10 foods that whet my appetite

I was flipping through a pile of papers that I had shoved into a dark corner when I found one with a list scribbled on it. I hang my head in shame as I admit that it was my response to a meme that Mona and Lady Lavender of the Kitchen both tagged me for over a month ago! I didn't post it at the time, because I had committed my blog to an exploration of Kashmiri cuisine for Menu for Hope II {that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it}.

I wonder, do memes, like fine wine and cheese, improve with age? Or do they rot and mold like yesterday's sushi?

Without further ado, in no particular order, here is my fashionably late list of My 10 Favorite Foods {happily, month-old sushi is not one of them}:

1. Broccoli rabe. During the winter months, I never neglect to buy a bagful of baby rapini when I visit the Mariquita Farm stand at our local farmers market. N and I eat broccoli rabe once a week, usually as a quick and simple pasta with orecchiette, garlic, chili flakes and pecorino. It's pure winter comfort food at our house. In fact, we ate it Tuesday night for dinner!

2. Whole fish. If I see grilled whole fish on a menu, 9-out-of-10 times I will order it. That's true for everything from my favorite little sardines {duh} on up to the whole Dover sole I had last summer in the Basque country. As a matter of fact, I ate both sardines {pictured left} and sole for lunch that day! For my stomach, life doesn't get much better than that.

3. Pickles. I have yet to meet a pickle I don't like. From half-sour Kosher dills to fiery Indian nimbu achar {pickled limes} to Korean kim chee to my own pickled yellow wax beans.

4. Figs. Figs are Nature's most voluptuous fruit. I am especially enamored of the Adriatic variety that Rick Knoll grows in Brentwood. They're pistachio green on the outside and a luscious ruby red on the inside.

5. White peaches and nectarines. The fruit I crave the most, though, are the tooth-achingly sweet Arctic Rose white nectarines grown by Steven Kashiwase in Winton. They are perfect eaten out of hand, with no embellishment. I made a sorbet once which even included some Sauternes, but I still prefer them naked {no comments please}. In my neck of the woods, the only albino peaches that can rival these nectarines are the Babcocks grown by the inimitable Didar of Ram Das Orchards.

6. Duck. Like whole fish, if a menu includes duck - particularly the leg or liver - I will invariably order it. And yes, although I struggle with the ethics, I would be lying if I didn't include the soon-to-be-outlawed foie gras in this category. One of my all-time favorite dishes was an obscenely large slab of foie gras  topped with a fried egg. I savored every bite sitting on a bench at a communal white marble table in the back of the Barcelona food store Mantequería Ravell. And that was just the first course!

7. Parsnips. Just thinking about that meal in Barcelona made me crave a vegetable! The first one that came to mind is the lowly parsnip. I guess I have a soft spot for all the less celebrated foods in the world - hence the {new and improved} tag line of my blog. My favorite way to cook the small, carrot-sized parsnips is to slowly caramelize them stove top in a cast iron pan in clarified butter or duck fat {oops, back to duck again!}.

8. Pastrami. I've prattled on enough about my love of pastrami on this blog. If you missed it, read here and here. Guess where N and I ate dinner last night.

9. Gran Reserva jamón ibérico de bellota produced by Joselito. On the way to the chiringuito where I tasted those sardines that inspired the name for my blog, N and I dropped by a traditional Sevillano bar near the bullring called Mesón de la Infanta. The air was thick with the smell of ham. Dozens of them hung from the ceiling. We sidled up to the bar and ordered a thick glass of gazpacho and a plateful of jamón ibérico de bellota, the Spanish cured hams from black-hoofed {pata negra} pigs that graze freely on acorns. The jamón glistened with {omega-3 rich} fat and tasted like sex. Click here to read an excellent article about this delicacy.

10. Jalebi from that place near Kemp's Corner in Bombay.  I almost wrote "chocolate," but decided against it. If I have to choose between the two, these amazing sugar spirals fried in clarified butter win, if only for sentimental value. The morning of my first trip to Bombay to visit N's grandparents, we awoke to a breakfast of bright yellow jalebi, their honey-like sweetness balanced by alternating bites of the savory chickpea flour sheets called ganthia - also deep-fried. I couldn't stop eating. First, a bite of sweet jalebi, then a bite of savory ganthia, and so on, all washed down with strong cuppa masala chai. From that moment on, N's grandfather, Dada, warmed up to me. I learned that day the truth of the adage "food is love."

What, I'm already at 10?? I just started warming up!

I haven't even mentioned Catalan olive oil, toasted hazelnuts, Taiwanese dongding oolong tea, Della Fattoria bread, cochinillo (roast suckling pig) at Cándido in Segovia, eggplant, "the fifth quarter," Rudy's plain cheese pizza in Closter (NJ), unagi, toro at Bar Masa, avocados, Chesapeake Bay crab cakes, mapo dofu in Chengdu, percebes {goose-neck barnacles} at Ca' Sento in Valencia, the scents of vanilla and cardamom, butter Mysore masala dosa at that outdoor stand at the end of Laburnum road in Bombay, Maryland silver queen corn, idli sambar delivered to our room at New Woodlands in Madras, Mimi Sheraton's recipe for matzoh ball soup, salsa romesco, zha-jiang mian (hand cut noodles with meat sauce) in Taipei, pulpo a la gallega (octopus) at Casa d'a Troya in Madrid, oil-packed anchovies from Cantabria, fried putillitas or chopitas (baby squid), bouillabaisse at that restaurant overlooking the calanques west of Marseilles, Manresa's parmesan churros and pimientos de Padrón, cheese, wine, gelato in Rome, freshly baked H&H bagels with Nova salmon from Zabar's, Comice pears, roast baby lamb (cordero lechal) at Asador Tierra Aranda in Madrid, peanut butter sandwiches, Nutella, New Jersey beefsteak tomatoes, soon dubu chigae, my grandmother's blueberry pie ....

Don't worry, I'm not going to tag anyone else for this meme. But if you feel like picking up the gauntlet, I'm not going to stop you.

Food|and Drink

Comments

[keiko]

Catalan olive oil...

Such a lovely post, Brett!

[keiko]

Forgot to say I love the sweet little fish (I assume it's sardine!) on top.

[Kalyn]

I like most of your foods, but parsnips just don't do much for me. Probably I don't know how to cook them.

[drbiggles]

Dang man, that's a great list with obviously more coming. My thoughts aren't that clear, I think I would have come up with "pork". OH, and "bacon". Uh, and "gravy". I think gravy would be at the top.
MmmMMm, Sardine Gravy.

Biggles

[haddock]

Damn Brett, we must have been born to the same parents at different times. My list looks pretty darned identical. Perhaps not in the details of the Spanish meals but the top 10, with perhaps a change in the peach/nectarine. I suppose we'd never be able to share a meal unless we got extra helpings of everything we both like.

[melissa_cookingdiva]

Everything sounds delicious! It is great that you finally had the time to post the meme! Hugs from Panama!
M

[yoony]

holy crap you can make kimchee! i tried once during college (gak-du-ghee) and totally failed. and plus these days our whole family gets kimchee made by my grandmother's friend. this is the best kimchi i've every had in my life. she uses squid and sometimes oysters. how do you make yours?

[Lindy]

I'd better get me some jalebi, which has never come my way, cause 7 of the other nine are identical on my personal top ten. Not that I don't love pickles and pastrami, it's just that I need space for bread and bacon.

[johng]

A lot of tasty stuff there, Brett, but where's the fungi? Most chefs I've known can't imagine life without them.

[SFFoodie]

Although pickles aren't my favorite...I otherwise love your list. No mention of crab though...mmmh...makes me wonder. And now that I think more about it...I need to have my butter. Crab + Butter = Bliss

[shauna]

I love this list, and particularly the long paragraph at the bottom. I haven't finished this meme yet either, mostly because I haven't been able to narrow it down to one. But now I know what to do!

[Brett]

Keiko, thanks for noticing the little fish "favicon" at the top. Although it admittedly looks more like a goldfish cracker, I like to think of it is a postmodernist reinterpretation of a sardine.

Kalyn, you're not alone in disliking parsnips. Once, in the kitchen at Chez Panisse, someone asked what people's least favorite vegetable was. One of the cooks (who has just been named the new co-chef of the cafe) said she couldn't stand parsnips. So you're in good company.

Dr Biggles, sardine gravy...not a thought to ponder while I'm nursing a cold. Suddenly, I feel a little queasy.

Haddock, sure we could share a meal. We'd just have to switch plates halfway through...oh god, then you'd be my wife.

Melissa, hugs from SF.

Yoony, I love pickling vegetables. It's really quite simple. I've made American, Eastern European, Italian, and Indian-style pickles, but not real Korean-style kimchee. The closest I've come is making my own sauerkraut.

Lindy, that's so funny that we have similar favorites. I love bacon and bread, too. I bet you'd like jalebi!

Johng, there's so many great things out there. I was bound to forget something. Definitely add wild mushrooms (and truffles) to my list.

SFFoodie, 2 more things I love that aren't on my list. Crab and butter! Basically, there isn't a food I don't like. Move aside, Jeffrey Steingarten. I'm the real Man Who Ate Everything! Also, welcome to IPOSardines, SFFoodie. I like the look of your website, too. "Culinary edutainment" sounds like fun! Sign me up!

Shauna, can't wait to see your list!

[Rose]

Zha jiang mian is just so much better in taiwan! The ones I've had in flushing just don't cut it!

[emi]

"soon-to-be-outlawed foie" Really????

Wow!