Thinking About One's Own Culinary Perspective

My favorite question on any Food Network show is: What is your culinary point of view?

My food perspective is simple. If I had a Food Network show, it would be called "The Language of Food." I love words, I love food, I love the way food and words interact.

What would an episode of my show look like? I would have one theme per episode, no overwhelming the audience for this girl! Let's say the theme is something simple and obvious like... salad!

Why would I do an entire episode on something a lot of people don't even eat? Because I believe that once my audience saw the words that could be associated with SALAD, the leafy stuff could be an amazing new dimension in culinary experiments!

I would start with the beginning of the word, which is routed in salt. Just like, for example, salsa. Many culinary food names come from this root, and speaking of roots! Let's travel around the world and explore the idea of salad.

Sometimes the best way to start with the familiar is to make it unfamiliar. A salad made entirely of ripe tomatoes, cucumbers and fresh onion, in chunky but not awkwardly sized pieces, marinated in vinegar and spices. Refreshing, light, crisp, delicious and lettuce-naked.

And here is where the fun begins in earnest. It wasn't enough to tease your idea of salad. Let's talk about where exactly this dish is from. 

In India, this dish is offered as a break, a palate cleanser before that exquisite tandoori chicken. Perhaps most interestingly, this is served without having been refridgerated.

In Italy, after a marinade in the fridge, this is a traditional salad.

With these three ingredients, adding roasted peppers, a  white brine cheese called sirene, and parsley. Once it's cool, this Bulgarian dish is called a shopska salad.

Leave out the onion, dice your cucumber and tomato, add parsley, olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper: welcome to Israel.

Tabbouleh adds bulgar, mint, often onion and garlic, seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice and salt to the Israeli choice, minus the black pepper.


It's about execution. It's about taste, and what the food culture developed with/ without. It's about the regions, and what they call each dish. It's about teaching each other that no matter how different it may look, under the wrapping the flavors are familiar sometimes. It's about believing adventures are worth the price of travel, every single time without hesitation or doubt.

It's about the language.