Last week’s article raised an eyebrow. On the Philippine STAR website someone commented that my usage of “marbling” for the Amanpulo Angus cheeseburger was exaggerated. He claimed that there could be no marbling in ground beef. I had described the burger as being one of the best I’d tried in a very long time, and that is without exaggeration. It was extremely juicy and the fat content was exceptionally high, as the Amanpulo executive chef engineered it to be that way. They grind their own beef to allow more fat into the mince. This little comment sparked a series of debates and questions about food terminology. I am the first to admit when I’ve made my mistake and to learn from it right away. What I meant to describe was the fattiness of the meat. An amazing burger will have little pockets of fat that burst with flavor as you bite into it. This can’t be called marbling, as I did, but actually fat content. Marbling would be the actual physical appearance and not necessarily the state of fat. Sorry! My bad! Please forgive my enthusiasm for food … my stomach growls really loud when I write and tends to drown out my brain.
Today, I choose to turn criticism into something positive, something that not just I but all of us can learn from. Let’s talk food. Let’s talk dirty and get to the nitty-gritty of food terminology and descriptions. Let’s go through the plethora of adjectives both technical and emotional related to our food. Because in today’s world of “e” and “I” everything (e-mail, e-book, e-zine, iPad, iPod…) let’s not forget that print cannot be erased and precision is essential. But even online, with the variety of credible food bloggers and even the amateur foodie musings, food writing is not so much “what I liked or didn’t like” but more of “why was it good or why was it not good” or, going even further, “why I didn’t like it but I can see why others like it” and “why I can objectively say that it was cooked well.” I’m most definitely not an expert, but just trying to offer a list of the words we commonly use to describe food. Take it to heart and launch your food-critic career or use it at a boring dinner party to make small talk with your incredibly shy seatmate.
I didn’t realize what a hefty task it was to class and organize food descriptors, so let’s try to make it as easy as possible. When we eat, what do we mainly experience? Sight, smell, taste, texture and emotion. Let’s use this as a general breakdown for food descriptions.
Sight
They say that you start to eat with your eyes. The general look of a dish can pre-format someone’s mind into thinking it is good or bad. Some things like balut, for example, are in fact not too foul-tasting, plus many of us eat eggs, chicken, duck … it’s just the idea and the sight of a fertilized duck egg that can turn off some people.
On the other hand, we have some dishes that look incredible and taste terrible! Ever bite into the luscious-looking wedding cake covered in beautiful fondant, only to find out that part of it is actually cardboard or extremely dry?
What is the overall aspect of what we are eating and further, how does this affect us? First of all there’s plating and presentation. Is it nicely plated? Is it conceptualized, unique or just simple? How are the ingredients cut? What is their shape? Are they diced or cubed (little cubes), julienned (sliced into thin strips), tournéed (little ovals with seven faces, very old school)? Are the colors vibrant, pale or monochromatic? The quality of the ingredients is also a big factor. In some cases you can truly see this, such as in meat. (Here goes my mistake again…) Marbling describes the way the fat is blended into beef and is evenly distributed, as opposed to just random chunks of fat. This later on allows the meat to be more tender. This is something you can actually see. In fish like salmon, the color can also indicate its freshness and origins. Farmed salmon has a brighter orange color and has more fat that wild salmon, which is paler and leaner. Take note as well of vegetables, such as the redness of a tomato or the brightness of salad greens to have some idea of quality and freshness.
Smell
When we have a cold it seems like everything we eat tastes like cardboard. We can only taste sweet, salty, sour or bitter. There are no flavors because there is no aroma. It’s our olfactory nerves that help us not just smell but truly taste. Odors can also whet our appetite, trigger memories or even cause certain chemical reactions in our body. Have you tried eating white truffle when you have sinusitis? White truffles have a distinct, powerful scent, but eaten freshly shaved when you have a cold, it tastes like thin strips of edible paper. Scents can be delicate, suggested or even insinuated. It can be strong, encompassing or overpowering. They can be harmonious or in complete disaccord with each other. Odors can be fresh, fruity, smoky, floral, meaty, acrid, pungent, pleasant, earthy, fishy, clean, rancid, or whatever else you please. Describing scents can be exciting and poetic — an oyster reminds me of the ocean, the smell of washed-up seaweed and sea foam.
Taste
Probably the most complex of all — technically our mouth can only sense five tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. These five alone can make or break a dish if there isn’t the right balance. Some interesting adjectives for sweetness: sugary, honeyed, nectarous, dulcet, saccharine, treacly.
Salty: briny, saline, savory, flavorsome, seasoned.
Sour: tangy, acidic, acerbic, caustic, vinegary.
Bitter: acrid, biting, astringent.
Umami is a recently discovered taste and refers to that mouth-filling and meaty flavor most associate with tomatoes and mushrooms. It can be described as fulfilling, toothsome, flavorsome.
We can’t ignore spice or hotness, like from a chili pepper. Although it isn’t a taste per se, it’s a sensation in the mouth that can alter or enhance food. Spicy dishes can be piquant, peppery, fervent, burning, flaming.
Thai cuisine stresses the importance of balancing all these elements. Thai dishes can have over 20 different ingredients, but the end result is truly harmonious. A beautiful phad Thai has a combination of brown sugar, lime, vinegar, fish sauce, chili peppers, bitter herbs and fresh cilantro that makes something as bland as rice noodles such a unique and enjoyable dish.
Texture
Texture can make all the difference in a dish. What is so surprising and interesting about molecular gastronomy is that through science they are able to take flavors and foods and recreate them in different forms. Heat and coolness also play a part in bringing out flavors and textures. Concentrated sweetness in mango caviar using sodium algenate can bring to a simple panna cotta exciting bursts of flavor. Or Ferran Adria’s foie gras cotton candy, with its airy, spun form, turns foie gras — something so rich — into something so light. Whatever you eat needs to play with your mouth, needs to keep it guessing. Is it flaky, firm, crisp, crunchy, tough, moist, chewy, creamy, thick, gelatinous, tender? Does it have pop rocks that go “crackle, crackle” on the tongue? Texture is what can make the difference between a good dish and an exquisite dish. A boring crème brulée can be a simple cream custard with an over-burnt sugar shell. But my, oh, my, the perfect crème brulée that cracks perfectly into little pieces of sweet stained glass with the back of a spoon, mingling with a rich velvet cream … it’s that contrast that makes it so special.
Emotion
Food is directly imprinted in our memories. Our childhood experiences have such an impact on how we perceive our food. Remember the scene in Ratatouille where famous critic Anton Ego eats the ratatouille prepared by Remy? It brings him back to his childhood in Provence, where he scrapes his knee and his mother gives him a bowl of ratatouille. A dish I ate at Arzak in Spain was some kind of langoustine covered in crisp corn, which brought me back to the sidewalk of Ayala Alabang in the 1980s eating a bag of corniks. A dish should transport you — to the past, the future, to places distant and exotic or somewhere close to home. Is it comforting, exciting, mouthwatering, calming, titillating, or does it anger you?
There is so much more that one could write a whole book and there would still be more to say. But I suppose in the end, what is most important is to never eat food that bores you. Real junk food is any kind of food that solicits no reaction, no emotion, no fireworks when you close your eyes. It is above all a sensory experience and, well, one could argue that even sound can play a large part. Are you in a noisy restaurant, eating in total silence, or does the food just drown everyone out and all you hear is a perfect crunch as the dark chocolate shell gives way to a creamy caramel center? Food excites me. Does it do the same to you?