What makes a perfect bite? Everyone has their ideas of what a perfect bite of food is. Some people prefer sweet bites, and others like me choose savory ones.

A perfect bite is when the taste is in perfect balance. Sweet, salty, soft, crunchy, sour, bitter, acidy, and umami are all in perfect harmony.

I’ve written about umami before and how it is considered the fifth sense of taste. It is what brings a dish over the finish line of deliciousness.

My perfect bite was a simple taco. A homemade corn tortilla with smoked brisket, creamy coleslaw, crunchy quick-pickled red onions, cilantro, and thinly sliced jalapeño peppers. 

The brisket was the soft, unctuous umami, and the creamy coleslaw was crunchy, which also cooled down the jalapeño pepper. The quick-pickled red onion was another crunch element, along with the acid needed to cut through the fatty richness of the brisket. 

The cilantro? It is put on a dish for a purpose and not a garnish. I use cilantro in all my Thai, Indian and Mexican cooking. Some people say it tastes like soap; ok, I get it; but it enhances a dish with brightness and a unique flavor for the rest of us.

I make, taste, and eat a lot of food, so it should be applauded when a perfect bite stands out! Bravo!

Happy Friday! Have a great weekend! Cheers!

Yesterday, Marty and I were delivering in Saratoga & Albany, NY. We stopped at Restaurant Depot to pick up a few things for us and a few cleaning items for the production kitchen.

As we walked around, we noticed many things out of stock again. Things were out of stock during the pandemic, but then things got better. Things have slid backward. On the drive home, I started to think about other food shortages in history and how people dealt with them.

During WW2 the people who were affected most by food rations and shortages were the women of the households who did the shopping and cooking for their families. Forgotten heroes of wartime were the women who had to make do.

They were encouraged to keep a positive attitude. Publications wrote suggestions for using war rations. Their patriotic duty was to fight the war at home by changing their families’ diets and being careful not to overbuy or have any food waste.

“We must all help win the war and one way is to save sugar for the solider boys.”

I say it was their patriotic duty because the rationed food was being saved for the soldiers fighting in WW2; their job was to figure out how to cook and bake without many staple items they were used to.

The first item rationed was sugar, then coffee. Next came meat, butter, cheeses, and fats. As women started figuring out how to cook differently, they shared their recipes by sending the recipes to the newspapers to print.

Women were united by the recipes and food they shared. Clever substitutions and ideas sparked more ideas and recipes. Women were still cooking delicious, healthy food, even with food rations.

One of the most popular recipes was for victory or war cakes. Food manufacturers began to print recipes for war cakes using their products. One example is The Crisco Victory White Cake recipe called on women to bake for their families. The recipe started with, “Lady, your family will say you’re a magician when you serve this new mouth-watering sugar-saving Victory Cake!”

Some substitutions for sugar were the liquid from soaked raisins and other dried fruits, corn syrup, and honey. Nestle encouraged women in an ad in the Saturday evening post to stop buying chocolate, announcing, “Chocolate is fighting food!”

Shortening and margarine were used to replace the hard to come by butter. Spice cakes replaced chocolate cakes and so on and so forth.

Vegetarian diets began during WW2 out of necessity. Women were encouraged to serve dinners such as Meatless Mondays and Wheatless Wednesdays. Home cooks learned how to use macaroni, rice, crackers, processed cheese, and spam as part of their daily cooking.

They used every part of the vegetable and meat. They saved the fat from meats since cooking oil was rationed.

Casseroles used small amounts of meat but were delicious and satisfying. Soups and stews used every scrap of vegetable, throwing nothing away. Now, do you know why your grandmothers washed their tin foil?

One of my favorite savory pie creations used the entire potato. The potato skins were boiled until they were soft and became the bottom crust of the pie. This is fucking genius! Kudos to whoever came up with that one.

I remember both of my grandmothers talking about making mock apple pie. The “apples” were soaked Ritz crackers. Welch Rarebit was another classic, and American Chop Suey became popular using only a small amount of meat, elbow macaroni, and tomato sauce.

Can you even imagine if people today had to cook, let alone be creative, using only what they could find? Could Americans do without prepared and frozen foods if necessary? Could people cook only what they could afford due to the high food prices? Could they go without many staple items? Would cooks come together and help one another?

I cook dinner almost every night and have always been creative and frugal, but the shortages I saw yesterday were disturbing. While we were driving, Marty talked about how bad things were getting, and I tried to be positive and said, “But they will get better.” He told me, “Good for you to think like that; I like that.”

Like during the war, I thought of how scary it must have been to know that there won’t be items available. The rations changed often keeping everyone on their toes.

The women who helped “win the war” are amazing heroes to me, stepping up to the plate and doing simply what they needed to do. There were no other options, but they did it, and did it well! Many recipes are still used today, especially in vegetarian cooking.

I have a few 1940s and wartime ration cookbooks that are prized possessions of mine. Some I found at garage or book sales. I have my grandmother Nana’s handwritten cookbook, which has the recipe for Poor Man Cake.

I also was gifted my biological grandmother’s Victory Cookbook, the Wartime Edition. Having something that belonged to my grandmother, whom I never knew, is a strong connection to her. Looking at the pages of recipes that looked like favorites makes me smile.

When I go to bed at night, I give away all my worries to God. I know I don’t have to list them because He knows everything, but listing them helps me watch them float away. Last night, I added ample food supply for our country to my list. Amen.

When I was picking out my flowers and herbs, I smelled the intoxicating smell of an Indian restaurant. I’ve said this many times before, but we live in a food desert; there is no Indian food for miles.

I started sniffing around the herb plant rack, and on the other side, my nose zeroed in. I put my nose into the plant and took a big sniff and looked at the name of the plant; a curry plant? This is something new to me. Not to be confused with curry leaves from the curry tree native to India. Curry leaves are used largely in South Indian cuisine.

I waited until I purchased my plants, then took a tiny nibble of the curry plant. It didn’t taste like curry; it tasted like bitter parsley. Weird, usually the nose and taste buds are on the same page. Not in this case.

I read that the bright yellow flowers that blossom on the curry plant taste like bleu cheese! You know I’ll be tasting those suckers to see for myself. I’ll report back.

I planted the two varieties of curry plants I purchased, one tall and one dwarf in a terracotta herb box with rosemary in between. Curry plants like sandy soil, so I added sandy soil to the bottom of the planter box. They like it hot and need drainage.

When I walk by the plants, I can smell that intoxicating smell. When I water the plants, the scent comes out even more. Today, after a heavy downpour, the smell of curry was strong, a smell I love. Shit, it made me hungry. Lol.

I had nothing planned for dinner but suddenly craved Indian food big time. The only protein I knew I could defrost quickly was shrimp. I decided to make Curried Shrimp with Basmati Rice.

I didn’t become familiar with Indian cuisine until adulthood and I love it. Unlike Chinese cuisine, Indian food is easy to make at home with a few different spices. 

The curry powder you buy from a store is a combination of different spices. There is no such thing as a curry spice like cinnamon or nutmeg. Another Indian spice called garam masala is another combination of different spices. 

Every Indian family has its versions of both curry powder and garam masala. I have made my own following a recipe, but I do keep store-bought curry powder on hand for quick use on a weeknight or in curried chicken salad or curried deviled eggs.

I looked up a few different recipes to remind myself how to make curried shrimp. I made an Indian version of curried shrimp, but there are also Jamaican, Thai, and other nationalities’ versions.

I threw some basmati rice into my rice cooker and started putting together the rest of the meal. The recipe goes super quick, perfect for a weeknight dinner. You can buy raw shrimp already peeled to save time. I always have shrimp in the freezer for quick dinners.

Here is the link to the Curried Shrimp recipe I used the first time I made curried shrimp; now, I improvise by adding a few more spices and tweaks to the dish.

This is a very home-cook-friendly recipe without any crazy or hard-to-find ingredients. It is simple and straightforward. Remember, Indian curried dishes are only as spicy as you make them.

Anyone new to cooking Indian cuisine may consider purchasing a curry powder from McCormick or a store brand. These are made for mainstream America and aren’t too spicy.

If you like Indian food and want to try something more authentic, you can get curry powder in an ethnic store. These have a bit more spice and flavor than the supermarket brands. If you like to cook, you can mix up a batch of curry powder yourself. Spices at the ethnic stores are very inexpensive; I buy all my spices there.

If you aren’t familiar with or afraid of Indian cuisine, taste a small amount of the curry powder on your finger or spoon. Is it spicy? If not, start by adding half of what the recipe calls for. If it’s still not spicy, add the other half. It is totally up to you if this is something new or you aren’t sure about.

I’ve written about one of my cooking students, MJ, who was afraid of Indian and Thai foods. She was worried they would be too spicy. It turns out that after learning in class that she controlled the spice, Butter Chicken became one of her favorite dishes. It’s one of her go-to recipes now.

The house smelled so good while I was making the curried shrimp. Marty could smell it when he was sitting on the front porch. It came out delicious, if I do say so myself. It was incredibly flavorful and satisfied that craving I’ve had since I brought my curry plants home two weeks ago.

I guess it’s a good thing I do live in a food desert since it forces me to learn to cook ethnic foods that aren’t available. Whenever I perfect any new dish, I consider it another notch in my cooking belt or apron, I should say.

For local people, curry plants are available at The Market Wagon and the flower market on Benmont Avenue in Bennington if you want to check them out for yourselves. It’s more of a novelty thing since you can’t eat it, but looks great in flower beds or containers mixed with other plants.