Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009

Carolina Kitchen: Am I a food snob?

A curious thing happened during a recent weekend as my sister and I were grocery shopping together.

I really enjoy shopping together because we're spending what some would call "quality time" together and learning more about each other. We bounce ideas off each other about different foods, browse up and down the aisles and sample new items or cooking demonstrations (if we've timed it right).

So imagine my surprise when, after I said I needed to get a loaf of white bread so I could make grilled-cheese sandwiches, my sister looked at me as if I had grown a set of horns and said, "I didn't think you ate grilled-cheese sandwiches."

I mean, really? Who doesn't like grilled cheese?

No amount of questioning about why she would think I wouldn't eat something like a simple grilled-cheese sandwich produced a satisfactory answer.

It made me wonder: How does one go from growing up on what is essentially a white rice and fatback diet to branching out and trying new things - and thus being viewed as (I suppose) a food snob?

Maybe it's my particular view of the world: I see/read/experience things and try to break them down to easy-to-understand processes. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

For instance, I giggle when a fancy name is used to describe simple food. The French, while by no means the only ones who do this, are the masters. "Steak au poivre" is pepper steak, a filet coated with cracked peppercorns seared in butter or oil; "boeuf bourguignon" is basically a beef stew with red wine (burgundy) and mushrooms; and my favorite, "croque monsieur," is grilled ham and cheese.

Take cheesecake, for example.

Some people would never attempt to bake a cheesecake from scratch. I have found, after some experience, that cheesecakes are one of the simplest things to make.

Read the recipe. A basic cheesecake is just a mix of cream cheese, eggs, sugar, a pinch of flour and vanilla poured over a crust of vanilla wafer crumbs. But imagine that after a few times making the basic version, you branch out and try to alter it to your tastes by adding melted chocolate. Then after a few more times, you refine the crust by adding cocoa powder. Then, it hits you (OK, me) that you can approximate the taste of a Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie by adding both melted chocolate and a few drops of peppermint oil to the basic recipe to create a mint-chocolate cheesecake with a cocoa crumb crust.

I've taken the original basic recipe and through experimentation (or on a whim), altered it to my personal taste. It's a natural process for me, but it's still cheesecake.

Granted, a more flavorful cheesecake. But cheesecake nonetheless.

Does it make it more special? Or just more complex? If my additions had not worked out and I went back to just plain cheesecake, would that be such a bad thing?

I don't think so.

You grow by trying new things and finding out what you like and don't like, and the sum of it all is you. Maybe sometimes things move slightly away from being simple to being more complex, but the core remains the same.

Now. Enough navel gazing.

I'm in need of some grilled cheese!

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