IndyRob

I wasn't suprised. Mike knew his pasta was bad, but that was the only real problem. If Tre's risotto texture was all that was wrong, I would agree that it was a lesser sin. But there was the veg problem as well.

Aren't bananas a sort of miracle food even when slushified? The base offers several different directions to pursue.

We don't really use 'sussed', but as clever as it might have been, I agree that it would be blatant cheating if true. The fact that dim sum was not leaving the kitchen was a mystery to me. I've made 3 dozen potstickers for personal use and wouldn't really be intmidated by having to do 180 (well, maybe just a bit). But I could have done it, and as soon as service started I wouldn't have cared if I had a steamer or a pan on a stove. Potstickers would be flying out. It is the only Top Chef full service challenge ever that I thought I could have accomplished. I wouldn't have won, but I would've easily beat the chicken feet. If Dale just cooked for the judges, he should be eliminated..., um, post-episodus.

Many won't agree, but for me, Pickeled anything would send me scurrying. I sort of agree with the X, Y ways, in the sense that it sounds more like a demonstration than a meal/dish.

I'm skeptical - as salt (in any form) tends to dissolve upon being introduced to moisture.

Why would one need to reduce a salt to a powder for a rub?

I can't let Marcel go without some sort of requiem. At the beginning of season 2 I thought what I'm sure most people thought; Here's the new Stephen, put in a blender and remade, but with the pretentiousness and overconfidence coming out of completely different culinary orifices. And he certainly came out of the gate that way, equalling Stephen's embarrasing feud with Candice with his own - in an episode-losing feud with Betty. But as the season wore on, a fascinating thing started happening. Good - really good - 'cheftestants' started melting down at the mere thought of losing to Marcel. As the animosity ramped up, so did the mistakes. Cliff blows a very good chance in an after hours segment, Sam's mental game is probably fatally compromised while shopping. In the end, Ilan is dripping with so much bile that by now I'm actively rooting for Marcel (despite feeling that he doesn't really deserve the title). At the start of All Stars, I thought that I had seen some maturity beginning to show itself in Marcel. Even his hair seemed calmer. But the old Marcel started to progressively creep back (and did his hair really grow back in the course of, like, three episodes?). If it was a repeat of his season 2 strategy it was a mistake - the competition is much stronger this time around. Ultimately I felt that justice was served. Marcel has been put in his place. And IMHO, that place is behind Elia and Jenn. He lost it as a restaraunt chef.

At least in North America table salt contains iodine whereas kosher salt contains no additives. They also differ in texture. Table salt has a beach sand consistancy while kosher is made up of tiny flakes which are easier to control with the fingers. With Diamond having a different texture than Morton, I have a hypothesis that some perceived differences could be down to famaliarity or comfort with a given texture, rather than pure taste. Being familiar with Morton, I suspect I might tend to over season if I were to use Diamond. And just for some objective measurements, I just weighed a tablespoon of Morton's Kosher and Morton's Iodized table salt, and the kosher was 16 grams, while the table salt was 18. I had expected a larger difference.

It seems to me that there are two, maybe three, distinct reasons to use salt; Seasoning, Moisture Management (presalting steaks, brining), and maybe a textural element (pretzels being a prime example). For seasoning, I'd say that I like to put off adding salt until the final stages of cooking. It's better to add it after everything has reduced to the proper consistancy, and you can taste the effect of any salt that came to the party on the backs of other ingredients (e.g. ham). Of course that's not always possible with things that get mixed before cooking - like bread or meatloaf. But generally, I put it off as long as practical.

Sorry, I have to veer a little off topic here, but perhaps Boudreaux's Butt Paste, could soothe some of these hot sauce induced maladies.

I'd rather them keep salt out of spice blends altogether. That way I can control it myself. Okay, maybe I can understand its inclusion in, say, a spice rub that's meant to be used right out of the jar. But their position seems confused. They say that all salt is the same. Okay, great, I'll buy a store brand for less than a dollar and not have to pay for shipping. Then I can put handfulls into my pasta water without fretting. But if they really want me to use less salt, wouldn't they want to sell me specialty salts and price them like saffron? Then I'd be very sparing in my application.

As the guy who uses a Presto Kitchen Kettle as his immersion (non)circulator, these looked very attractive to me, even though I already had a Foodsaver. I actually had one in my hand in the grocery store when I thought to look at the refill bags. I saw the price, did some mental calculations, shreiked a little, and quickly put back the $3 hand pump. They kill you on the price of the bags. The Foodsaver is the same way. But I'm now buying compatible Seal-A-Meal backs for half the price. I think it would work well for low temp applications - especially if you unexpectedly needed to do sous vide on the road without all of your stuff. But a reusable air check valve that could be used with any ziplock bag would be a much better product.

I too have read that all truffle oils are artificial. Then, one day I was at a specialty butcher shop and was waiting for the current customer to be rung up when I noticed jars of small black truffles (3-4) in oil. The label said black truffles in oil, not truffle oil. The price was somewhere around $30 for a small jar. Immediately, my impulse buy mechanism was in full-on conflict with my BS detector. The BS detector won out on this occasion by appealing to my cautious nature, but I've been curious ever since. Has anyone ever seen/tried these?

I'm not just interested in this topic in general historic food. I'm interested in currently popular (specific) recipes with long histories. Ultimately, the one with the longest continuous history. These wouldn't be enduring dishes. They may have endured for a time, but are not enduring. French Toast is clearly enduring, specific, popular, well documented, and ancient. It was a good find. Payasa seems to be something that could mount a strong challenge if we can vett the details.

I'm using a very specific and non-traditional sense of 'dish'. I'm not saying bowl porridge isn't a dish, just that it's not a specific dish. Perhaps I should have used 'recipe', although that may have invited a different set of differing interpretations. Stew is similar to porridge. It's more of a genre than a specific dish/recipe. Kentucky Burgoo would work (although not exactly ancient, or popular outside of Kentucky). Boulliabaise is another stew (some may argue soup though) that is completely different. Shaman Ooklid's Persimmon and Pear Oat Porridge would work (if it actually existed and met the other criteria).

The problem I have with porridge is that it's basically just a cooked ingredient. As you point out, it has been developed independently by Egyptians and mesoamericans (and probably many others). Rice is similar, well actually, aguably it is porridge. And that is another problem - porridge can be made out many different ingredients. It's a catchall for any one of various boiled cereals, not a specific thing. I'm looking at a 'dish' as being a unique creative expression, usually (maybe always) requiring a combination of ingredients, and hence a specific recipe (some variation of which will be assumed, because that's just what we do with recipes).

Originating somewhere between 8000-5000 BCE, tamales could be a runaway winner, but it seems unlikely and difficult to ascertain. From a little browsing it looks as though the Spaniards found them in dizzying varieties, so at that point, tamales seem more of a genre than a dish. It's very possible that within those varieties was something that that was faithful to the ancient version. But as time wore on, one site says, tamales homogenized. It would be amazing and exciting if the ancient tamales survived that selection process, but it would almost be too good to believe. Jenni, I imagine that India could be among the best places to look, and Payasa may be a good candidate. I'm not sure rice cooked in milk would be enough, but the first recipe I found had a lot more to it than that.

Carbonara is very recent (well, I think, I haven't looked it up). But I think Pastizzi predates it by a mile, and is far more sophisticated. I wasn't suggesting that. Only that they could have existed at the same time.

I think I've created some confusion regarding the goal by having a fuzzy conception at the start. Now that I've had some more input and have been able to reflect a bit, I'll try to clarify further. o We're looking for dishes that are popular today in multiple regions. Pastizzi (which I had in mind when creating the topic) probably sets the lowest bar. They rule in tiny Malta, appear to be popular in Australia, as well as other regional places like Toronto - and can be found in NYC. o The dish should consist of multiple components that are combined in a (usually) distinguishingly named dish. Cooked lobster? No. Lobster Florentine? Absoluteley. o Things such as Bread, Sausage, Ham, and/or Fois Gras are treated as ingredients. A Baguette is not a dish, but a Jambon Beurre is. A sausage is not dish, but franks and beans, or cassoulets are. French Toast was the perfect example and resolved this for me. o There must be at least an arguable chain of custody, and reasonable degree of consistancy, from modernity to antiquity. Really, what I'm looking for is which preparations (beyond simply cooking something properly) have earned a long reign on this earth and still hold up to this day. Inspired by a 400 year run of pastizzi, I thought that older dishes must be even more exemplary. So far, I've discovered in French Toast, that sometimes it's not so much about excellence of a particular dish, but a damned solid way of dealing with a common problem such as day old bread.

I'm inclined to disqualify beverages, but this is kind of worthy of an 'honorable mention' because it is interesting. Arguably, it is 2000 years old, and how different could various hot chocolate drinks be? Well, maybe a lot. But if I were a 1st century roman sitting down on a chilly mornng with my not-yet-misnamed french toast, I sure would love me some hot chocolate to go with it.

We're still eating that today? I'm going to have to talk to my butcher.

I'd probably just brine and roast (on the bone, with skin, preferably). Brining makes roasting much more forgiving.

This is good. From scanning the timeline I think French Toast is the first thing that clearly fits all the criteria. We're still enjoying it today in the same form and can trace it back from the French and into the roman via Pain a la Romaine, and back to Apicius. Marshmallows gave me pause. It's a specific preparation, but not a dish. Fried Chicken is close, but I'd argue that, at least in the US, Southern Fried Chicken is what we call fried chicken. I've read conflicting reports about its origins, so its hard to trace.

I'm talking about specific dishes like Spaghetti Carbonara, Eggs Benedict, Pommes Anna, Beef Stroganoff or Egg Drop Soup. Not necessarily an entree - Chocolate Chip Cookies would work, but not just 'cookies' or 'biscuits'. Perhaps it has to have its own distinguishing name. The example I was alluding to was pastizzi which I discovered was suprisingly old according to Wikipedia's Sfogliatelle entry: I've noticed that most of our western dishes come from the renaissance or later. I'm guessing that the eventual winner will be from China, but I might be surprisd. I myself am uncomfortable excluding specific breads, but it's just such a tangled web. They evolve so subtley.

I love this guy. He hears that there are great shrimp to be had off the North African coast so he charters a ship, goes there, and before they even make landfall he catches a shrimp, tastes it, and says "Meh, turn the ship around.". I'm looking for a specific preparation here (but not necessarily without variation). We know much about what grains were available when and where, and presumably they're all cooked in some form. So boiled rice (however long) isn't specific enough. Isicia Omentata may arguably be a burger, but if so, it had to be reinvented. I was asking about dishes that have endured to the present. And I'm going to suggest that bread isn't a dish even though people at various times have subsisted primarily on it. I think fruitcake would have to be more specific because the ancient Roman version is very different from the one baked in the 18th century that we keep mailing back and forth.