftsman's craft diminishes.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems – Coleman Barks's Sublime Renderings of the 13th-Century Sufi Mystic's Insights into Divine Love and the Human Heart)
“
A quick word about chemicals and flavors. All flavors in nature are chemicals. That’s what food is. Organic, vine-ripened, processed and unprocessed, vegetable and animal, all of it chemicals. The characteristic aroma of fresh pineapple? Ethyl 3-(methylthio)propanoate, with a supporting cast of lactones, hydrocarbons, and aldehydes. The delicate essence of just-sliced cucumber? 2E,6Z-Nonadienal. The telltale perfume of the ripe Bartlett pear? Alkyl (2E,4Z)-2,4-decadienoates.
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
This is especially doable with dog food, as dogs rely more on smell than taste in making choices about what to eat and how vigorously. (Pat Moeller estimates that for dogs, the ratio for how much aroma matters to how much taste matters is 70/30. For cats, the ratio is more like 50/50.) The takeaway lesson is that if the palatant smells appealing, the dog will dive in with instant and obvious zeal, and the owner will assume the food is a hit. In reality it may have only smelled like a hit. Interpreting animals’ eating behaviors
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
There was something in Lima that was wrappd up in yards of violet satin from which protruded a great dropsical head and two fat pearly hands; and that was its archbishop. Between the rolls of flesh that surrounded them looked out two black eyes speaking discomfort, kindliness, and wit. A curious and eager soul was imprisoned in all this lard, but by dint of never refusing himself a pheasant or a goose or his daily procession of Roman wines, he was his own bitter jailer. He loved his cathedral; he loved his duties; he was very devout. Some days he regarded his bulk ruefully; but the distress of remorse was less poignant than the distress of fasting, and he was presently found deliberating over the secret messages that a certain roast sends to the certain salad that will follow it. And to punish himself he led an exemplary life in every other respect.
He had read all the literature of antiquity and forgotten all about it except a general aroma of charm and disillusion. He had been learned in the Fathers and the Councils and forgotten all about them save a floating impression of dissensions that had no application to Peru. He had read all the libertine masterpieces of Italy and France and reread them annually;
”
”
Thornton Wilder (The Bridge of San Luis Rey)
“
Tender poached egg. Creamy mashed potatoes. And the thick layer of hot, melted cheese!
Those are all incredibly delicious, but what takes the cake is the roux! It's been made in a VICHYSSOISE style!"
VICHYSSOISE
Boiled potatoes, onions, leeks and other ingredients are pureed with cream and soup stock to make this potage. It's often served chilled.
Its creation is generally credited to Louis Diat, a French chef at the Ritz Carlton in New York, who first put it on the hotel's menu in 1917.
"Amazing! It looks like a thick, heavy dish that would sit in the stomach like lead, but it's so easy to eat!"
"The noodles! It's the udon noodles, along with the coriander powder, that makes it feel so much lighter!
Coriander is known for its fresh, almost citrusy scent and its mildly spicy bite. It goes exceptionally well with the cumin kneaded into the noodles, each spice working to heighten the other's fragrance.
AAAH!
It's immensely satisfying!"
"I have also included dill, vichyssoise's traditional topping. Dry roasting the dill seeds together with the cumin seeds made a spice mix that gave a strong aroma to the roux."
"Hm! Fat noodles in a thick, creamy roux. Eating them is much the same experience as having dipping noodles.
What an amazing concept to arrive at from a century-old French soup recipe!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #7))
“
I want you to coordinate you hand and your mouth,” he said, as he placed the next piece of steak at the edge of her lip. “As you close your mouth around the food, I want you to slide your finger inside you. Then I want you to slowly pull your finger out, moving it up slowly as you chew. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she quickly answered, inhaling the aroma so close to her mouth.
“If you do this properly, your finger should reach your clit at the exact time you swallow the food. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Oh hell yes she understood.
“Good. Open your mouth.”
Time slowly disappeared as she became lost in whatever this game was that he was playing with her.
”
”
Kristin Elyon (Lana's Awakening (To Have and Control #1))
“
A sweet aroma blooms in the mouth like a fresh flower, while the tongue dances with delight at the crispy crunchiness of the apple! Just one bite and I've already fallen into a fantasyland!"
"Not only that, this fragrance! It's precisely what I thought! It's 'Damask Rose'!"
"Damask rose? Like, actual roses?"
"Yep! These roses right here. They're one of my favoritest flowers. They have such a pretty scent."
Even out of the many thousands of rose varieties in the world, the Damask is renowned for its beautiful fragrance! In fact, some people even call it the 'Queen of Roses'! An ancient strain, it's said even Cleopatra enjoyed damask roses, sprinkling their petals in her bath.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 28 [Shokugeki no Souma 28] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #28))
“
Madarjoon was reminding Oliver how to set a table, while Benyamin and Alice carried steaming dishes into the dining room in preparation for their dinner. The air was thick with the aroma of saffron and fresh turmeric, cinnamon and salted olive oil; fresh bread was cooling on the kitchen counter beside large plates of fluffy rice, sautéed raisins, heaps of barberries, and sliced almonds. Feta cheese was stacked beside a small mountain of fresh walnuts—still soft and damp—and handfuls of basil, mint, scallions, and radishes. There were spiced green beans, ears of grilled corn, dense soups, bowls of olives, and tricolored salads. There was so much food, in fact, I simply cannot describe it all. But
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Whichwood (Furthermore, #2))
“
A great flood of aromas swamped the noise, thick as soup and foaming with flavors: powdery sugars and crystallized fruit, dank slabs of beef and boiling cabbage, sweating onions and steaming beets. Fronts of fresh-baked bread rolled forward then sweeter cakes. Behind the whiffs of roasting capons and braising bacon came the great smoke-blackened ham which hung in the hearth. Fish was poaching somewhere in a savory liquor at once sweet and tart, its aromas braided in twirling spirals... The silphium, thought John. A moment later it was lost in the tangle of scents that rose from the other pots, pans and great steaming urns. The rich stew of smells and tastes reaching into his memory to haul up dishes and platters.
”
”
Lawrence Norfolk (John Saturnall's Feast)
“
They walked quickly through the kitchen. A woman in a blue salwar kameez skewered bright orange pieces of chicken to go into the tandoor. An older woman was peeling and slicing a bag of onions. Two cooks in white aprons stirred pots full of spicy potatoes, braised lamb, and chunks of paneer swimming in creamy spinach. At the back of the kitchen, the cook who had glared at him when he had come to talk to Nasir used a giant paddle to stir a vat of what appeared to be goat curry.
Sam breathed in the sweet mixed aroma of cardamom, turmeric, garam masala, and fresh chilies as Daisy led him past the stainless steel counters. It was the smell of his mother's kitchen last night when they'd had dinner together. The scent of home.
”
”
Sara Desai (The Marriage Game (Marriage Game, #1))
“
If you go to visit hell, you will see a room like this kitchen. There is a pot of delicious stew on the table, with the most delicate aroma you can imagine. All around, people sit, like us. Only they are dying of starvation. They are jibbering and jabbering,” he looked extra hard at Mrs. Parsons, “but they cannot get a bite of this wonderful stew God has made for them. Now, why is that?” “Because they’re choking? For all eternity?” Lou Ann asked. Hell, for Lou Ann, would naturally be a place filled with sharp objects and small round foods. “No,” he said. “Good guess, but no. They are starving because they only have spoons with very long handles. As long as that.” He pointed to the mop, which I had forgotten to put away. “With these ridiculous, terrible spoons, the people in hell can reach into the pot but they cannot put the food in their mouths. Oh, how hungry they are! Oh, how they swear and curse each other!” he said, looking again at Virgie. He was enjoying this. “Now,” he went on, “you can go and visit heaven. What? You see a room just like the first one, the same table, the same pot of stew, the same spoons as long as a sponge mop. But these people are all happy and fat.” “Real fat, or do you mean just well-fed?” Lou Ann asked. “Just well-fed,” he said. “Perfectly, magnificently well-fed, and very happy. Why do you think?” He pinched up a chunk of pineapple in his chopsticks, neat as you please, and reached all the way across the table to offer it to Turtle. She took it like a newborn bird.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (The Bean Trees)
“
This is based on Sauce Américaine. A classic French sauce, its recipe calls for crushed lobster shells and meat crushed together.
And then there's its rich, woody fragrance. I know what it's from now! COGNAC!" *Cognac is a variety of brandy made in Cognac, France. There are many strict requirements the brandy must meet in order to be considered an official cognac.*
"I see! When brandy is aged, it absorbs the scents of the wooden casks in which it's stored! That's why this curry has such a strong bouquet of woody aromas... like sandalwood and cedar!"
"Yup! That's right, sir. By the way, for this dish I experimented a little...
... and used Napoleon-Grade Cognac, which has even richer scents.
There are several grades of cognac, depending on how long it is aged. Napoleon Grade is considered the highest.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #7))
“
The key to this risotto is Japanese peppers of all things?!"
"It's sharp, refreshing aroma highlights the mellow body of the cheese... while making the eel's umami flavor flash like an explosion!"
"And that one key ingredient that quietly ties it all together...
... is garlic!"
"Garlic?! In traditional Japanese cuisine?! That's almost unheard of!"
"Those are special smoked garlic chips a junior of mine made. They were smoked using wood from a walnut tree, which is known to emphasize seafood flavors well. By lightly crushing those chips and sprinkling them on as a topping, I added a pleasantly crunchy texture to the dish.
But the most critical feature of my dish... is that I broiled the eel using the Kansai region Kabayaki style. Unlike the Kanto region style, there's no steaming step. Leaving all that oil in gives the eel a more fragrant aroma with a heavier texture and stronger flavor...
... meaning it pairs much more naturally with a flavor as powerful as garlic. *Steaming the eel makes much of its natural oil seep out, leaving the flesh light and fluffy.*
But what makes these chips so extraordinary... is that they're infused with Ibusaki's earnest passion and the pure sweat of his helpers, Aoki and Sato. There's no way they could not be delicious!"
"Ew! Don't say they're infused with sweat! That's gross!"
"This much alone is already an impressively polished gourmet course. What's in store for us in that teapot?"
"That is eel-liver broth, my lady. I dressed the eel's liver and then sautéed it in olive oil with some smoked garlic chips. Then I poured the sake Sakaki and Marui made over the top and let the alcohol cook off before adding bonito stock to make a broth. It matches beautifully with the cheese that Yoshino and Nikumi made, creating a soft flavor with a splendid aftertaste.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 25 [Shokugeki no Souma 25] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #25))
“
Escoffier knew if he could win Sara's heart it would be with a dish made of truffles and pureed foie gras, the one she often doted over. The subtle aroma of truffle, according to the great Brillat-Savarin, was an aphrodisiac. And so, "Let the food speak where words cannot," Escoffier said, making the sign of the cross, and cooking as if his life depended on it, because on some level it did.
When the chef finally knocked on the studio door, his small hands shook under the weight of the silver tray and its domed cover.
Escoffier had changed into clean clothes and now looked more like a banker than a chef. But he was, most certainly, a chef. Beneath the dome, caramelized sweetbreads, covered with truffles, lay on a bed of golden noodles that were napped in a sauce made from the foie gras of ducks fed on wild raspberries, the 'framboise,' of the countryside.
It was a dish of profound simplicity, and yet luxury.
”
”
N.M. Kelby (White Truffles in Winter)
“
Most of what presents itself to us in the marketplace as a product is in truth a web of relationships, between people, yes, but also between ourselves and all the other species on which we still depend. Eating and drinking especially implicate us in the natural world in ways that the industrial economy, with its long and illegible supply chains, would have us forget. The beer in that bottle, I'm reminded as soon as I brew it myself, ultimately comes not from a factory but from nature - from a field of barley snapping in the wind, from a hops vine clambering over a trellis, from a host of invisible microbes feasting on sugars. It took the carefully orchestrated collaboration of three far-flung taxonomic kingdoms - plants, animals, and fungi - to produce that ale. To make it yourself once in a while, to handle the barley and inhale the aroma of hops and yeast, becomes, among other things, a form of observance, a weekend ritual of remembrance.
”
”
Michael Pollan (Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation)
“
As soon as I was immersed in my work, cutting up the kabocha squash for the winter butternut squash soup, dicing the carrots to braise in orange juice, and starting another giant vat of chicken stock, I allowed the aromas and natural muscle rhythms of the kitchen to sweep me up in what I loved. I calmed down and experienced--- as corny as it might sound--- the joy of cooking.
I was in love with food, obsessed with it. Food wasn't just fuel; it could heal a broken heart, it could entertain, it could bring you home. Magic happened when a perfectly balanced dish came together. A beautiful symphony of flavors. Salty, sweet, acidic, crunchy, colorful, soft, hard, warm, cold. It should take you on a journey. Once I had an Italian dish called Genovese, consisting of braised rabbit over thick noodles with a carrot and pea sauce. It was so beautiful, earthy, clever, and delicious, and it warmed you from the inside. It was what I liked to call a "circle of life plate.
”
”
Victoria Benton Frank (My Magnolia Summer)
“
It's eight, and it's time to prepare the filet mignons encrusted with pepper, sliced and served with an Israeli couscous salad with almonds, feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, roasted red peppers, preserved lemons, braised fennel, and artichoke bottoms. Funny, when I'd first made this meal for Caro, she didn't believe me when I'd presented the fine or medium grains at Moroccan or Algerian restaurants. Regardless of the name, Israeli couscous is more pasta-like and not crushed, but delicious all the same, and I love the texture---especially when making a Mediterranean-infused creation that celebrates the flavors of both spring and summer.
While Oded preps the salad, I sear the steaks, and an aroma hits my nostrils---more potent than pepper---with a hint of floral notes, hazelnut, and citrus. I don't think anything of it, because my recipe is made up from a mix of many varieties of peppercorns---black, green, white, red, and pink. Maybe I'd added in a fruitier green?
”
”
Samantha Verant (The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique)
“
Sensuality is for you, not about you. It’s for you in a sense that you are allowed to indulge all of your senses and taste the goodness of this world and beyond. It’s also for you in a sense that you’re allowed to curate and express yourself in an authentic way (i.e. in the way you dress, communicate, live, love, play, etc.).
However, sensuality is not ABOUT you, it’s about those to whom you were brought here to touch and inspire. It’s about the joy and pleasure you’re here to bring. You didn’t come here for yourself nor empty-handed, but you came here bearing special gifts. You were brought here to be a vessel of sensual innovation and a conveyor of heaven’s most deepest pleasures.
Your passion is an indication of the sensual gift(s) you were endowed with before you made your grand entry into this world. Your divine mandate now is to exploit every sensual gift you have to the fullest whether it’s music, photography, boudoir or fashion modeling, etc.
If you have a love for fashion, always dress impeccably well like my friend Kefilwe Mabote. If you have a love for good food and wine, create culinary experiences the world has never seen before like chef Heston Blumenthal whom I consider as one of the most eminent sensual innovators in the culinary field.
Chef Heston has crafted the most sensually innovative culinary experience where each sense has been considered with unparalleled rigour. He believes that eating is a truly multi-sensory experience. This approach has not only led to innovative dishes like the famous bacon and egg ice cream, but also to playing sounds to diners through headphones, and dispersing evocative aromas with dry ice.
Chef Heston is indeed a vessel of sensual innovation and a conveyor of heaven’s most deepest pleasures in his own right and field. So, what sensual gift(s) are you here to use? It doesn’t have to be a big thing. For instance, you may be a great home maker. That may be an area where you’re endowed with the most sensual innovative abilities than any other area in your life. You need to occupy and shine your light in that space, no matter how small it seems.
”
”
Lebo Grand
“
After a lineup of stellar secondi- braised tripe, fried lamb chops, veal braciola simmered in tomato sauce- Andrea and I wander into the kitchen to talk with Leonardo Vignoli, the man behind the near-perfect meal. Cesare al Casaletto had been a neighborhood anchor since the 1950's, but when Leonardo and his wife, Maria Pia Cicconi, bought it in 2009, they began implementing small changes to modernize the food. Eleven years working in Michelin-starred restaurants in France gave Leonardo a perspective and a set of skills to bring back to Rome. "I wanted to bring my technical base to the flavors and aromas I grew up on." From the look of the menu, Cesare could be any other trattoria in Rome; it's not until you twirl that otherworldly cacio e pepe (which Leonardo makes using ice in the pan to form a thicker, more stable emulsion) and attack his antipasti- polpette di bollito, crunchy croquettes made from luscious strands of long-simmered veal; a paper cone filled with fried squid, sweet and supple, light and greaseless- that you understand what makes this place special.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents))
“
My Deep-Fried Pork Cutlet with Fondue Lunch Set is ready to eat!"
A Lunch Set?! With fondue even?!
Wow, that's, um... a really Soma thing to make!
"So I'm assuming the cheese is a dipping sauce? And it's in this little pot?"
"Yep, you got it. Go on and give it a good dunking."
"Here we go...
huh?
It's black?! Wait a minute, isn't this supposed to be cheese?!"
Mmm! Sooo gooood! It's so light and tender! The crunchy outer shell practically melts in your mouth the second you bite into it!
And the sauce is mellow and rich, melding together with the cutlet in indescribable deliciousness!
"Wait... what is this sauce?!"
"At a glance, it looks like tonkatsu sauce- the plain old black paste that always goes with pork cutlets. But it's really a black cheese sauce!
I made an eggplant puree from chunks of eggplant I grilled over a brazier until their skins were charred good and black. Then I took that puree, rich with the unique aroma of charcoal grilling, and blend it with cheese!"
"Ah! Now I see! The soft flavors of cheese and chargrilling work together, lingering in the mouth as a light but rich aftertaste!
That's how you managed to give such a refined and elegant deliciousness!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 32 [Shokugeki no Souma 32] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #32))
“
As her eyes ran over the lines of text, she took a bite of the melon bun, which was nearly as large as her face. The thick cookie dough encrusting its surface broke open with a crunch, and out spilled the aroma of butter and brown sugar, and the unmistakable taste of melon. Yes, it was exactly like she'd described. The combination of saltiness and sweetness wasn't bad, but the overall flavor was hardly sophisticated. Savoring it alongside the words flowing down the screen, though, its deliciousness seemed to percolate through her body.
The idea of combining karintō and the trusty melon bun is, of course, totally stupid. Honestly, I burst out laughing when I saw it there in the convenience store. But here's the thing: when you bite into that greasy, crunchy coating with its hint of soy sauce not unlike mitarashi dumplings, it's like emerging from a tunnel into the light, with the bright, fresh green flavor of melon fanning out all around you. I have to report that I'm now totally addicted. A stupid taste. A stupid price. But you know what, getting by on 'stupid food' actually makes things very easy. It's kind of soothing to feel like you've found a way to cheat at life.
”
”
Polly Barton (Hooked)
“
What an unbelievably refined flavor! And so lusciously gooey you could just faint! The salty, sticky turtle broth seeps through the mouth... melding beautifully with the salty savoriness of the butter and cheese! Together, they lap at your tongue in silky, decadent harmony!
"How on earth does this work? What makes the flavor of the turtle fit so well with the cheese?
Hm? What's this where the two layers meet?"
"You have a keen eye, sir. That's a mix of chopped nuts and seeds- walnuts, peanuts, sesame seeds...
...and...
...."
"Kaki no Tane Snack Crackers?!"
Those crackers! Soma used those the very first time Takumi challenged him!
After lightly toasting them to bring out their aroma, I mixed them into the layer between the sides of my Sformato. Of course, this was after I used my Mezzaluna...
... to chop them all into the perfect size of about 0.1 mm each!
"Heyo, Human Food Processor!"
"I see! The toasted Kaki no Tane Crackers bring just enough aromatic astringency to erase the smell of the fish and dairy...
... functioning as a sort of bridge to tie the two distinct flavors together!
Not only that, their crunchiness adds a fun, contrasting texture while not being filling at all!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 34 [Shokugeki no Souma 34] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #34))
“
They look like glittering golden cubes!"
"And they're melting across the chicken breasts?!"
"Wait a minute... OH! MORPHING FURIKAKE RICE!"
"WELL, WELL! WHAT HAVE WE HERE?!"
"The chicken's already savory and robust aroma...
... is growing even richer and stronger!"
"A Furikake topping? At a glance, these look like cubes of some variety of aspic..."
"The First and Second Seats were already over the moon about this dish."
"Are you saying it is now even more delicious?!"
"Aah! Unbelievable! Already the rich scent of roasted chicken tickles the nose!"
"Hmph..."
"This...?
This flavor! I can hardly believe it! The warmth of the chicken has caused the aspic cubes to begin melting into a thick jelly...
... adding new and luxuriant layers to both the flavor and the texture of the dish!
The salty savoriness of its flavor seeps quietly into the crispy rice crackers...
... while the scrambled-egg sauce is infused with an even more decadently creamy texture!
"The sheer perfect balance of the dish is positively divine! Flavors clash and meld, amplifying and accenting each other in complete harmony!
What creative originality! Who would have thought that one simple addition would add so much depth and complexity to the entire dish?!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 30 [Shokugeki no Souma 30] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #30))
“
It's a parade of flawless tuna deliciousness! But by far, the most dangerous piece... is the one that looks like a bomb of pure tuna goodness, the straw-grilled, seared noten sushi!
The noten- a cut of meat from the top of the tuna's head- is one of the priciest cuts. Extravagantly fatty, its richness melds with the fragrant searing into a powerful duo! Yet there isn't the first hint of fishiness! Searing it using aromatic straw burned it away, leaving only pure savory flavor behind to please both nose and palate!"
"His Trace was dead-on. Looks like it really will be his arrangements on that Gunkan Maki that decide this card."
"I can't even begin to guess what it tastes like."
What's this on top of the minced tuna and leeks?! Is it... meringue?!
"Aah! Now I see! I know what Subaru Mimasaka took out at that moment! It was the same smoked soy sauce he passed to Kuga!"
The mellow, full-bodied aroma of smoked soy sauce has seeped into every crevice of the minced tuna...
... while the differing textures of the meringue and the negitoro create deeper, more complex layers to the flavor!
If I were to name it, I would call it the "Ultimate Negitoro Eggs-over-Rice Gunkan Sushi"! Minced tuna rib meat mixed with leeks and smoked soy sauce, topped with quail-egg yolk
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 27 [Shokugeki no Souma 27] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #27))
“
Until the war had broken out, there had been some sort of order in the strange and complex mixture of the four disparate peoples crowded into the little valley, all calling themselves Bosnians. They celebrated separate holidays, ate different foods, feasted and fasted on different days, yet all depended on one another, but never admitted it. They had lived amidst an ever present, if dormant, mixture of hatred and love for each other. The Muslims with their Ramadan, the Jews with Passover, the Catholics with Christmas, and the Serbs with their Slavas- each of them tacitly tolerated and recognised the customs and existence of others. With suckling pigs turned on spits in Serbian houses, giving off a mouth-watering fragrance, kosher food would be eaten in Jewish homes, and in Muslim households, meals were cooked in suet. There was a certain harmony in all this, even if there was no actual mixing. The aromas had long ago adjusted to one another and had given the city its distinctive flavor. Everything was "as God willed it." But it was necessary to remove only one piece of that carefully balanced mosaic and that whole picture would fall into its component parts which would then, rejoined in an unthinkable manner, create hostile and incompatible entities. Like a hammer, the war had knocked out one piece, disrupting the equilibrium.
”
”
Gordana Kuić (Miris kiše na Balkanu)
“
The spicy tingle that prickles at the nose is from the alkaloid piperine that's present in abundance in black pepper!
Together with the pyrazine that develops when paprika powder is heated, the two aromas meld together and form the strong base of the dish's overall scent!
The primary herbs used to ameliorate the gamy smell of the bear meat is thyme! The strong, herby scent of thymol- the active component of thyme- beautifully erases any stink the meat had!
Then, uh... there's the cayenne and the oregano... and... uh...
The oregano, and...
"Aaaah! I can't! I just can't!
Anytime I try to think, my mind just screams that it wants more!"
Exquisite!
Every last wisp of the bear meat's scent has been transformed into a powerfully savory flavor!
The delicate complexity of the fragrance and the deep layers of the umami flavor... there is no denying it.
"This dish...
surpasses Soma Yukihira's."
"I rubbed the bear meat with salt, my Cajun spice blend and other spices. I made sure to wrap it in a nice, thick coat of batter when I fried it up too.
Plus, when I marinated it before battering it, I used plenty of juniper berries in the marinade. I ground them in a spice grinder first to really bring out their scent.
Waves of juicy flavor so rich and refined that they even have a hint of sweetness to them should gush out of the bear meat with every bite.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 22 [Shokugeki no Souma 22] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #22))
“
A study titled, simply, “The Color of Odors,” will destroy your faith in anybody’s ability to taste anything. Here’s how it worked: three French researchers started with two wines from Bordeaux, a white made with Sémillon and Sauvignon grapes and a red made with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The researchers first had a group of subjects taste both the white wine and the red, under white light in clear glasses, and write down all the words they could think of to describe each one. In this test it didn’t matter whether the tasters perceived the same things. Inter-rater reliability wasn’t a factor here—the researchers didn’t care if tasters agreed with each other about the wine color and taste, just that each taster would consistently call one “red” and one “white.” Then the researchers took an odorless, tasteless extract of the grape-skin pigment anthocyanin and dripped it into the white wine, turning it red. And they called the tasters back for a second go-around, asking them to compare the white wine and the colored wine—the same wine, in other words, with red food coloring. The result was a taste-test catastrophe. Almost to a person, the tasters chose to use the same words for the white wine from the initial tasting on the white wine in the second. And they used the same words for the red wine on the red-colored white wine. They simply could not tell the difference. Color alone—not aroma, not flavor—told them what to expect, and that’s exactly what they tasted.
”
”
Adam Rogers (Proof: The Science of Booze)
“
She leaned over the basket again, taking in the mouthwatering aromas wafting out of it. "Fried chicken? Oh, I'm thinking buttermilk fried chicken?"
Dylan was once again amused. "How do you do that?"
"I like food."
"You don't say."
"And I love Southern fried chicken." She tried to open the basket, and he tapped her hand jokingly.
"Sit," he said.
And she did, crossing her legs and plopping down on the blanket.
Opening the basket and playing waiter, Dylan began removing flatware and plates and red-checkered napkins, and then wrapped food. "For lunch today in Chez Orchard de Pomme, we have some lovely cheese, made from the milk of my buddy Mike's goat Shelia." He removed the plastic wrap, which covered a small log of fresh white cheese on a small plate, and handed it to her.
Grace put her nose to the cheese. It was heavenly. "Oh, Shelia is my new best friend."
"It's good stuff. And we have some fresh chili corn bread. The corn, I think, is from Peter Lindsey's new crop, just cut out from the maze, which is right down this hill." He motioned with his head toward the field, and then he handed her a big loaf of the fresh corn bread wrapped loosely in wax paper.
"It's still warm!" Delighted, she held it to her cheek.
Then he pulled out a large oval Tupperware container. "And, yes, we have Dolly's buttermilk fried chicken."
Grace peeled open the top and smelled. "Fabulous."
"It is!"
He also pulled out a mason jar of sourwood honey, a sack of pecans, and a couple of very cold bottles of a local mountain-brewed beer.
”
”
Jeffrey Stepakoff (The Orchard)
“
If loneliness or sadness or happiness could be expressed through food, loneliness would be basil. It’s not good for your stomach, dims your eyes, and turns your mind murky. If you pound basil and place a stone over it, scorpions swarm toward it. Happiness is saffron, from the crocus that blooms in the spring. Even if you add just a pinch to a dish, it adds an intense taste and a lingering scent. You can find it anywhere but you can’t get it at any time of the year. It’s good for your heart, and if you drop a little bit in your wine, you instantly become drunk from its heady perfume. The best saffron crumbles at the touch and instantaneously emits its fragrance. Sadness is a knobby cucumber, whose aroma you can detect from far away. It’s tough and hard to digest and makes you fall ill with a high fever. It’s porous, excellent at absorption, and sponges up spices, guaranteeing a lengthy period of preservation. Pickles are the best food you can make from cucumbers. You boil vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, then season with salt and pepper. You enclose them in a sterilized glass jar, seal it, and store it in a dark and dry place.
WON’S KITCHEN. I take off the sign hanging by the first-floor entryway. He designed it by hand and silk-screened it onto a metal plate. Early in the morning on the day of the opening party for the cooking school, he had me hang the sign myself. I was meaning to give it a really special name, he said, grinning, flashing his white teeth, but I thought Jeong Ji-won was the most special name in the world. He called my name again: Hey, Ji-won.
He walked around the house calling my name over and over, mischievously — as if he were an Eskimo who believed that the soul became imprinted in the name when it was called — while I fried an egg, cautiously sprinkling grated Emmentaler, salt, pepper, taking care not to pop the yolk. I spread the white sun-dried tablecloth on the coffee table and set it with the fried egg, unsalted butter, blueberry jam, and a baguette I’d toasted in the oven. It was our favorite breakfast: simple, warm, sweet. As was his habit, he spread a thick layer of butter and jam on his baguette and dunked it into his coffee, and I plunked into my cup the teaspoon laced with jam, waiting for the sticky sweetness to melt into the hot, dark coffee.
I still remember the sugary jam infusing the last drop of coffee and the moist crumbs of the baguette lingering at the roof of my mouth. And also his words, informing me that he wanted to design a new house that would contain the cooking school, his office, and our bedroom. Instead of replying, I picked up a firm red radish, sparkling with droplets of water, dabbed a little butter on it, dipped it in salt, and stuck it into my mouth. A crunch resonated from my mouth. Hoping the crunch sounded like, Yes, someday, I continued to eat it. Was that the reason I equated a fresh red radish with sprouting green tops, as small as a miniature apple, with the taste of love? But if I cut into it crosswise like an apple, I wouldn't find the constellation of seeds.
”
”
Kyung-ran Jo (Tongue)
“
I can smell fennel, lemongrass and cinnamon. But there's something more... something that ties those three spices together. What is this powerful aroma underneath it all?
"'Holy basil'! And he used fresh leaves!"
Holy...
... basil?
"It's a spice native to Southeast Asia and sacred to the Hindu religion. Just one whiff of it...
... sends a refreshing sensation throughout the entire body. In Ayurvedic medicine, it's even considered an elixir of life!" *Ayurveda is the name of Hindu traditional medicine in which proper diet plays a large role.*
"Really? What an amazing spice!"
"However...
... holy basil rarely makes it to Japan while still fresh! It should be nearly impossible to procure!
How on earth did you get it?!"
"Oh, that? We raise it year-round for our seminar. And how do we cultivate it? Well... that's a trade secret."
"What?! He raises his own uber-rare spices?!"
"That's the Shiomi seminar for you."
""Shiomi"? They must mean Professor Jun Shiomi, the academic expert on spices!"
"Man, this scent is not just powerful, it's addictive! But that's not the only thing going on in this dish. There's something else, something that spurs you on to the next bite...
tartness? Yogurt!"
"Good guess, Yukihira. Holy basil is so strong it can easily overpower all other spices if you aren't careful. But adding in yogurt mellows it out."
Not only that, the spices he used have the curcumin compound, which is known to aid the liver in detoxifying the blood. That together with the lactic acids in yogurt increases how well the body absorbs it!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 8 [Shokugeki no Souma 8] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #8))
“
But the one piece of this dish that plays the biggest role of all... is this wrapping around the chicken breast... the Croûte!"
Croûte!
A base of bread or pie dough seasoned with savory spices, croûte can refer either to the dough itself or a dish wrapped in it. It's a handy addition that can boost the aroma, textures and presentation of a dish without overpowering its distinctive flavors!
"You are correct. Therein lies the greatest secret of my dish.
Given the sudden measurements to the original plan and my need to create an entirely different dish...
... the Croûte I had intended to use to wrap the chicken breast required two very specific additions.
Those two ingredients were...
FINELY MINCED SQUID LEGS...
... AND PEANUT BUTTER."
"NO WAY! SQUID LEGS AND PEANUT BUTTER?!"
"Yes! Squid legs and peanut butter! Appetizer and main dish! There is no greater tie that could bind our two dishes together!"
Peanut butter's mild richness adds subtle depth to the natural body of the chicken, making it an excellent secret seasoning. And the moderately salty bitterness of the squid legs is extremely effective in tying the Croûte's flavor together with the meaty juiciness of the chicken!
"Even an abominable mash-up that Yukihira has tinkered with for ages...
... can be transformed into elegant gourmet beauty when put in my capable hands.
The Jidori chicken breasts and the squid and peanut butter Croûte... those are the two pillars of my dish! To support them, I revised all the seasonings for the sauces and garnishes...
... so that after you tasted Soma Yukihira's dish...
... the deliciousness of my own dish would ring across your tongues as powerfully as possible!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 30 [Shokugeki no Souma 30] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #30))
“
The moment I put it in my mouth and bit down...
... an exquisite and entirely unexpected flavor exploded in my mouth!
It burst across my tongue, rushed up through my nose...
... and rose all the way up to my brain!"
"No! It can't be!"
"How is that possible?! Anyone with eyes can see there's nothing special to that dish! Its fragrance was entirely inferior to Asahi's dish from the get-go!"
"That there. That's what it is. I knew something wasn't right."
"Asahi?"
"Something felt off the instant the cloche was removed.
His dish is fried rice. It uses tons of butter, soy sauce and spices.
Yet it hardly had any aroma!"
"Good catch. The secret is in one of the five grand cuisine dishes I melded together...
A slightly atypical take on the French
Oeuf Mayonnaise.
."
"Ouef Mayonnaise, or eggs and mayonnaise, is an appetizer you can find in any French bistro. Hard-boiled eggs are sliced, coated with a house-blend mayo and garnished with vegetables.
Though, in your dish, I can tell you chose very soft-boiled eggs instead.
Hm. Very interesting, Soma Yukihira.
He took those soft-boiled eggs and some homemade mayo and blended them into a sauce...... which he then poured over his steamed rice and tossed until each and every grain was coated, its flavor sealed inside!
To cook them so that each individual grain is completely covered...
... takes incredibly fast and precise wok handling over extremely high heat! No average chef could manage that feat!"
"
Whaaa?!
Ah! It's so thin I didn't notice it at first glance, but there it is, a very slight glaze!
That makes each of these grains of rice a miniature, self-contained Omurice!
The moment you bite into them, that eggy coating is broken...
... releasing all the flavors and aromas of the dish onto your palate in one explosive rush!"
No wonder! That's what entranced the judges. That sudden, powerful explosion of flavor!
"Yep! Even when it's served, my dish still hides its fangs. Only when you bite into it does it bite back with all it's got.
I call it my Odorless Fried Rice.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 36 [Shokugeki no Souma 36] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #36))
“
A Mediterranean flatbread, the pita is baked at a high temperature so that puffy pockets form in the middle, which can then be stuffed with meat or beans.
He did the same thing that Secretary Girl did with her turtle burger bun...
... picking something that would keep the meat juices from dripping out the bottom!
Hmm. You used a handmade Tzatziki sauce to ameliorate the smelliness of the kebab meat and to create a mild base to make the spices stand out.
And the burger patty...
... is kofta!
A Middle Eastern meatloaf of ground beef and lamb mixed with onions and plentiful spices, its highly fragrant aroma hits the nose hard!
Its scent and umami flavor are powerful enough to bring tears to the eyes!"
W-what is going on here?! How could they eat all that greasy, heavy meat so quickly and easily?!
"Here. Let me give you a lesson.
Four things are required for a good burger. A bun, a patty, some kind of sauce and...
...pickles.
The sharp smell and tart flavor of pickles is what highlights the meaty umami of the patty.
Pickles are a hidden but key component of the best burgers!
From what I could tell, you used ginger sticks as your pickle analogue...
... but that was a weak choice."
"What?! Then what did you choose that's so much better?!"
"The pickle type that I picked for my burger...
...is achaar."
"Achaar?"
"What kind of pickle is that?"
ACHAAR
South Asian in origin, achaar consists of fruits or vegetables pickled in mustard oil or brine, and then mixed with a variety of spices.
Sometimes called Indian pickles, achaar is strongly tart and spicy.
This is achaar I made with onions.
The spicy scent of the mustard oil makes the meaty umami of the kofta patty really stands out. For the tartness, I used amchoor- also known as mango powder- a citrusy powder made from dried unripe mangoes. But that's just the base.
I added lemon juice to bolster the citrusy flavor of the amchoor...
... and then some garlic, ginger and chili peppers to give it an aroma that tickles the nose.
Cloves. Cumin seeds. Black pepper.
Paprika. I even added a dab of honey to give it a hint of sweetness.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 10 [Shokugeki no Souma 10] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #10))
“
This is a very difficult part of the journey, so we must stay together,” he told us as we moved quickly down the dirt road. We were heading deeper into the countryside. He explained that we would have to go around Jalalabad, and the shortest way was through a large marijuana field. It was well guarded on all sides by the farmers, and he had received special permission for us to walk through it. “I paid them to let us pass,” he said. But he said we must be quiet and stay together and concentrate, or the unpleasant smell of the tall plants would overcome us. I’d never smelled anything so rotten. The field was so vast and dense with plants that the concentrated aroma of the marijuana plants had turned into a putrid stench that burrowed into our noses and seeped down into our stomachs. It was like walking through a garbage dump where animal carcasses and waste food had been left to rot, producing one large overwhelming odor of death. We gagged every step. I wanted to throw up, but Masood prodded us to keep moving. We didn’t dare stop, worried that the stench would overwhelm us to the point we would be unable to continue. He carried a lantern and held it out in front of us and warned us to watch where we stepped. The field went on for miles. I figured this because we had to walk all night to get through it. “There are scorpions and spiders, but don’t worry, if you get bit, it won’t kill you. I know exactly what to do.” I knew scorpions well. I’d seen them when I walked to school or down by the Kabul River, where we went at times to picnic or to throw rocks in the river. They were a greenish brown, with spindly legs and a curling tail with a poisonous sting on the end. Masood tried to reassure us we’d be fine because they had poor eyesight. They were all over, and we often saw them scurrying out of the light of the lantern. The odor was so intense it overpowered us no matter how hard we tried not to think about it. The sour smell settled in our stomachs, and every so often one of us would stop and start retching. Masood turned and waited when one of us was throwing up, then he marched on and we followed.
”
”
Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller (The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan)
“
A rich, thick mix of chicken and beef bouillon! Ground beef and onions sautéed in butter until savory and tender, their umami-filled juices soaking into the rice!
The creamy risotto melding into one with the soft, mildly sweet egg! "Mmm! It's practically a knockout punch!"
"The clincher appears to be this sauce.
Oyster sauce accented with a touch of honey, its mildly tart flavor is thick and heavy. Together with the curry risotto, it creates two different layers of flavor!"
"I see! While Hayama's dish was a bomb going from no aroma to powerful aroma...
... this dish is instead an induced explosion! The differing fragrances from the inner risotto and the outer sauce come at you in waves, tempting you into that next bite!"
But that's not all. How did he make the flavor this deep? The strong aroma and hint of bitterness means he used cumin and cardamom. The sting on the tongue comes from cloves. I can smell fragments of several spices, but those are all just surface things. Where is this full-bodied depth that ties it all together coming from?!
Wait, it's...
... mango.
"Mango chutney."
"Chutney?! Is that all it took to give this dish such a deep flavor?!"
CHUTNEY
Also spelled "Chatney" or "Chatni," chutney is a South Asian condiment. Spices and herbs are mixed with mashed fruit or vegetables and then simmered into a paste. A wide variety of combinations are possible, resulting in chutneys that can be sweet, spicy or even minty.
"I used my family's homemade mango chutney recipe! I mixed a dollop of this in with the rice when I steamed it.
The mango acts as an axle, running through and connecting the disparate flavors of all the spices and giving a deeper, full-bodied flavor to the overall dish. In a way, it's practical, applied spice tech!"In India where it originated, chutneys are always served on the side as condiments. It's only in Japan that chutney is added directly into a curry."
"Huh!"
"Oh, wow."
"It's unconventional to say the least, from the standpoint of original Indian curry. However, by using the chutney..."
"... he massively improved the flavor and richness of the overall dish...
... without resorting to using an excess of oils or animal products!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 8 [Shokugeki no Souma 8] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #8))
“
6 Eight days before he died, after a spectacular orgy of food, François Mitterrand, the French president, ordered a final course of ortolan, a tiny yellow-throated songbird no bigger than his thumb. The delicacy represented to him the soul of France. Mitterrand’s staff supervised the capture of the wild birds in a village in the south. The local police were paid off, the hunting was arranged, and the birds were captured, at sunrise, in special finely threaded nets along the edge of the forest. The ortolans were crated and driven in a darkened van to Mitterrand’s country house in Latche where he had spent his childhood summers. The sous-chef emerged and carried the cages indoors. The birds were fed for two weeks until they were plump enough to burst, then held by their feet over a vat of pure Armagnac, dipped headfirst and drowned alive. The head chef then plucked them, salted them, peppered them, and cooked them for seven minutes in their own fat before placing them in a freshly heated white cassole. When the dish was served, the wood-paneled room—with Mitterrand’s family, his wife, his children, his mistress, his friends—fell silent. He sat up in his chair, pushed aside the blankets from his knees, took a sip from a bottle of vintage Château Haut-Marbuzet. —The only interesting thing is to live, said Mitterrand. He shrouded his head with a white napkin to inhale the aroma of the birds and, as tradition dictated, to hide the act from the eyes of God. He picked up the songbirds and ate them whole: the succulent flesh, the fat, the bitter entrails, the wings, the tendons, the liver, the kidney, the warm heart, the feet, the tiny headbones crunching in his teeth. It took him several minutes to finish, his face hidden all the time under the white serviette. His family could hear the sounds of the bones snapping. Mitterrand dabbed the napkin at his mouth, pushed aside the earthenware cassole, lifted his head, smiled, bid good night and rose to go to bed. He fasted for the next eight and a half days until he died. 7 In Israel, the birds are tracked by sophisticated radar set up along the migratory routes all over the country—Eilat, Jerusalem, Latrun—with links to military installations and to the air traffic control offices at Ben Gurion airport.
”
”
Colum McCann (Apeirogon)
“
The tofu pocket is soaked with butter, every bite of it drenching the lips...
... sending rich waves gushing through the mouth. Just one taste is enough to seep both tongue and mind in a thick flood of butter!
"The tofu pocket is so juicy it's nearly dripping, yet it hasn't drowned the filling at all. The rice is delectably fluffy and delicate, done in true pilaf style, with the grains separate, tender and not remotely sticky. Simmered in fragrant chicken broth, the prawns give it a delightful crunch, while ample salt and pepper boost both its flavor and aroma!"
"The whole dish is strongly flavored, but it isn't the least bit heavy or sticky. The deliciousness of every ingredient, wrapped in a cloak of rich butter, wells up with each bite like a gushing, savory spring! How on earth did you manage to create this powerful a flavor?!"
"Well, first I sautéed the rice for the pilaf without washing it- one of the major rules of pilafs! If you wash all the starch off the rice, the grains get crumbly and the whole thing can wind up tasting tacky instead of tender. Then I thoroughly rinsed the tofu pockets with hot water to wash off the extra oil so they'd soak up the seasonings better.
But the biggest secret to the whole thing...
... was my specially made Mochi White Sauce!
Normal white sauce is made with lots of milk, butter and flour, making it really thick and heavy. But I made mine using only soy milk and mochi, so it's still rich and creamy without the slightest hint of greasiness. In addition, I sprinkled a blend of several cheeses on top of everything when I put it in the oven to toast. They added some nice hints of mellow saltiness to the dish without making it too heavy!
Basically, I shoved all the tasty things I could think of into my dish...
... pushing the rich, savory flavor as hard as I could until it was just shy of too much... and this is the result!"
Some ingredients meld with the butter's richness into mellow deliciousness...
... while others, sautéed in butter, have become beautifully savory and aromatic. Into each of these little inari sushi pockets has gone an immense amount of work across uncountable steps and stages.
Undaunted by Mr. Saito's brilliant dish, gleaming with the fierce goodness of seafood...
each individual ingredient is loudly and proudly declaring its own unique deliciousness!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 28 [Shokugeki no Souma 28] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #28))
“
There is no fault that can’t be corrected [in natural wine] with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pigskins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood nuggets toasted for flavor), “tank planks” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (““Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality. . . . You’re dressing it up,” a sales rep explained.)
Wine too thin? Build fullness in the mouth with gum arabic (an ingredient also found in frosting and watercolor paint). Too frothy? Add a few drops of antifoaming agent (food-grade silicone oil). Cut acidity with potassium carbonate (a white salt) or calcium carbonate (chalk). Crank it up again with a bag of tartaric acid (aka cream of tartar). Increase alcohol by mixing the pressed grape must with sugary grape concentrate, or just add sugar. Decrease alcohol with ConeTech’s spinning cone, or Vinovation’s reverse-osmosis machine, or water. Fake an aged Bordeaux with Lesaffre’s yeast and yeast derivative. Boost “fresh butter” and “honey” aromas by ordering the CY3079 designer yeast from a catalog, or go for “cherry-cola” with the Rhône 2226. Or just ask the “Yeast Whisperer,” a man with thick sideburns at the Lallemand stand, for the best yeast to meet your “stylistic goals.” (For a Sauvignon Blanc with citrus aromas, use the Uvaferm SVG. For pear and melon, do Lalvin Ba11. For passion fruit, add Vitilevure Elixir.) Kill off microbes with Velcorin (just be careful, because it’s toxic). And preserve the whole thing with sulfur dioxide.
When it’s all over, if you still don’t like the wine, just add a few drops of Mega Purple—thick grape-juice concentrate that’s been called a “magical potion.” It can plump up a wine, make it sweeter on the finish, add richer color, cover up greenness, mask the horsey stink of Brett, and make fruit flavors pop. No one will admit to using it, but it ends up in an estimated 25 million bottles of red each year. “Virtually everyone is using it,” the president of a Monterey County winery confided to Wines and Vines magazine. “In just about every wine up to $20 a bottle anyway, but maybe not as much over that.
”
”
Bianca Bosker (Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste)
“
The village square teemed with life, swirling with vibrant colors and boisterous chatter. The entire village had gathered, celebrating the return of their ancestral spirit. Laughter and music filled the air, carrying with it an energy that made Kitsune smile. Paper lanterns of all colors floated lazily above, their delicate glow reflecting on the smiling faces below. Cherry blossoms caught in the playful breeze, their sweet, earthy scent settling over the scene. At the center, villagers danced with unbridled joy, the rhythm of the taiko drums and the melody of flutes guiding their steps. To the side, a large table groaned under the weight of a feast. Sticky rice balls, steamed dumplings, seaweed soup, sushi, and more filled the air with a mouthwatering aroma. As she approached the table, she was greeted warmly by the villagers, who offered her food, their smiles genuine and welcoming. She filled a plate and sat at a table with Goro and Sota, overlooking the celebration. The event brought back a flood of memories of a similar celebration from her childhood—a time when everything was much simpler and she could easily answer the question who are you? The memory filled her heart with a sweet sadness, a reminder of what she lost and what had carved the road to where she was now. Her gaze fell on the dancing villagers, but she wasn’t watching them. Not really. Her attention was fully embedded in her heart ache, longing for the past, for the life that was so cruelly ripped away from her. “I think... I think I might know how to answer your question,” she finally said, her voice soft and steady, barely audible over the cacophony of festivity around them. “Oh?” Goro responded, his face alight with intrigue. “I would have to tell you my story.” Kitsune’s eyes reflected the somber clouds of her past. Goro swallowed his bite of food before nodding. “Let us retire to the dojo, and you can tell me.” They retreated from the bustling square, leaving behind the chaos of the celebration. The sounds of laughter and chatter and drums carried away by distance. The dojo, with its bamboo and sturdy jungle planks, was bathed in the soft luminescence of the moonlight, the surface of its wooden architecture glistening faintly under the glow. They stepped into the silent tranquility of the building, and Kitsune made her way to the center, the smooth, cool touch of the polished wooden floor beneath her providing a sense of peace. Assuming the lotus position, she calmed herself, ready to speak of memories she hadn’t confronted in a long time. Not in any meaningful way at least. Across from her, Goro settled, his gaze intense yet patient, encouraging her with a gentle smile like he somehow already understood her story was hard to verbalize.
”
”
Pixel Ate (Kitsune the Minecraft Ninja: A middle-grade adventure story set in a world of ninjas, magic, and martial arts)
“
We also ate well in the kitchen, and I found that I had inherited my father's palate and appreciation of good food. Our cuisine at home always been rather basic, even in the days when we had a cook, and I became fascinated with the process of creating such wonderful flavors. "Show me how you made that parsley sauce, those meringues, that oyster stew," I'd say to Mrs Robbins, the cook. And if she had a minute to spare, she would show me. After a while, seeing my willingness as well as my obvious aptitude for cooking, she suggested to Mrs Tilley that her old legs were not up to standing for hours any more and that she needed an assistant cook. And she requested me. Mrs Tilley agreed, but only if she didn't have to pay me more money and I should still be available to do my party piece whenever she entertained.
And so I went to work in the kitchen. Mrs Robbins found me a willing pupil. After lugging coal scuttles up all those stairs, it felt like heaven to be standing at a table preparing food. We had a scullery maid who did all the most menial of jobs, like chopping the onions and peeling the potatoes, but I had to do the most basic of tasks- mashing the potatoes with lots of butter and cream until there wasn't a single lump, basting the roast so that the fat was evenly crisp. I didn't mind. I loved being amongst the rich aromas. I loved the look of a well-baked pie. The satisfaction when Mrs Robbins nodded with approval at something I had prepared. And of course I loved the taste of what I had created.
Now when I went home to Daddy and Louisa, I could say, "I roasted that pheasant. I made that apple tart." And it gave me a great rush of satisfaction to say the words.
"You've a good feel of it, I'll say that for you," Mrs Robbins told me, and after a while she even sought my opinion. "Does this casserole need a touch more salt, do you think? Or maybe some thyme?"
The part I loved the best was the baking. She showed me how to make pastry, meringues that were light as air, all sorts of delicate biscuits and rich cakes.
”
”
Rhys Bowen (Above the Bay of Angels)
“
Storytelling tastes best in the kitchen, told deep inside the aroma of cooking, told with stomachs growling and mouths salivating. In the kitchen, partnerships formed, bargains began, forgiveness came with the sharing of food.
”
”
Brenda Sutton Rose
“
One day a man was praying to God and sincerely asked, “God, what’s the difference between Heaven and Hell?” That night, God came to the worshipper in his dream and said, “Come with Me, I am going to show you why Heaven is different from Hell.” God first took the man to Hell, showing him a table with an incredible feast with aromas so pleasing to the scent that the man couldn’t help but salivate at the sight of it. The man saw that the people around the table had spoons attached to their hands that had handles longer than their arms. The people were both thin and angry, because the spoon handle was too long for anyone to be able to feed themselves. The man watching turned to God and said, “Hell must be the place where we witness the bounties of Your glory, but we are unable to take part in it.” God said, “Now let me take you to Heaven.” When God opened the second door, the man was shocked to see the exact same table, the exact same feast of food, the same delicious aromas, and the same long spoons. The confused man looked at God and said, “How can Heaven and Hell be the same?” God said, “Keep watching.” The man returned his gaze to the table and noticed that the people of Heaven looked full, healthy, and happy. He watched as each person in Heaven filled their spoon with all the things they longed to eat and fed the ones next to them. One after another, spoon after spoon, the people of Heaven gave away what they loved to one another. God said to the man, “Heaven and Hell are realties made based on the consciousness of the ones who live in them. Those who reflect my qualities of generosity, love, kindness, and compassion make every place into Heaven. And for the ones who are arrogant, self-centered, angry, and prideful, they will transform even Heaven into Hell.
”
”
A. Helwa (Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam (Studying Qur'an & Hadith Book 2))
“
Embrace Efficiency, Elevate Flavor: Smart Kitchen Tools for Culinary Adventurers
The kitchen, once a realm of necessity, has morphed into a playground of possibility. Gone are the days of clunky appliances and tedious prep work. Enter the age of the smart kitchen tool, a revolution that whispers efficiency and shouts culinary liberation. For the modern gastronome, these tech-infused gadgets are not mere conveniences, but allies in crafting delectable adventures, freeing us to savor the journey as much as the destination.
Imagine mornings when your smart coffee maker greets you with the perfect brew, prepped by the whispers of your phone while you dream. Your fridge, stocked like a digital oracle, suggests recipes based on its ever-evolving inventory, and even automatically orders groceries you've run low on. The multi-cooker, your multitasking superhero, whips up a gourmet chili while you conquer emails, and by dinnertime, your smart oven roasts a succulent chicken to golden perfection, its progress monitored remotely as you sip a glass of wine.
But efficiency is merely the prologue. Smart kitchen tools unlock a pandora's box of culinary precision. Smart scales, meticulous to the milligram, banish recipe guesswork and ensure perfect balance in every dish. Food processors and blenders, armed with pre-programmed settings and self-cleaning prowess, transform tedious chopping into a mere blip on the culinary radar. And for the aspiring chef, a sous vide machine becomes a magic wand, coaxing impossible tenderness from the toughest cuts of meat.
Yet, technology alone is not the recipe for culinary bliss. For those who yearn to paint with flavors, smart kitchen tools are the brushes on their canvas. A connected recipe platform becomes your digital sous chef, guiding you through each step with expert instructions and voice-activated ease. Spice racks, infused with artificial intelligence, suggest unexpected pairings, urging you to venture beyond the familiar. And for the ultimate expression of your inner master chef, a custom knife, forged from heirloom steel and lovingly honed, becomes an extension of your hand, slicing through ingredients with laser focus and lyrical grace.
But amidst the symphony of gadgets and apps, let us not forget the heart of the kitchen: the human touch. Smart tools are not meant to replace our intuition but to augment it. They free us from the drudgery, allowing us to focus on the artistry, the love, the joy of creation. Imagine kneading dough, the rhythm of your hands mirroring the gentle whirring of a smart bread machine, then shaping a loaf that holds the warmth of both technology and your own spirit. Or picture yourself plating a dish, using smart portion scales for precision but garnishing with edible flowers chosen simply because they spark joy. This, my friends, is the symphony of the smart kitchen: a harmonious blend of tech and humanity, where efficiency becomes the brushstroke that illuminates the vibrant canvas of culinary passion.
Of course, every adventure, even one fueled by smart tools, has its caveats. Interoperability between gadgets can be a tangled web, and data privacy concerns linger like unwanted guests. But these challenges are mere bumps on the culinary road, hurdles to be overcome by informed choices and responsible data management. After all, we wouldn't embark on a mountain trek without checking the weather, would we?
So, embrace the smart kitchen, dear foodies! Let technology be your sous chef, your precision tool, your culinary muse. But never forget the magic of your own hands, the wisdom of your palate, and the joy of a meal shared with loved ones. For in the end, it's not about the gadgets, but the memories we create around them, the stories whispered over simmering pots, and the laughter echoing through a kitchen filled with the aroma of possibility.
”
”
Daniel Thomas
“
The dusky-pink pollock roe she removed from its polystyrene packaging gleamed wetly and, for an instant, the image of Kaiji's puckered lips passed through her mind. Leaving its outer skin on, she broke up the roe with a fork and mixed it unfussily into the spaghetti. She sliced off a knob of the Calpis with a knife and perched it on top, then watched as the pale-yellow solid gently began to change color, spreading out to the sides and turning golden, mingling with the fish eggs. The full, milky aroma of the butter married with the salty marine tang of the roe as the scent of the dish went rising up to her face, and she breathed it deeply into her lungs. She garnished the pasta with a scattering of shiso leaves she'd torn up with her fingers, then moved the bowl of pasta over to her cardboard box. There was a rosy-cheeked frankness about the pink of the roe, and in combination with the oozing butter, it looked positively carefree. Rika tool up her fork and wound up the spaghetti, before lifting it to her mouth.
Cloaked in a coating of minuscule fish eggs and butter, the spaghetti strands sprang around Rika's tongue as if in excitement. The dish was adequately salted, but there was a relaxed, mellow quality to its taste. What a wonderful combination pollock roe and butter made!
”
”
Asako Yuzuki (Butter)
“
I eyed the spread, wondering where I should start. Skewers of pork barbecue, the slightest hint of char releasing a delicious, smoky aroma, beckoned me, as did the platter of grilled adobo chicken wings next to it. As I loaded up my plate with meat, my aunt reached over to put a tofu-and-mushroom skewer on my mountain of rice.
"Can you tell me what you think of this, anak? I'm testing the recipes for our Founder's Day booth and this will be our main vegetarian offering. I used a similar marinade as our barbecue, but it's not quite right."
Looking at the array of food on the table, I noticed it was all pica-pica, or finger food. Things that could easily be prepared at the booth and eaten while wandering the festival. The barbecue skewers were obviously the mains, but she also had fish balls (so much better than it sounded) and my favorite, kwek-kwek. The hard-boiled quail eggs were skewered, dipped in a bright orange batter colored with annatto seeds, and deep-fried. So simple and delicious, especially if you dipped it in my aunt's sweet and spicy vinegar sauces.
”
”
Mia P. Manansala (Homicide and Halo-Halo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #2))
“
The constant background noise of car horns, barking dogs, music pulsating out of apartment windows—they had all blended together in a symphony of chaos that was the trademark of city life. Then there was the unique smell of the city. The air was permeated with a persistent odor of unwashed bodies and greasy food mixed with pungent drifts of vehicle exhaust and sewage. One couldn’t discount the more pleasant aromas that also drifted over the city of fresh-brewed coffee from a cafe or the sweet smell of relish from the corner hot dog stands. But
”
”
Regina Felty (While You Walked By)
“
It could be any date night. Perhaps Tom takes her to Ray's in Ballard. They share a bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle Dry Riesling, even though Tom is more of a negroni man. The wine goes well with her market halibut and the view of the bay. He has the filet mignon, and judging by the bite he offers her, it's exquisite.
Or perhaps it's that Mexican place somewhere in Ravenna, operated out of an old house. The wall paint is chipping, but the air is sweet with the aroma of freshly cut tomatillos. They have margaritas and share chicken mole, with extra chips and fresh guacamole on the side.
No matter where they go, it has been a long day, a bad day for Elle. She probably dropped a pie, or an angry customer yelled at Bonnie, or old milk ruined a batch of cake batter. She probably almost said no to Tom's spontaneous idea for a dinner date. As usual, though, she's glad she didn't. The crème brûlée or fried ice cream is reason enough-- let alone the way he makes the negativity melts away.
”
”
Jennifer Gold (The Ingredients of Us)
“
No man can enjoy Africa food with talking about the aroma
”
”
Shepherd Selberacad
“
No man can enjoy Africa food without talking about the aroma
”
”
Shepherd Selberacad
“
Set out on a culinary excursion like no other at Spice Mantra, the encapsulation of Indian gastronomy in Hampton. Immerse yourself in an exquisite mix of flavors, aromas, and textures meticulously created flawlessly. With a guarantee to greatness and a passion for true cuisine, Spice Mantra stands as the premier destination for discerning food enthusiasts seeking the finest Indian dining experience in Hampton.
”
”
Spice Mantra
“
This was supposed to be the year that I returned,
to the breathtaking views of the Rockies,
to the aroma of fresh-ground coffee,
to the fragrances of freshly brewed tea,
to the four-block stretch blending these anomalies.
It was indeed supposed to be my year to see thee.
I have longed to return to this unprecedented community,
I have longed to take in your historic sites,
I have longed to intermingle with others,
it has been too long since I have walked on thee.
This was supposed to be my year, to see
my family, my friends, and my colleagues.
It was supposed to be my year to experience
your architectural vibe, design, and prominence.
I look forward to your return to normalcy,
even the tireless positioning of your parking lots.
I look forward to what you have to showcase,
the musical performances, the arts, the food,
the hustle and bustle that travel upon thee.
I look forward to being with thee. I miss
your character, your charm, your insistence
that I travel upon thee.
”
”
Asa Don Brown
“
She took a sip of wine and held it in her mouth, straining to identify the flavors. Cherry, she thought. Licorice. Thorns. She imagined a forest in late autumn, damp leaves on the ground, a blaze of color. She took another sip.
The man--- he must be Robert--- set a dish in front of her and she looked down, dismayed. What could it be? She'd never seen anything like it. It glistened up at her, a red-black sausage bursting from a shiny case. She inhaled the aroma: It was exotic, mysterious, almost intoxicating.
"Taste it," he urged.
It was pillow-soft, very rich, laced with spices. She identified the prickle of black pepper, the sweetness of onions. Parsley, she thought, nutmeg, and... was that chocolate? Bite by bite she chased the flavors, but they kept skipping away.
"Did you like it?" Robert was back.
She gestured at the empty plate. "It was wonderful. What kind of meat was in it?"
"Not meat, exactly." He watched her face as he said, "That was blood sausage.
”
”
Ruth Reichl (The Paris Novel)
“
The traditional pīrāgi, small rolls baked with a stuffing of bacon, filled the house with a heavenly aroma; there were the jellied meats or galerts, the pork roast and the vegetable-beet-herring salad called rasols.
”
”
Maruta Lietins Ray (Refugee Girl: A Memoir)
“
The Art of Cooking.
I think creating a dish is an art of seduction. You imagine a taste and you play with your taste buds as if you are touching a part of him that speaks of desire. Revelling in the strength of a taste or savouring the caress of an aroma. Your tongue bearing the experience while your eyes can only feast on envy.
”
”
Mystqx Skye (Bared - Beneath a Myriad of Skies)
“
No Food Aromas Allowed" club is - like trying to bottle up a rainbow!
”
”
Dipti Dhakul
“
He detected a faint hint of tonkatsu in the broth, but the base was definitely chicken rather than pig bones. The broth wasn't quite transparent, but it was a great deal clearer than the turbid liquid that usually accompanied ramen these days. It seemed quite possible there was some kind of fish stock in there too. A garlicky, gingery aroma rose from the bowl.
The noodles were the thin, straight type, and cooked slightly on the firm side. On top of them lay two slices of roast pork and another two of kamaboko fish cake. These were accompanied by bean sprouts, pickled bamboo shoots, and negi onion.
”
”
Jesse Kirkwood (The Restaurant of Lost Recipes (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #2))
“
The objectives of food production are to destroy harmful bacteria (food safety); increase digestibility; change and enhance flavor, form, texture, aroma, and color; and protect the nutritive value of the food, following all policies and procedures to maintain quality.
”
”
Ruby Parker Puckett (Foodservice Manual for Health Care Institutions (J-B AHA Press Book 150))
“
Sniff, swill, sip 329 words Leading whisky expert Charles MacLean on the underrated art of downing a good Scotch. USE ALL YOUR SENSES We all love a splash of golden liquor now and then, but the fine art of appreciating whisky requires a heightening of the senses. 'Nosing' whisky, a technique employed by blenders, is called sensory evaluation or analeptic assessment. Prior to sipping, examine its colour and 'tears', which are the reams left behind on the glass after you swirl it. Even our sense of hearing can help us judge the whisky; a full bottle should open with a happy little pluck of the cap. APPRECIATE A GOOD MALT Appreciation and enjoyment are two dimensions of downing a stiff one. Identify how you like your whisky (with ice, soda or water) and stick with it. Getting sloshed on blended whisky is all very good, but you will need single malt and an understanding of three simple things to truly cherish your drink. A squat glass with a bulb at the bottom releases the full burst of its aroma when swilled. A narrow rim is an added advantage. Instead of topping the drink with ice, which dilutes the aroma, go for water. NIBBLE, DON'T GOBBLE Small bites pair best with your whisky. It excites the palate minimally, letting you detect the characteristics of the whisky through contrast. If you're not a big fan of food and whisky pairing, skip it. OLD IS GOLD While old whiskies are not necessarily better, it's a known fact that most of the finer whiskies are well-aged. I would consider whiskies that are anywhere between 18 and 50 years as old, but it also depends on the age of the cask. If the cask is reactive, it will dominate the flavours of the whisky within ten years of the ageing process. If you leave the spirit in the cask for much longer, the flavour of the whisky will be overpowered by the wood, lending it a distinct edge. Maclean was in Delhi to conduct the Singleton Sensorial experience.
”
”
Anonymous
“
And like a grieving spouse who sleeps in the shirt of a lost loved one, I thought that by cooking – handling ingredients again, breathing in their aroma as they bubbled – I could somehow be reunited with my mother again.
”
”
Sasha Martin (Life from Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness)
“
Interpreting animals’ eating behaviors is tricky. By way of example, one of the highest compliments a dog can pay its food is to vomit. When a “gulper,” to use Pat Moeller’s terminology, is excited by the aroma of a food, it will wolf down too much too fast. The stomach overfills, and the meal is reflexively sent back up to avoid any chance of a rupture. “No consumer likes that, but it’s the best indication that the dog just loved it.” Fortunately for the staff at the AFB Palatability Assessment Resource Center, there are other ways to gauge a pet food’s popularity.
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
In each portside town, enticing aromas waft from every harborside taverna, mountaintop inn, and home. Not only do the Greeks appreciate good food, it is central to their culture. Produce markets spill over with fragrant local provender: grapes, cucumbers, lemons, and tomatoes, as well as sardines, shellfish, and lamb. Lunch--usually the largest meal of the day--begins after 2 P.M., and is followed by an ample siesta. The long work day resumes, and dinner begins after 9 P.M. It may last well into the night among friends: a glass of ouzo--accompanied by singing, guitar playing, and dancing--often ends the evening meal, postponing bedtime until the wee hours. Laughter and conversation flavor the food at every meal.
The Mediterranean climate is conductive to year-round outdoor eating. In each home, a table on the patio or terrace takes pride of place. Many home cooks build outdoor ovens and prepare succulent roasted meats and flavorful, herb-scented potatoes that soak up the juice of the meat and the spritz of a lemon. Tavernas, shaded by grape arbors, are synonymous with Greece and its outdoor culinary culture. One of the greatest pleasures of the Greek Isles is enjoying a relaxing meal while breathing the fresh sea air and gazing out on spectacular vistas and blue waters.
”
”
Laura Brooks (Greek Isles (Timeless Places))
“
Red lentil soup, although quite seductive in scent, is as simple to make as its name suggests. Marjan preferred to boil her lentils before frying the chopped onions, garlic, and spices with some good, strong olive oil. Covering the ready broth, lentils, and onions, she would then allow the luscious soup to simmer for half an hour or so, as the spices embedded themselves into the compliant onion skins.
In the recipe book filed away in her head, Marjan always made sure to place a particular emphasis on the soup's spices. Cumin added the aroma of afternoon lovemaking to the mixture, but it was another spice that had the greatest tantric effect on the innocent soup drinker: 'siah daneh'- love in the midst- or nigella seed. This modest little pod, when crushed open by mortar and pestle, or when steamed in dishes such as this lentil soup, excites a spicy energy that hibernates in the human spleen. Unleashed, it burns forever with the unbound desire of an unrequited lover. So powerful is nigella in its heat that the spice should not be taken by pregnant women, for fear of early labor.
Indigenous to the Middle and Near Easts of the girls' past lives, nigella is rarely used in Western recipes, its ability to soothe heartburn and abolish fatigue quite overlooked.
”
”
Marsha Mehran (Pomegranate Soup (Babylon Café, #1))
“
In short, the emerging community must endeavour to be a question rather than an answer and an aroma rather than food. It must seek to offer an approach that enables the people of God to become the parable, aroma and salt of God in the world, helping to form a space where God can give of God. For too long the Church has been seen as an oasis in the desert – offering water to those who are thirsty. In contrast, the emerging community appears more as a desert in the oasis of life, offering silence, space and desolation amidst the sickly nourishment of Western capitalism. It is in this desert, as we wander together as nomads, that God is to be found. For it is here that we are nourished by our hunger.
”
”
Peter Rollins (How (Not) to Speak of God: Marks of the Emerging Church)
“
With my wet hair wrapped in a towel, I retrieved the tray of food, placed it on the coffee table, and breathed in the aromas of dark espresso and apple butter. Piled onto the tray was a basket of warm croissants, prosciutto sliced so thin it looked like pink tissue paper, slices of honeydew melon, and little white tubs with butter and jam and soft cheese.
As I cut open a croissant, its breath warmed my face, and I slathered it with the butter and then the strawberry jam. While in France, I would not count a single calorie. It was Austin himself who had told me to enjoy the food. Immerse myself in the past.
”
”
Melanie Dobson (Chateau of Secrets)
“
He produced a wide silver tray with wrought handles that was piled with sliced bread, grapes, apricots, oranges, apples, cheeses, and a goblet of red wine, and put it on the bed.
"Wine?" I asked. I wanted a cup of tea.
"Your blood needs its elements. Drink at least some of it." He sat on the bed next to me. "You must eat now. You will need your strength."
At that moment, the pungent aroma of the cheeses, the sharp citrus of sliced oranges, and the yeasty smell of the bread overrode both my fear and my curiosity. I wanted to dive into the food like a hungry dockworker. With great discipline, I picked up a silver knife and spread soft butter across a slice of the warm bread and then daintily cut a piece of dark cheddar cheese. The food tasted exquisite, and I tried to chew slowly, as he was taking in my every move. We sat in silence for a while as I ate my fill and let the wine relax me.
”
”
Karen Essex (Dracula in Love)
“
Waiters began to appear with tureens of soup, platters of fish and meat, and bowls of vegetables. Another with a huge gold tasting spoon hanging like a necklace at his chest showed the Count a bottle of wine, which he approved, and when opened, sniffed the cork, and then nodded so that a glass could be poured for me. He ordered the waiters to put everything on the table and retreat to the rear of the room. "I will serve her," he said. "Tell me what you would like, Mina."
I opened my mouth to speak, but he put a finger to my lips. "Not that way. Tell me with your thoughts."
Without looking at the food, I directed my attention by scent to the tureen of turtle soup, whose aroma I recognized from my first dinner at the asylum. "Yes, good," the Count said, ladling out a small bowlful for me. "What else?"
I relished the aromas of the white fish with wine and capers, the lamb with mint sauce, and the carrots, but rejected the turnips, which I had eaten for so many years at Miss Hadley's that I had come to abhor them. My repulsion made him laugh, and he signaled for a waiter to take the bowl away.
”
”
Karen Essex (Dracula in Love)
“
Now, whenever she had to leave him, be it for only a few minutes, Caro was seized by an annoying bout of dizziness. Mark would have liked to come along, but, a long time ago, Caro had set the rules in place and she was not about to change them on the spur of the moment. The rules had proved safe and efficient. As long as they were followed to the letter, the chances of success were not diminished while the chances of discovery were minimized. She found the key and locked the service door from inside. She stopped briefly on the stair landing, to give herself a few seconds to think of her next step. The aroma of spiced food wafted from the restaurant's kitchen, mingled with the sour fragrance of demi-sec wine spilled from a broken bottle. Slowly, her mind and body adjusted to the environment. She was ready now. The staircase was unlit. Caro did not switch on
”
”
Mircea Luca (A Dance with Murder (Kindle Books Mystery and Suspense Crime Thrillers Series Book 2))
“
Now, whenever she had to leave him, be it for only a few minutes, Caro was seized by an annoying bout of dizziness. Mark would have liked to come along, but, a long time ago, Caro had set the rules in place and she was not about to change them on the spur of the moment. The rules had proved safe and efficient. As long as they were followed to the letter, the chances of success were not diminished while the chances of discovery were minimized. She found the key and locked the service door from inside. She stopped briefly on the stair landing, to give herself a few seconds to think of her next step. The aroma of spiced food wafted from the restaurant's kitchen, mingled with the sour fragrance of demi-sec wine spilled from a broken bottle. Slowly, her mind and body adjusted to the environment. She was ready now. The staircase was unlit. Caro did not switch on the light, but inched up slowly through the dark, careful not to touch any surface, especially the walls or the handrail. She was feeling her way up slowly.
”
”
Mircea Luca (A Dance with Murder (Kindle Books Mystery and Suspense Crime Thrillers Series Book 2))
“
Shopping Dana Gioia I enter the temple of my people but do not pray. I pass the altars of the gods but do not kneel Or offer sacrifices proper to the season. Strolling the hushed aisles of the department store, I see visions shining under glass, Divinities of leather, gold, and porcelain, Shrines of cut crystal, stainless steel, and silicon. But I wander the arcades of abundance, Empty of desire, no credit to my people, Envying the acolytes their passionate faith. Blessed are the acquisitive, For theirs is the kingdom of commerce. Redeem me, gods of the mall and marketplace. Mercury, protector of cell phones and fax machines, Venus, patroness of bath and bedroom chains, Tantalus, guardian of the food court. Beguile me with the aromas of coffee, musk, and cinnamon. Surround me with delicately colored soaps and moisturizing creams. Comfort me with posters of children with perfect smiles And pouting teenage models clad in lingerie. I am not made of stone. Show me satins, linen, crepe de chine, and silk, Heaped like cumuli in the morning sky, As if all caravans and argosies ended in this parking lot To fill these stockrooms and loading docks. Sing me the hymns of no cash down and the installment plan, Of custom fit, remote control, and priced to move. Whisper the blessing of Egyptian cotton, polyester, and cashmere. Tell me in what department my desire shall be found. Because I would buy happiness if I could find it, Spend all that I possessed or could borrow. But what can I bring you from these sad emporia? Where in this splendid clutter
Shall I discover the one true thing? Nothing to carry, I should stroll easily Among the crowded countertops and eager cashiers, Bypassing the sullen lines and footsore customers, Spending only my time, discounting all I see. Instead I look for you among the pressing crowds, But they know nothing of you, turning away, Carrying their brightly packaged burdens. There is no angel among the vending stalls and signage. Where are you, my fugitive? Without you There is nothing but the getting and the spending Of things that have a price. Why else have I stalked the leased arcades Searching the kiosks and the cash machines? Where are you, my errant soul and innermost companion? Are you outside amid the potted palm trees, Bumming a cigarette or joking with the guards, Or are you wandering the parking lot Lost among the rows of Subarus and Audis? Or is it you I catch a sudden glimpse of Smiling behind the greasy window of the bus As it disappears into the evening rush?
”
”
Vaddhaka Linn (The Buddha on Wall Street: What's Wrong with Capitalism and What We Can Do about It)
“
Edible flowers have many culinary uses. Sought after for their flavors, aromas, textures and colours, edible flowers are used fresh, frozen, dried, crystallized or as a foam - in molecular gastronomy - and appear in meat and fish dishes, pastas, salads, soups and desserts. Some common forms of edible flowers are found in garnishes, candied sweets, confits and jellies, pickled flowers or flower vinegars; flavourings such as essences and spice blends; food dyes and colourings; teas, infusions and tisanes; flavoured waters and syrups; and liquors, cordials, bitters, wine, beer and mead.
”
”
Constance Kirker (Edible Flowers: A Global History)
“
Gia turned on the burner and reached for a saucepan. She lightly crushed two cloves of garlic with the side of a knife, then minced and sautéed them in olive oil and a knob of butter. She whisked in a little flour, toasting it in the oil, added a pinch of salt, then raised the heat and whisked it in a cup of homemade chicken broth from the fridge until the soup began to thicken. She beat two eggs together in a bowl with some grated Parmesan and added them gently to the soup, where they poached into gold and white strands of savory-soft egg and cheese.
Gia selected a big earthenware bowl, ladled in her soup, ground in some fresh black pepper, and placed it in front of Angelina with a napkin and a spoon.
"Stracciatella. For you."
Angelina leaned over the bowl with her eyes closed and let the delicious wisps of steam rise up to her face. She picked up the spoon and sulkily nicked off a piece of egg. Gia returned to her cup of coffee, with an experienced parent's complete indifference as to whether the meal she'd prepared was eaten or not.
Angelina stole a glance from her and dipped into the bowl, seduced by the aroma of toast laced with sweet and savory garlic, mingled with the soothing sustenance of good chicken broth. She sipped and felt warm comfort spread into her belly, across the bridge of her nose and the back of her neck.
”
”
Brian O'Reilly (Angelina's Bachelors)
“
Once the apartment was ready, Portia had begun to plan out what foods they would showcase in this little glimpse into a Glass Kitchen world. Her sisters couldn't help her with this part. Portia had let go, and dishes had come to her, all of which she wrote down and prepared to make. Then, at eight that morning, she got to work. Olivia and Cordelia served as sous-chefs; they started by making a decadent beef bourguignon. Olivia and Cordelia washed and chopped as Portia browned layer after layer of beef, bacon, carrots, and onion, folding in the beef stock and wine, then putting it in to slow bake as they dove into the remaining dishes. They opened all the windows and ran four swiveling fans Portia had bought and found that pushed the scent of the baking and cooking out onto the sidewalk. Then they had put up a fairly discreet sign in the window, hand-painted by Olivia: THE GLASS KITCHEN.
Portia had gotten the idea while walking down Broadway and passing the French soap store. Scents had spilled into the street from the shop- lavender and primrose, musk and sandalwood- luring passersby inside. Portia had realized that the best way to get investors interested was to show them a version of The Glass Kitchen. The food. The aromas. She had realized, standing there on Broadway, that she needed to create a mini version of her grandmother's restaurant to lure people in.
”
”
Linda Francis Lee (The Glass Kitchen)
“
There was something about the scent of apple, she thought, that was truly unique to just that fruit-- it really did touch on so many childhood memories. Probably because it was among the first baby foods so many ate.
"This is going to be so very popular," she said thoughtfully. "I might tone down some of the earth notes, maybe bring up some of the brightness."
Dylan observed as she made some exacting adjustments to the dials while simultaneously watching their correlating meters.
Grace took a few quick sniffs, smiled, and then held the nose cup to his face again. He put his hand on hers and drew the cup even closer.
"I think this balance would make a lovely cider or a blend to an organic cinnamon and apple oatmeal," she said.
"Yes," said Dylan, nodding. "Hot from the pan on a cold autumn morning. I can absolutely smell that."
"Let's bring up a spice note, warm up the composition a bit." Watching his face, her left hand still with his, her right hand reaching out to the dials, Grace adjusted the machine, and she could see from his face when she was hitting just the right notes.
Dylan started laughing.
"What?" she asked happily.
"I smell my mother's apple pie." He pressed his warm hand to hers on the cup as he inhaled. "That's amazing!" Then he grabbed her hand and moved the cup toward her. "Here, you have to try this."
Their hands still together, she inhaled. "Oh, this 'is' amazing. Yum." Grace reached for a dial and adjusted it. "I think I can bring up a butter note in here." A blissful expression came over her face as she sniffed the computer's new modulation. "Try this," she said, moving the cup toward Dylan.
Eagerly, he leaned in to her, his head nearly against hers, their hair touching as she held the nose cup out for him. He took in a whiff. "How about just a little more butter?"
She adjusted a dial and leaned even closer, so that they were both taking in the scent from the one nose cup.
Grace turned to him and they locked eyes, their faces together, their hands together on the nose cup before them, which eased forth the intoxicating aroma of hot apple pie.
”
”
Jeffrey Stepakoff (The Orchard)
“
It is no great secret that cooking is, in essence, seduction. As with amour, pleasure does not bloom in the body so much as in the mind. One may be a “gymnast in the sheets,” as the coarse say, but without passion and internal fire, without longing and anticipation, one may as well be doing calisthenics. So food. The most rarefied tastes on the unprepared tongue may be ignored or, worse, misunderstood. How then is the mind prepared for delicacy? As with Don Juan, reputation stirs desire. But even the best chef must entice interest, use aroma to flirt, caress and kiss with silken soups, reassure and coddle with a dulcet pudding.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Always wait to eat until you have time to relax and focus on the meal, take in the aroma of the food, and take the time to chew. In the mouth, the enzyme amylase begins the digestion of carbohydrates, and the food needs to be chewed thoroughly. Poorly chewed food creates far more work for the stomach and requires more hydrochloric acid to do the same job of breaking down the protein. Chew, chew, chew! (Sorry to say, you’re mother was right . . . about that, anyway.) From
”
”
Nora T. Gedgaudas (Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond Paleo for Total Health and a Longer Life)
“
In some respects supermarket apples represent a kind of collective forgetting—of flavors, textures, and aromas, of landscapes and foliage. Forgetting can be far more difficult to study than remembering, because its traces are much harder to discern.
”
”
Jennifer A. Jordan (Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods)
“
Kirk smelled the intoxicating aroma of Cheese Jesus. He tried so hard to be good. So hard to prove his love of Christ, but here he was with his God as his most favorite food.
”
”
Mandy De Sandra (Kirk Cameron & The Crocoduck of Chaos Magick)
“
Then, we started running sprints and long distances with heavy equipment on us. Next, we did core exercises and pull-ups and push-up. Then, we lifted weights. Afterwards the break was announced and we had a nutritious, energizing lunch. For lunch they served some weird food, it was very colorful like blue, green, purple, red, but had no texture and no different taste or aroma, it was like chewing gum, but according to them it helped us gain muscle and give us energy. After lunch, we had no rest time: we did fighting with weapons and without. We learned how to maneuver the ships and how to read maps and make battle plans. At the end of the training day, I got some free time, but I was exhausted, so all I could do was lie in bed thinking of my folks, parents, siblings and friends…I
”
”
Andrei D. Proca (An End to The Finish)
“
I remembered how Maggie did not want to give up on seeing the cows of the kibbutz. I knew she would love to see them, and Altar did not disappoint. He took advantage of our visit to the barn and showed us the distribution of food there. Maggie followed his agile activities closely, as he threw the packs of hay in front of the calves. It seemed that the smell of manure and the aromas of the hay did not deter her. Altar went further, calling a number of calves by their names and also tried to talk with them. Although they did not answer him, or answered with a monotonous mooing, Maggie laughed to high heaven again.
”
”
Nahum Sivan (Till We Say Goodbye)
“
When my generation of women walked away from the kitchen we were escorted down that path by a profiteering industry that knew a tired, vulnerable marketing target when they saw it. “Hey, ladies,” it said to us, “go ahead, get liberated. We’ll take care of dinner.” They threw open the door and we walked into a nutritional crisis and genuinely toxic food supply. . . . But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families’ tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable.11
”
”
Jen Hatmaker (7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess)
“
A sense of humor was essential survival equipment in the palace jungle—but nothing too clever. So was an ability to enjoy food and drink.
To these I secretly added an ability to enjoy plane-spotting. It turned out to be quite useful. Many of my tensest moments were experienced in royal airplanes, but surprisingly often I could deflect the Princess’s fiercest rocket with a calculated display of nerdish interest in what I could see out of the window.
As it happened, I was able to indulge this lonely vice almost immediately as I caught the bus back to Heathrow. Farewells at KP were polite but perfunctory, and Richard and Anne gave no hint as to the outcome of my interview. Richard ventured the comment that I had given “a remarkable performance,” but this only added to the general air of theatrical unreality. I was pretty sure I had eaten my first and last royal Jersey royal potato.
Back in Scotland, my despondency deepened as I inhaled the pungent aroma of my allocated bedroom in the Faslane transit mess. It was not fair, I moaned to myself, to expose someone as sensitive as me to lunch with the most beautiful woman in the world and then consign him to dinner with the duty engineer at the Clyde Submarine Base. And how could I ever face the future when every time the Princess appeared in the papers I would say to myself—or, far worse, to anyone in earshot—“Oh yes, I’ve met her. Had lunch with her in fact. Absolutely charming. Laughed at all my jokes . . .”
Now thoroughly depressed, I was preparing for a miserable night’s sleep when I was interrupted by the wardroom night porter. He wore a belligerent expression so convincing that it was clearly the result of long practice. No doubt drawing on years of observing submarine officers at play, he clearly suspected he was being made the victim of a distinctly unamusing practical joke. In asthmatic Glaswegian he accused me of being wanted on the phone “frae Bucknum Paluss.”
I rushed to the phone booth, suddenly wide-awake. The Palace operator connected me to Anne Beckwith-Smith. “There you are!” she said in her special lady-in-waiting voice. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Would you like the job?
”
”
Patrick D. Jephson (Shadows Of A Princess: An Intimate Account by Her Private Secretary)
“
The kernels of wheat entered the aperture virtually in single file, as if passing between a thumb and an index finger. To mill any faster risked overheating the stone, which in turn risked damaging the flour. In this fact, Dave explained, lies the origin of the phrase "nose to the grindstone": a scrupulous miller leans in frequently to smell his grindstone for signs of flour beginning to overheat. (So the saying does not signify hard work as much as attentiveness.) A wooden spout at the bottom of the mill emitted a gentle breeze of warm, tan flour that slowly accumulated in a white cloth bag. I leaned in close for a whiff. Freshly milled whole-grain flour is powerfully fragrant, redolent of hazelnuts and flowers. For the first time I appreciated what I'd read about the etymology of the word "flour" -- that it is the flower, or best part, of the wheat seed. Indeed. White flour has little aroma to speak of; this flour smelled delicious.
”
”
Michael Pollan (Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation)
“
It is no great secret that cooking is, in essence, seduction. As with amour, pleasure does not bloom in the body so much as in the mind. One may be a "gymnast in the sheets," as the coarse say, but without passion and internal fire, without longing and anticipation, one may as well be doing calisthenics. So food. Tho most rarefied tastes on the unprepared tongue may be ignored or, worse, misunderstood. How then is the mind prepared for delicacy? As with Don Juan, reputation stirs desire. But even the best chef must entice interest, use aroma to flirt, caress and kiss with silken soups, reassure and coddle with a dulcet pudding.
”
”
Eli Brown (Cinnamon and Gunpowder)
“
I love this place already," Max says as he gazes at the flying saucer not op of the blue-and-coral-pink building that is South Beach Fish Market.
The hole-in-the-wall seafood joint is quirky for sure with the random artwork and sculptures all over the exterior. Giant cartoon renderings of fish and crustaceans in vivid colors adorn the outside, while the roof boasts a silver flying saucer and a lighthouse.
"Wait until you taste the food," I say.
It's a long wait in line, but I know once we get our meals and find a spot to sit down at one of the outdoor picnic tables, it'll be worth it.
As we sit down, I savor the clear summer weather with the sun shining bright above us, offering warmth against the brisk coastal breeze. When the aroma of spices, lemon, and batter hits my nose, my stomach roars. I inhale my fish and chips before Max is even halfway done with his oysters and halibut.
"Damn," he says around a mouthful of food. "Sometimes I forget how monstrous your appetite is. I would have never guessed given your size. But every time I watch you eat, I'm reminded all over again."
I dig into my clam chowder. "Food is my life. I am not ashamed of it.
”
”
Sarah Echavarre Smith (The Boy With the Bookstore)
“
I love this place already," Max says as he gazes at the flying saucer on top of the blue-and-coral-pink building that is South Beach Fish Market.
The hole-in-the-wall seafood joint is quirky for sure with the random artwork and sculptures all over the exterior. Giant cartoon renderings of fish and crustaceans in vivid colors adorn the outside, while the roof boasts a silver flying saucer and a lighthouse.
"Wait until you taste the food," I say.
It's a long wait in line, but I know once we get our meals and find a spot to sit down at one of the outdoor picnic tables, it'll be worth it.
As we sit down, I savor the clear summer weather with the sun shining bright above us, offering warmth against the brisk coastal breeze. When the aroma of spices, lemon, and batter hits my nose, my stomach roars. I inhale my fish and chips before Max is even halfway done with his oysters and halibut.
"Damn," he says around a mouthful of food. "Sometimes I forget how monstrous your appetite is. I would have never guessed given your size. But every time I watch you eat, I'm reminded all over again."
I dig into my clam chowder. "Food is my life. I am not ashamed of it.
”
”
Sarah Echavarre Smith (The Boy With the Bookstore)
“
Until the war had broken out, there had been some sort of order in the strange and complex mixture of the four disparate peoples crowded into the little valley, all calling themselves Bosnians. They celebrated separate holidays, ate different foods, feasted and fasted on different days, yet all depended on one another, but never admitted it. They had lived amidst an ever present, if dormant, mixture of hatred and love for each other. The Muslims with their Ramadan, the Jews with Passover, the Catholics with Christmas, and the Serbs with their Slavas- each of them tacitly tolerated and recognised the customs and existence of others. With suckling pigs turned on spits in Serbian houses, giving off a mouth-watering fragrance, kosher food would be eaten in Jewish homes, and in Muslim households, meals were cooked in suet. There was a certain harmony in all this, even if there was no actual mixing. The aromas had long ago adjusted to one another and had given the city its distinctive flavor. Everything was "as God willed it." But it was necessary to remove only one piece of that carefully balanced mosaic and that whole picture would fall into its component parts which would then, rejoined in an unthinkable manner, create hostile and incompatible entities. Like a hammer, the war had knocked out one piece, disrupting the equilibrium. Wartime turned differences into outright hatred and instead of blaming the foreign enemy for all their hardships, people blamed their nearest neighbours, which, in turn, represented an invaluable favour to the true enemy of all.
”
”
Gordana Kuić (Miris kiše na Balkanu)
“
Maybe there is something special about my mother's spices---"
Do I tell him about all my fantasies? Nah, I'm living them now. I smile and get back to chopping up the tarragon, inhaling the sweet, grassy aroma. I let myself fall in love. I let myself float into bliss. I have my dream and it came with more happiness than I had ever imagined.
"Or maybe we just have the perfect chemistry," I say.
Through it all, Charles and I learned that letting go of negativity leads to happier futures (and better food and sex). As for Garrance, her work is complete; she's found happiness for Charles and me, her and my mother's plan all along. Magic? Some may say. But love is the greatest magic of all---and a required ingredient for everyone.
”
”
Samantha Verant (The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique)
“
Phillipa placed one tray of appetizers after the other on the table---the jambon sec-wrapped chipotle figs with the cocoa-balsamic glaze; the crab cakes with the rémoulade dipping sauce; the varying star-shaped canapés, the bottoms buttery, toasted bread topped with different ingredients and garnished with chopped fresh herbs; the verrines filled with bœuf bourguignon and baby carrots; and the smoke salmon, beet carpaccio, and mascarpone bites served on homemade biscuits and sprinkled with capers.
Everybody dug in, oohing and aahing.
"I don't know which one I like best," exclaimed Marie, licking her lips. "They're all so delicious. I can't choose a favorite child."
Phillipa winked. "Just wait until you see and taste Sophie's plat principal," she said, turning on her heel. She returned with a large pressure cooker, placing it on the table. She lifted the lid, and everybody breathed in the aromas, noses sniffing with anticipation. "This is Sophie's version of pot-au-feu de la mer, but with grilled lobster, crab, abalone, mussels, and large shrimp, along with a variety of root and fresh vegetables, a ginger-lemongrass-infused sauce, and garnished with borage, or starflowers, a smattering of sea salt, a dash of crème fraîche, fresh herbs, and ground pepper.
”
”
Samantha Verant (Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars (Sophie Valroux #2))
“
Phillipa and I had just returned to the kitchen with a full basket of these beautiful mushrooms. I held a dirt-encrusted one up to my nose, breathing in its earthy aromas, happy to have all of my senses back.
"What do you want to do with these?" asked Phillipa.
"Something traditional and simple so the flavor of the mushrooms isn't lost," I said. "Poêlée de cèpes à la bordelaise?"
"Perfectly delicious," said Phillipa. "I'll scrub the beauties down and then grab the ingredients."
"You remember what they are?"
"Of course. Olive oil, butter, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, flat parsley, salt, and pepper," she said. "And I'm already drooling.
”
”
Samantha Verant (Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars (Sophie Valroux #2))
“
least the meal was good. Obi-Wan bent over, inhaling the aroma, and took another bite. Qui-Gon would advise him to eat. He never believed in wasting an opportunity, even for food. He remembered one of the life lessons of the Masters when he was just a Padawan, something Qui-Gon liked to quote: When food arrives, eat.
”
”
Jude Watson (The Desperate Mission (Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, #1))
“
Closer to the sun than any of its surroundings, the town glimmered. The spires looked like the tips of a royal crown. Skilled artisans had built wonderful, terraced homes and small flats overlooking gardens and fields under a clear cloudless sky. The air was filled with the aroma of eggplant parmigiana being roasted and fried garlic from pasta aglio e olio. Every pantry had a tall, glass bottle of local olive oil and a cupboard full of sugo jars.
”
”
Steven Hunter (Relish In the Tread)
“
Chestnuts have always been an ingredient that goes well with gamy meats. And in French cuisine, chestnuts are often seen in combination with venison.
But the mildly sweet flavor and tender texture of these sweet chestnuts makes them melt in the mouth! That flavor combined with the smoky aroma of the charcoal grilling, makes the juicy meatiness of the venison stand out in stark contrast!
This flavor isn't something that could be created with regular chestnuts.
It's a deliciousness made possible precisely because he chose to use sweet chestnuts!
"He minced some of them and added them to the sauce as well! Doing that spread their mild sweetness throughout the whole dish!"
Soma's Chestnut Sauce
Starting with a base of Fond de Veau (a brown stock usually made with veal), he added a cinnamon stick, orange zest and minced sweet chestnuts and then set the sauce to simmer.
"Wait a minute. How odd! Charcoal grilling usually adds a unique and very distinctly bitter taste to ingredients. A taste that is decidedly outside the canon of French flavors!
Yet this dish has taken that bitter taste and somehow made it fit seamlessly! Is there some secret to it?!"
"That would be the coffee."
"What?!"
"Coffee?"
"Yep! You guessed it! That's the Divine Tongue for you.
One of the things I learned at Master Shinomiya's restaurant is that cacao goes really well with game meats. I've never used cacao much, though, to be honest...
So instead I grabbed some instant coffee! The bitterness of coffee is similar enough to pure cacao that it paired up nicely with both the charcoal grilling and the gamy venison...
... resulting in a deeply rich and astringent flavor that's perfect for a truly French sauce. I added both coffee and chestnuts as secret ingredients to my sauce!
This is a Yukihira Original and a brand-new French dish. I call it...
... Charcoal-Grilled Venison Thigh with Chestnut Sauce."
In formal Japanese cooking bowl dishes, such as soups and rice bowls, are constructed from four elements: the main ingredient, the supporting ingredients, the stock and the accents.
Similarly, the French dishes are constructed from three different parts balanced in harmony: the main ingredient, the sauce and the garnishes.
But this dish... this is eccentric and novel and entirely unconventional while still remaining undeniably French!
It's almost as if it's a nugget of flavor found only by cracking and peeling away the shell of common sense...
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 20 [Shokugeki no Souma 20] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #20))
“
The citrusy tang of lemon floods the mouth!
At the same time, the rich aroma of almond tickles the nose!
Both flavors are seamlessly brought together with no bitterness or clashing at all!
It's sweet and mild and fragrant! I can feel it awakening the heart of a maiden within me!
"I chose a Biscuit Joconde for the sponge cake because it matched so well with the almond pralines. It gives even the cake layer the aroma of almonds, without disturbing the flavor balance in the least.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 10 [Shokugeki no Souma 10] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #10))
“
The aroma of spices and pineapple melded into a beautifully colorful fragrance in her pineapple-curry fried rice!"
The sweet tart of the pineapple and the saltiness of the fried rice spread through the mouth in a wave! It's a similar idea to sweet-and-sour pork, another Chinese dish that uses pineapples.
"As a finishing touch, she hollowed out a whole pineapple, poured the fried rice inside its shell and then baked it in the oven. The inside edge of the pineapple shell was even rubbed with salt to prevent too much sweetness from leeching into the rice."
"Doing that meant only the fragrance of the dish increased without changing the taste or drying out the rice.
Traditional Chinese cooking has taken yet another small step forward with this dish.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #7))
“
With standard pot stickers, the filling is enclosed in a wheat-dough wrapper. But with these, the filling is stuffed into a chicken wing.
"Stuffed chicken wings. You can call 'em chicken-wing pot stickers too.
So you made some stuffed Satsuma Jidori chicken-wing pot stickers, eh, Yukihira?"
"You got it! First, you remove the two long bones inside the wing...
Then you stuff the filling in the cavity they leave behind and fry 'em up! That's the basics of a stuffed chicken wing."
"Mmm! I can smell their savory aroma from here. What's in the filling?"
"Well, there're the basics, like ground pork, chives and cabbage. I added some diced pork jowl too.
Oh! And shiitake mushrooms. That's the important part.
See, chicken meat has inosinic acid in it, and shiitake mushrooms have guanylic acid. Both of those are umami components.
Together, they magnify each other, giving the dish a richer flavor.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 17 [Shokugeki no Souma 17] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #17))
“
So that's the Wanmono Soup made by Satoshi Isshiki...
... the so-called Master of Aggressive Japanese Cuisine."
"Look how beautifully it's plated! Even the ingredient colors are coordinated!"
"A true work of art!"
"Just looking at it sucks me in."
"But the taste... how does it taste?!
Is it as delicious as it is gorgeous?!"
"Just one sip of the broth was enough to send a shock wave surging through my body. Delicately constructing a wanmono soup out of just hare and konbu is difficult enough.
But to incorporate clam stock as well?! And so seamlessly too!"
"Clams?!"
"Wait, the soup broth is hare... and also clam?! How does that even work?!"
"There are four major components of a proper wanmono soup.
Suiji --- the broth that forms the backbone of the dish
Sukuchi --- the ingredients that accent the dish's aroma
Wandane --- the main ingredient of the soup
Wanzuma --- the side ingredients that complement the wandane
Blending the hare and clam stocks in a seven-to-three ratio infused the suiji broth with the mellow, salty body of the clams...
... putting a new, delicious spin on the traditional wanmono soup broth!
And the fresh, tangy aroma of yuzu fruit in the suikuchi accent neatly underscores that flavor, making it stand out all the more!
With this, he's done nothing short of innovatively reinventing a traditional Japanese soup stock!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 29 [Shokugeki no Souma 29] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #29))
“
Nina and Sophie were seated at a large round table settled under the branches of a blooming magnolia. The rich scent of the flowers mixed with the incredible food Jasmine and her team had whipped up had built an almost intoxicating aroma. They started off with sesame Halloumi and sweet potato tahini mash, followed by butternut squash and sage risotto, then there were hearty mushroom steaks with a side of roasted eggplant and miso salsa as their main. As they ate, she tasted the flavors from the earth, celebrating the gardens and passionate people around them. Her friend had harnessed the surroundings and created a rich culinary experience for the event.
”
”
Erin La Rosa (For Butter or Worse (The Hollywood Series #1))
“
Urey seemed to know all the bars and restaurants near the Columbia University campus and led him to a narrow place packed with people. A white-capped short-order cook at a gas grill took barked orders from a cranky waitress who blew her hair out of her face after each sentence. Aromas of frying meat and grilled potatoes layered the air. Booths marked off tables with red-checked tablecloths. Ceiling fans turned languidly, stirring smoky air into a smooth blue-gray blur. There was no hurry in the place, a feeling of having been there all eternity, with only the faces changing in the pale winter light from the big windows. The waiters moved with quick, sure movements, delivering food that tasted exactly the same as when he was a boy in Brooklyn.
”
”
Gregory Benford (The Berlin Project)
“
Indian food is bold, colorful, bursting with aromas and flavors. What better way to enrich a plot and show character development than to infuse a story with one of the boldest, most beloved cuisines on earth?
”
”
Alka Joshi (The Secret Keeper of Jaipur (The Jaipur Trilogy, #2))
“
My passion for cooking meals for loved ones originated when I was growing up. Because our family didn't have much materially, my siblings and I didn't get excited about gifts and Christmas and birthdays--but we were exuberant in anticipation of the food! I remember my mother preparing and cooking food for days before Christmas. You could smell the aromas wafting throughout the house, and if you were lucky, she would allow you to lick the spoon and taste a little bit beforehand. As a result, my wife and I now delight in showing the same love my mother put into the preparation of special meals into the celebrations we enjoy.
From all those years of watching my mother prepare food for the family, and from my own limited experience in the kitchen, I've realized an important lesson: quality takes time. While most people tend to agree with me, no one particularly enjoys waiting patiently for the turkey to come out of the oven or for the pie crust to be made from scratch. We want the quality, but we don't want to wait for it.
As I look around, it doesn't take much to see that this current generation is accustomed to fast foods, instant information, and new friendships at the click of a button. Because of such immediate results, we've ignored the diminishing quality of those things we recieve instantly and our subsequent lack of appreciation for them. Our desire for instant gratification has ushered us to the point that we sacrifice excellent quality because of the difficulty and time it takes to produce it.
”
”
T.D. Jakes (Crushing: God Turns Pressure into Power)
“
Jasmine opened her fridge and pulled out cauliflower, an onion, garlic, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes and molasses.
"Are plant people for or against eating the plants?" Nina asked.
"I sure hope they're pro, because vegetarian is what's calling to me."
Nina watched Jasmine bread and bake the cauliflower, mash tomatoes in a pot with the garlic, spices and onion, then pan-fry a homemade tortilla. She piled the baked cauliflower onto the tortilla shell, then drizzled a healthy amount of the homemade salsa across the top.
She passed the plate to Nina and the aroma of the flavors mixing together reminded her of being outside in summer. She wanted to live on that plate. Nina picked up the taco and folded it, admiring the colors of the ingredients as they blended together like new paint on a fresh canvas. She smiled at the food. "Hello, gorgeous."
Then she smelled the taco---spice and lime---before taking a bite. Not only was each part of the dish cooked perfectly, but it also practically melted in her mouth.
”
”
Erin La Rosa (For Butter or Worse (The Hollywood Series #1))
“
Through our examination of the rituals and terminology of biblical sacrifice, three key metaphors have emerged: sacrifice as food, sacrifice as aroma, and sacrifice as gift. They all revolve around building relationships: attracting God with inviting scents and deepening ties with Him through shared sustenance and a generous rivalry in meaningful gifts. These metaphors paint a picture of sacrifice that is opposed in every way to the modern idea of sacrifice as suffering.
”
”
Jeremy Davis (Welcoming Gifts: Sacrifice in the Bible and Christian Life)
“
the pleasant aromas of food offerings and incense had a purpose similar to scents intended for human noses, though operating on a different plane. Pleasant aromas are attractive and inviting; they draw people in and make them comfortable, interested, and complaisant. Similarly, sacrifices of food and incense were intended to attract God’s presence and win His favor:
”
”
Jeremy Davis (Welcoming Gifts: Sacrifice in the Bible and Christian Life)
“
Ramón examined the plate carefully and even lifted it to smell the tacos. There was no fishy scent at all---just a heavenly aroma of ocean mixed with heat. A crispy, yet not greasy, corn tortilla enveloped the fried and battered fish, garnished with lime, avocado, crema, cabbage, and pico de gallo, which was as fresh as his beloved abuela's salsa.
Ramón squeezed lime on the taco, raised it to his mouth, and took the first bite. The crunch of the cabbage contrasted with the soft avocado. But the real star was the fish. Crispy, spicy, and delicious. The buttery flesh melted in his mouth.
Ramón devoured both tacos in a matter of minutes.
”
”
Alana Albertson (Ramón and Julieta (Love & Tacos, #1))
“
Tony anchored the Napoli in a scallop-shaped cove, and the young people waded ashore, carrying the baskets of food with them. “This is an ideal spot for a beach party,” Callie said enthusiastically. She and Iola took charge and gave orders. Frank and Tony were asked to collect driftwood, while Chet and Joe gathered plenty of seaweed. In a few minutes they returned. “Those stones over there will make a good place for the fire,” said Callie. She had found a natural pit among the rocks. In it the boys piled the driftwood, then lighted it. Soon there was a roaring blaze. Frank heaped more rocks into the fire. When the stones were red-hot and the flames had died out, they placed a layer of seaweed over them. Then the girls laid the lobsters, clams, and corn on the cob in rows and piled on several more layers of seaweed. “I can hardly wait,” Chet groaned hungrily as he sniffed the tantalizing aroma of the clams.
”
”
Franklin W. Dixon (The Secret of Pirates' Hill (Hardy Boys, #36))
“
Second Corinthians 2:15 says, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” Our Christian walk shouldn’t resemble drudgery. It should be attractive and inviting to outsiders. People have asked if I felt restricted by my parents’ strict rules, and my answer is not really. That’s because my life was full of fun and laughter and good food and joy.
”
”
CeCe Winans (Believe for It: Passing on Faith to the Next Generation)
“
The National Institute on Drug Abuse now defines addiction as a compulsion that persists in spite of negative health and social consequences. Plenty of people use and abuse drugs, but only relatively few become addicts. Why? While dopamine in the reward center creates the initial interest in a drug or behavior and provides the motivation to get it, what makes addiction such a stubborn problem is the structural changes it causes in the brain. Scientists now consider addiction a chronic disease because it wires in a memory that triggers reflexive behavior. The same changes occur regardless of whether the addiction is to drugs or gambling or eating. Once the reward has the brain’s attention, the prefrontal cortex instructs the hippocampus to remember the scenario and sensation in vivid detail. If it’s greasy food that you can’t resist, the brain links the aroma of Kentucky Fried Chicken to Colonel Sanders’s beard and that red and white bucket. Those cues take on salience and get linked together into a web of associations. Each time you drive up to KFC, the synaptic connections linking everything together get stronger and pick up new cues. This is how habits are formed.
”
”
John J. Ratey (Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain)
“
As a cultivated, human food not found in the wild, bread is sometimes used to ward against the faeries, and at the same time, when it's baked just right (neither cooked too well nor raw as the faerie wife insists in Wales) it and the aroma it creates is used as an offering to faerie. The same thing that under one circumstance can ward them away can also feed them. This is a concept that returns to us again and again whenever we discuss traditional ways of maintaining right relations with the faeries.
”
”
Lee Morgan (Sounds of Infinity)
“
Recipes of Sita People have to be fed during a war. And so the kitchens of Lanka were busy. Those who were going to the war had to be fed; those who were returning from the war had to be fed. Food had to inspire, comfort and stir passions. The smell of rice boiling, vegetables frying and fish roasting filled the city streets, mingling with the smell of blood, rotting flesh and burning towers. The aromas reached Sita’s grove. ‘Don’t you like that smell?’ asked Trijata noticing Sita’s expression as she inhaled the vapours. Trijata, Vibhishana’s daughter, had become a friend. ‘If I was cooking, I would change the proportion of the spices,’ Sita said. She gave her suggestions to Trijata, who promptly conveyed them to the royal kitchen. Mandodari followed these instructions and soon a different aroma wafted out of the kitchen. So enticing was the resulting aroma that other rakshasa cooks came to the Ashoka grove and asked Sita for cooking tips. Without tasting the food, just by smelling what had been prepared, like a skilled cook, Sita gave her suggestions. ‘Add more salt.’ ‘Replace mustard with pepper.’ ‘Mix ginger with tamarind.’ ‘Less cloves, more coconut milk.’ These suggestions were promptly executed, and before long Lanka was full of the most delightful aromas and flavours, so delightful that sons and brothers and husbands and fathers wanted to stay back and relish more food. They wanted to burp, then sleep, then wake up and eat again. They wanted to chew areca nuts wrapped in betel leaves and enjoy the company of their wives on swings. No war, no fighting, just conversations over food. Ravana noticed the lethargy in his men, their reluctance to fight. They were not afraid. They were not drunk. They were just too happy to go to war. Furious, he ordered the kitchens to be closed. ‘Starve the soldiers. Hungry men are angry men. In anger they will kill the monkeys. The only food they can eat is monkey flesh.
”
”
Devdutt Pattanaik (Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana)
“
What is it?" Her interest piqued by the heavenly aroma.
"Delicious," I said. I could have told her it was soup made up of parsley, spinach, dill, sautéed onions, thin noodles, chickpeas, kidney beans, dried yogurt, dried mint, garlic, oil, and salt, but why spoil the surprise?
”
”
Sara Farizan (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
I started with a wedge of triple-cream cheese because that seemed like a rich and elegant base that would need little embellishment. I cut a large slice of cheese and stripped off the skin, leaving only the voluptuous center, which I set into a clean bowl. I had noticed that wine went into the best dishes, so I added enough claret to thin the cheese to a mixable consistency. As I beat it together, I watched the pure white turn a murky shade of rose, and the sharp smell of wine overpowered the milky fragrance of cheese. Although such a dramatic change in color and aroma was unexpected, I decided it was not a fatal blow to the plan.
The chef had once said that the cornerstones of culinary art were butter and garlic, so I cheerfully whipped in a knob of softened butter and pressed a large clove of garlic. I whisked it all until it was smooth, tested it with a fingertip, and judged it to be not bad. But not bad wasn't good enough for a grand gesture. I stood before the brick oven and pondered what might elevate this concoction from an oddly flavored cheese to something that would make the chef raise his eyebrows with appreciation.
The brick oven reminded me of Enrico, who often bragged that his lightly sweetened breads and confections were everyone's favorite. He once said, "Meals are only an excuse to get to the dessert." I wasn't sure that was true, but I had noticed that people usually greeted the dessert course with smiles, even though they had already eaten their fill. Confections always found favor, and so I poured a golden stream of honey into my mélange.
After it was well blended, it was rather pretty- smooth and thick, luscious looking, like pudding or custard.
”
”
Elle Newmark (The Book of Unholy Mischief)
“
He passed the rutabaga and duck terrine toward me with the tips of his fingers. "Isn't this a little odd?"
I wanted to like it, I did. I pushed the ingredients around with my knife and fork, trying to understand it and formulate an opinion.
Then Felix swooped in. "Oh, miss. Pardon me, I was helping another table. That's supposed to be served with something else." He looked at Michael Saltz sheepishly, and Michael Saltz turned his toupeed head away. "We added this dish today, and I'm still getting used to serving it. The proper preparation includes just a bit of truffle."
He took out a fist-size beige knot from underneath a white napkin. The shavings rained down in ruffled, translucent strands. Felix backed away as I poked my fork through the tangle of truffles, into the terrine.
I had read about truffles- their taste, their hormonal, almost sexual aromas, their exorbitant cost- but I had never even seen a truffle in person before, and had a hard time understanding why people paid thousands of dollars an ounce for something so humble-looking.
But at Tellicherry, I understood. I melted in my chair.
"Mmm..." I couldn't stop saying it. "Mmmm."
Michael Saltz, excited too, picked up a large pinch of truffle shavings and held them to his nose. "These are very good. The finest."
"Oh God," I said, in a state of delirium. "This makes the dish so much better. Why aren't truffles on everything?" I had forgotten about the funky terrine. Now it was just a vehicle for the magical urgings of the truffle.
A few minutes later, Felix came out again. "Here's your next dish, potato pearls with black, green, and crimson caviar in a cauliflower cream nage."
The caviar shined like little jewels among the equal-sized potatoes. They bobbed around in the soup, glistening as if illuminated from within. I took a spoonful and in surged a soft, sweet ribbon of cauliflower essence. I popped the caviar eggs one by one. Pop, went one, a silken fishiness. Pop, went another, a sharp, tangy brine. Pop, went a seductive one, dark and mysterious and deep.
”
”
Jessica Tom (Food Whore)
“
They walk down Westheimer, a long, long street that always smells of burnt rubber and carbon monoxide, occasionally interrupted by the aromas of foods from all over the world: Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Brazilian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Guatemalan, etc.
”
”
Gwendolyn Zepeda (Houston Noir (Akashic Noir))
“
WES’S SIMPLE SOURDOUGH STARTER & BREAD STARTER Making a sourdough starter is the first step in opening the door to all kinds of delicious, nutritious, and traditionally baked breads and pastries. PREP: 5 minutes PROCESS: 3–5 days COOL: none 1-quart Mason jar with lid 1 five-pound bag of your favorite flour (non-white is recommended and an organic sprouted whole wheat flour gives a rustic sourdough loaf flavor) lukewarm water CREATING THE STARTER 1.Mix ¼ cup flour and ¼ cup warm water in a Mason jar until it looks like a pancake mix. Based on your climate and altitude, you may need to add in a splash more water or flour. 2.Cover the container loosely and allow mixture to stand overnight at room temperature. 3.Repeat these steps and continue adding to the starter for the next four days. Between days two and three, your starter will begin to bubble. You should be able to see air pockets on the side of your Mason jar and “rivulets” or fine air bubbles on the top of your mixture by day five. If not, remove ½ cup of starter and continue the same steps for two more days. The starter should have a tangy aroma that’s not overpowering. The bubbling mixture is now ready to use for baking. MAINTAINING THE STARTER 1.Store the starter in the refrigerator with lid. Once or twice a week remove ½ cup of starter and add ¼
”
”
Margaret Feinberg (Taste and See: Discovering God among Butchers, Bakers, and Fresh Food Makers)
“
The core of the fragrance Hayama is trying to build...
... is Jeneverbes."
"Jene... verbes?"
"That means juniper berries!"
JENEVERBES (JUNIPER BERRIES)
Perhaps the only spice derived from a conifer, juniper berries have been used as a spice as far back as ancient Egypt. They have been found in multiple pharaohs' tombs, including King Tut's.
In the Middle Ages, juniper berries were added to distilled malt wine to make Jenever,
the direct predecessor to gin.
The berries have a piney tang that, as they mature, gains citrusy sweet notes and a fresh herby scent, making it a spice with a complex and layered aroma.
"Add milk and flour to bear stock to make a thick and creamy roux, and then let it simmer.
When it has turned fragrant and golden brown, add the seasonings and spices...
... to make a perfect, fragrant gravy to adorn my fried bear!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 22 [Shokugeki no Souma 22] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #22))
“
The cheese I understand... but Chirimen Jako dried baby sardines?!
And now he's mixing them with the potatoes and cheese to brown in a skillet? I'm completely lost!"
"But you know... the salty aroma of the sardines does go well with the cheese...
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 24 [Shokugeki no Souma 24] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #24))
“
Oooh! Bacon and onion miso soup!
Aaah! This too!"
Unexpectedly, the bacon matches ridiculously well with the miso!
The unique aroma of dried tuna stock tickles the nose.
That coupled with the thick sweetness of the onions...
... wraps the whole body in fresh spring bliss!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 8 [Shokugeki no Souma 8] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #8))
“
To give another example, the scent of wintergreen mint is very well liked in the U.S. but in the U.K. it is loathed. Why? Because in the U.K. wintergreen scent is only used in toilet-cleaning supplies and some medicinal products, so its associations are disagreeable. By contrast, in the U.S. wintergreen is exclusively used as an aroma in sweet treats such as candies and gums, and therefore the associations are
”
”
Rachel Herz (Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food)
“
cancer risk, the researchers concluded that it wouldn’t be safe to live near the exhaust of a Chinese restaurant for more than a day or two a month.30 What about that enticing aroma of sizzling bacon? The fumes produced by frying bacon contain a class of carcinogens called nitrosamines.31 Although all meat may release potentially carcinogenic fumes, processed meat like bacon may be the worst: A UC-Davis study found
”
”
Michael Greger (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
“
: What am I loving when I love you? Not bodily beauty nor the gracefulness of age; nor light’s brightness, so dear to the eyes of mine; not the sweet melodies of song, nor the fragrance of flowers, or perfumes, of aromas; not manna nor honey; not the body so dear to the embraces of the flesh: no, these are not the things I love when I love my God. And yet in a certain sense I do love light and sound, smell, food, and embrace of my inner being. There, a light shines for my soul untrammeled by space; there, I hear a sound that does not disappear into time; there, I smell a perfume that the wind does not carry off; there, I savor things that no gluttony makes sickly; there I experience an embrace never to be broken by [excess]. All this I love when I love my God. So then I asked the earth, “What is all this?” and it replied: “It is not me.” And all the things on earth gave me the same answer. I quizzed the sea and its depths, the living things that move there, and they replied: “We are not your God, seek higher.” . . . And then I said to all those things seated before the door of my senses, “If it is not you, tell me something about my God, speak to me of him.” And with a mighty voice all cried: “He is our creator.” I looked at the creatures, and asked; their beauty was their answer.
”
”
Steve DeWitt (Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything)
“
So, putting aside the yucky ones, the positive smells of a dog for me are the next-day cold-stew smell of his meaty food, and the aroma of a roasted chicken right out of the oven, which will have him running to the kitchen like a rocket. The dry seed and hay hum of a pet shop, and the sickly rotting meat of his treats.
Grassy fresh air and mud on long winter walks. The rubbery tang of the toys he likes to brutalize. The worn-in leather of his collar and lead. The sweet, musty smell of his velvety ears, which I love to stroke, and yes, I admit it, I kiss them.
My scents for a dog are (a bit of a challenge in all honesty, but it's fun to stretch yourself sometimes!):
Barbour For Him by Barbour
Grass by The Library of Fragrance
Dirt by The Library of Fragrance
Cuir de Russie by Chanel
Piper Leather by Illuminum
Mûre et Musc by L'Artisan Parfumeur
”
”
Maggie Alderson (The Scent of You)
“
HOBAMISO Miso on a magnolia leaf Serves 2-4 Preparation time: 15 mins Cooking time: 10 mins 100g (3½ oz) shinshu (light brown) miso 35g (1¼ oz) sugar 8g (¼ oz) mature ginger, coarsely grated and then drained of liquid by squeezing through muslin (cheesecloth) 1 tbsp vegetable oil 80g (2¾ oz) spring onions (scallions), thinly sliced 2 hoba leaves (newly fallen leaves that are at least 25cm/10 in in length), or parchment paper cooked rice, to serve 1 Prepare a shichirin (a small tabletop grill) and get the charcoal red hot. If you don’t have a shichirin or hoba leaves, you can also make this dish on the stove in a roasting tin lined with parchment paper. 2 In a bowl, combine the miso, sugar, ginger, and vegetable oil to form a paste. Stir in the spring onions. 3 Rinse the hoba leaves in water and drain, but don’t wipe them dry. Place the leaves on the grill, over the very hot charcoal, and spread the miso mixture over the centre of the leaf, making sure not to cover more than about a third of the leaf’s surface. 4 Allow to simmer for 2 minutes, cooking until the spring onion becomes tender and the miso caramelised. When it is ready, the leaf will release a slightly smoky, autumnal aroma. 5 Serve with a bowl of rice. Nobuko says this also goes very well with a crisp sake.
”
”
Lonely Planet Food (From the Source - Japan (Lonely Planet))
“
If you already hate tofu, the term "tofu skin" is probably an effective emetic. But this stuff is addictive. You start by making fresh soy milk. I'm not going to soft-pedal how much work this is: you have to soak, grind, squeeze, and simmer dried soybeans. The result is a thick milk entirely unlike the soy milk you get in a box at Whole Foods in the same way Parmigiano-Reggiano is unlike Velveeta.
Then, to make tofu skins (yuba in Japanese), you simmer the soy milk gently over low heat until a skin forms on the surface, then pluck it off with your fingers and drape it over a chopstick to dry. It is exactly like the skin that forms on top of pudding, the one George Costanza wanted to market as Pudding Skin Singles. Yuba doesn't look like much- like a pile of discarded raw chicken skin, honestly. But the texture is toothsome, and with each bite you're rewarded with the flavor of fresh soy milk. It's best served with just a few drops of soy sauce and maybe some grated ginger or sliced negi.
"I'm kind of obsessed with tofu skins right now," said Iris, poking her head into the fridge to grab a round of yuba. Me too.
In Seattle, I had to buy, grind, boil, and otherwise toil for a few sheets of yuba. In Tokyo, I found it at Life Supermarket, sold in a single-serving plastic tub with a foil top. The yuba wasn't as snappy or flavorful as homemade, but it had that characteristic fresh-soy aroma, which to me smells like a combination of "healthy forest" and "clean baby." Iris and I ate it greedily. (The yuba, not the baby.)
Yuba isn't technically tofu, because the soy milk isn't coagulated. Japanese tofu comes in two basic categories, much like underpants: cotton (momen) and silken (kinugoshi). Cotton tofu is the kind eaten most commonly in the U.S.; if you buy a package of extra-firm tofu and cut it up for stir-frying, that's definitely cotton tofu.
Silken tofu is fragile, creamier and more dairy-like than cotton-tofu, and it's the star of my favorite summer tofu dish. Hiya yakko is cubes of tofu, usually silken, drizzled with soy sauce and judiciously topped with savory bits: grated ginger or daikon, bonito flakes, negi. It's popular in Japanese bars and easy to make at home, which I did, with (you will be shocked to hear) tons of fresh negi.
”
”
Matthew Amster-Burton (Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo)
“
Even the most avid technocrat must occasionally escape from virtual space, and what better place to do it than the kitchen, with all its dangerous knives and delicious aromas?
”
”
Ruth Reichl (The Best American Food Writing 2018)
“
He's on to sashimi now, fanning and curling slices of snapper and fugu into white roses on his cutting board. Before Toshio can plate the slices, Shunichi reaches over and calmly replaces the serving plate his son has chosen with an Edo-era ceramic rectangle more to his liking.
Three pieces of tempura- shrimp, eggplant, new onion- emerge hissing and golden from the black iron pot in the corner, and Toshio arranges them on small plates with wedges of Japanese lime. Before the tempura goes out, Shunichi sneaks in a few extra granules of salt while Toshio's not looking.
By now Dad is shadowing his son's every move. As Toshio waves a thin plank of sea cucumber eggs over the charcoal fire, his dad leans gently over his shoulder. "Be careful. You don't want to cook it. You just want to release its aroma."
Toshio places a fried silverfish spine on a craggy ceramic plate, tucks grated yuzu and sansho flowers into its ribs, then lays a sliver of the dried eggs over the top. The bones shatter like a potato chip, and the sea cucumber detonates in my mouth.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
“
A formal ten-course Chinese dinner was a deliberate courtship of the senses. The appetizers of cold plate meats gave way to steaming fish maw soup, cold and hot introductions to titillate and delight before the showcase of entrees: beef, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, vegetables. The ensuing textures, aromas, and flavors seduced, fulfilling the promises of the first courses. The inclusion of noodle and rice dishes provided a sense of comfort. The final dessert course of sesame balls stuffed with red-bean paste sealed the engagement on the sweetest of notes.
”
”
Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune)
“
So brisk! I can feel the fresh Mediterranean breeze... gently rustling the leaves of the lemon trees.
I've had semifreddo desserts many times in my life. But this is unlike anything I've tasted before! And I know the taste of true Italian limoncello.
Where on earth did this intense lemony flavor come from?! Is it that fourth layer? What is it?!"
"That layer...
... is lemon curd."
"Lemon curd?"
"Lemon card?"
"It isn't curd like curds of milk. It's a dessert spread made with citrus fruits."
LEMON CURD
A fruit spread originating in Britain, it was intended as an alternative to jams. Egg yolks, sugar, fruit juice and zest are mixed together with a blender and then cooked into a paste and chilled. A centuries-old, traditional dessert, there is even a royal version called Royal Curd.
"That vibrant, citrusy tang of the curd has a fresh, refined aroma. Its smoothness combined with the satiny-soft Genoese cake melts in the mouth! What a light and downy texture. It touches the tongue like a feather! The grainy Biscuit Joconde could never be this soft!"
"He turned it around! The Genoese cake was supposed to be a liability... but he turned it into an advantage by making it part of an elegant, mature taste experience!"
"A British fruit spread, eh? And he put that together right on the spot?"
"I'm shocked he had the ingredients."
"Fruit curds don't need many ingredients. They use egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest... and butter."
"Butter? I thought you barely had a scrap of butter left."
"I substituted the butter with this."
"Olive oil?!"
"Oho! Is that even possible?"
"He must certainly know all about it, having grown up in Italy!"
"I handicapped myself by choosing Genoese for the sponge cake style. It doesn't have nearly the punch the almondy Biscuit Joconde has. So I turned to the citrusy flavor instead.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 10 [Shokugeki no Souma 10] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #10))
“
Why do foods taste better hot? The explanation is twofold: First, scientists have discovered that our ability to taste is heightened by microscopic proteins in our tastebuds that are extremely temperature-sensitive. These proteins, known as TRPM5 channels, perform far better at warm temperatures than at cooler ones. In fact, studies have shown that when food cooled to 59 degrees and below is consumed, the channels barely open, minimizing flavor perception. However, when food is heated to 98.5 degrees, the channels open up and TRPM5 sensitivity increases more than 100 times, making food taste markedly more flavorful. Second, much of our perception of flavor comes from aroma, which we inhale as microscopic molecules diffuse from food. The hotter the food, the more energetic these molecules are, and the more likely they are to travel from the table to our nose. The lessons? Dishes meant to be served hot should be reheated, and dishes served chilled (like gazpacho or potato salad) must be aggressively seasoned to make up for the flavor-dulling effects of cold temperatures.
”
”
America's Test Kitchen (The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen)
“
Our tastebuds have a harder time detecting flavors in cold foods. That’s why chilled soup must be aggressively seasoned. But cold soups also have almost no aroma, which is another reason that they require a heavier hand when seasoning. The aroma that wafts up to your nose from a piping-hot bowl of soup affects your perception of the flavor. Take away that aroma and the food does not seem as flavorful.
”
”
America's Test Kitchen (The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen)
“
There once lived an old man who had a wish. He prayed to God that before he died he would get the chance to see the difference between heaven and hell. One night an angel appeared before the old man’s bed and granted his wish. The angel blindfolded the man and spoke: “First you shall see hell.”
The old man felt a momentary weightlessness and then the angel removed the blindfold. The old man found himself standing in a boundless dining hall filled with large, rounded tables, ornate with gold. Each table was piled high with the most delicious of foods: fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, meats, desserts—everything you can imagine was there and exquisitely prepared. The man salivated at the sight as the intoxicating aromas filled his nose.
However, the old man noticed everyone seated at the dining tables was sickly with gaunt, morose faces seared with frustration. Each diner held a long spoon. These spoons must have been over three feet long. While the people cursed to hell could reach with their spoons any delectable food they wanted, they could not get the food into their mouths. The hell-dwellers were in a constant state of torment, starved and desperate to taste what was just inches away. Sickened, the old man cried, “Please stop—take me to heaven!”
And so the man was blindfolded again. “Now you will see heaven,” the angel said. After a familiar weightlessness, the blindfold was removed. The old man was confused. It was like he never left. He was once again in a great dining hall with the same round tables piled high with the same culinary lavishness. And just like hell, he saw these people also had long spoons preventing them from feeding themselves.
However, as the old man looked closer, he noticed that the people in this dining hall were plumply vivacious and smiling; laughter and cheer filled the air. As he panned through the hall and processed the joyous sounds, the difference between heaven and hell finally struck him: The people in heaven were using those long spoons to feed each other.
”
”
M.J. DeMarco (UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship)
“
I tried to read the menu, but I kept getting distracted. The aromas from the kitchen filled the room- melting butter, grilling meat, soft and sharp spices. All of them better than any of the restaurant smells I'd had to pass by during my time in the city. My mouth was watering, and my nose was so focused that I could barely skim the first few items.
Sablefish with miso glaze
Duck, dry-aged and served with pureed butternut squash
Wagyu New York strip
I had no idea what these things were, except for duck, which I couldn't help but feel sorry for. Dry-aged sounded like an especially bad death for a waterfowl.
The waiter returned. "Shall I order for us?" Victoria asked. I nodded, grateful. "Anything you don't eat? Allergies?"
I shook my head. Nobody had ever asked me that before. On the island, I'd eaten what I gathered. At the cove, I ate what came to the table. Now I'd eat anything that didn't involve the jar in my backpack.
"We'll start with the clam chowder," Victoria said. "We can order more later." The waiter nodded respectfully and disappeared again. "They make it with fresh clams," she told me. "It's exceptional."
A young woman with a fancy braid in her hair brought us a basket of French bread, still warm from the oven. I watched as Victoria spread one slice with butter that melted as she applied it, releasing the faintest scent of flowers.
"Here," she said, handing it to me. The crust gave way under my teeth with a delicate crunch, the butter soft on my tongue. It tasted even better than it smelled. After almost two weeks of hard mattresses and strangers and failure, I wanted to crawl inside the comfort of this bread and stay there forever.
”
”
Erica Bauermeister (The Scent Keeper)
“
And then the aroma of life will sound for you with new colors.
”
”
Ivan Kuznietsov (The Mindful Nutrition: How to Enjoy the True Taste of Food, Have a Slim Body and 33 (+3) Home Cooking Recipes for a Delicious Degustation (Mindful Moments Collection))
“
Those innovations in American eating habits that began in a manufacturer’s laboratory, passed into the hands of home economists, and then met the public by way of the advertising industry took root with a speed and sureness that gratified the most forward-looking cooks. The campaign to place Crisco in every kitchen was a model of the process, and Crisco itself was in many ways a model food of the twentieth century. "An Absolutely New Product," announced one of the introductory advertisements. "A Scientific Discovery Which Will Affect Every Kitchen in America." Crisco had been tested extensively in the laboratory ever since its discovery, the copy explained, and "chefs and domestic science teachers" had been using it experimentally as well. Now it was ready for the public: "Dip out a spoonful and look at it. You will like its very appearance, for it is a pure cream white, with a fresh, pleasant aroma." ... "Crisco never varies," the copy stressed. "Crisco is never sold in bulk, but is put up in immaculate packages, perfectly protected from dust and store odors. No hands ever touch it…
”
”
Laura Shapiro (Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (California Studies in Food and Culture, 24))
“
Food is so powerful; the aromas and flavors tap into a part of your brain that contains visceral memories. I think it's incredible how food is a kind of time machine, a vessel that can move us through space and time instantly. Really, it's our brains--- we're essentially hallucinating when we taste familiar flavors.
”
”
Emily Arden Wells (Eat Post Like)
“
The sakura shrimp fishing season has just started in Yui, so that's the first catch you're eating. If you believe what they say, that means you'll live a long and healthy life."
Nagare removed the lid from the bowl, releasing a cloud of steam. Kana leaned over, closed her eyes, and took a deep sniff of the clear broth.
"It smells wonderful!"
"The only solid ingredient is diced tofu. Plus a garnish of pepper tree leaves."
"Just tofu? But this aroma--- it's so complex."
"The stock is from quick-grilled sweetfish bones. I had plenty of them left over from all that sushi."
"So that's what I'm picking up," replied Kana, sniffing the steam again. "Who'd have thought those tiny little bones could add so much flavor?
”
”
Jesse Kirkwood (The Restaurant of Lost Recipes (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #2))
“
The veil between the Living and the Dead drew me in, guided my spirit, deposited me before the welcoming glow of--- I shit you not--- an In-N-Out Burger.
Turns out the Afterlife? Where you go when you die? It's a Food Hall.
There were good things to eat in every direction. Spirits strolled the streets with the lazy haze of tourists. They ate crepes in waxed paper; they licked swirls of ice cream. They chewed translucent strips of prosciutto folded inside newsprint cones.
My stomach growled at the sights; it moaned at the smells. Garlic crisping in foaming slabs of butter. Crusty bread, still steaming from the oven. Glossy discs of chocolate melting over double boil.
In the Hall, it was impossible to think about anything but food. Everywhere I looked, something beckoned. And as I passed a storefront--- a sweetshop, the candy arranged in the window like so many jewels--- the cravings won.
Just one bite, I thought, and pulled open the door.
Inside, on a marble counter, a black box appeared. Nestled inside were four perfect confections--- a sampler surprise. The aroma was decadent--- thick and bittersweet. I didn't even think before shoving one into my mouth.
A gourmet peanut cup.
Dark chocolate. Crunchy nut interior. Hard, thick outer shell.
A bastardization, but enough to trigger a memory so strong I nearly dropped the box.
Reese's.
Everleigh.
Halloween.
The whole reason I was there.
”
”
Daria Lavelle (Aftertaste)
“
Indian and Pakistani barbeque food in Michigan USA menu
Welcome to Barbqnite! We’re excited to bring the flavors of Pakistani and Indian food with our new restaurant, specializing in delicious
BBQ cuisine.
Our Story
Barbqnite was founded by Tariq Khan, Zeeshan Anwar, & Kamran Dawood who grew up in Pakistan surrounded by the incredible taste and aroma of traditional BBQ dishes. These family recipes have been passed down for generations, and now the founders want to share them with you.
”
”
Barbqnite
“
manipulating attitudes about food by emphasizing its tastes, aromas, and textures can increase the amount of vegetables people eat, even when the veggies are competing with less healthy options that we’re conditioned to find more appealing.17
”
”
Emeran Mayer (The Gut-Immune Connection: How Understanding the Connection Between Food and Immunity Can Help Us Regain Our Health)
“
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Fried chickpea cutlets," he said.
"Oh." That sounded like a gift from heaven.
"A salad, fresh cheese, and a hunk of warm bread." He stuck a piece of it under her nose. "Smell that."
Her mouth watered at the aroma wafting from the buttered wheat. Esther's bread had as much in common with the bread of mourning as a loose rock on the side of the road with the jewel on the king's belt.
Jadon poured a deep purple drink from a ewer into two cups. "Water with mulberry syrup."
The fragrance of fried onions, saffron, and mint had her almost salivating like a teething baby. Sitting on the stool Jadon offered her, she bowed her head as he whispered a prayer.
She had to grin when Jadon closed his eyes and groaned after tasting his first bite.
He waved at the food. "Your turn."
She broke off a small piece of the chickpea cutlet and made a morsel with a piece of bread, trying not to feel self-conscious under Jadon's intense scrutiny. A myriad of flavors mixed in perfect harmony and exploded on her tongue. "Oh." She pinched off another piece of the cutlet. Words were wasted on this meal. Her mouth was too busy tasting.
”
”
Tessa Afshar (The Royal Artisan (Queen Esther's Court, #2))
“
Today's rice is mixed with hamo eel," said Nagare, returning with a Shigaraki-ware clay pot and a small, lidded bowl.
"Interesting. I've had hamo as sushi plenty of times, but never with regular rice."
"Well, it's certainly not as fancy as sushi," replied Nagare, setting the pot down on a woven straw mat. "Anyone could whip it up at home."
"And what's the soup?" asked Nobuo, removing the lid from the small bowl.
"I chopped up the skin from the hamo and made it into dumplings. Add a bit of this yuzu peel too, if you like."
Nagare appeared to have deliberately used one of Nobuo's creations to serve the soup. A tempting fragrance was rising from the jet-black lacquered bowl.
"Regular green tea all right for you?" asked Koishi, showing him a Kyo-ware teapot.
"Oh, yes. In fact, at home I like to have a cup of bo-cha."
"Bo-cha?" repeated Koishi, pausing with her teapot at the ready.
"A specialty of Kaga, back in Ishikawa. It's a sort of roasted green tea--- like hojicha, basically, but made using the stems rather than the leaves. It's all about the fragrance."
"Nothing like it after a good meal, is there?" Koishi poured the green tea into a tall, narrow cup, releasing a smoky aroma.
"This is just a small portion for now," said Nagare, placing a bowl of rice in front of Nobuo. "But there's plenty in the pot, so just tell me if you'd like more."
Nobuo's eyes widened. "This is the... hamo rice?"
"Almost looks like plain white rice, doesn't it? I broke up the flesh from some grilled hamo and mixed it into the freshly cooked rice, and shredded perilla for seasoning. Really ties the flavors together. And if you're wanting to pour that tea over your rice and eat it chazuke-style, I'd recommend adding some of these toppings: wasabi, nori seaweed, and crumbled rice crackers." Nagare set the wooden spatula he'd used to serve the rice on the lid of the clay pot.
"I didn't realize the hamo flesh would be this white without the skin," said Nobuo, reaching for his chopsticks. "It's practically gleaming!"
Just as Nagare had said, it looked like little more than regular white rice. But as he raised a clump of it toward his mouth, the potent smell of hamo reached his nose first. The rice was clearly packed with the eel's flesh. Meanwhile, its skin had been used to make dumplings for the soup. This determination not to let any ingredient go to waste seemed typical of Nagare's style.
”
”
Jesse Kirkwood (The Menu of Happiness (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #3))