Seasoned

My understanding of cooking has changed a lot in the past year since reading Samin Nosrat’s remarkable book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. In particular, I’ve gained an appreciation for how salt and seasonings are used effectively: ideally, at more than one step in the cooking process.

Salt especially can be added long before the oven is even turned on; in a brine or marinade or just applied directly to the surface of meat. There might be two or three more steps when salt or seasonings are added, depending on the heat being used to cook and how delicate the herbs are. When you think the dish is finished, it always pays to taste it and consider if maybe you need to add a little more of the seasonings called for in the recipe—or even some that aren’t. And many dishes recommend a garnish of an herb like parsley or cilantro, or a final sprinkle of fancy sea salt to complete the dish and give it an added flavor or texture.

Samin refers to this process as “layering”: using different herbs and spices and salts at different times to bring out and create the best flavors. But I also find myself thinking about it as iterating: getting closer and closer to the final product by paying attention to the feedback the food is providing through flavor and appearance at several different times, and then making adjustments.

The word “season” in the sense of flavoring food comes from the French assaisoner (to do something during the proper season) which brings with it the sense of the right time for tilling the soil, planting for the harvest and ripening. When we re-season food as we cook, we stir, taste and add more herbs and spices—and then we wait a while and repeat to see if we’ve arrived: miniature seasons within the process of seasoning.

I’m better in the kitchen now than I when I started, but I could use more time, more tasting, more experience for the food to do the work of seasoning me into a better cook.