All About Food: Demystifying culinary terms

We are pleased to see that, as a rule, there is less obfuscation on menus these days, except perhaps in the highest-end restaurants featuring molecular gastronomy with its foams and airs and faux foods. However, you will see chefs using all kinds of new or ethnic ingredients. Our readers tell us how much they like it when we pass on definitions and explanations of terms we come across in our dining experiences, so we thought we would make a list of things that are new to us, or menu items that may be confusing or unknown.

For example: What is the difference between tuna tartar, ahi poke and tuna tataki? Tuna tartar(e) is a generic term for diced, seasoned raw tuna, usually with oil, sesame seeds and something spicy like red pepper or wasabi. 230 Forest Avenue tops their terrific tartare with wasabi-infused caviar. Tuna poke is similar but is seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil and green onions. K’ya adds seaweed and avocado. Tuna tataki is tuna that is seasoned and quickly seared on the outside, leaving the inside raw. It is served sliced with a soy-based sauce. This dish can be found in most Japanese restaurants including San Shi Go and Bluefin.

Sausages were formerly considered low-end food, but they are making appearances in lots of high-end dishes these days. We don’t mean the more familiar breakfast sausage, or even Italian but an international array from Portuguese linguiça, a thin sausage, subtly spiced with garlic, onions and a gentle heat, to the North African merguez, highly spiced with harissa and cumin, made from lamb, goat or mutton.

Splashes restaurant features merguez with kingfish. You can find Mexican chorizo on many menus. This coarse ground, spicy, fatty pork sausage is served out of its casing and is often breakfast food but at Sapphire, it spices up clams a la Español. Blood sausage or black pudding has always been considered peasant food. Popular in France and Ireland, it has not yet made it to Laguna but trendy restaurants in Los Angeles have bravely added this concoction, made from pig’s blood, suet, breadcrumbs and oatmeal, to their menus. It may sound awful but Terry assures you that it is really delicious.

More oinky edibles include pork belly, which is usually reserved for curing and making into bacon but is now being served in all its pure fatty splendor, gussied up at with heirloom apples and harissa syrup at the Studio at the Montage and at 5’ with garlic noodles. Kurobata Pork comes from Berkshire pigs that were brought to Japan and raised by artisanal methods to achieve a high-fat, more flavorful, tender product “” clamored for by chefs worldwide. A version is being produced in the U.S. You can taste it at Hush as a succulent double chop.

On the healthier side, we all know what broccoli is but how about broccoli rabe, broccolini and broccoflower? Broccoli rabe (also called rapini) has spiked leaves around a tiny green bud, so what you eat is mostly stems and leaves. It is nuttier than broccoli and somewhat bitter. Broccolini looks like broccoli on a fashion model’s diet, long and skinny. It is a combination of broccoli and Chinese broccoli (gai lan) with hints of asparagus flavor. It’s sweeter than the kind that kids and George Bush Sr. don’t like. Broccoflower is obviously a cauliflower/broccoli merger that looks like a pale green cauliflower but is milder and sweeter in flavor than either.

As the world grows smaller and fusion cuisine reigns, different spices are providing new and exciting palate pleasures. Sweet paprika and spicy paprika have been around for a long time but smoked paprika is the hot new ingredient. It is a little bit spicy but lends a strong smoky taste to foods. All three are available at Sapphire Pantry.

The cinnamon we grew up with is cassia (Chinese or Southeast Asian cinnamon, which comes from the thick outer bark of the tree.) True cinnamon is Ceylon cinnamon. True cinnamon does not contain the natural blood thinner coumarin and is made from the soft inner bark of the tree. It has a finer texture and more delicate flavor and is great for desserts but hard to find. The current rage is for Saigon cinnamon, a type of cassia, which has a high oil content, making it taste richer. Spicy and subtly sweet, it should be used in lesser amounts than standard cassia.

The new kid on the block is fennel pollen, an expensive extract from early blooming wild fennel plants. It is sweet scented and pungent; but you don’t have to pay top dollar, all you have to do is go walking in the hills above Laguna in about a month and collect. Sprinkle it on finished dishes of pork or seafood.

Every item on fancy menus seems to have a provenance or is some exotic variety, even the lowly onion. Vidalia onions come strictly from Vidalia, Ga., and are sweet, as are Maui onions, grown on Maui. Both lack odor and sharp taste due to the lower amount of sulfur in the soil. The Maui onion can be grown in other regions but are not as sweet due to the different soil. These ersatz Maui’s can be found at the Laguna Farmer’s market but a true Maui can be eaten like a piece of fruit.

Cipollinis are a new favorite. These bittersweet bulbs of the grape hyacinth taste and look like small onions, which is why they are called wild onions. One of the best tasting onions is the seasonal wild leek called ramp, which tastes like a combination of onions and garlic.

We hope we have demystified a few terms for you and we hope to do it again from thyme to thyme.

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ were in the gourmet food s and catering business for 20 years. They can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected]