The sugar taboo in savory cooking

[K8memphis]

So "refined sugar" has joined "jumbo shrimp" in the list of food-related oxymorons, it seems.

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How so? Do you mean because it is not gentlemanly ie good ie refined?

[Fat Guy]

When you think about descriptions of really good soup stock, you often hear it described as "sweet." So in a way it makes sense that sugar could act as a stock enhancer.

I don't think we're talking about food police here. We're talking about people who eat plenty of foie gras and fatty foods, not to mention sugary desserts, at fine-dining restaurants.

[markk]

Yet, there seems to be a taboo among gourmets that says it's not okay to use sugar -- white, granulated, refined sugar -- in savory cooking. Why?

A little white sugar can go a long way towards improving a soup, a tomato sauce and many other dishes. It can bring dishes into balance when they're too bitter or acidic. Just a tablespoon can noticeably improve the flavor profile of a whole pot of chicken soup. My late father-in-law, who was one of the best soup cooks I've ever encountered, often added a bit of sugar to his soups. They were excellent without it, but even better with.

Yet I can remember cringing the first time I saw him add sugar to a soup -- it went against every gourmet instinct I had. Why? Is it because manufacturers of packaged foods use sugar and equivalent sweeteners with reckless abandon? In the US, is it a reaction to the stereotype that American food is too sweet?

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I can only speak for myself, but it's a combination of two factors for me. One is that I have a personal prejudice against refined products and white, granulated, refined sugar in particular. (Don't want to get OT, but it started once many years ago when I had a breakfast pastry [refined white flour, refined white sugar] for breakfast on an empty stomach and a short while later went into a sugar-slump; I researched that and learned how sugar metabolizes if there's no slow burning protein to extend the burn, and was grossed out, and that started my aversion to processing-out things that aren't in their whole state, as in if I want something sweet, I'll eat a whole peach. I'm not preaching that this is right, just explaining how I feel about it.)

The other thing is my great love of bitter and sour things, which I think that many in the non eG population that we're calling America eschew, because they just like everything sweet.

(Some years ago there was a commercial pasta sauce that didn't have sugar or fructose sweetner. I don't like red sauce to begin with, but in a emergency I could make a pasta meal with it. Then they discontinued them. I called to compalin, and the rep on the phone said, "I happen to agree with you, but I have to tell you, most of America doesn't agree with us; our sweetened tomato sauces outsold this one by 100 to one and we discontinued it".)

I think that the sugar and sweetners in commercial tomato sauces today goes way, way past the little pinch that would correct a tomato. We (they) make everything too sweet, and my turning against sugar is a reaction to it.

I still think commercial foods are too sweet.  Ketchup tastes like candy to me!

Me too!. I don't want my main course tasting like my dessert.

I think there's a perception that sugar is used in this way to cover up less than perfect ingredients and is therefore shunned by those in the know. Adding sugar to your tomato sauce? Perfect tomatoes don't need sugar!

Yes, my sentiments exactly, though I also say that we've definitely gone past 'correcting' or 'covering up', and are now into the spoonful of sugar to make Americans like everything; I'm just surprised they're not packaging arugula or radishes in sugar syrup.

In the US, is it a reaction to the stereotype that American food is too sweet?

For me, a resounding yes. As I say, I want my dessert sweet, not my savoury course. Yet I know that many dishes are based on "sweet and sour" like my beloved stuffed cabbage. I try to make mine sweetened only from the raisins, and when I have to add a little organic brown sugar, I wince. I do know that historically, refined sugar was a luxury and a treat, and that making things sweet was a nod towards the people who could afford real sweet things (except when it, and sour, covered up bad food). I don't do really well with sweet and sour because of my sugar prejudice, unless I can get the sweet without resorting to added sugar.

When things like soups and stews need a sweet component, I try to get it from sweet vegetables, e.g. carrots, parsnips, sweet onions, etc. When I make one of my favorite vegetable side dishes, pureed yams and turnips, I use black pepper and nutmeg, and if I need a hint more sweetness, add a tad of organic maple syrup.

foodie subcultural trend that runs through New York, London, Paris that says it's verboten to add white sugar to your savory dishes -- that it's cheating, that if you do it you're not a "purist."

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That's me, and there's why I feel that way.

[monavano]

Sugar and red wine adds great flavor to tomato sauce or ragu. More than sugar, I use honey as a sweetener in savory dishes. Recently, I've added it to a borscht-like soup which had red wine vinegar and sauerkraut. It balanced the flavors beautifully. And, I've been tinkering with a chipotle pork chili to which honey balanced the heat of the pepper. It was perhaps the best, and most unusual chili I've made, but now will be my signature twist on an old favorite.

Great discussion about refined sugar in savory dishes. We in America are bombarded with the message that refined sugar is the enemy, and will lead to obesity and poor health. So, it's interesting and educational to see it's use around the world, in great and health cooking.

I'm still pondering it's use in chicken soup......never would have seen that comming.

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To me, I think it's too obvious to hide in a clear broth chicken soup. And now that I'm old enough for my own health to have crashed (like so many others') the bombardment seems at the least reasonable. I have used it previously in spaghetti sauce, though, and it does do wonders. I would switch to honey if I felt it necessary.

I like Tristar's clarity on 'gourmet' versus 'food snob'. And 'food snob' might be better illumined by the phrase 'food police'.

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Oh, the message isn't a bad one whatsoever. There is way too much sugar in premade products. I recently all but gave up on a favorite canned soup because it is loaded with sugar (and salt). It's just with the low/no carb craze these days, you would think a little sugar here and there would destroy your health!

[paulraphael]

It's funny, I've never thought about it but I've felt the stigma.

It seems to me there are broadly speaking two uses of sugar in savory cooking: where it's a main ingredient (honey glazed ham, seet/sour sauce, duck a l'orange, etc.) and where it's used to balance flavors, maybe in a case where perfect ingredients wouldn't require balancing (tomato sauce, etc.).

In the latter case I've sometimes felt like I was cheating when using refined sugar. It makes little sense ... I don't see why honey would be better unless I wanted the sauce to taste like honey. Or why it should be seen as 2nd rate cooking to make sauce with less than perfect tomatoes --if they were truly perfect, I wouldn't even be cooking them!

So many classic dishes and techniques were designed to make good use of less than perfect ingredients. Adding a bit of sugar seems no less pure in this regard than simmering something for an hour.

[K8memphis]

When you think about descriptions of really good soup stock, you often hear it described as "sweet." So in a way it makes sense that sugar could act as a stock enhancer.

I don't think we're talking about food police here. We're talking about people who eat plenty of foie gras and fatty foods, not to mention sugary desserts, at fine-dining restaurants.

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Maybe not food police in this question of sugar used in savory food. But in my world of cake, food police and the underlying food misconceptions can and do polarize your customer base to the point of loosing sales.

Thomas Keller is being discussed and disparaged some for using the wrong fries. The acceptance or not of sugar or whatever process or method or ingredient is a much greater issue than what tastes good.

The ultimate issue with refined sugar is it's clinically proven addictive property which is not a popular subject.

Edited February 22, 2007 by K8memphis (log)

[Smithy]

In my household I see two factors at play relevant to this discussion. My husband got on the bandwagon against refined sugars and processed grains way back in the 70's when this wave blew through the USA. (His copy of The Sugar Blues is probably somewhere in the house.) In addition, he doesn't like the sweet and savory combinations one finds in other cultures. A whisper of cinnamon in a Middle Eastern chicken dish, for instance, drives him nuts. He wants his cinnamon on his desserts, not his main dishes, and he doesn't eat dessert anyway, so there you go.

We have some less-refined sugar and raw sugar on hand, but to be honest I don't like the taste as well for most things. Molasses is something I only appreciate in very small doses.

The upshot is that if I'm going to add sugar to adjust a seasoning, I use white sugar and do it when he isn't looking lest I get a double-barreled complaint. If he catches me at it, THAT's when I pull out his latest bottle of low-fat dressing and lovingly read out loud the label, or trot out his beloved "white wine balsamic vinegar" (I know, I know) and tell him what's really in that stuff.

[Pam R]

When you think about descriptions of really good soup stock, you often hear it described as "sweet." So in a way it makes sense that sugar could act as a stock enhancer.

I've been happily oblivious to the savory sugar taboo. Though I often (like others) use honey in a savory dish, I don't hesitate for a second to add a little sugar to a soup or sauce if it needs it.

But - for some reason - I can't get on board with adding sugar to a chicken stock. A parsnip or extra carrot add enough sweetness for me.

[Big Bunny]

Arguments for and against sugar seem to parallel arguments for and against MSG.

BB

[moosnsqrl]

So "refined sugar" has joined "jumbo shrimp" in the list of food-related oxymorons, it seems.

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How so? Do you mean because it is not gentlemanly ie good ie refined?

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Since Stephen attributed the bias against adding white sugar to savoy items to elitists/food snobs, it amused me to think that "refined sugar" was rather, well, unrefined. I'm afraid my word geekiness is often more amusing to me than to others.

[ludja]

Thank the French again I guess, they really were the drive behind a move from sweet-sour to salt-sour around the mid-1600's. Couple this with a clear seperation in savoury verses sweet courses and I guess that it is easy enough to see how what you describe developed.

In the UK it took about 200 years to get this seperation of sweet and savoury, in transitional books you will have recipes for a "sweet chicken/lamb pie" and "savoury chicken/lamb pies", right at the end of this period some of the authors made comments like "many people do no like sweet pies now". Unless there was some serious evolution of English taste buds in this period, I think that sweet-sour v salt-sour preferences are largely a social function.

Are you talking about refined sugar only? A large amount of refined sugar goes into savoury items (like hamburger buns for instance), so I guess there may be social reasons why middle-class gourmets don't tend to put refined sugar into savoury dishes.

I tend to use sugar like salt in Western type dishes. If flavour isn't an issue then I might use a bitter honey like pine, but in other cases refined sugar. I guess it is about balance, like salt sugar balances bitter flavours, but mostly I use sugar in savoury dishes to balance out the salt.

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Thanks for the interesting and informative post, Adam.

I wonder if another reason that sweetness via sugar in a savory dish may be downplayed in Western European-based 'gourmet' cuisine is related to pairing wine with the meal. For instance, although one could find wines to work with almost any meal, I don't think of pairing wine with meatloaf and (sweet) ketchup. (Although I’d consider having wine with the meal if I added a little chipotle to the ketchup or served the meatloaf with a non-sweet gravy.) It becomes easier to think of wine pairings when the sugar is extremely balanced with other flavors and does not explicitly register as sweetness. I realize that this is addressing “sweetness” in a savory dish as opposed to just focusing on sugar as an ingredient. In many dishes, I think enough sweetness to balance the dish is provided by other ingredients, like roasted or slow cooked vegetables. That is, one might not 'need' sugar to balance the dish unless tartness is in the mix.

In addition to compatibility with wine, I think another factor may be the traditional absence of the hot counterpoint (hot sour salty sweet) as an option in European-derived gourmet cooking. This may limit the ways in which sugar can be successfully incorporated into a dish. A premise is that adding sugar in noticeable amounts to savory food and/or without the proper counterbalance of salty and/or sour and/or hot leads to dishes that are not generally considered balanced or nuanced in flavor.

Besides the older historical examples that Adam gave, the western European traditional cuisines in which sweet (sometimes in the form of sugar) seem to play a larger role are German and Central European (pot roast, sweet and sour cabbage dishes), some traditional European Jewish dishes and Sicilian dishes. These dishes seem to primarily use sugar in counterpoint to sour (vinegar). The last mention begs one to consider how sugar is used in savory dishes in North Africa and the Middle East. And of course, as mentioned, a lot of Asian cuisines that use sugar in savory dishes also balance the flavors with hotness (i.e. chiles) in addition to salt, sour and savory flavors. Again, for a number of reasons, chiles have not traditionally been used very much in gourmet European-based cuisine with wine alongside.

Lastly, I think that adding small amounts of sugar to adjust the final taste balance in some dishes has been 'accepted' in some instances of European-derived cooking besides the overt sweet and sour dish examples. Some examples are the tomato-based ones given above and also peas. Another place where I sometimes adjust the final taste with a tiny amount of sugar in addition to salt is in salad dressings or vinaigrettes. As Adam and others mentioned, sugar can be used to adjust saltiness and/or tartness (i.e. when using lemon or vinegar.)

Edited February 22, 2007 by ludja (log)

[ludja]

So, last night when I was mulling over ideas that led to my post above, I thought of another exercise. I decided to look through the cookbook, Simply French by Patricia Wells and Joel Robuchon. Of the French cooksbooks I have, this is the one that has very careful and explicit directions regarding the seasoning of the dish. Tasting the dish is of course most important, but I remembered that there was a lot of discussion regarding how to adjust the salt and seasonings in the dish.

So, I thought it would be interesting to glance through it and see is sugar was ever recommended or used as an ingredient to balance the flavors in any of the savory dishes. I surprised to see that there were thirteen savory dishes that used sugar explicity as an ingredient! (Interestingly, in the introduction she carefully discusses the use of salt and pepper as being key to success, but does not mention sugar there. I guess this is likely due to the fact that salt and pepper work in almost any dish; sugar less often.)

The dishes include examples where sugar is used with tomatoes or other tart flavors but also include some dishes that I would not have thought of.

Here are the dishes with sugar in the ingredient list:

Servings are for four unless otherwise noted.

Savory Tomato and Basil Tarts (1 Tbs sugar)

Tomato Mint Sorbet 3 cups (1 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar)

Fresh Terrine of Duck Livers 10-12 servings (1 tsp superfine sugar)

Spring Lobster w Fresh Baby Vegetables (3 Tbs sugar)

Roasted Duck w sauteed apples, honey and cider vinegar (1 Tbs honey)

Whole Roasted Foie Gras w Caramellized Turnips (2 Tbs sugar)

Rabbit w Mustard, Fava Beans, and Baby Onions (1 Tbs sugar)

Thick Veal Chop w Wild Mushrooms and Asparagus (1 Tbs sugar)

Pork Loin w Sage, Leeks adn Juniper 6 servings (2 Tbs sugar)

Potatoes "Chanteduc" 6-8 servings (1 Tbs sugar)

Confit of Fresh Chestnuts, Walnuts, Fennel and Onions 8-10 servings (1 Tbs sugar)

Glazed Spring Vegetables 6 servings (~ 4 Tbs sugar)

Braised Endives (3 Tbs sugar)

So at least according to Patricia Wells, Robuchon does not consider sugar taboo as a key ingredient in a number of his savory dishes. It would be interesting to look through "The French Laundary Cookbook" to see Keller's use or non-use of sugar.

For those not familiar with Robuchon, he has been a long time starred chef in France. (I'm not sure of his current status.) This book was an attempt to translate his culinary mastery so that at least some aspects of his cooking could be duplicated by a home cook.

Edited February 22, 2007 by ludja (log)

[Shalmanese]

I think it's been a persistant bias that anything done to lowbrow food can't possibly be good when done to highbrow food. Thus, sugar, MSG and "processed" foods have been unfairly maligned, not for what they are, but for what they've been used in. One of the amusing things I've found about Molecular Gastronomy is how they've systematically pulled the wool over diners eyes about the origin of their techniques and chemicals.

I have no beef with using sugar or MSG in my food. I think one needs to be careful when using them because there certainly is the temptation to use them to cover up inferior ingredients but a judicious application can certainly have a legitimate purpose in the kitchen.

[K8memphis]

Lots of times they just go ahead and use fruit itself to sweeten the pot.

I took Ludja's idea and looked through a Wolfgang Puck cookbook and a Patrick O'Connell. Wolfgang uses added sugar not so much, Patrick more, a pinch here a teaspoon there. But like we know, chefs will then just blow it out of the savory water with fruit too.

[annecros]

You know, I am not sure I would equate using sugar with using MSG. MSG is an enhancer. White sugar, as has been pointed out on this thread by people smarter than I am, is a neutral imparter of sweetness.

An onion, a parsnip or a carrot will impart additional sweetness. It will also impart another flavor on the finished dish. I think molasses is vital to baked beans - another sweet savory dish that has no southern stigma - but it imparts a molasses flavor in addition to the sweet flavor. White sugar - as opposed to honey, molasses, cane syrup, maple syrup - imparts or enhances a sweet component without giving the food an additional flavoring. MSG sort of takes it out of the same spectrum, in that it imparts a unique flavor all it's own.

Using white sugar in order to balance the inherent flavor profile of any particular finished product, is much different (in my mind) to adding an additional flavor element to the finished dish.

White sugar is safe - and when the rest of the flavors are where you want them - then white sugar is only logical to heighten sweetness without requiring the cook to adjust again.

Props to ludja who dug up the Rubuchon references, and also to the refrences to central European sweet/sour profiles. I had forgotten about them, and not feeling so "out there" with my southern references - and now wondering when the Yankees in Penn Dutch land will chime in!

I think those that are snubbing the use of white sugar in a judicious manner to adjust a balance in a flavor profile may want to rethink.

[ludja]

...

Props to ludja who dug up the Rubuchon references,

...

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Well, I was pretty surprised by how often Robuchon used sugar as an ingredient. I didn't necessarily expect to find any examples but was just curious to look. My personal experience and feelings tended more in the direction of what Fat Guy was describing earlier.

That is, I only occasionally tweak the final seasoning of a dish with sugar (some vinaigrettes, cooked tomatoes, peas) I differentiate this use of sugar from the cases where one is explicitly making a sweet and sour dish like Sauerbraten or Harvard Beets, etc. I think all the Robuchon dishes except for the honey duck recipe fall into the former category; one would not necessarily recognize sugar as an ingredient but it is used to achieve a balanced flavor.

This thread is making me think more broadly about when a pinch of sugar might improve a dish. (I'm not for or against it; I just never thought of using it beyond the few applicatons I was familiar with.)

edited to add: It may be interesting to look at some other higher end "chef cookbooks" or hear from some chefs themselves. Thanks for reporting from some of your cookbooks, k8memphis.

Edited February 22, 2007 by ludja (log)

[hummingbirdkiss]

I shun the use of sugar if I am able to get the right sweetness by cooking a food ...like carmeized onions or sofrito or whatever if I can do it with technique I would rather do that any day ...

however..if I am in a hurry or the recipe is actually wanting sugar to make it correctly ...I will do it...

I personally am a true sugar junky and try hard to avoid it when I can that is for sure ....

cooking is my stress reliever so I try to not rush though the process is all

[annecros]

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Props to ludja who dug up the Rubuchon references,

...

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Well, I was pretty surprised by how often Robuchon used sugar as an ingredient. I didn't necessarily expect to find any examples but was just curious to look. My personal experience and feelings tended more in the direction of what Fat Guy was describing earlier.

That is, I only occasionally tweak the final seasoning of a dish with sugar (some vinaigrettes, cooked tomatoes, peas) I differentiate this use of sugar from the cases where one is explicitly making a sweet and sour dish like Sauerbraten or Harvard Beets, etc. I think all the Robuchon dishes except for the honey duck recipe fall into the former category; one would not necessarily recognize sugar as an ingredient but it is used to achieve a balanced flavor.

This thread is making me think more broadly about when a pinch of sugar might improve a dish. (I'm not for or against it; I just never thought of using it beyond the few applicatons I was familiar with.)

edited to add: It may be interesting to look at some other higher end "chef cookbooks" or hear from some chefs themselves. Thanks for reporting from some of your cookbooks, k8memphis.

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Yeah, a discretionary ingredient. To make up for the natural variations that mother nature presents, in a nonoffensive way to the rest of the preparation.

Makes sense, and I think you are right in that further research would be useful. I hypothesize, at this point, that many of the greats reserved the right to add a pinch of sugar, when needed or necessary. But never in excess. Too much sugar would reflect as poorly on the final result as too much salt, I would think.

[K8memphis]

Sugar could be seen as catalyst or rectifier.

"This will bring harmony to this dish and catapult it into something else even better."

or

"I didn't get it right the first time so this will balance things out."

While I don't consume goo gobs of fois gras to particularly qualify as a gourmet myself, I would still surmise that any gourmet worth their salt or in this case sugar wouldn't hesitate to use it to bring about either result. Don't you?

I can't see a gourmet or even a high ranking official of the food police not making their dish as good as possible...especially if no one is looking...but geez louise 86 it in the chicken stock!

[Paul Stanley]

I certainly use it, directly or indirectly, from time to time, as a seasoning, especially to correct acid balance (tiny bit in tomato sauce sometimes, e.g.) or to bring out sweetness in something naturally sweetish (pinch in with carrots if they're not great).

For most of those uses I would rather have refined white sugar. Other ways of getting some sugar in (honey, sweet wine, balsamic vinegar, orange juice) add positive flavours of their own which I may not necessarily want.

[annecros]

Sugar could be seen as catalyst or rectifier.

"This will bring harmony to this dish and catapult it into something else even better."

or

"I didn't get it right the first time so this will balance things out."

While I don't consume goo gobs of fois gras to particularly qualify as a gourmet myself, I would still surmise that any gourmet worth their salt or in this case sugar wouldn't hesitate to use it to bring about either result. Don't you?

I can't see a gourmet or even a high ranking official of the food police not making their dish as good as possible...especially if no one is looking...but geez louise 86 it in the chicken stock!

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All agreed, excepting the chicken stock thing, and I will reserve judgement on that until I have tried it. Never heard of it myself before, and am intrigued. Of course, I may find myself desperately attempting to rectify an over sugared chicken stock if I am not careful!

It's one of those things - if you haven't tasted it, do you know if it will fit into your taste or not?

Eat three bites of anything new, before you make up your mind. That's my rule of thumb for anything I can manage to chew and swallow.

[Adam Balic]

Besides the older historical examples that Adam gave, the western European traditional cuisines in which sweet (sometimes in the form of sugar) seem to play a larger role are German and Central European (pot roast, sweet and sour cabbage dishes), some traditional European Jewish dishes and Sicilian dishes.  These dishes seem to primarily use sugar in counterpoint to sour (vinegar).  The last mention begs one to consider how sugar is used in savory dishes in North Africa and the Middle East.  And of course, as mentioned, a lot of Asian cuisines that use sugar in savory dishes also balance the flavors with hotness (i.e. chiles) in addition to salt, sour and savory flavors.  Again, for a number of reasons, chiles have not traditionally been used very much in gourmet European-based cuisine with wine alongside.

I think that all European cusines have elements of sweetness in savoury dishes. With the historical dishes, you have to get away from the notion that people were using sugar simply because it was sweet. People are rarely simple, so prior to the big transition from sweet-sour to salt-sour one of the main reasons that people used sugar was status. Sugar was expensive and refining it took a lot of effort, so but using it in a conspicuously generous manner you were saying a lot more then "I have a sweet tooth".

Getting back to modern cusines, while refined sugar may not be used much by home cooks, other forms of sweetness are very common. The prime sweetner I would guess is onions, but also carrots (putting too many carrots into a stew can make it sickly sweet) and other storage roots/bulbs, plus fruit (The people of Agen are grateful for this) and in some instances, honey. The problem with all of the above is that they have distinct flavours, so it isn't surprising that when a neutral flavoured sweetner is desired that people/chefs use sugar.

Another issue is how recipes are written. There are certain dishes that I make all the time. Even though the main ingredients remain the same, I often have to season the dish differently from dish to dish. Maybe the bacon was more salty then usual, the carrots less sweet, the onions overly sweet. Who knows, but in part of the process of correcting the dish I might add a pinch of sugar, but I'm not sure that I would write this down in recipe form. I wonder how common this is?

[ludja]

...

Another issue is how recipes are written. There are certain dishes that I make all the time. Even though the main ingredients remain the same, I often have to season the dish differently from dish to dish. Maybe the bacon was more salty then usual, the carrots less sweet, the onions overly sweet. Who knows, but in part of the process of correcting the dish I might add a pinch of sugar, but I'm not sure that I would write this down in recipe form. I wonder how common this is?

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I'm not sure; I may have accidentally hit upon a non-representative example with the Robuchon/Wells book. I don't have that many "higher end" chef books but I perused a few other books and don't see sugar being listed as an ingredient, optional or no, very often. As you say, whether or not one needs to use sugar will depend on the other ingredients. It would be helpful though, in some cases, if recipes listed sugar as an optional ingredient in cases where it fits. In some of the Robuchon recipes I would not have even considered thinking of adjusting with sugar. (Maybe now I will.)

I wonder how regularly professional chefs for "gourmet" Western cusine actually do use sugar as a tool to adjust the final flavor of savory dishes? If they do this as a matter of course, perhaps they don't include this information in their published recipes. They may even avoid doing this for the very reasons that Fat Guy mentioned in his first post or they may feel that people would likely over sweeten the dish.

The Robuchon book may be different than others in that Wells emphasizes that she left no stone unturned in trying to replicate how his dishes tasted. That is, if he often used sugar to adjust taste, perhaps she is passing on that information. This is all speculation on my part and is perhaps a bit farfetched!

[steverino]

...

Another issue is how recipes are written. There are certain dishes that I make all the time. Even though the main ingredients remain the same, I often have to season the dish differently from dish to dish. Maybe the bacon was more salty then usual, the carrots less sweet, the onions overly sweet. Who knows, but in part of the process of correcting the dish I might add a pinch of sugar, but I'm not sure that I would write this down in recipe form. I wonder how common this is?

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Adam, I couldn't agree more. Sometimes the dish just needs more, well, salt, pepper, worcestershire, etc.

But sugar? Well, if I were writing a recipe for someone, I would probably write "A pinch of sugar, if it needs it."

Cooking, after all, is very personal and subjective.

Steve

[Qwerty]

My opinion is that sugar brings only 1 thing to the party--sweet taste. It has no aroma or other taste besides that. There are other ways to incorporate sweetness into a dish besides just adding table sugar, that will also bring a lot more in terms of aroma and other flavors to the dish.

One thing people have to realize is that all tastes reduce other tastes. Like, a common acceptance is that sugar balances out sour. And, while true, bitter actually balances out sour a bit better than sugar, and vise versa. Try adding a few drops of lemon juice to a tablespoon of coffee in the morning as an experiment. I'm not saying that the lemon/coffee will taste "good," but the bitter in the coffee will be reduced noticeably.

So, you don't really "need" sugar to balance out sour or bitter. It's just what people use.

Adding sugar to a tomato sauce? Nah. Wouldn't do it. I would, however, add a gastrique, or deeply carmelize my onions and carrots. Overall, you get the same "sweet" effect on the taste, but you add elements of onion aroma, caramel aroma, bitter, etc...which add to the depth of the dish.

I'm not trying to be critical or tell anyone that you shouldn't put sugar in your food if you want to. There are many ways to do things. I just think that if you are cooking at a high/refined level, you probably don't need it because you essentially covered your bases with technique and depth rather than simple "taste" elements.

And I have used sugar sometimes. I'm not afraid of it...I've used it in vinaigrettes before and in dishes. But I would carefully calculate how I could enhance natural sugar taste as opposed to just adding sucrose.