Sunday, June 11, 2006














Cooking Smells
Over the past few months, I started walking to and from work a couple of times a week. My office is about two and a half miles from my house, long enough for good exercise, short enough to be reasonable. I try to vary my route so I can explore sections of Beverly where I might not otherwise go. It’s fascinating on many levels, and I walk through some areas that are densely populated and others that are almost rural. One night as I walked back around 6 PM, I smelled the distinct sweet and savory aroma of tomato sauce cooking. It made me hungry! But then it suddenly hit me – it was the first and only time I noticed cooking smells on any of my evening walks. Was I just unobservant or are people no longer cooking? Since then, I’ve paid special attention and I’ve varied my return times in case I was missing common dinner hours. The result? Outside of the downtown restaurants, cooking smells are virtually non-existent. I smelled outdoor grilling one night and hot dogs on a frying pan on another, but considering I walk past hundreds of houses, people must not cook often. Don’t say the windows must be closed, I can hear dozens of TVs every walk!

When I was young, I remember walking down my parent’s street and smelling all the different dinners on the stove. Our Italian neighbor’s house had scents of tomato sauce, sausages and garlic wafting in the air, but other houses had smells of macaroni and cheese, pan fried steaks and other common foods of the time. But, apparently no more. It’s fashionable to build houses with bigger and bigger kitchens and people spend megabucks on granite countertops and the fanciest equipment. Yet the extent of their cooking is heating pre-prepared foods in the microwave. The biggest irony is that kitchens have grown larger because people like to be around the warmth, smells and action of cooking!

On Lidia’s Kitchen (Lidia Bastianich’s cooking show on PBS), her son (and restaurateur) Joseph Bastianich remarked that when he was growing up, it was the poorer houses that smelled of cooking. To which Lidia pointed out, “Ah, but which houses did all your friends want to hang out in?”

Here’s a recipe that always smells great to me. If you make it, I guarantee it will perfume your neighborhood.

Grilled Sardines

  • a dozen fresh sardines

  • olive oil

  • a couple of lemons

  • Salt and pepper

  • A few sprigs of chopped parsley


Rinse and clean the sardines. Slit the bellies and remove the entrails. You can leave on the heads and grill them whole, or remove the heads and butterfly the fillets (to get the result shown in the picture). Put the cleaned sardines in a dish, sprinkle with the olive oil, some fresh squeezed lemon juice and salt and pepper. Allow them to marinate while you start your grill. I prefer grilling over hardwood charcoal, but regular briquettes or a gas grill will work too.

When the fire is ready, throw on the sardines. I have a fish grilling basket (on sale at store that carry grills) that simplifies cooking fish. The fish is cooked in the basket, and when you are ready to flip, you just turn the basket over! Otherwise, just cook the carefully on the grill. The sardines cook quickly, no more than a couple of minutes per side if your fire is hot. The skin side will have some blistering and charring. But let the aroma be your guide!

Serve with lemon wedges and sprinkle with a little more olive oil and the chopped parsley. They are especially great with a crisp white wine such as a Sancerre, Pinot Grigio or Spanish Albariño.

1 Comments:

At 5:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I stumbled onto your blog while looking for carrot soup recipes on technorati. I find your writing very easy to follow and the recipes very detailed. I have bookmarked you and intend to visit often.
I'm from India, specifically from Madras, the same place that is used in the name of your curry powder. I work full-time and cook twice a day. Growing up in a village outside the city, we'd go to the farmer's market everyday and pick up what is fresh and cook in the morning and evening. I try to do the same thing in the US, although I shop only once a week. Living in apartments for 10 years has taught me that the simple food that I cook is very aromatic and always have neighbors enquiring about the menu. Your post about detecting the menu through the nose brought a smile to my face, my husband always tries to guess the menu/ingredients by smell as he is walking up the stairs to our apartment.
I'm going to make your carrot soup for Thanksgiving, although I'll be giving it my own touch by grinding the curry powder fresh from roasted ingredients. Will let you know how it turns out.

 

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