We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. In anticipation of Thanksgiving, the subject of this week’s Root Source is turkey, which inspired us to think about which foods we think of as being particularly “homey.”

Apart from being festive and Thanksgiving-appropriate, turkey tastes homey to us, because it’s something we almost always make at home. And because even a sliced turkey sandwich from the deli tastes like something a loved one could have made us. (more…)

We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is radish, which inspired us to think about which foods we think of as being particularly “earthy.”

Emily’s Minced Words column recently mused about the foods we call heavenly — ambrosia, angel food cake and other foods that send us skyward in search of hyperbole and metaphor. But this week’s Root Source is about the decidedly earthly radish, one of those foods that brings us right back down to earth.

I think of earthy foods first and foremost as those that might come with a bit of actual dirt at the farmers market — vegetables like leeks, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, turnips and dainty radishes that still bear the evidence that they were once rooted to the earth, not bred in a laboratory or sterilized in a packaging plant in a remote town.

But earthy food can also mean simple, rustic, unadorned. A loaf or bread or a stew. A pot of soup.

What tastes “earthy” to you?

We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is pumpkin, which inspired us to think about what makes food “autumnal.”

So what does autumn taste like? Maple syrup or pumpkin pie? Apples, apple cider, soup or stew?

Brys tastes autumn in “roasted meats like pork with sage or rosemary, baked and puréed root vegetables, gratins. I usually start to crave autumnal dishes at the first hint of cooler weather, as tomato fatigue sets in and the summer heat is getting old.”

“As soon as those first leaves turn, and the air nips at night, and I can wear a sweater and jeans,” says Claire, “I want baked sweet potatoes.”

What does autumn taste like to you?

We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is apple cider, which inspired us to think about what “vinegary” tastes like.

Calling something vinegary can be an insult — a sign that the salad dressing is too sharp, the wine is edging past its prime, that the substance in question is out of balance or has simply gone sour. But it can also be a compliment: a taste of vinegar gives a dish a shot in the arm and keeps the taste buds nervous and excited.

Claire describes vinegary as “something acidic but not bright like actual citrus.” Red wine vinegar has a sharpness that makes it the essence of vinegary; balsamic vinegar is more memorable for its sweetness than its acidity. Vinegar stands up to the oil in a salad dressing to keep the flavors balanced and lively. The spiciness of sriracha and sambal is enhanced by a vinegary taste that straight hot peppers lack; vinegar makes Worcestershire’s savoriness piquant.

And it’s the acidity in apple cider that makes it taste vinegary — a pleasing sharpness that takes the edge off of sweet and distinguishes it from mere apple juice. The pleasingly pert taste of quick-pickled vegetables comes from vinegar doing a dance with a bit of added sugar.

Brys says he loves to use vinegars “to brighten and accentuate the flavors of just about anything. Stirred into stews at the very end, drizzled over a burrito (in the form of hot sauce), added to a sauté or a stir-fry, and even tossed into leftover canned beans to keep them fresh in the fridge.”

In fact, a bit of vinegar can rescue earthy beans from dullness. I can’t eat a bowl of lentil soup without first adding a spoonful of vinegar to it.

What puts you in the mood for something vinegary?

We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is brown sugar. What makes foods like brown sugar taste “malty”?

Corinne says that malty tastes “sweet and earthy and full-bodied.” And she associates the color brown with a malty taste, like brown ales or “brown sugar, which is deeper and darker and more subtle than white sugar.” Corinne says she thinks of malty flavors as belonging to the American and British palate — malt liquor, brown sugar, malted milkshakes.

Claire thinks of “slightly burnt caramels” and malted milk balls (”sweet, but not quite, with that slight edge to it that surprises the tongue. Or maybe it’s so sweet that it’s almost not anymore — gone over the edge of sugar sweet to the malty beyond.”).

For Brys, malty is “anything intensely sweet and dark like caramel, brown sugar, dark maple syrup, molasses. Sugar with a sweet, rounded cooked, complex flavor. I crave malty things when I’m craving desserts, usually when the weather’s cool and I’ve had an early dinner.”

What does malty taste like to you?

We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is saffron, which is widely referred to as the world’s most expensive spice. Do we have great timing or what? At least saffron is one ingredient that goes a long way. Thinking about saffron this week has got us thinking about foods we consider “expensive.”

In our current economy, just about everything is looking expensive right now. If you have a jar of saffron stashed away in your cupboard, it’s a good time to take it out and add it to something humble like a soup or stew made from chickpeas or potatoes, or a plate of spaghetti to make yourself feel pampered.

FranMagbual thinks of truffles, caviar and prime rib as expensive foods. WARojas says “anything truffle. Saffron. Foie gras. Single-source chocolates. Artisan salts (loved the smoked/volcanic varieties).” And it’s true that so-called “luxury items” like artisanal cheeses, caviar and Champagne always make the list. 

But even humble foods can seem expensive these days. Like rice and fish and meat and vegetables and fruits — and herbs that would grow in your yard if you had one but cost a bundle at the supermarket. In France, the price of a baguette has doubled in 10 years. Nandita is “always horrified by the price of butter.”

Which foods do you find expensive? When are you willing to spend money on food and when are you not?

We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is lager, which inspired us to think about the quality in food or drink — or food enhanced with alchohol — that we define as “heady.”

Heady is a word that we usually conjure to evoke the mind-altering charms of alcohol — a glass of bubbly Champagne or Prosecco, say, a Bloody Mary or a bold bottle of lager — in that it literally goes to and swims about in your head. Corinne, who remembers college more clearly than the rest of us, says she thinks of heady beer as “beer that has a lot of hops.” She likens heady to the dark cousin of floral — “aromatic, sometimes a little bitter, herbal or sharp.”

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We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is honey, which inspired us to think about the perfumy taste we define as “floral.”

The word “floral” is ubiquitous in winespeak, and it’s true that certain white wines — Viogniers and Alsatian wines among them — come to mind when the suggestion is made. Since we stick our noses into a glass of wine before it hits our lips, it’s hard to know how much of a floral flavor comes through our sense of smell and how much happens on the tongue.

We definitely smell the perfume of an overripe tropical fruit — that loopy, swooning nectar-ish smell that can be intoxicating or simply overpowering — before we taste its floral sweetness. The same goes for the floral mustiness of orange blossom and lavender honeys, which often have that same heady quality.

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We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is escarole, which inspired us to think about that broad taste category known as “bitter.”

What do we mean by “bitter” food?

We use bitter generally as a synonym of “acidic” when referring to tea, citrus or coffee, but it can apply in very different ways to things that are also refreshing, rich, dense or leafy.

Brys thinks of bitter as “a biting, bracing taste that we can learn to like and even crave. Bitter greens give you a taste of the chemical compounds that protect them in cold weather — to me they taste alive. The bitterness of Campari is delicious and refreshing with club soda on a hot day.”

Claire defines bitterness as “a biting sharpness — harsh, needing to be tempered with another flavor.” To her, bitter “tastes like grinding teeth, like the squeak of a door hinge. Things that make you flinch.” She craves bitter food when she wants to be “stimulated, and sometimes pulled out of a mood.”

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We spend a lot of time thinking about how our mood affects our cravings. Every Monday, we share some of what goes on inside Cookthink as we’re analyzing recipes for the Cookthink database. The subject of this week’s Root Source is the clam, which inspired us to consider what we mean when we describe food as “briny.”

What does “briny” actually mean?

“Of, relating to, or resembling brine or the sea,” says Merriam-Webster. Man-made brine is salt-saturated water which may or may not contain other flavorings and which is used to preserve (and add flavor to) fish, meat and cheeses like feta (although most high-quality feta is salted rather than drowned in brine).

We tend think of briny as more of an aftertaste. Like the oceany, of-the-sea — but not too fishy — aftertaste of the delicate, petite shellfish that is a clam.

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