After putting away breakfast things, I am standing in front of the refrigerator (yes, the door is open) staring at shelves of half-eaten take-out, containers of left-overs, eggs, milk, sauces, dressings, a forgotten set of poached pears, and bins of potatoes, carrots, celery, lemons and limes, onions, and the last pickings of greens and squash from the garden. Pandemonium in the face of the Pandemic. I am at the point of agreeing with Melissa Clark, “I am tired of cooking.” So, I close the door.
But, when lunch time comes, I open the refrigerator door and try once again to make sense of left-over pandemonium. I pull a container of rice, some bits of roasted cauliflower, a container of pickled onions, and some vinaigrette. Rice first, cauliflower next, vinaigrette splashed on, and a sprinkling of pickled onion. My first fork full says that this is tastier than the sum of its parts. I joyfully consume the whole bowl. So, maybe composing lunches and dinners is an alternative to cooking. Refrigerator and pantry are my assistants. Cooking is still needed, of course, if you don’t want to stock your refrigerator solely with take out from restaurants and grocery stores.
Only later that night do I begin to think about how leftovers and pantry staples can become a satisfying meal, especially if you are willing to take some flavor chances.
In my bedtime ruminations, my eyes wander the tables of Indian and Chinese food at pre-pandemic, long lost restaurant meals with friends: bowls of rice, vegetables and meats, lentils, pickled whatever, sauces, etc. The people around the table have their rice in a bowl, from there it’s a gastronomic free-for-all. A bit of this, a bit of that, some pickled something, and a dash of sauce…..each bomb of flavor with a bit of rice (quinoa or other grain) to anchor the flavors sparkles with umami, vinegar, salt, and heat. It is painting bright and dark colors on a neutral canvas. Hold your bowl of rice (wider bowls work best when you want to lay out your colors, add a few dashes of hot, sweet or salty sauce to the rice, take some red peppers (sweet or hot), drop some pink pickled onions or ginger, add few spoonfuls of smokey, sweet black beans, and a sprinkling of peanuts, walnuts, or almonds. Colors, textures, dark and light, sweet, sour, salty, and smoky all given an equal chance to be part of the individual palette each has to use in composing a meal. This is a composing activity rather than cooking. Cooking and storing some things in either the refrigerator or freezer add to the possibilities, but, they are secondary to the act of composition. So, you can do it alone in a simple act of creation. A family including the children can compose their own meals, each expressing their individual, creative selves.
If you haven’t guessed, I am reminded of Samin Nosrat and her brilliant riff: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. At the Chinese table at the Indian table and many others, the various flavor bombs go off in sequences determined by the individual diner and are experienced with greater separation and surprise than when the flavors of the different food components are blended into a single complex dish. Not a better experience, but definitely a different one.
Years ago, I made an assembled meal quite often for friends when I lived in Colorado. My friend, a writer had eaten his meals through a haze of beers and tequila, in Juarez Mexico for several years before returning to the USA and marrying a lovely woman who saved him from most of his foolish ways. The meal was spread out on a long table when something was necessary to soak up the free radicals of alcohol swirling through the group. The table had roasted chickens, stacks of tortillas surrounded by dishes of pico de gallo, salsa verde, chopped green onions, white onion slices, chopped tomatoes, shredded lettuce and cheese, avocado slices, pickled vegetables, crema, and large bowls of beans and rice. Everyone would put a bit of chicken into a tortilla, grabbing a bit of crispy skin if they could, and start riffing with all the rest of the “sides.” It may be a personality test of sorts: orderly, exuberant, bold, reserved, etc..
Many of these cuisines build meals with a base of grain or starch, the edible pallet, with bits, drips, drabs and chunks of salt, acid, heat, sweet, woodsy, and bitter.
Two other trends seem to be enabling and enhancing this approach to eating. One is the proliferation of sauces, hot and otherwise. Every grocery store now seems to have a whole section devoted to such sauces, move over Worcestershire, Tabasco, ketchup, and mustard. Never mind that those old favorites are each morphing into a gaggle of variations. A most interesting and delicious sauce is a fermented sauce (organic, probiotic) being created by a small company in Hudson, New York (https://poordevilpepperco.com/). A second is the driving force of Asian inspired approaches to organizing a meal. The best example is the “bowl.” Poke bowls, ramen bowls, rice bowls, noodle bowls, and more. As described above, you start with a canvass of rice or noodles and add broth, sauces, eggs, vegetables, meats, fishes, pickles…your imagination only limited by what is sitting in the refrigerator or cupboard. The other limitation is having room on the starchy canvass (as noted below, rice and noodles are not the only canvasses).
The organization of foods below is designed given some organization to the vast possibilities of foods that can be combined and recombined to paint an endless array of pictures and to increase dietary diversity and lead to improved health. re-thinking not cooking or new cooking.
The edible canvass is not blank, however. Each of these canvasses has its own base flavor: nutty, sour, buttery, wheaty, etc.. None of the lists below are meant to be exhaustive. Hopefully, readers of this post will comment and add to the lists.
Starting point, an edible canvass:
- Amaranth
- Breads (especially various flat breads such as chapati, naan, pita)
- Bulgar wheat
- Couscous
- Faro
- Millet
- Pasta
- Polenta
- Potato (especially baked and mashed)
- Rice in any form (e.g., Risotto, boiled, baked
- Tortillas
Soups and Cooked Legumes (soups can be a special canvass)
- Butternut Squash soup
- Chicken soup
- Chili
- Cooked black beans, refried beans, etc.
- Lentil soup
- Split pea soup
- Tomato soup
- Hummus
Once you have chosen a canvass, you can select a group of paints from the lists below. You want to create a palette of colors/flavors. There is no need to choose something from every list. A palette is a combination of colors/flavors that together create a distinct profile much like the Impressionists (pastels) or Fauvists (complimentary colors) or Romantics (earth tones). Creating a palette also benefits from consideration of Samin Nosrats’ exploration of Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat. And to think of the contrasting of sweet and sour, bitter and sweet, and salt and heat. Layers of complimentary flavors: vinegar and citrus, earthy (e.g., bean) and smokey, fat and salt, etc..
Dairy
- Cheddars
- Feta
- Swiss
- Majon
- Parmesan, Pecorino, etc.
- Queso Fresco, Queso Añejó, Cotija,
- Parmesan Reggiano
- This list can get very long, indeed
- Yogurt
- Crème fresh
- Fage
Condiments/Sauces*
- Fish sauce
- Harissa
- Ketchup
- Mexican hot sauce
- Miso
- Mustard
- Olive oil
- Other hot sauces
- Picapeppa Sauce
- Ponzu Sauce
- Siracha
- Soy sauce
- Vinegars (balsamic, red wine, cider, champagne, sherry, etc.)
- Wasabi
- Worcestershire Sauce
- Many more to be added
Meat and Fish Condiments (similar in that their flavors have been concentrated by drying, smoking, salting)
- Sausages, various
- Bacon (smoked streaky, pancetta, guanciale, prosciutto (ham technically))
- Anchovies
- Little dried fishes
- Smoked and cured fishes
- Bonita Flakes
- Other dried fish
Other Condiments (dried peppers, flowers, and herbs)
- Cilantro
- Chives
- Crushed red pepper
- Dill
- Fennel pollen
- Gochugaru Chile Pepper Flakes
- Gremolata (lemon zest, garlic, and flat leaf parsley)
- Japanese Seven Spice Blend
- Mint
- Oregano
- Parsley
- Pesto
- Saffron
- Sumac
- Thai curry pastes
- Thyme
- Tarragon
Vegetables
- Sauteed mushrooms (with or without sherry, rosemary, thyme, etc.)
- Capers (salted or in vinegar)
- Caramelized onions
- Chopped, raw red onion
- Mushroom Confit (there are many types both meats and vegetables
- Shredded carrots
- Raw and cooked greens (e.g., chard, spinach, amaranth, kale, cabbage)
- Arugula
- Parsley or cilantro
- Fried shallots
- Fried onions
- Pickled everything (onions, carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, cucumbers
- Truffle shavings
- Olives
- Sundried tomatoes
- Roasted peppers
- Roasted eggplant
- Seaweeds
Fruits and Nuts
- Apricots
- Dates
- Dried cranberries
- Dried cherries
- Figs
- Dried mango
- Raisins
- Raw and roasted nuts: Pistachios, walnuts, almonds, pecans, pine nuts, cashews, peanuts, etc.
The above lists give you some guidance for additions to your pantry and refrigerator that will give you more options when composing meals. Do you want some sweets to add? Check your pantry for dried fruits and nuts (keep nuts in the refrigerator to extend their “shelf life”) More spice? Add a couple of pepper and herb mixes for sprinkling. For the refrigerator, plan on leftovers when you order takeout: an extra serving of rice, an extra couple of vegetable sides (pass on extra French fries). You can pick up a couple prepared dishes from the supermarket or you can plan any meals you are cooking to provide leftovers for composing meals on days and times when you won’t cook. The greater the variety in both pantry and refrigerator, the more creative you can be.
In fact, you may notice that this approach to composing ad hoc lunches and dinners can easily morph into an approach to planning menus for a week. Instead of cooking every day, you cook two or three days and compose meals on the others. You can begin composing tables of food for a dinner. Start with a canvass like rice, potato, tortillas or breads. Add an array of vegetables (cooked, pickled, and raw), small bowls of leftover stews or beans, and condiments. The whole family gets to individually tailor a dinner that satisfies his or her immediate cravings and creative passions.
These lists need refinement, of course. There is much more to do with the ideas suggested here. One next step would be arranging the lists in diagrammatic form to suggest optimal flavor combinations will be one step. Another step would be to explore the nutritional advantages of building a strategy that encourages a diversity of grains, seeds, legumes, vegetables, and fruits. The best thing seems to let it simmer and remain an “open source strategy” for cooking.
So posting brief this is a way to capture the collective wisdom and insights of anyone taking the time to read this.
*Composed with the help of https://www.tasteatlas.com/