The Perfect Pantry

Cumin (Recipe: mushroom bhaji/mushrooms in tomato-onion sauce)

Never let it be said that The Perfect Pantry avoids the big issues.

After all, we've taken a stand on Miracle Whip versus mayonnaise, chocolate versus vanilla, chili with beans versus chili without beans, and Fresca versus... well, versus everything.

Today we're tackling another of life's big questions: how to pronounce cumin.

COO-min? COO-men? KEW-min?

Is there one correct way that makes all of the others incorrect?

Harissa (Recipe: Moroccan carrot salad)

An updated post from 2006, with a new recipe, photos and links.

The chile peppers on the can gave it away.

Before I even knew what harissa was, I knew it was hot.

Head-sweating, hair-tingling, tongue-numbing, nose-dripping hot.

And I love hot.

Turmeric (Recipe: saag aloo/potatoes with spiced spinach)

In days of old, when nights were cold, I used to spend a lot of time knitting.

Yarn shopping replaced clothes shopping as my favorite activity. I bought yarn wherever I found something out of the ordinary -- at a stall in Covent Garden, at a craft fair in New Zealand with Cousin Martin, at hidden-away sales of Uruguayan yarn in Manhattan --and eventually I took up spinning and dyeing my own yarn.

And that's why, long before I ever used turmeric in my cooking, I had some in my pantry. In the world of natural dyeing, turmeric turns everything it touches a golden yellow color; in cooking, it does the same thing.

Brazil food: manioc, mandioca, cassava (Recipe: farofa with liver and onions)

The third in an occasional series of posts over the next few weeks about Brazilian food and ingredients we discovered during our visit.

On a day filled with magical experiences in the village of São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras -- a second unsuccessful attempt to meet a cheese maker followed by a visit to Karine, who blessed us with sprigs of rue and incantations to help remove what was starting to seem like a "cheese curse", and a tour of Cynthia's multicultural organic garden -- we had the most magical experience of all in Lurdes' back yard.

In São Gonçalo, if you buy farinha de mandioca (and everyone does), you know Lurdes.

By any definition, she is an artisan, the third generation of women in her family to turn manioc (also known as mandioca or cassava or yucca or yuca) into farinha, used as both ingredient and condiment in Brazilian cooking.

Shao hsing wine (Recipe: stir-fried garlic lettuce)

In the early days of The Perfect Pantry, I didn't know anything about food photography, so I never took pictures of the food I cooked. Every now and then, I like to go back and refresh earlier posts with new photos, as well as new links, text updates, and printer-friendly recipes.

Shao, pronounced SHOW (as in how or ouch).

Hsing, pronounced SHING.

SHOW SHING wine.

Shao hsing wine.

Whew. That was the hard part. Cooking with this basic Chinese condiment is the easy part.

Curry powder (Recipe: curried green tomatoes)

It's green tomato season here in Rhode Island -- the perfect time to enjoy an updated post from the archives. And if you live in my neighborhood, please help yourself to these green tomatoes from my garden.

On my very first spice rack, in my very first apartment, the most exotic tin, rectangular and red and gold all over, held Madras curry powder.

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

You probably have a tin just like it on your spice rack.

Though I'm 25 or 30 tins down the road from my first spice rack, the tin in my pantry today is exactly the same as the first one: Sun Brand Madras Curry Powder, imprinted with seals of approval so tiny you can't possibly read them, from organizations (or expositions, or governments) you need a microscope to identify. A silver medal from St. Louis 1904 must be from the World's Fair, but whoever bestowed a gold medal from London 1905, the most recent prize listed on the tin, remains a mystery.

However, what's not a mystery is why this particular spice blend is sold in supermarkets everywhere.

Curry powder is the ultimate convenience food.

Japanese rice vinegar (Recipe: cucumber ribbon salad)

What's now called Boston's Leather District used to be a gritty few blocks of warehouse buildings filled with tanneries and industrial yarn makers, and publishing companies looking for cheap office space.

Thirty years ago I worked for one of those publishers, in the top floor of a converted loft space with huge Palladian windows on all four sides. The view was tailor-made for those of us "creative" types who liked to stare out the window while pretending to "create"; one bank of windows overlooked the train tracks, another the downtown skyline, a third the hypnotic expressway traffic.

On the fourth side an equally tall building blocked our view of Chinatown, just three blocks away.

Proximity to Chinatown was the best part of my job -- that, and the fact that a co-worker knew all the words to the Groucho Marx song, "Lydia the Tattooed Lady". On my walk home, I could shop at the grocery stores and small markets for fresh vegetables and new-to-me pantry items like chili paste with garlic, oyster sauce, and Japanese rice vinegar.

Artificial sweetener (Recipe: asparagus, nectarine and tomato salad)

Some pantry ingredients make life worth living.

Others make life livable.

In the first group: chocolate, balsamic vinegar, parmigiano-reggiano.

In the second group: Fresca, fat-free yogurt, artificial sweetener.

A gourmet ingredient it is not, but in a household of dieters and diabetics, artificial sweetener is our reality.

Preserved lemons (Recipe: Couscous salad with herbs)

In the deep recesses of my pantry, large wire racks hold the cookware I don't use every day: three stacks of dim-sum size bamboo steamers, two orange mini coquettes, a plastic box of sushi-making gear, a handful of Bundt pans, three paella pans, one red cast iron karahi, and six conical-topped tagines.

Before the day I bought, on super-dooper sale, my first tagine in a tiny store that was going out of business, I knew nothing about Moroccan cooking. The shop owner included one of her favorite recipes for a traditional chicken and olive stew.

One of the ingredients listed was preserved lemons. I had no idea what they were and asked whether I could substitute fresh lemons instead.

No, no! she replied. The preserved lemons are absolutely essential.

One taste, and I knew just what she meant.

Canola oil (Recipe: potatoes with aioli dressing)

In the kitchen where I grew up, oil was oil.

Not flax seed, safflower, truffle or rice bran.

Not virgin, and certainly not extra virgin.

Oil was vegetable oil, a healthier alternative to the traditional chicken fat, and a pareve (neither milk nor meat) staple, in my grandmother's kosher kitchen.

And canola oil?

Hadn't even been invented yet.