"without the Culinary Arts, the crudeness of reality would be unbearable"
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I only want wild shrimp because farmed shrimp have absolutely no flavor. Why bother to eat shrimp if they have no flavor?" Comments like this are becoming
increasingly prevalent throughout the South.
As sure as heat and humidity during a
Top Five Picks BEST OF VOL. 6.3 This Month’s Hottest Wines!!! Rating Scale: XXX
= Da Bomb (Exceptionally Cool) XXX. Babcock XXX. Pedrocelli XX. Firestone XX. Courtney Benham
(Martin Ray)
Since
Wild Shrimp continued: The distinction between wild-caught shrimp and farmed shrimp is important for many reasons. Flavor is the first reason. "Our domestic, wild-caught shrimp are safe to eat, untainted, cleaner, have a firmer flesh and taste better than the almost bland flavor of imported, farm-raised shrimp," says William Small, director of marketing for the seafood division of the N.C. Department of Agriculture. Taste is subjective, of course, but the reasoning goes like this: Just as free-range chickens -- which are free to move about and eat a more varied, natural diet than their penned-up counterparts -- develop a flesh that many consumers find more flavorful, shrimp feeding and growing in open ocean waters develop a "firmer flesh and much sweeter taste," Small says, than shrimp raised on a man-made diet in a tank or pond. Will Johnson, head fishmonger at the Raleigh
Whole Foods store echoes Small's
sentiment. "The sweet, succulent flavor -- aah,
there's nothing like it," says Johnson of wild-caught shrimp. (Whole
Foods does sell imported farm-raised shrimp, too, but only those raised without the use of antibiotics, growth hormones or
animal byproducts. The chain recently stopped selling farmed shrimp from With a boost in advertising dollars from
the "Freshness from North Carolina Waters" program and the support
of the state Department of Agriculture, wild So whether you fry, boil, steam, stuff, broil or pickle it, wild-caught shrimp from the waters off our coast is one of the most tasteful privileges of living here. Pick up a pound or two and remember how great shrimp really tastes Full
Pesto Article: By Sam Gugino
Veal Vincenzo
was a popular dish on the menu of a restaurant I operated in Fred Plotkin
feels that way about pesto, the sauce of basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts
and cheese, from Since America's culinary revolution, which began over a quarter-century ago, pesto has gone from being made the traditional way (well, sort of) and applied to almost every food imaginable to being made almost every way imaginable and applied likewise. In the early days, pesto found its way into more dishes than did kiwifruit. When we tired of pesto made the way Italians intended (more or less), American chefs began throwing more pesto changeups than a pitcher who's lost his fastball. Instead of basil we got spinach, arugula, mint, oregano, Italian parsley—almost anything that was green and leafy. When chefs ran out of green, they tried red. Like many Southwestern cooks, John Sedlar, author of Modern Southwest Cuisine, made a red chile pesto; though he did keep the olive oil and pine nuts. But through the course of time, pine nuts became walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds and pistachios. Soon pesto lost all pretense of having any connection to the original. Even the doyenne of Italian cuisine, Marcella Hazan (admittedly not a Ligurian), was making pesto with olives and capers in her book Marcella's Italian Kitchen. This is not to say the classic Ligurian pesto can only be made one way. "There is
no single, definitive preparation for pesto. It varies a bit from town to
town in Classic pesto, like most Italian culinary creations, requires ingredients of impeccable quality, particularly the basil, olive oil and salt. Indeed, one can make a very good pesto with just these three. (Early versions of pesto did not contain nuts or cheese, but they most likely did contain garlic.) Incidentally, Plotkin
dispels the notion that only the people of The olive oil used for pesto, like the
basil, should be delicate in quality. Ligurian oil
is fruity and light, a far cry from the throat-catching Tuscan oils. Though Ligurian oils are becoming more available (look for
brands such as Ranieri, Carli
and Roi) you can get by with a
mild and fruity oil from Speaking of harsh, go easy on the garlic. Italian garlic tends to be smaller and less pungent than the garlic most Americans use. Plotkin says Italian food got a reputation for being garlicky because Americans translated Italian recipes (not just pesto) without adjusting for the stronger garlic we have here. Though pine nuts are preferred for their oiliness and sweetness, it is not uncommon to see walnuts, which give a drier, more tannic bite to the sauce. The classic pesto usually has two cheeses, Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is rich and creamy, and the sharper Pecorino Romano. I can eat pesto with almost any food and have been known to spread it on bagels. More conventional uses include putting it on grilled or baked vegetables, meat, fish, poultry or bread. Pesto can even make canned minestrone special. Pasta, of course, is the ultimate mate for pesto. For a pound of pasta (enough for six people), mix 1/3 cup (or more) of the pasta cooking water with 3/4 to 1 cup of pesto to form a smooth sauce. Despite their quest for purity, Ligurians do add things to pesto, such as ricotta (good
for lasagna recipes) and prescinseha (a kind of
sour cream or yogurt) to enrich it. Crème fraîche
and softened butter are nice too. As for nontraditional pestos,
I found that in place of basil, kale, especially when blanched, makes a nice
faux pesto topping (without cheese) for bruschetta.
Spinach is a bit too mild, so go easy on the garlic. Arugula
is the reverse. They're all fun to make. Just don't call them pesto. Back
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