this has been grating me (;-)) for quite some time …
every crappy ass food recipe calls for premium ingredients nowadays:
You need an example?
1980: add a dash of oil to your crappy onions
2000: add a dash of olive-oil to your crappy onions
2020: add a dash of extra-virgin-olive-oil to your crappy onions
2023: add a dash of 0.2% acidity extra-virgin-olive-oil to your crappy onions
.
a textual snip for eggs-in-purgatory recipe:
2tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, more for drizzling on toast
2large cloves garlic, 1 thinly sliced and 1 halved
3anchovy fillets, minced (optional)
Pinch of red-pepper flakes, more to taste and for serving
1(28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
½teaspoon fine sea salt, more to taste
COME ON!!!
You are using “can diced tomatoes” (which rank a solid 3 on a 1-10 culinary scale) and you call for extra-virgin-olive-oil and micro-plastic-laced sea salt … you will get a huge Al128-SIDE-EYE!!!
… which will not be revoked, unless in a blind tasting session you can consistently tell the sea-salt dish apart from the regular-salt dish and the extra-virgin-olive-oil - from the non-extra-virgin variety
I don’t see a problem. Even simple recipes (or especially simple recipes) benefit from the highest quality, freshest ingredients.
And even chefs use canned tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are not available all year round, and canned tomatoes are canned at the peak of ripeness and flavor. Might want to go with whole canned tomatoes instead of diced though, since canned diced tomatoes have calcium chloride added to keep their shape, and it affects the texture.
Canned tomatoes rank way higher than 3 on the culinary scale. For cooking, they’re often better than fresh tomatoes, because they’ve been allowed to ripen on the vine before processing.
I agree that you usually can’t tell the difference between sea salt and table salt. To me, it’s as much self-delusion as snobbery.
There are big differences between olive oils. There’s a lot of supposed extra-virgin olive oil that doesn’t taste like much, but when you taste the good stuff you can really tell. It does make a difference when used as a finishing oil. But I agree that it’s usually not necessary to put the grade of olive oil into a written recipe.
All I can say is don’t ever watch Jack Bishop on America’s Test Kitchen or Cook’s Country. He is the ingredients czar, and he tells you what you should use and what you just can’t use. The most recent good news: it is okay to use artificial vanilla flavoring because a) real vanilla has gotten real expensive due to events; and 2) all people ever really taste is vanillin, and that’s mostly what is in artificial vanilla. On the other hand, 9 times out of 10, he will be telling you what you absolutely can’t use (e.g. pre-grated cheese, which I sort of agree with, except I really can’t tell) or pre-crumbled feta (same reason, additives).
Recently he told us that we should have 8 or 9 different varieties of uncooked whole grains in our pantry, ideally stored in the freezer where they will keep. Sorry, Jack, I don’t have a walk-in freezer big enough to keep in it everything you think I should have. Who does he think he’s talking to? He’s the most didactic, demanding person on public television, and that’s saying something.
I love fresh tomatoes. But the crap you get at the local “Mac’s” shop and save are not to be confused with tomatoes this time of year.
Can tomatoes for recipes are a solid 8 in pantry staples.
Beware: discount brands are often off flavored IMO.
I do agree with the OP on recipes gurus and celebrity chefs being ‘oh so’ nose in the air about some ingredients.
Do what you can afford.
And, oh yeah. Margarine is ok. I swear Country crock is good shit.
Honestly, I’ve never really noticed this. I mean, I remember Rachel Ray and her “EVOO” for everything, but other than that, not really. And extra-virgin olive oil does make a big difference for some things I don’t even consider that a “premium” ingredient in any way. Though I do get annoyed when chefs like Jamie Oliver use olive oil for everything including Asian dishes where it’s just not the right ingredient. Plus it seem avocado oil is everywhere now, too. I’ve never bothered with it myself.
I don’t see the problem with canned diced tomatoes. It’s better than fresh tomatoes unless you have access to garden grown tomatoes. Pretty much every good chef will tell you that. Those really aren’t low-brow. Extra-virgin olive oil seems most appropriate for that recipe, but a good butter would do well, too.
given that CDT started out as fresh tomatoes and then went through a industrial process … I am having a hard time visualizing how that factory-canning-process improves the fresh tomato…
Having CDT sitting for months on end on warehouse and supermarket shelves in a metal can is not like storing a bottle of Merlot in a cavern to bring out the tannins …
.
but back on topic:
what I see is some sort of implicit-one-upping - circlejerk … where people are putting fine sea salt into a (often blog-)recipe… because it sounds more sophisticated and others are doing this, too …
why fine-sea-salt into a tomatoe sauce - over regular salt? (I’d know at least 3 reasons in pro of regular salt!!) … b/c it sounds fancier and others are using that as well, and a plastic-mill of sea salt looks more “pro” in any kitchen (many of which are nearly never used).
Canning doesn’t improve the flavor of the tomatoes - but canned tomatoes taste better than out of season supermarket tomatoes. Which is all a lot of people can get in December - I can’t grow them this time of year and there aren’t any farmer’s markets this time of year.
I think your timeline is bit off the British comedian Ben Elton has a skit about this in the (early?) 90s.
“Why does my olive oil have to be ‘extra virgin’? What if I don’t want my olive oil to be.a virgin’? What if i’d rather olive oil that’s been around a bit, taken it up the arse a couple of times?”
I grew up hating tomatoes. They were just little blobs of watery pulp that didn’t improve the flavor of anything. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I tasted a fresh tomato for the first time, one that wasn’t raised in a hot house, and it was pretty good. Yeah, if you can’t find a tomato in season then canned is pretty good.
There are a lot of new cooks who might not be familiar with types of ingredients and can benefit from the extra words. Maybe they only have ever had iodinized salt. Canned tomatoes in particular come is tons of varieties.
Try a teaspoon of table salt dissolved in a cup of water vs. a teaspoon of kosher salt dissolved in a cup of water. I pretty much guarantee the only difference you’ll notice is that the kosher saltwater is slightly less salty, because its volume (due to the larger crystal chunks) has more air than table salt.
I said nothing about “improving” the flavor, so I have no idea why you say that. It’s better than anything I can get even in my grocery store in the middle of tomato season. Grocery store tomatoes all suck. My pasta sauce sucked until I realized the problem was tomatoes and the prejudice I had against canned goods (this would have been over two decades ago.) Cans of SMTs, Bianco di Napoli, Cento, Escalon 6-in-1s, Muir Glen … all are far, far better than what I can get at the grocery at any time of year. It’s what the restaurants use, too, except maybe if you live in tomato country.
