Seasoning: noun: salt, herbs, or spices added to food to enhance the flavour.
Ever wondered why we season our foods? I know I have, but I wanted to know more and why. So, lets travel back in time to millions of years ago when the first early humans walked the earth. We are going so far back because THAT’s when it all began.
For the sake of consistency in this blog post I am going to refer to early humans as early man. Early humans are also commonly referred to as cave men and cave women.
Some 6 million years ago early man co -evolved with flowering plants in the world around him. Evidence and I guess documentation points to the early man, being the hunter and gatherer, wrapping his meat in leaves of bushes. In the process of doing so he accidentally discovered that by doing this process it enhanced the taste of his meat. Early man then worked out that using certain nuts, seeds, berries and bark he was adding “flavour” to his foods.
Over the years early man realised that using herbs and spices also worked for medicinal purposes along with it helping to mask what I would assume was gross flavours and smells of food. And that my friends is evolution!
I always say that there is more, much more than just salt and pepper. We live on an abundant earth with so much to offer so why not enhance the taste and flavours of your meal? Seasoning plays a vital role in cooking whether it be your takeout, to home cooked meals, to restaurant meals. Whether you are an amateur cook, a seasoned cook or a chef it is so important to season foods and season them right.
I was asked recently as to “why do we need to season foods?”. I wanted to laugh and slap this person on the back of their head, but it was an actually a really good question and I guess it motivated me to write this blog. Seasoning foods is essential as it creates deep, rich, beautiful flavours and it marries different ingredients to help create really tasty and flavoursome food.
Seasonings can be sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami. Yes umami! Umami is the fifth taste to any herbs and spices. People I think get confused thinking that umami is flavour. It’s not it’s a taste.
These fabulous five tastes are what turn bland food into an incredible and stunning dish/food.
Seasoning can be added at the beginning of cooking your dish to allow the flavours to develop and work their way through the cooking process alternatively, we can season at the end of a recipe to adjust the taste ever so subtly. There are many “rules” of seasoning, and every dish has its own method of when to season.
Along with herbs and spices, we also use things like sugar, lemon juice and vinegars to season (all depending on the dish). Salt is the most popular seasoning and salt is used to draw out water in certain foods, to magnify the natural flavour of a food to make the food richer. Things like black pepper and basil (of all things) transfer some of their flavour onto and into foods.
Seasonings typically depend on your taste, preference, and of course on the dish you are creating and making. To season foods, it means we bring out the natural flavour or better, yet we intensify the flavour without changing the food.
When seasonings such as your everyday salt, pepper, lemon juice are used correctly they shouldn’t be tasted. Their job is to “heighten” the flavours of the original ingredients used.
When using a seasoning to flavour food this is when you change or modify the original flavour. When seasonings are used as flavourings, they end up creating a unique flavour and usually you can’t decipher what the separate flavourings are. I have a knack of being able to work out certain herbs and spices used in a seasoning/blend/masala/curry, but dill and fennel throw me as I find their flavour profiles very similar along with their scent.
On a personal level working with my arsenal of herbs and spices and doing so daily has really helped me create limitless flavourful combinations. Having said that when I’m bored, and I go into my kitchen to “play” I have in the past created such unique and exquisite flavours that have had me scratching my head trying to remember what herb or spice I just added, or how much did I just add. Ahhh the joys!
Seasoning a dish makes a dish become delicious and really tasty. Remember to always use our seasonings sparingly. Add a bit, taste test and then adjust accordingly. You can always add more seasoning if the flavour is not leaving you feeling BOOM, KAPOW, BOOM SHAKALAKA! If you over season you may have destroyed your dish.
There are four basic categories of seasoning ingredients, and they are: saline seasonings, acid seasonings, hot seasonings and saccharine seasonings. Breaking this down a bit, it basically refers to:
Saline Seasonings- refers to salt and spiced salt
Acid Seasonings – vinegars, lemon juice, orange juice
Hot Seasonings – peppercorns, coarsely chopped or ground peppers, paprikas, curry, cayenne and mixed pepper spices
Saccharine Seasonings – sugars, syrups, and honey
I hope you enjoyed this post and learnt something, I know I did and with that I sign off.
Happy Cooking ! Happy Seasoning!
Irene
