The Secret History of Food Words

Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio

This bonus episode of Milk Street Radio features a retrospective exploration of the linguistic and culinary histories that shape our food culture. The

Key takeaways

• Lior Lev Sercarz defines spices broadly to include dried fruits, vegetables, and even seaweed or seafood.
• The phrase 'in a pickle' refers to the brine used in the pickling process rather than being inside a cucumber.

Main topics

• Food Etymology
• Spice Blending Techniques

Notable quotes

It's Car Talk for Language.

Conclusion

An educational journey through the intersection of language, environme

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hey, this is Christopher Kimball. Next May, we're taking a culinary tour of northeastern Spain, and we'd like you to come along. You'll eat just like the locals, which means lobster stew at a folding table by the sea, and sausages and vermouth in a neighborhood taverna. You'll also make fideas a la cazola and sip cava at a small winery. Forage with a botanist and transform your wild harvest into an elegant dinner. And eat barbecue a la Catalonia in a field at the foot of the Pyrenees. Please join us. Head to culinarybackstreets.com slash milkstreet to learn more. That's culinarybackstreets.com slash milkstreet. Hey, this is Christopher Kimball. For this week's bonus, we're pulling an episode from 2019. It features our very first recording with our regular contributors, Grant Barrett and Martha Barnett from A Way With Words. I had listened to the radio show for many years, and I was thrilled to interview them. It's a great episode, so please take a listen now, and we'll be back later this week with a brand new show. Speaker 2 (1:05) This is Milk Street Radio from PRX. I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Today, Grant Barrett and Martha Barnett of A Way With Words join us to explore the language of food. They dig into the curious stories behind words such as pumpernickel and luncheon. They also explain phrases that seemingly don't make a lot of sense, such as in a pickle. Speaker 4 (1:25) If you're in trouble and you're in a pickle... The image there isn't being inside a cucumber. It's a reference to the brine itself that was used to pickle cucumbers. Speaker 2 (1:37) Also coming up, we chat with Adam Gopnik about climate change and its effect on wine, and we take a deep dive into curry. But first, it's my interview with Chef Lior Lev Sircars. To many of the world's top chefs, Lior is known as the spice therapist. He owns La Boite, a spice shop in New York. Speaker 2 (1:55) Lior, welcome back to Milk Street. Speaker 1 (1:57) Thanks for having me back. Speaker 2 (2:00) You've come up to Milk Street. We've worked together. We've known each other for a while. I really like your definition of what spices are. So could you just tell us how you define spices? Speaker 1 (2:10) Sure. To me, anything in a dry format that I could use to season my food. is a spice to me, and that combines herbs and grains and rhizomes and barks, but also opens the possibilities to dried fruits and dried vegetables and even dried cheese and seaweed and seafood, etc. Speaker 2 (2:30) You also talk in your book about smoke as sort of a concept in spice. You want to talk about that? I think that's kind of interesting. Speaker 1 (2:39) Sure. Smoke is definitely a very important category. I'm happy you brought it up. There are spices that are either smoked, such as pimenton, the smoked paprika or chipotles, or smoked salt even. And I think the smoke is really interesting because it tricks our brain in a very positive way to think about an item that was grilled or cooked over fire or in a wood fire. And it really sets the tone. Speaker 2 (3:06) Okay, let's do some basics here. The question I get all the time is, how long should I keep my spices? I have an answer, but your answer is probably better. So what's yours? Speaker 1 (3:16) The smart answer is that if you're asking that question, they should probably not be in your kitchen anymore. If you look at them and you don't remember how long you had them, then that's already a bad sign. The trick that I tell people all the time is whatever you purchase, you bring it into your kitchen, take two seconds with a pen or some sort of a Sharpie and write on that container, please use me before and just add one year to that particular day. Speaker 2 (3:48) Spices, as you know better than I do, can be low quality, medium quality, or high quality, depending on where you get them and source them. Are there things consumers can look for to get some idea? other than just tasting or smelling them in terms of quality? Speaker 1 (4:04) I think there's a few quick tricks while you're at the store. Evaluating their shape and color. As an example, if you are purchasing whole black peppercorn and they're not really black, that could be a sign that they were not fully ripened or fully dried. If they are half whole and half in powder, they might be really old and fall into dust. Speaker 2 (4:28) Let's talk about making your own, like drawing your own. So what are some common things people have around the kitchen that they could turn into something they could use later? Speaker 1 (4:37) Quite a few of us buy a lot of herbs, and I love fresh herbs. And, you know, there comes a time when they start turning slightly brown and you don't really know if you're going to use them or not. Very simply, on a cookie rack with a tray underneath, you can lay them flat or on a parchment paper, and within a few days, especially in winter season, they dry very quickly. So the mint, the tarragon, the basil, the parsley, all of these great herbs could be turned into. fantastic dried herbs. Another quick trick is citrus. Just dry that peel and you get a fantastic citrus peel that you can crumble or ground for tea, for roasting, for cooking meats, you know, time-saving and also money-saving. Speaker 2 (5:24) Let's pick half a dozen spices that everyone should have, things that people don't really cook with enough or could really change the way they cook. Speaker 1 (5:35) Cumin seeds, for sure. That's something that I always carry. Coriander is definitely one of them. Fennel seeds, which, you know, I know could be a bit polarizing at times. A type of chili flake, whether it's an Urfa or an Aleppo. Speaker 2 (5:52) Maybe you should just define what Urfa pepper is. Speaker 1 (5:54) Oh, sure. Urfa being a fairly large, like a poblano-shaped size pepper that grows in the south of Turkey. and for some beautiful mysterious way has really a nose like if you just smell the jar of cocoa meets a really rich Barolo wine with a hint of an espresso It's one ingredient that delivers such. I often have to hide my jar of Urfa, otherwise it will go into everything that I cook. So a chili, a cumin, ginger, which I love using in many ways because of the citrus note and the heat note that it delivers. Cinnamon, funny enough, more for savory, less than in sweets. I really love what cinnamon does to savory dishes. Speaker 2 (6:45) So you use cinnamon, let's say, with a beef dish of some kind, for example? Speaker 1 (6:50) A beef or even roasting vegetables. Poultry, for sure, loves. And even tomato sauces really benefit from a touch of cinnamon. Speaker 2 (7:02) So you travel a lot, as you said. Are there a couple of places you've been where you've been really struck or amazed or shocked by the way someone was using spices, something you've not seen before? Speaker 1 (7:14) Yeah, so I mean, my most recent trip to India, one of the chefs that I met and something that kind of stuck with me was taking dried chilies and then actually blanching them a few times to actually get rid of the heat, which is kind of ironic because there were this hot variety. But he's claimed that these chilies are fantastic actually when they lose the heat. Speaker 2 (7:41) So where is this all headed? You've been doing this a long time. Do you think that spices, where the United States has really been a place, at least for a long time, that was spice-less, right? Cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, pepper, a few things. Do you think that's really about to change now? Speaker 1 (7:57) I think it's already changing. The challenge was for many years is that if you use spices, you had to cook exotic or foreign dishes. And we are now finally at the point. or getting there, where you can say, I can make a traditional clam chowder, giving it a spin with a spice from elsewhere. I think the idea of mastering your cuisine and feeling comfortable with it, that's the most important. And then you could start accessorizing and bringing those spices that take the dish from just okay to unbelievably delicious and exciting. Speaker 2 (8:38) Lior, thanks for visiting us at Milk Street. Thank you so much for having me. That was Lior Lev Sircars. His latest book is Mastering Spice, Recipes and Techniques to Transform Your Everyday Cooking. It's time for my co-host Sarah Maltinai to answer your culinary questions. Sarah is, of course, the star of Sarah's Weeknight Meals on Public Television, also author of the book Home Cooking 101. Speaker 8 (9:11) You know, before we open up the phone lines, I have a question for you, Chris. It's about those meat substitute burgers. How do you feel about them? Speaker 2 (9:19) Sarah, do you really need to ask me this question? You know the answer. I sort of do. Any food that has the word substitute in it, I'm not going to eat. Speaker 8 (9:28) Well, they don't use that word. They call it impossible burger or beyond burger. Speaker 2 (9:31) Now, look, in terms of taste, right, and texture, meat is meat. You know, seitan back in the 70s, people were trying to Speaker 8 (9:39) do— Speaker 2 (9:39) Have you tried Speaker 8 (9:39) any? Speaker 2 (9:40) Yes, I've tried actually two of them. I was in a blind tasting a few years ago, two or three years ago. Speaker 8 (9:44) Really? Yeah. They've been around that long? Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:46) And Speaker 8 (9:46) what did you think? Speaker 2 (9:47) I didn't like them. Speaker 8 (9:48) I Speaker 2 (9:49) mean, I understand the concept for the planet and, you know, the environment. All of that's laudable and notable. But there's nothing better than ground beef for hamburger. So I will stick with that. Now, for other reasons, I understand it. Have you had them? Yes. And? I hated it. Okay. So there we are. Speaker 8 (10:09) You know, they do look and taste a little bit like meat, but they had way too many ingredients, and that always makes me nervous. Speaker 2 (10:17) Well, substitute foods always end up getting there by putting a lot of other things in it. I know. And I'd rather just eat it straight up, the real McCoy. Yeah, either don't eat meat, you know, just eat vegetables or whatever. Which is fine. Or eat meat. But this substitute thing, I just don't understand. Speaker 8 (10:34) Well, now that we got that sorted out, let's take the first call. Speaker 2 (10:37) Open up the lines. Let's go. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Speaker 8 (10:42) It's Speaker 5 (10:42) Marcy calling in Montreal. Speaker 2 (10:43) And how can we help you? Speaker 5 (10:45) I'm Speaker 2 (10:45) a Speaker 5 (10:45) professional baker and I write cookbooks, but I've noticed over the years when you bake with buttermilk and some other books I've seen, they always say add the baking soda to the buttermilk first before you add it to the recipe. And I always sort of see that as watching the leavening disappear before my eyes Speaker 8 (11:01) before Speaker 5 (11:02) it even gets added to the recipe. I'm wondering about your take on that or why recipes would mention that technique. Speaker 2 (11:08) This is going to be a short call. I agree. I make buttermilk biscuits all the time. And you always add the baking powder or baking soda directly to the flour with any sugar or salt. And then the buttermilk is added after you cut the fat into the flour. So there's absolutely no need to add baking soda to buttermilk. Some older recipes sometimes had the leavener put into warm or hot water. I've wondered about that. My conclusion is that they did that to see if the leavener was active. Speaker 8 (11:35) That's exactly what I was thinking. To make sure that it's actually Speaker 2 (11:37) still good. Oh, that's interesting. The other thing is the bicarbonate of soda, what they used back in the 1840s, that stuff was pretty harsh and strong. And so if you lost some of the leavening power when you introduced it to hot water, that was probably okay. But there's never a need to add leavener to a hot liquid. Speaker 8 (11:56) I'm sure that that was it. It was sort of like when you proof yeast, you know, the powdered yeast, and you have to proof it, and part of it is to make sure that it's still alive. Speaker 5 (12:05) Yeah. back in the day that the baking soda maybe was a little grainy or pebbly and they maybe tried to dissolve it first before adding it. Speaker 2 (12:14) That could be too. They had a lot of different chemicals they used as leavener and some of it may have not been powdered fine. And it was strong. It was very strong stuff. But today, always put the leavener in with the flour or the dry ingredients. Speaker 8 (12:29) Marcy, quick question. Tell us the name of your last cookbook. Speaker 5 (12:33) time for the fall. It's called The Newish Jewish Cookbook, and you Speaker 8 (12:37) can Speaker 5 (12:37) get it through betterbaking.com, which is my site, but it's everything from what your grandmother used to make to a little bit more global things for the new season. Good Speaker 8 (12:45) for you. Speaker 2 (12:46) Congratulations. Speaker 8 (12:47) Yes, Marcy. Well, thanks for calling. Thanks for calling. Good question. Thank Speaker 5 (12:50) you Speaker 8 (12:50) both. Okay. Speaker 2 (12:52) Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Speaker 8 (12:53) This is Liza. How Speaker 2 (12:55) are you? Where are you calling from? Speaker 5 (12:56) I am calling from Connecticut. I'm redoing the kitchen, so I'm going to get rid of the stove. I wanted to know what is the optimum distance from the flame to the bottom of the pan. Speaker 2 (13:08) I think you get a prize for the question that nobody has ever asked me in my entire career. I think it's the BTU, British Thermal Unit, output of the burners that would be more important because if you had a