Balance at the table

[nakji]

As I've become more and more interested in home cooking, I've become more conscious of how to balance the types of dishes I serve together on the table. I've done most of my home cooking in Asia, and this continent takes this balance seriously. When I cook dinner in Japan, I always make sure I have a balance of dishes on the table to hit all of these flavour centres - the classic rice-soup-pickles combination, enhanced perhaps with a sesame-dressed green, to hit the North American part of my brain that requires "creamy" be added to this list; or a vinegar-and-sugar dressed crispy vegetable, to hit the "crunchy-sweet" button. If a meal doesn't get all these elements right, I feel, it's just not as satisfying. One of my husband's favourite meals is sweet-salty fried pork and ginger on rice, complemented with a bit of potato salad and some sour Japanese pickles. Sweet-salty-creamy-crunchy.

Although I've only recently started thinking about it consciously, even when I was young I knew a good balance when I saw one - my favourite meal growing up was grilled chicken with barbecue sauce, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, and bread-and-butter pickles. Mounds of them. And I could never eat beef stew without dumplings and pickled beets.

There are classic combinations in North American-style cooking, of course - a Thanksgiving dinner with roast turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing comes to mind immediately.

What combination of dishes do you and your family find the most satisfying?

[Peter the eater]

There are classic combinations in North American-style cooking, of course - a Thanksgiving dinner with roast turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing comes to mind immediately.

What combination of dishes do you and your family find the most satisfying?

Before I got to the end of your initial post I thought of the typical North American Thanksgiving dinner, which has it all. But that one's an anomaly occurring only once a year.

The question is:

Balance at the table, salty-sweet-sour-crunchy-creamy

Of those five I'm usually missing one or two at home cooked meals. I'd add spicy-hot to the fray since its like a vitamin for me.

[JAZ]

There are classic combinations in North American-style cooking, of course - a Thanksgiving dinner with roast turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing comes to mind immediately.

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Before I got to the end of your initial post I thought of the typical North American Thanksgiving dinner, which has it all. But that one's an anomaly occurring only once a year.

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I'm going to disagree here -- I think a typical North American Thanksgiving dinner is completely unbalanced in this sense. Everything from the stuffing to the gravy to the sweet potatoes is heavy, creamy and sweet. No crunch at all, and nothing acidic.

For typical American food, a BLT is much better balanced. Crunchy lettuce, acidity and sweetness from the tomatoes, salty crisp bacon, creaminess from mayonnaise.

I have a question: Does bitterness not enter into the Japanese taste spectrum?

[nibor]

I'm going to disagree here -- I think a typical North American Thanksgiving dinner is completely unbalanced in this sense. Everything from the stuffing to the gravy to the sweet potatoes is heavy, creamy and sweet. No crunch at all, and nothing acidic.

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We always had pickles and cranberries. Edited February 10, 2009 by nibor (log)

[Saraaa]

Interesting post and thinking. I also pay attention to 'balance' when cooking meals. I think in terms of different color (red like tomoto, orange like carrot, green like broccoli, yellow like potato), different tastes (salty, sweet, spicy, sour) and different textures (thick gravy, soupy, dry) and of course different nutritions (protein like fish or meat, vitamins & minerals like vegetables, and starch like pasta or rice or bread).

Wow cooking is indeed an art!

[Prawncrackers]

Whenever i think of balance in a meal i always associate with what my mother taught me. That is, in the context of a Chinese meal, to have a balance between meat, fish & veg. I think this is so ingrained in me that whenever i cook a Chinese meal this is always the primary balance. All other aspects are secondary to that, such as texture, taste etc. Thinking about it's actually a nutritional thing that my mother insisted on.