Salty Knowledge

 Salt isn't just salt. it could be the granualr sugar like one or flakes of melt in your mouth flavors of the sea. what kind of slat you use is vital to making or breaking any recipe. What;s good to use? Luckily there's a guide.

Regular contributor Melissa Clark wrote about this fascinating seasoning in today's New York Times Food section. We use salt almost daily  and what we use has a prfound effect on our cooking. Using salt as seasoning has been around since Neolithic times when early humans went into eating meat. Humans need it to survive. Sodium chloride or NACl regulates our body fluids and is essential for nerve, muscle and digestive function. Let's face it too - a lot of foods would taste horribly bland and unexciting without a dash of salr. Salt was also used for preserving meats , veggies and cheeses , espcially when global transport started in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The ancient Egyptians used it eve to preserve mummies/. Before mass production in the 20th Century salt was either found in mines or taken from any nearby ocean ro sea. That all changed in the 1900's when iodized salt came into being. Iodized salt , which was mined from salt mines  is important for regulating the thyroid gland.Now  howvermany are ditching that for the tastier flakier salts.

Ms. Clark also a guide to the different salts out there along with a recipe. You can use iodized or table salt for cooking and seasoning.It does have extra chemicals  like dextrose and sodium bicarbonate added to prevent it from clumping.Sometimes it does have a very briny or metallic tang to it.There is also kosher salt which does not need a rabbinical blessing to be used. it;s defined  by its coarse large crystals. These draw out blood from meat, which desalinates the meat.It also makes for a good crust around the meat. Then there are the darlings of the culinary world ; the sea salts.  Home chefs can buy common sea salt which is industrially produced from sea water. Keep in mind thse have additives too, namely anti-caking ones. They can come in grains like table salts or cubes used for pasta water.It has a cleaner flavor than table salt and is used a lot in baking. A better bet is traditional sea salt like fleur de sel, sel gris or flaky sea salt.They're made by evaporating sea salt in hot climates. They don;t have a uniform crystal size or salinity. Most are used in decoarting dishes but also had layers of complexity when being added to any swet or savory recipe. Sea salt flakes are probably the best salt to use. Maldon Sea salt which comes form the town on Maldon England on the Blackwater Estuary gives food a bright snap. They have less minerality than the other sea salts.  There is also fleur de sel, which has salty and bitter notes along with sel gris.it's harvested from the clay bottom hence te name grey salt. You can also try Himalayan pink salt from Pakistain whic has a slightly spicy flavor,

Salt is essential to life. It's also essential in bringing any dish to life. Sea salt is the best bit other work too in making food tastier.

What's Your Range

 The stove is the most integral part of the home kitchen. We use it for baking roasting, pan frying and sauteing. Picking the right one and the best one all depends on how much you use it. There are so many different ones out there. which one is the best.

Ovens have been around since the 1400's. Most wealthy families had their own , mostly to bake bread. Poorer ones had to share in a communal oven. These were mostly brick and mud and were surprisingly good in keeping in the heat. They could reach temperatures up to four hundred degrees Farenheit. The only problem was regulating the temperature. There was no Celsius or Farenheit back then. Home chefs just tossed some flour into the oven and if it browned at the correct speed then it was ready. By the end of the 1700's ovens became more compact. They used wood or coal and then around 1820 gas was introduced as one of the fuels to heat them. Great Britain was the first country to have used gas stoves throughout the country. It was only until the end of the 1800's that temperature settings were introduced. It became easier to bake and roast with accuracy. Cakes and breads weren't burned and roasts were evenly cooked, eliminating undercooked or burned areas on chickens and briskets.

Now there are so many different kinds of stoves from the traditional gas to to electric. There are also single and double ones, Larger kitchens can definitely benefit form the double ones, These are roomier and perfect for big families.They're also perfect for roasting such dishes as London Broils and twenty pound turkeys. Single ovens are better for smaller families who aren't into making elaborate meals or throwing large gatherings. These are still good for big roasts (you will have to remove the shelving to accommodate hefty hams and poultry) along with baking of any kind. Many home chefs prefer convection ovens. These are built more or less the same as regular ovens except they have fans and an extra heating element found in the back. They cook twenty-five percent faster than regular ovens. This is great however you will have to constantly adjust cooking, roasting and baking times. You also have to think about the stove top. Do you want to stick with four burners or six? Six do come in handy for holiday cooking, when you have a lot of sides to heat. A four burner does the job just fine and it's less space to clean.

Ovens have been a part of home cooking since before the Renaissance. Now there are so many different kinds. Pick the ones that satisfy your baking and cooking needs.

Culinary Time Travel

 Wouldn't it be something if we can time travel back to the past? Imagine the famed people we'd see or get to connect with ancestors we've only heard of in family lore? In a way you can, and it doesn't have to do with Einstein's theory of Time Constant. You can easily do it with cooking and baking.

Before you start pick an era that really sings to you. If you adore it, then odds are you've already tried recipes form that period of history. if not , there are a lot of eras to explore from a culinary side Everyone is jumping on the Paleo diet but what did real cave people eat? Luckily there's no cooking here. Our first ancestors were big fruit eaters, getting their nutrients from dates, oranges, apples and grapes. There were no roasted meats and veggies. That came later, by a few centuries. If you want really good eating then look to the Romans. They knew how to feast. They also created a forerunner of polenta called puls made with  a kind of wheat. It was served with veggies and cheese or eggs. Sometimes it was served with meat and fish on special occasions. Keep in mind that tomatoes and  potatoes along with corn were not introduced  until the Columbian Exchange The same goes for spinach and eggplant which came with the Arabs. Yet there was plenty of olive oil and bread so you could make focaccia and serve it with caramelized onions and leeks. The Romans were big on sausages, especially pork ones. You could create a dish with modern day polenta , tomatoes and sausage to recreate this.

Most home chefs have been to their local Renaissance fairs. These fun fests are not exactly an homage to the 1400's and 1500's. They serve fajitas and corn dogs along with pierogies and cotton candy so far away from the real recipes of that time. The Elizabethans were big on seafood such as lobsters and crab along with salmon and trout. Think lobster with butter  with maybe a side of salad (brought from Spain by Henry VIII's first wife the Spanish queen Catherine of Aragon). Chicken was also popular and you can easily roast one and serve it with homemade bread. The Europeans weren't the only ones with centuries of interesting dishes.African cuisine was mostly vegan for millennia, with cattle being held in high esteem, They relied on grains and vegetables for food. Think about making rice with a variety of different veggies such as eggplant or green beans. Amaranth flour was also used and it can be used to create various breads like the Ethiopian teff. The Ancient Egyptians took it a step further and had beer with their meals. They also had chickpeas and different veggies that easily can be made into a salad or grind the chickpeas into hummus.

Yes, you can time travel. Just find any recipe from the past and adapt it to fit modern cooking or baking. It's like a time capsule for your palate.