“
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
”
”
Truman Capote
“
Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery
“
Too much quiet left me depressed and consuming condiments for meals.
”
”
Tammara Webber (Easy (Contours of the Heart, #1))
“
Rumors are born with legs that can run a mile in less than a minute.
Rumors eat up dreams without condiments.
Rumors do not have expiration dates.
Rumors can be deadly.
Rumors can get you killed.
”
”
Tiffany D. Jackson (Monday's Not Coming)
“
A house full of condiments and no real food. If you don't know what you want, you end up with a lot you don't.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
If you're opening a hot dog stand, you could worry about the condiments, the cart, the name, the decoration. But the first thing you should worry aout is the hot dog. The hot dogs are the epicenter. Everything else is secondary.
”
”
Jason Fried (Rework)
“
That’s a federal crime,” I told him. “Punishable by three to five years in a minimum-security prison. You’ll get passed around like condiments at a barbeque.” “My hole is already quivering,” he said.
”
”
T.J. Klune (Tell Me It's Real (At First Sight, #1))
“
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.
”
”
Truman Capote
“
I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.
”
”
Thomas Jefferson
“
Then there came a faraway, booming voice like a low, clear bell. It came from the center of the bowl and down the great sides to the ground and then bounced toward her eagerly. 'You see I am fate,' it shouted, 'and stronger than your puny plans; and I am how-things-turn-out and I am different from your little dreams, and I am the flight of time and the end of beauty and unfulfilled desire; all the accidents and imperceptions and the little minutes that shape the crucial hours are mine. I am the exception that proves no rules, the limits of your control, the condiment in the dish of life.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Cut Glass Bowl and Other Stories (Macmillan Readers: Upper Level))
“
We don't want you convicted for condiment theft. You go to that prison, you'll meet big-time operators. Maple syrup stealers.
”
”
Deb Caletti (Wild Roses)
“
Never go anywhere without condiments. Condiments are our friends.
”
”
Simon R. Green (The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (Nightside, #10))
“
Okay, yeah, he staggered back and fell into the condiments. Big deal. There wasn't any blood. I didn't even get him in the face. He saw my fist coming, and at the last minute he ducked, so instead of punching him in the nose, like I intended, I ended up punching him in the neck.
I highly doubt it even left a bruise.
”
”
Meg Cabot
“
As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gives me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr. Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings.
”
”
Augusten Burroughs (Magical Thinking: True Stories)
“
Lust, learn, and love,” she says, placing the condiments and touching her finger to the ketchup. “My mother said the first boy—or man—is a crush. You think you love them, but what you really love is how they make you feel. It’s not love. It’s lust. Lust for attention. Lust for danger. Lust to feel special.” She looks between us. “You’re needy with number one. Needy for someone to love you.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Credence)
“
There is a little Juliet inside me, hoping I will lock eyes with my Romeo on the other side of a fish tank or through a gap in a library bookcase. Hell, even if it's behind the condiments section in a supermarket. I don't really mind.
”
”
Jessica Thompson
“
The other night we talked about literature's elimination of the unessential, so that we are given a concentrated "dose" of life. I said, almost indignantly, "That's the danger of it, it prepares you to live, but at the same time, it exposes you to disappointments because it gives a heightened concept of living, it leaves out the dull or stagnant moments. You, in your books, also have a heightened rhythm, and a sequence of events so packed with excitement that i expected all your life to be delirious, intoxicated."
Literature is an exaggeration, a dramatization, and those who are nourished on it (as I was) are in great danger of trying to approximate an impossible rhythm. Trying to live up to dostoevskian scenes every day. And between writers there is a straining after extravagance. We incite each other to jazz-up our rhythm. It is amusing that, when Henry, Fred, and I talked together, we fell back into a deep naturalness. Perhaps none of us is a sensational character. Or perhaps we have no need of condiments. Henry is, in reality, mild not temperamental; gentle not eager for scenes. We may all write about sadism, masochism, the grand quignol, bubu de montparnasse (in which the highest proof of love is for a pimp to embrace his woman's syphilis as fervently as herself, a noblesse-oblige of the apache world), cocteau, drugs, insane asylums, house of the dead, because we love strong colors; and yet when we sit in the cafe de la place clichy, we talk about henry's last pages, and a chapter which was too long, and richard's madness. "One of his greatest worries," said Henry, "was to have introduced us. He thinks you are wonderful and that you may be in danger from the 'gangster author.
”
”
Anaïs Nin
“
You can’t just casually tell someone you carry caramel sauce around and walk away like that’s a normal thing,” I call at her retreating back. “What other emergency dessert condiments do you have stashed in your bag?
”
”
Emma Lord
“
Remorse is perhaps the condiment which keeps passion from being too unappetizing to the blasé.
”
”
Joris-Karl Huysmans (Là-Bas (Down There))
“
In hindsight he was glad it wasn't the good taco spot because it would have been ruined forever. Anyplace that charged seventy-five cents for condiments could burn in hell. On principle.
”
”
Mary H.K. Choi (Emergency Contact)
“
It had formerly been my endeavor to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
The door closed; almost imperceptably, the lift began to rise.
'Going up,' the skull said. 'Next floor: cutlery, condiments and underpants.
”
”
Jonathan Stroud (The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co., #5))
“
Peanut butter is my favorite food.”
Rivers looks at me for a long time, finally shaking his head. He moves to my side, reclining next tome. “Peanut butter is not food.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don't know. A condiment. Like ketchup or mustard.”
“Really, Rivers? Do you put peanut butter on a hamburger?”
“Do you eat it plain?” he shoots back.
“Yes.”
“Okay, do most people eat it plain?
”
”
Lindy Zart (Unlit Star (Unlit Star #1))
“
Oh, fish sauce! How we missed it, dear Aunt, how nothing tasted right without it, how we longed for the grand cru of Phu Quoc Island and its vats brimming with the finest vintage of pressed anchovies! This pungent liquid condiment of the darkest sepia hue was much denigrated by foreigners for its supposedly horrendous reek, lending new meaning to the phrase "there's something fishy aroud here," for we were the fishy ones. We used fish sauce the way Transylvanian villagers were cloves of garlic to ward off vampires, in our case to establish a perimeter with those Westerners who could never understand that was truly fishy was the nauseating stench of cheese. What was fermented fish compared to curdled milk?
”
”
Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1))
“
Rumors are born with legs that can run a mile in less than a minute. Rumors eat up dreams without condiments. Rumors do not have expiration dates. Rumors can be deadly. Rumors can get you killed.
”
”
Tiffany D. Jackson (Monday's Not Coming)
“
Here’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage
might work: Because you wear pink but write poems
about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell
at your keys when you lose them, and laugh,
loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol,
gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials
from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming.
You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents
of what you packed were written inside the boxes.
Because you think swans are overrated.
Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me
to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence.
Because you underline everything you read, and circle
the things you think are important, and put stars next
to the things you think I should think are important,
and write notes in the margins about all the people
you’re mad at and my name almost never appears there.
Because you make that pork recipe you found
in the Frida Khalo Cookbook. Because when you read
that essay about Rilke, you underlined the whole thing
except the part where Rilke says love means to deny the self
and to be consumed in flames. Because when the lights
are off, the curtains drawn, and an additional sheet is nailed
over the windows, you still believe someone outside
can see you. And one day five summers ago,
when you couldn’t put gas in your car, when your fridge
was so empty—not even leftovers or condiments—
there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew,
which you paid for with your last damn dime
because you once overheard me say that I liked it.
”
”
Matthew Olzmann
“
No fair-minded girl objects to a certain tinge of jealousy. Kept within proper bounds, it is a compliment; it makes for piquancy; it is the gin in the ginger-beer of devotion. But it should be a condiment, not a fluid.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (The Works of P.G. Wodehouse (with active table of contents))
“
People should have fun with wine. A bottle should sit on your dinner table like all of the other condiments.
”
”
Andre Hueston Mack
“
One of the perks of having no friends was that no one was there to see you squirt condiments all over yourself.
”
”
Michelle Falkoff (Playlist for the Dead)
“
Keep favorite condiments on hand, such as ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and salsa.
”
”
Betty Crocker (Betty Crocker The Big Book Of Weeknight Dinners (Betty Crocker Big Book))
“
The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
There is no thrill like the thrill of discovery; no life like the life of a mining camp in the days of its youth. Nevada had known them in full and overflowing measure. The salt of the sea in the blood of a sailor is but a weak and insipid condiment compared with the solution of cyanide, sage and silicate in the blood of the prospector.
”
”
C.B. Glasscock
“
The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.
Jane Eyre
Page# 208
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
You see, I am fate,” it shouted, “and stronger than your puny plans; and I am how-things-turn-out and I am different from your little dreams, and I am the flight of time and the end of beauty and unfulfilled desire; all the accidents and imperceptions and the little minutes that shape the crucial hours are mine. I am the exception that proves no rules, the limits of your control, the condiment in the dish of life.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories (Penguin Classics))
“
As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gave me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings. It was in my Vanderbilt genes.
”
”
Augusten Burroughs (Magical Thinking: True Stories)
“
WHAT I MEAN BY RUIN IS…
When there’s only condiments left in the fridge
and you join a free online dating service
so men will buy you dinner.
When you’ve shucked the night with the dull blade
of indecision and gulped down everything,
even the pearls.
When some old, left-handed love has left
your guitar strung backwards
and you can’t find any songs
for rain in its frets.
When you wake up next to the body
of your past and it looks ready
to wrinkle and bald.
When the last burn of summer is peeling
from your breasts and there’s nothing to husk
the pale, raw of new flesh.
When the woman who wears her hair
in the old way quits mumbling about Jesus
on the street corner and takes her salvation
pamphlets to a pauper’s grave.
When you’re too ugly to pray,
but pray
and the only voice
on the drunk subway wails
good grief.
”
”
Stevie Edwards
“
A brick and a blanket could be used as characters in a story full of clever dialogue, such as:
Brick: I checked everywhere, and it’s not where I last left it. Did you touch my penis sandwich?
Blanket: What? Eww no, why would I touch your penis sandwich?
Brick: Well, would it make you more comfortable if I put on some condiments and rolled on a condom?
Blanket: Dude, or lady, whatever you are. I’m not gay—or straight. I’m not even bisexual. I’m a blanket, and I’m asexual. I’m also not hungry now.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Brick)
“
Yeah, well, time marches on. Getting caught up in causes don’t interest me. Not anymore. Especially when you see the scope of what this is.” He took the Heinz ketchup bottle from the condiment holder. “That’s the thing: Most people don’t understand this. The ingredients, what it goes on, where the energy comes from to create it, the ways the world’s gotta be directed and coaxed and violated and controlled to get this one little fucked bottle. And once you see how ketchup relates to imperial maintenance it’s tough to not get an overwhelmed quality to your thinking. Like one of them Magic Eye thingamajobs—hard the first time, but once you get it, you’ll never unsee it.
”
”
Stephen Markley (The Deluge)
“
My mother said no woman should get married until they’ve had at least three…” She waves her hand as if I know how to finish that sentence. “Three…?” my father prompts her. “Lovers,” she blurts out. “Boyfriends, whatever.” I pinch my eyebrows together. “What the hell are you talking about?” She lets out a sigh, straightening her spine and looking visibly uncomfortable. Finally, she takes the ketchup, Heinz sauce, and A.1. bottle, moving them one next to the other. “Lust, learn, and love,” she says, placing the condiments and touching her finger to the ketchup. “My mother said the first boy—or man—is a crush. You think you love them, but what you really love is how they make you feel. It’s not love. It’s lust. Lust for attention. Lust for danger. Lust to feel special.” She looks between us. “You’re needy with number one. Needy for someone to love you.” My father forgets the food he’s chewing as he gapes at her. “The second is to learn about yourself.” She touches the Heinz. “Your first crush has been crushed. You’re sad, but most of all, you’re angry. Angry
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Credence)
“
Place the flat cut corned beef, with all its juices and condiments from the package, in a big pot. Pour water to the level of the beef. Add
”
”
N.T. Alcuaz (Banana Leaves: Filipino Cooking and Much More)
“
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. - Truman Capote
”
”
Kari Wirth
“
outside the watchmaker shop. It was sandwiched between a deli and a bakery and only time would tell if a condiment store would strap on in its place.
”
”
J.S. Mason (Whisky Hernandez)
“
Strangeness is the indispensable condiment of all beauty. — Charles Baudelaire
”
”
Charles Baudelaire
“
Love and adventure are the condiments of life.
”
”
David J. Forsyth (Too Cold for Mermaids)
“
other people’s condiments are depressing.
”
”
Abigail Thomas (A Three Dog Life)
Stephanie J. Scott (All Last Summer (Love on Summer Break, #1))
“
author Truman Capote says, failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
”
”
C. Nicole Mason (Me First: A Deliciously Selfish Take on Life)
“
It’s as good a place as any,” I reply softly, placing some condiments back onto the door shelf. “Why?” “Because you’re still you, no matter where you go,” I retort.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Credence)
“
All Carolina folk are crazy for mayonnaise, mayonnaise is as ambrosia to them, the food of their tarheeled gods. Mayonnaise comforts them, causes the vowels to slide more musically along their slow tongues, appeasing their grease-conditioned taste buds while transporting those buds to a place higher than lard could ever hope to fly. Yellow as summer sunlight, soft as young thighs, smooth as a Baptist preacher's rant, falsely innocent as a magician's handkerchief, mayonnaise will cloak a lettuce leaf, some shreds of cabbage, a few hunks of cold potato in the simplest splendor, restyling their dull character, making them lively and attractive again, granting them the capacity to delight the gullet if not the heart. Fried oysters, leftover roast, peanut butter: rare are the rations that fail to become instantly more scintillating from contact with this inanimate seductress, this goopy glory-monger, this alchemist in a jar.
The mystery of mayonnaise-and others besides Dickie Goldwire have surely puzzled over this_is how egg yolks, vegetable oil, vinegar (wine's angry brother), salt, sugar (earth's primal grain-energy), lemon juice, water, and, naturally, a pinch of the ol' calcium disodium EDTA could be combined in such a way as to produce a condiment so versatile, satisfying, and outright majestic that mustard, ketchup, and their ilk must bow down before it (though, a at two bucks a jar, mayonnaise certainly doesn't put on airs)or else slink away in disgrace. Who but the French could have wrought this gastronomic miracle? Mayonnaise is France's gift to the New World's muddled palate, a boon that combines humanity's ancient instinctive craving for the cellular warmth of pure fat with the modern, romantic fondness for complex flavors: mayo (as the lazy call it) may appear mild and prosaic, but behind its creamy veil it fairly seethes with tangy disposition. Cholesterol aside, it projects the luster that we astro-orphans have identified with well-being ever since we fell from the stars.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Villa Incognito)
“
You don't like this quite country life?" inquired Mrs. Condiment.
"No; no better than I do a quiet country grave-yard. I don't want to return to dust before my time, I tell you," said Cap, yawning dismally over her work.
”
”
E.D.E.N. Southworth
“
Pepper it was that brought Vasco da Gama's tall ships across the ocean, from Lisbon's Tower of Belem to the Malabar Coast: first to Calicut and later, for its lagoony harbour, to Cochin. English and French sailed in the wake of that first-arrived Portugee, so that in the period called Discovery-of-India — but how could we be discovered when we were not
covered before? — we were 'not so much sub-continent as sub-condiment', as my distinguished mother had it.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (The Moor's Last Sigh)
“
Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them.’ Isn’t that worth learning, Aunt Jimsie?
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of The Island)
“
When I was eight years old, I was abducted from a fast food restaurant by a man who took me, in all likelihood, because of a small splotch of mayonnaise on his hamburger. And so I believe in neither free will nor predetermination.
I believe in condiments.
”
”
Michael Fiegel (Blackbird)
“
So what do you think? Should the toothpaste and the condiments go next to the Elmer's glue and the hair gel and lubricants? Make a shelf of sticky things? Or should I put it with the chewing tobacco and the mouth-wash, and make a little display of things that you spit?
”
”
Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners)
“
For the statement of Isaiah (28:19) is true: “Trouble gives understanding”; likewise, hunger is the best condiment. For those who are afflicted have a better understanding of the Holy Scriptures; the smug and prosperous read them as if they were some poem written by Ovid.
”
”
Martin Luther (Luther's Works, Vol. 4: Genesis Chapters 21-25 (Luther's Works (Concordia)))
“
In the late afternoon the group assembled for cocktails. Without consorting about it they'd all dressed up, and the women's perfumes fought for supremacy in the living room. The sun set, candles were lit; Mme Reynard found an English dictionary among the cookbooks and proposed they play the game called Dictionary, whereby a player assigns an incorrect definition to an unknown word in hopes of fooling the other players.
She claimed the secateur was the sabateur's assistant. Malcom that costalgia was a shared reminiscence, Susan that a remotion was a lateral promotion, Frances that polonaise was an outmoded British condiment fabricated from a horse's bone marrow, Madeline that a puncheon was a contentious luncheon, and Joan that a syrt was a Syrian breath mint. Julius, whose English was not fully matured, said that unbearing was the act of "removing a bear from a peopled premises.
”
”
Patrick deWitt (French Exit)
“
the ambiguous conversation with the unseen serving-wench, the bags of hot-grease-scented food hurtling in through the window, condiments in packets, attempting to eat while lurching down a highway, volumes of messy litter that seemed to fill all the empty space in the mobe, a smell that outstayed its welcome.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Anathem)
“
Dinner was a fur muff, a dozen clothespins, and some old dish towels boiled up with carrots. The fact that the meal was served with a bottle of prepared horseradish enabled Sammy to conclude that it was intended to pass for braised short ribs of beef - flanken. Many of Ethel's specialties arrived thus encoded by condiments.
”
”
Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
“
When Elisa arrives at McDonald’s, the manager unlocks the door and lets her in. Sometimes the husband-and-wife cleaning crew are just finishing up. More often, it’s just Elisa and the manager in the restaurant, surrounded by an empty parking lot. For the next hour or so, the two of them get everything ready. They turn on the ovens and grills. They go downstairs into the basement and get food and supplies for the morning shift. They get the paper cups, wrappers, cardboard containers, and packets of condiments. They step into the big freezer and get the frozen bacon, the frozen pancakes, and the frozen cinnamon rolls. They get the frozen hash browns, the frozen biscuits, the frozen McMuffins. They get the cartons of scrambled egg mix and orange juice mix. They bring the food upstairs and start preparing it before any customers appear, thawing some things in the microwave and cooking other things on the grill. They put the cooked food in special cabinets to keep it warm.
”
”
Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal)
“
Did he really say he was going to miss me? Maybe he had and it didn’t mean anything major. You could run out of ketchup and miss it without a crushing sense of deprivation overwhelming your life. It was, after all, just a condiment. I might well be the current pick of the condiments in his life. But he’d still eat a hamburger without me. A
”
”
Kylie Scott (Dirty (Dive Bar, #1))
“
What Heinz had done was come up with a condiment that pushed all five of these primal buttons. The taste of Heinz’s ketchup began at the tip of the tongue, where our receptors for sweet and salty first appear, moved along the sides, where sour notes seem the strongest, then hit the back of the tongue, for umami and bitter, in one long crescendo.
”
”
Malcolm Gladwell (What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures)
“
Mark’s horror came from the fact that Christopher proposed to eschew comfort. An Englishman’s duty is to secure for himself for ever, reasonable clothing, a clean shirt a day, a couple of mutton chops grilled without condiments, two floury potatoes, an apple pie with a piece of Stilton and pulled bread, a pint of Club Médoc, a clean room, in the winter a good fire in the grate, a comfortable arm-chair, a comfortable woman to see that all these were prepared for you, and to keep you warm in bed and to brush your bowler and fold your umbrella in the morning. When you had that secure for life you could do what you liked provided that what you did never endangered that security. What was to be said against that?
”
”
Ford Madox Ford (Parade's End (Vintage Classics))
“
At any given moment, four or five separate dialogues were going on across the table, but because people weren't necessarily talking to the person next to them, these dialogues kept intersecting with one another, causing abrupt shifts in the pairings of the speakers, so that everyone seemed to be taking part in all the conversations at the same time, simultaneously chattering away about his or her own life and eavesdropping on everyone else as well. Add to this the frequent interruptions from the children, the coming and goings of the different courses, the pouring of wine, the dropped plates, overturned glasses, and spilled condiments, the dinner began to resemble an elaborate, hastily improvised vaudeville routine.
”
”
Paul Auster (Leviathan)
“
We have now reached a level in which many people are not merely unacquainted with the fundamentals of punctuation, but don’t evidently realize that there are fundamentals. Many people—people who make posters for leading publishers, write captions for the BBC, compose letters and advertisements for important institutions—seem to think that capitalization and marks of punctuation are condiments that you sprinkle through any collection of words as if from a salt shaker. Here is a headline, exactly as presented, from a magazine ad for a private school in York: “Ranked by the daily Telegraph the top Northern Co-Educational day and Boarding School for Academic results.” All those capital letters are just random. Does anyone really think that the correct rendering of the newspaper is “the daily Telegraph”? Is it really possible to be that unobservant? Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Not long ago, I received an e-mail from someone at the Department for Children, Schools and Families asking me to take part in a campaign to help raise appreciation for the quality of teaching in Great Britain. Here is the opening line of the message exactly as it was sent to me: “Hi Bill. Hope alls well. Here at the Department of Children Schools and Families…” In the space of one line, fourteen words, the author has made three elemental punctuation errors (two missing commas, one missing apostrophe; I am not telling you more than that) and gotten the name of her own department wrong—this from a person whose job is to promote education. In a similar spirit, I received a letter not long ago from a pediatric surgeon inviting me to speak at a conference. The writer used the word “children’s” twice in her invitation, spelling it two different ways and getting it wrong both times. This was a children’s specialist working in a children’s hospital. How long do you have to be exposed to a word, how central must it be to your working life, to notice how it is spelled?
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island)
“
It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment on your dish, and it will poison you.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
“
By my fifth sip, I am sooooo glad I splurged thirty-five delicious Euros. That’s right math whizzes, the Red Beach set me back over fifty American dollars. Who cares if I have to eat Top Ramen when I get home? I’ll gladly pilfer condiment packages from fast food restaurants to survive if it means I get to sit in ZPlage and sip Red Beaches with anorexic Russian models and their playboy sugar daddies.
”
”
Leah Marie Brown (Faking It (It Girls, #1))
“
I thought you didn't believe in marriage."
"A man who never contradicts himself must become horribly bored with his own conversation. Oh, on the whole I don't believe in it, except when there is genuine love, which is such a compound of affection, warmth, ease, esteem, and various other spices and condiments rarer than powdered hen's teeth that one hardly expects to come across it once in a lifetime.
”
”
Jude Morgan (Indiscretion)
“
The classical tradition in philosophy is the last surviving child of two very diverse parents: the Greek belief in reason, and the mediæval belief in the tidiness of the universe. To the schoolmen, who lived amid wars, massacres, and pestilences, nothing appeared so delightful as safety and order. In their idealising dreams, it was safety and order that they sought: the universe of Thomas Aquinas or Dante is as small and neat as a Dutch interior. To us, to whom safety has become monotony, to whom the primeval savageries of nature are so remote as to become a mere pleasing condiment to our ordered routine, the world of dreams is very different from what it was amid the wars of Guelf and Ghibelline. Hence William James's protest against what he calls the “block universe” of the classical tradition; hence Nietzsche's worship of force; hence the verbal bloodthirstiness of many quiet literary men. The barbaric substratum of human nature, unsatisfied in action, finds an outlet in imagination. In philosophy, as elsewhere, this tendency is visible; and it is this, rather than formal argument, that has thrust aside the classical tradition for a philosophy which fancies itself more virile and more vital. B.
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Bertrand Russell (The Bertrand Russell Collection)
“
It then begins to be Miss Tox’s occupation to prepare little dainties—or what are such to her—to be carried into these rooms next morning. She derives so much satisfaction from the pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from that time; and brings daily in her little basket, various choice condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of the powdered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of curl-paper, morsels of cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls, for her own dinner; and sharing these collations with Polly, passes the greater part of her time in the ruined house that the rats have fled from: hiding, in a fright at every sound, stealing in and out like a criminal; only desiring to be true to the fallen object of her admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world but one poor simple woman.
”
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Charles Dickens (Dombey and Son)
“
One of his great pleasures is overdoing it with the groceries, involving several stops at little markets, cheese shops, the East Haven lady who makes her own Thai BBQ sauce and fries up a bag of plantains for him while he waits. At our old house, we had a refrigerator just for condiments. Even now, my older daughter always says, How can you be only two people and never have an empty fridge? That’s Brian, I say, buyer of burrata, soppressata, Meyer lemons, white peaches, Benton’s ham.
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Amy Bloom (In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss)
“
The police think maybe it was the gas. Maybe the pilot light on the stove went out or a burner was left on, leaking gas, and the gas rose to the ceiling, and the gas filled the condo from ceiling to floor in every room. The condo was seventeen hundred square feet with high ceilings and for days and days, the gas must’ve leaked until every room was full. When the rooms were filled to the floor, the compressor at the base of the refrigerator clicked on. Detonation. The floor-to-ceiling windows in their aluminum frames went out and the sofas and the lamps and dishes and sheet sets in flames, and the high school annuals and the diplomas and telephone. Everything blasting out from the fifteenth floor in a sort of solar flare. Oh, not my refrigerator. I’d collected shelves full of different mustards, some stone-ground, some English pub style. There were fourteen different flavors of fat-free salad dressing, and seven kinds of capers. I know, I know, a house full of condiments and no real food.
”
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Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
Our crab pots are out front, and Francis has fixed a big metal barrel right on the beach. He lights a good fire to get the water boiling, and after the crabs are cooked, we women sit on the patio shucking until we have a mountain of meat in the middle of the table. We stir up buckets of cocktail sauce from catsup, mayonnaise, Worcestershire, lemon juice, and celery salt, and the kids come running. They eat on their towels on the sand, soaking up as much sun as possible to get them through the next winter.
”
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Kim Fay (Love & Saffron)
“
But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.
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Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
All meats, intoxicants, condiments, processed and canned foods are highly acidic. Modern science considers dairy mostly acidic but Ayurveda states all dairy products generated from cow's milk to be alkaline. All herbs, spices and most vegetables are alkaline. Avocados and coconuts are highly alkaline as are rock salt, sprouted beans and vegetables like spinach, cucumber, broccoli. Kemp (sea vegetable), horseradish and miso are highly alkaline. All citrus fruits are acidic before ingestion but they act alkaline on the body during and post ingestion.
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Om Swami (The Wellness Sense: A practical guide to your physical and emotional health based on Ayurvedic and yogic wisdom)
“
All meats, intoxicants, condiments, processed and canned foods are very acidic. Modern science considers dairy mostly acidic, but Ayurveda considers all dairy products generated from cow’s milk to be alkaline. All herbs, spices and most vegetables are alkaline. Avocados and coconuts are very alkaline, as are rock salt, sprouted beans and vegetables like spinach, cucumber and broccoli. Kemp (sea vegetable), horseradish and miso are very alkaline. All citrus fruits are acidic before ingestion but they act alkaline on the body during and after ingestion. In
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Om Swami (The Wellness Sense: A Practical Guide to Your Physical and Emotional Health Based on Ayurvedic and Yogic Wisdom)
“
But more than this - not even, after your victims have been killed, will you eat them just as they are from the slaughter-house. You boil, roast, and altogether metamorphose them by fire and condiments. You entirely alter and disguise the murdered animal by use of ten thousand sweet herbs and spices, that your natural taste may be deceived and be prepared to take the unnatural food. A proper and witty rebuke was that of the Spartan who bought a fish and gave it to his cook to dress. When the latter asked for butter, and olive oil, and vinegar, he replied, 'Why, if I had all these things I should not have bought the fish!
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Plutarch (Plutarch's Morals)
“
An Englishman’s duty is to secure for himself for ever reasonable clothing, a clean shirt a day, a couple of mutton-chops grilled without condiments, two floury potatoes, an apple-pie with a piece of Stilton and pulled bread, a pint of Club Medoc, a clean room, in the winter a good fire in the grate, a comfortable armchair, a comfortable woman to see that all these were prepared for you, to keep you warm in bed and to brush your bowler and fold your umbrella in the morning. When you had that secure for life, you could do what you liked provided that what you did never endangered that security. What was to be said against that?
”
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Ford Madox Ford (Parade's End (Wordsworth Classics))
“
But more than that, what's up with this rice?! It's mellow and mild, without the first hint of any vinegary tang!
This isn't your normal sushi rice!"
"Exactly! For this recipe, I used red vinegar.
The vinegar used in sushi rice is typically rice vinegar made from a blend of rice and wheat or corn that is fermented. But red vinegar is made from fermented sake lees!
By the time Edomae sushi- sushi as we know it today- first became popular in the 1820s, red vinegar was already a condiment...
But since the brewing and aging process can take up to five or six years, it has become a luxury vinegar in the present day
Isn't that right, Senpai?!"
"You are correct!"
Oh, I get it! Because of how it's made, red vinegar has less sugar and a mellower flavor! Plus, mixing it with rice won't make the rice as tough, leaving the finished sushi rice soft and fluffy!
But that also makes balancing the flavors of the sushi rice and its toppings a much more delicate task.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 26 [Shokugeki no Souma 26] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #26))
“
Althorpe threw open a set of heavy double doors to reveal the spacious in-house movie theater, furnished with about twenty high-end leather couches and captains’ seats that had their own tables for snacks. Lacey and I were agog. The Cubs—my Cubs—were about to play for their lives on the wall of Buckingham Palace.
“An immense moment demands an immense screen,” came Eleanor’s voice.
When she rose with some effort from her seat, I blinked. It looked familiar. But it couldn’t be.
“Eleanor,” I said, dropping all formality. “Is that…?”
“A Coucherator,” she said. “Nicholas spoke to your mother and had one flown in. There is a treat in it for you.”
She opened the refrigerated compartment of my dad’s life’s work, so roundly mocked by the British press and Eleanor alike. Inside was a perfectly chilled case of Miller Lite. It was only then that I noticed a side table stuffed with Cracker Jack, Doritos, Pop-Tarts, and hot dog condiments.
“Althorpe will deliver the tube meat momentarily,” Eleanor said.
”
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Heather Cocks (The Heir Affair (Royal We, #2))
“
GM: What are the foods you recommend that have sufficient calorie density that make you feel full? What are the best foods to make the staples of your diet? PP: Whole grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables. More broadly, I tell people to make the staples of their diet the four food groups, which are whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. We have our own little pyramid that we use here at The Wellness Forum. Beans, rice, corn, and potatoes are at the bottom of the pyramid. Then steamed and raw vegetables and big salads come next, with fruits after that. Whole grains, or premade whole grain foods like cereals and breads, are all right to eat. Everything else is either optional or a condiment. As for high-fat plant foods—nuts, seeds, avocados, olives—use them occasionally or when they’re part of a recipe, but don’t overdo it; these foods are calorie-dense and full of fat. No oils, get rid of the dairy, and then, very importantly, you need to differentiate between food and a treat. I don’t think you can get through to people by telling a twenty-five-year-old that she can’t have another cookie or a piece of cake for the rest of her life. Where you can gain some traction is to say, “Look, birthday parties are a good time for cake, Christmas morning is a good time for cookies, and Valentine’s Day is a good time for chocolate, but you don’t need to be eating that stuff all the time.” People end up in my office because they’re treating themselves several times a day.
”
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Pamela A. Popper (Food Over Medicine: The Conversation That Could Save Your Life)
“
Kamimura has been whispering all week of a sacred twenty-four-hour ramen spot located on a two-lane highway in Kurume where truckers go for the taste of true ramen. The shop is massive by ramen standards, big enough to fit a few trucks along with those drivers, and in the midafternoon a loose assortment of castaways and road warriors sit slurping their noodles. Near the entrance a thick, sweaty cauldron boils so aggressively that a haze of pork fat hangs over the kitchen like waterfall mist.
While few are audacious enough to claim ramen is healthy, tonkotsu enthusiasts love to point out that the collagen in pork bones is great for the skin. "Look at their faces!" says Kamimura. "They're almost seventy years old and not a wrinkle! That's the collagen. Where there is tonkotsu, there is rarely a wrinkle."
He's right: the woman wears a faded purple bandana and sad, sunken eyes, but even then she doesn't look a day over fifty. She's stirring a massive cauldron of broth, and I ask her how long it's been simmering for.
"Sixty years," she says flatly.
This isn't hyperbole, not exactly. Kurume treats tonkotsu like a French country baker treats a sourdough starter- feeding it, regenerating, keeping some small fraction of the original soup alive in perpetuity. Old bones out, new bones in, but the base never changes. The mother of all ramen.
Maruboshi Ramen opened in 1958, and you can taste every one of those years in the simple bowl they serve. There is no fancy tare, no double broth, no secret spice or unexpected toppings: just pork bones, noodles, and three generations of constant simmering.
The flavor is pig in its purest form, a milky broth with no aromatics or condiments to mitigate the purity of its porcine essence.
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Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
“
How delicious! Layer upon layer of exquisitely delicate sweetness blooms in the mouth like the unfurling petals of a flower! And it's different from the cake Sarge presented in one very distinct way!"
?!
The flavors explode not like a bomb but a firecracker! What a silky-smooth, mild sweetness!
"How were you able to create such a uniquely beautiful flavor?"
"See, for the cake, I used Colza oil, flour, baking powder... and a secret ingredient...
Mashed Japanese mountain yam!
That gave the batter some mild sweetness along with a thick creaminess. Simply mashing it instead of pureeing it gave the cake's texture some soft body as well.
Then there're the two different frostings I used! The white cream I made by blending into a smooth paste banana, avocado, soy milk, rice syrup and some puffed rice I found at the convenience store. I used this for the filling.
*Rice syrup, also called rice malt, is a sweetener made by transforming the starch in rice into sugars. A centuries-old condiment, it's known for being gentle on the stomach.
*
I made the dark cream I used to frost the cake by adding cocoa powder to the white cream."
"I see. How astonishing. This cake uses no dairy or added sugar. Instead, it combines and maximizes the natural sweetness of its ingredients to create a light and wonderfully delicious cake!"
"What?!"
"He didn't put in any sugar at all?!"
"But why go to all that time and effort?!"
"For the people patiently waiting to eat it, of course.
This cake was made especially for these people and for this season.
When it's hot and humid out... even if it's a Christmas Cake, I figured you'd all prefer one that's lighter and softer instead of something rich and heavy.
I mean, that's the kind of cake I'd want in this weather.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 34 [Shokugeki no Souma 34] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #34))
“
Every once in a while at a restaurant, the dish you order looks so good, you don't even know where to begin tackling it. Such are HOME/MADE's scrambles. There are four simple options- my favorite is the smoked salmon, goat cheese, and dill- along with the occasional special or seasonal flavor, and they're served with soft, savory home fries and slabs of grilled walnut bread. Let's break it down:
The scramble: Monica, who doesn't even like eggs, created these sublime scrambles with a specific and studied technique. "We whisk the hell out of them," she says, ticking off her methodology on her fingers. "We use cream, not milk. And we keep turning them and turning them until they're fluffy and in one piece, not broken into bits of egg."
The toast: While the rave-worthiness of toast usually boils down to the quality of the bread, HOME/MADE takes it a step further. "The flame char is my happiness," the chef explains of her preference for grilling bread instead of toasting it, as 99 percent of restaurants do. That it's walnut bread from Balthazar, one of the city's best French bakeries, doesn't hurt.
The home fries, or roasted potatoes as Monica insists on calling them, abiding by chefs' definitions of home fries (small fried chunks of potatoes) versus hash browns (shredded potatoes fried greasy on the griddle) versus roasted potatoes (roasted in the oven instead of fried on the stove top): "My potatoes I've been making for a hundred years," she says with a smile (really, it's been about twenty). The recipe came when she was roasting potatoes early on in her career and thought they were too bland. She didn't want to just keep adding salt so instead she reached for the mustard, which her mom always used on fries. "It just was everything," she says of the tangy, vinegary flavor the French condiment lent to her spuds. Along with the new potatoes, mustard, and herbs de Provence, she uses whole jacket garlic cloves in the roasting pan. It's a simple recipe that's also "a Zen exercise," as the potatoes have to be continuously turned every fifteen minutes to get them hard and crispy on the outside and soft and billowy on the inside.
”
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Amy Thomas (Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself (Mother's Day Gift for New Moms))
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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!
”
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Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 8 [Shokugeki no Souma 8] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #8))
“
Look for guacamole, hummus, pesto, tapenades, olives, and unsweetened condiments, such as mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup without high-fructose corn syrup, and oil-based salad dressings without high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, dextrose, or cornstarch.
”
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William Davis (Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox: Reprogram Your Body for Rapid Weight Loss and Amazing Health)
“
Today’s meal-ready-to-eat consisted of beef steak, but it came with a special prize, the jalapeño cheese sauce—the most-prized condiment in any MRE. It was the most-often traded item and was treated like pure gold by those who regularly ate MREs.
”
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James Rosone (Battlefield Ukraine (Red Storm, #1))
“
Just about every kid in America wished they could be Kyle Keeley. Especially when he zoomed across their TV screens as a flaming squirrel in a holiday commercial for Squirrel Squad Six, the hysterically crazy new Lemoncello video game. Kyle’s friends Akimi Hughes and Sierra Russell were also in that commercial. They thumbed controllers and tried to blast Kyle out of the sky. He dodged every rubber band, coconut custard pie, mud clod, and wadded-up sock ball they flung his way. It was awesome. In the commercial for Mr. Lemoncello’s See Ya, Wouldn’t Want to Be Ya board game, Kyle starred as the yellow pawn. His head became the bubble tip at the top of the playing piece. Kyle’s buddy Miguel Fernandez was the green pawn. Kyle and Miguel slid around the life-size game like hockey pucks. When Miguel landed on the same square as Kyle, that meant Kyle’s pawn had to be bumped back to the starting line. “See ya!” shouted Miguel. “Wouldn’t want to be ya!” Kyle was yanked up off the ground by a hidden cable and hurled backward, soaring above the board. It was also awesome. But Kyle’s absolute favorite starring role was in the commercial for Mr. Lemoncello’s You Seriously Can’t Say That game, where the object was to get your teammates to guess the word on your card without using any of the forbidden words listed on the same card. Akimi, Sierra, Miguel, and the perpetually perky Haley Daley sat on a circular couch and played the guessers. Kyle stood in front of them as the clue giver. “Salsa,” said Kyle. “Nachos!” said Akimi. A buzzer sounded. Akimi’s guess was wrong. Kyle tried again. “Horseradish sauce!” “Something nobody ever eats,” said Haley. Another buzzer. Kyle goofed up and said one of the forbidden words: “Ketchup!” SPLAT! Fifty gallons of syrupy, goopy tomato sauce slimed him from above. It oozed down his face and dribbled off his ears. Everybody laughed. So Kyle, who loved being the class clown almost as much as he loved playing (and winning) Mr. Lemoncello’s wacky games, went ahead and read the whole list of banned words as quickly as he could. “Mustard-mayonnaise-pickle-relish.” SQUOOSH! He was drenched by buckets of yellow glop, white sludge, and chunky green gunk. The slop slid along his sleeves, trickled into his pants, and puddled on the floor. His four friends busted a gut laughing at Kyle, who was soaked in more “condiments” (the word on his card) than a mile-
”
”
Chris Grabenstein (Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics (Mr. Lemoncello's Library, #2))
“
Silverware was marching like little soldiers down the long length of the table toward Belle. Pieces of china were shoving each other precariously out of the way, vying to be in the single place setting in front of her. Little pots of mustard and chutney and other condiments hopped one after another off the shelves lining the room, landing surprisingly intact on silver trays.
Too many things were moving around the room- things that shouldn't have been moving at all. It was dizzying, and more than a little ominous.
"Really, this isn't necessary..." Belle said, getting ready to bolt. A fresh boule, the cracks in its crust emitting amazing-smelling steam, was carried to her by a spidery basket with alarming silver legs.
”
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Liz Braswell (As Old as Time)
“
I slice fresh garlic, rub it into the meat with olive oil, then insert the thin wafers into tiny slits I cut along the grain. After rinsing my hands, I hold them to my face, inhale the garlic perfume still on my skin. I could easily wipe it away on the faucet, a spoon, any piece of stainless steel, but I've never understood why people find it offensive. It's the smell of anticipation, the promise of a wonderful meal in the offing.
Opening the spice cabinet, I breathe in the fragrance of all those jars I left behind: saffron threads, cardamom pods, star anise, Tahitian vanilla. I almost weep at the sight of my Fleur de Sel. No one ever gets my obsession with sea salt, especially expensive sea salt. They don't understand that it brightens the flavor of food, wakes it up, like a condiment. Regular table salt just makes food salty.
”
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Jennie Shortridge (Eating Heaven)
“
In Chicago,” she said, “meat is a condiment.
”
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Daryl Gregory (Spoonbenders)
“
Home is more than just a building, and it's where he belongs.
And for me, home is in my heart.
So he will never be homeless.
”
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Cristina Isabel (Love and All its Condiments)
“
I love him. And I will always love him.
”
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Cristina Isabel (Love and All its Condiments)
“
He took the time to be there for me.
And it grew from there. The love did.
My heart, down to my soul, was mended.
And all because he cared. He truly cared.
”
”
Cristina Isabel (Love and All its Condiments)
“
His heart will beat with my heart, as one, because this is the place we always came back to when we're together and when we're apart.
”
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Cristina Isabel (Love and All its Condiments)
“
I grabbed Finnegan’s Magic 8 Ball from behind the cash register. My thumb went for the red scuff mark on the back of the ball, trying to rub it out like I always did whenever I got bored. Tucker was now preoccupied with lining up a pepper shaker cavalry across from a hostile regiment of saltshaker footmen.
...
While Tucker stepped out back for his break, I commandeered his condiment armies. Gus’s cigarette smoke wafted toward the ceiling, pulled into the vent. The oscillating fan on the wall made the papers on the employee bulletin board flutter.
Halfway through my recreation of the Battle of the Bulge, I shook Finnegan’s Magic 8 Ball to find out if the German saltshaker would be successful in his offensive.
Ask again later.
Useless thing. If the Allies had taken that advice, the Axis would have won the war.
”
”
Francesca Zappia (Made You Up)
“
Generally speaking, breakfast is a dreadful time for announcing news more dramatic than the flavor of jam. To take advantage of that delicate time of day to provide details more demanding than the condiments available for spreading on toast is entirely uncivilized.
”
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Vered Ehsani (Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals #5))
“
Also, in the delivery/garbage bag are enough condiment packets to get you through a zombie apocalypse. I never know what to do with all the packets. I feel bad throwing them out, but it’s not like I can give them to a homeless guy. “In case you ever get that food you’re begging for, here’s some ketchup.
”
”
Jim Gaffigan (Food: A Love Story)
“
Durban has the largest Indian population outside of India! The Afro-Indian Culture that ensued has become a strong influence on the people of South Africa who have adopted many of the Indian traditions. This is especially true of how food is prepared! Of course rice is the preferred carb and considered a stable with most meals.
An Indian curry stew is an exciting taste treat. Relatively simple to make, fresh garlic and ginger pulp are lightly fried along with chilies, onions and a zesty curry powder.
Added to this are chopped tomatoes and finally the meat, seafood or vegetable of your choice. After slow simmering, the spicy stew is served with steamed rice and perhaps a hot and spicy chili sauce condiment called a sambal. Sweet and sour condiments called chutney are made of unripe mangoes, raisins, limes, sliced bananas and other fruit.. Of course Major Grey's Chutney can be bought ready-made and is considered by many as the best of all chutneys. Many of the curried foods thought of as Indian are actually of Indonesian origin and are also popular on the Malaysian Peninsular and in many other eastern countries.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
If Alessandro and Rosy are working from a disadvantage in terms of product recognition, they have put generations of accumulated experience into practice to fill the menu with dozens of little tastes of Como. They make fragrant, full-flavored stocks from the bones and bodies of perch and chub. They cure whitefish eggs in salt, creating a sort of freshwater bottarga, ready to be grated over pasta and rice. Shad is brined in vinegar and herbs, whitefish becomes a slow-cooked ragù or a filling for ravioli, and pigo and pike form the basis of Mella's polpettine di pesce, Pickled, dried, smoked, cured, pâtéd: a battery of techniques to ensure that nothing goes to waste. If you can make it with meat, there's a good chance Alessandro and Rosy have made it with lake fish.
And then there's missoltino, the lake's most important by-product, a staple that stretches back to medieval times and has been named a presidio by Slow Food, a designation reserved for the country's most important ingredients and food traditions. The people still making missoltino can be counted on a single hand. Alessandro guts and scales hundreds of shad at a time, salts the bodies, and hangs them like laundry to dry under the sun for forty-eight hours or more. The dried fish are then layered with bay leaves, packed into metal canisters, and weighed down. Slowly the natural oils from the shad escape and bubble to the surface, forming a protective layer that preserves the missoltino indefinitely.
It can be used as a condiment of sorts, a weapons-grade dose of lake umami to be detonated in salads and pastas. In its most classic preparation, served with toc, a thick, rich scoop of polenta slow cooked in a copper pot over a wood fire, it tastes of nothing you've eaten in Italy- or anywhere else.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents))