SC - Cook's Guild Meeting

[SUZANNE_POWELL]

I wrote:
  << Did you find that key limes made a detectable difference?  I have not
  found it to be so.   >>
  
Ras razzed: (:-)
  I suspect that Tibor is not saying he has a jaded palete? :-0 Forbid the
  tho't! 

Indeed.

Quality of ingredients is one of the TRUE differences between a good dish,
and a great one.  There are times when I will go to GREAT lengths to get
what I want for a recipe.

But, there are also times when I find that, despite a lifetime of fine
eating and drinking, and an attempt to build an educated palate, that the
difference is lost.  At least, on me.  In the case of a sugar-shocked flavor
like that in lime pie according to my recipe, I don't think I can tell.
Because sweet is such a cloying and obscuring flavor.
  
  The serious cook should make every effort to develope their sense of taste to
  a high degree. Such a course of action can only improve your enjoyment of
  food and provide you with a useful tool in producing foods which when put in
  the mouth causes one to experience a special rapture that can best be
  described as an "oral orgasm". :-)

Indeed.  When I was growing up, my mother and I used to play a tasting game:
we'd go to a restaurant, taste a dish, write down what flavors we detected,
and then compare notes, and ask the waiter, maitre'd or chef.  It was
tremendous fun, and paid dividends.  (I can still, fairly reliably, tell you
what is in an unlabeled baggie of generic herbs by sniffing the OUTSIDE of
the bag or bottle.  Besides, if I cannot tell that way, the herbs are too
old to use.)

I've managed to astonish myself, and quite a few chefs, by parroting their
recipes back to them.  This was especially astonishing when I was about 9.
I still own a framed print from the Napoleonic era, given to me by the owner
of Auberge when I was small, and inscribed "to my best little customer".
She didn't know how I knew there was champagne in the sauce on the salmon en
croute.  Frankly, given that I only had tasted champagne as an ingredient,
neither do I.  (:-)

	Tibor (Gosh, I do love food.)
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