Innehållsförteckning för Fall/Winter 2024 från SAVEUR

ANYONE WHO’S EATEN SICHUAN PEPPERCORNS knows you don’t simply taste the distinctive spice—you feel it. The ingredient’s instantly recognizable prickly sensation activates on the tongue, electrifying our experience of any dish, savory or sweet. Native to China and Taiwan, the Sichuan peppercorn, or huājiāo, is best known for bringing the má to málà—the flavor profile characteristic of Sichuan province’s beloved cuisine. When paired with chiles, the spice’s numbing effect acts as a calming foil to the chiles’ fiery burn. Both the earthy, potent red variety and its mild and floral green sister are foundational ingredients in Chinese five-spice, chili crisp, and myriad braises, noodle dishes, and stir-fries. (See “Tackle the Tingle,” p. 158.) Now, nearly 20 years after the U.S. government lifted a ban on the peculiar peppercorn, it’s springing up…

/fläm-'bwär/ noun; from the French flamber, “to singe or to blaze” Also: flambadou, capucin a cooking tool designed in the French Middle Ages for fat-basting during open-hearth cooking consisting of a metal or iron funnel or scoop affixed to the long end of a rod or stick. Used by “artisans de feu,” the tool was placed in the embers of a fire; once the funnel glowed red hot, it was filled with a piece of fat (often lard, tallow, or butter). The cook then drizzled the melting fat over the meat, basting the roast as the fat liquified.…

My Manhattan apartment does not have a dishwasher. We’ve debated installing one; there’s room, just barely. I always pull back at the last minute. I like doing the dishes by hand, the more the merrier, the crustier the better. Sometimes music will be playing. I’ll find myself moved by it, the way the English novelist Barbara Pym was, as she wrote in a 1943 journal entry, when she caught herself weeping to Yehudi Menuhin on the radio one evening while her hands were “immersed in the washing-up water.” More often, there will be silence. I get my best thinking done here, far from a blinking cursor, my raw hands plunged into the soapy warmth. I’m not, in general, the tidiest human being. My favorite haiku, which I keep meaning to…

THE SPORTS RIVALRY between Egypt and Saudi Arabia took an unexpected culinary turn at a soccer match last December. As Al-Ahly and Al-Ittihad battled it out in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, ahead of the FIFA Club World Cup semifinals, a chorus of curious chants rang out from the crowd. “Get ready, ta’ameya!” the Saudi fans shouted, referencing Egypt’s signature falafel. Unlike the standard chickpea fritters, ta’ameya are made from split green fava beans, resulting in a softer and (according to Egyptians) more flavorful falafel. But the Egyptian fans didn’t take the jeers lying down. “Kabsa eaters!” they fired back, name-dropping the Saudi one-pot mainstay of spiced chicken, rice, vegetables, and nuts. In Egyptian Arabic, kabsa also means “roasted,” which the Egyptians hoped would be the fate of the Saudis in the…

ON A RECENT WALK AROUND Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I happened upon a curbside stand where several Orthodox Jewish men were stooped over an etrog (the Hebrew word for citron, pronounced “ET-rog”). As they scrutinized the citrus fruit with a magnifying glass, they gently rubbed its knobby, bright yellow skin: If it was blemished in the slightest, the fruit was ruled out. Then they worked their way up to the pittom, Hebrew for the extruding top, and sniffed the citrus up and down to ensure it exuded an extraordinary aroma. I can still remember my first whiff of the etrog’s ethereal scent, fruity and more perfumed than any citrus I’d encountered. From that moment, I was under its spell. But why would a citron, with its thick, bitter pith and little edible pulp,…

No Plates, No Problem Instead of plates and utensils, line a clean surface with butcher paper or newspaper, then lay banana leaves on top. The leaves are available frozen or fresh at many Asian, Latin American, and African grocery stores. The Foundation The only non-negotiable at any Filipino feast is rice. Place steam Main Characters Consider dishes guests can grab easily, such as marinated meats, pan-fried fish, lumpia (fried spring rolls), skewers (sweet pork barbecue is always a hit), and grilled squid or prawns. Panoply of Produce Steamed bok choy and green beans are always a good idea, as are vegetables cooked in coconut milk. Sliced fresh fruit—mangoes, pineapple, and tomatoes, for instance—up the visual appeal. Dip or Douse It’s fun to serve a variety of sawsawan (dipping sauces) and…

Perched on a creaking bentwood chair, I watch a lungi-clad waiter stream a waterfall of piping hot coffee from saucer to tumbler and back, the meditative movement transforming the liquid into an airy froth. The kaapi, as it’s called here, is robust, milky, and sweet. I drink it scalding, before the lather settles and the surface creases into a milky skin. Soon, the table fills with food: crisp and golden masala dosa; kela bajji, battered and fried plantain; and fat medu vadai, lentil fritters furling with steam and soaked in a broth-like tamarind rasam. An abbreviated menu, inked in red, is stamped onto the wall behind me. Sunlight filters through the windows onto the checkered floor. My friend Priya Balasubramanian and I are at the iconic 86-year-old eatery Sharda Bhavan…

Blue-Ribbon Dungeness Crab Cakes Makes: 14 crab cakes THESE SQUAT PATTIES (see “Crab Cake Cook-Off,” p. 19) have lots of surface area for crisping in the skillet. Dungeness crabs are about 25 percent meat by weight, so source two 2-pounders for this recipe, or substitute picked crabmeat. If your local fishmonger doesn’t have any in stock, order online from Pike Place Fish Market or Giovanni’s Fish Market. Chefs Lynn Derrick and Janelle Weaver make their own blue cheese dressing (below) using Point Reyes Blue Cheese. In a pinch, a good bottled dressing will do. 2 celery stalks, finely chopped+ Koshersalt and freshly ground black pepper⅓ cup finely chopped shallots1 serrano chile, finely chopped1 Tbsp. finely grated lemon zest3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice, divided1 Tbsp. vegetable oil, divided, plus more for…

Dear reader, HELLO AGAIN! After a spring spent celebrating our print relaunch, Team s av eu r buckled down to spend the warmer months humming away at this, our second issue as an indie publication. I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you. As temperatures dip, many of us feel a primal need to come together over a meal, and this issue brims with rib-sticking feasts meant for sharing. In our opulent cover story, editor-at-large Shane Mitchell shifts her keen eye to the wild in a survey of game recipes rooted in the American South. (If there’s a hunter in your life, now is the time to invite them to dinner.) Writer Jasmine Ting interviews Filipino American chefs who break down the multi-island nation’s joyful kamayan tradition, as…

THE SKIN OF THE FIRST specimen—dubbed “Lemongrab,” from Warren, Vermont—is electric yellow with a hazy glow, almost as if lit from within. Pomologists, scientists who study the cultivation of fruit, call this irregularity scarf skin: The apple’s epidermis has separated slightly from its flesh, allowing light to refract in the spaces between. The effect is otherworldly; the fruit resembles a tiny planet, its whorls and flecks shifting like atmospheric storms. “Denbow Etoile,” “Bowdler Bitter,” and “Tonguelasher” are next on the table, three of the 160 wild apple varieties on display at Matt Kaminsky’s annual Pomological Exhibition in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. Each entry is diced and displayed on a paper plate alongside toothpicks for sampling. Pens and paper are provided for visitors to jot down their tasting notes. Observations run the gamut…

IT’S L ATE AFTERNOON in the Chehalem Mountains, and the winery crush pad is filled with the juicy scent of fermenting chardonnay mingling with steaming shrimp, black peppercorn, and celery. Assistant winemaker Aaron Fox sprays down a folding table that, moments earlier, held winemaking equipment; now, it will anchor a shared feast. “What was the final tonnage we brought in yesterday?” he asks as I pour him a glass of recently disgorged sparkling pinot gouges blanc from the cellar. For 20 years I’ve worked as a winemaker in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and fall is always intense. A winery crew can often double in size during harvest season, when interns and seasonal fieldworkers roll in from all over the world to help craft the year’s vintage. The weeks-long harvest is tough, and…

FROM THE MOMENT Rodman Primack and Rudy Weissenberg met at a Christmas party in 1997, they had a hunch they’d be entertaining together far into the future. Since that fateful day, the duo has designed more than 25 kitchens and houses, coauthored a book, and lived in a number of cities around the globe, including London, Guatemala, and—their current home base—Mexico City. I met them in Italy two summers ago, when we found ourselves crammed into the back seat of a car on the way to Lake Como—though it feels like we’ve known each other much longer. Secretly, I knew who they were before they introduced themselves: I’d long been a fan of the couple’s colorful and eclectic design style, which I’d clocked in all the big magazines and through…

Dwight Garner Author and New York Times Book Critic (New York, NY) At Assassination Custard, a (since-closed) 10-seat “hole-in-the-wall” in Dublin, Ireland, Garner relished gently cooked veal liver with fenugreek butter sauce. “The chef, Ken Doherty, is, like me, an offal person,” he says. Joan Nathan Cookbook Author (Providence, RI) Touring for her recent cookbook, My Life in Recipes, Nathan was “blown away” by the passionfruit financier at Warda Pâtisserie in Detroit, whose pastries are influenced by the owners’ Algerian roots. Felix Nankivell Illustrator (Sydney, Australia) For Nankivell, the hands-down winner was “steak frites at Le Bistrot Paul Bert in Paris. There is something so simple and elegant about steak and fries covered in cream, butter, and cognac.” We have to agree! Dr. Jessica B. Harris Culinary Historian and Author…

MUSKAT HAS BEEN FORAGING in and leading tours of the western North Carolina forests for over 30 years, helping oth-iners discover the wild edible treasures hiding his proverbial backyard. Muskat, known widely as the “Mushroom Man,” had long hoped to find truffles in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In 2007, his dream came to fruition when, while leading a small group through the woods, a young boy on the tour approached the forager with a golf ball-size object in his hand. When Muskat leaned down and sniffed, he immediately recognized the cinnamon-like funk. in the mountains, but until then, no evidence had been recorded, inspiring some to refer to it skeptically as the “Big Foot truffle.” Now, Muskat has proof that the Blue Ridge There had long been whispers among locals…

Serves: 1–2 For orchardist Matt Kaminsky, a simple preparation of wild apples quartered and basted in butter is an excellent way to make the most of the fruit’s unusual and diverse flavor profiles—particularly when paired with a bone-in pork chop. In this recipe, any small, tart apples will suffice, but be sure to leave the skin on for the tannic complexity it brings to the dish. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400°F. Pat a 1½-in.-thick bone-in pork chop dry with paper towels, then season generously with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter. When it begins to foam, add the pork chop to one side of the pan and 2 tart…

THE SCENE IS LIKE SOMETHING from Agatha Christie’s Poirot novels: In the golden glow of morning, a crowd gathers to board the huffing, gleaming train. Porters in starched white livery lead travelers to sleeping chambers outfitted with carved wood furniture and goose-down quilts. Then, with everyone snug in their cabins, a sharp whistle blows. The coach trundles off into the vast wilderness. Is it 1924 or 2024? With a sudden proliferation of old-world-style rail itineraries, your guess is as good as ours. Slow travel is back, and by train, you can skip the usual headaches of traffic and crowds in exchange for sweeping vistas, well-kept accommodations, and—increasingly—exceptional cuisine with a palpable sense of place. For an escape that’s as much about the journey as it is about the destination, consider these…

DELAWARE DELICACIES SMOKEHOUSE 420 Rhodes Rd. Hancock, NY EEL MAN RAY TURNER RARELY leaves his Catskills smokehouse these days, but he can still be hard to pin down: On a recent visit, after a dozen attempts to reach him by phone, Turner told photographer Murray Hall, “I’ve got a Ford, a canoe, and a waffle iron, and that’s it. I haven’t answered the phone in ten years.” For decades, Turner trapped his own eels on a hand-built stone-and-wood weir on the Delaware River before smoking and selling the slippery fish from his shop, a small outpost next to his home. Now, at 76, Turner finds that maintaining the weir—which requires rebuilding hundreds of feet of underwater rock walls each year—has become a challenge, but his smoker is still running. Customers…

WHILE WALKING THROUGH Borgo Rossini, a tranquil neighborhood in Turin, the aroma of roasting cacao hangs in the air, a sensory signpost of the Guido Gobino chocolate factory. I had come to the northern Italian city not for chocolate but for hazelnuts—specifically the Tonda Gentile Trilobata hazelnut—which many gastronomes consider the greatest in the world. Its unparalleled richness and delicate texture enticed me to the hills of Piedmont’s Langhe region, where I visited farms and festivals dedicated to this local specialty. Eventually, the remarkable nut brought me here, to this fabbrica di cioccolato, where it’s ground to a paste and expertly blended with milk chocolate to make the confection known as gianduja. Ubiquitous across northern Italy, gianduja is often prepared and sold in bar form, a shape most suitable for…

THERE’S THE SIGHT of the colorful spread. The sounds of laughing friends and the crunch of crispy lechón skin. The smell of garlic wafting above the sinangag. And the complex, contrasting tastes and textures dancing on your tongue. Welcome to kamayan, the Filipino feast that stimulates the senses—especially the carnal, intuitive one many Western meals overlook: touch. Kamayan (from kamay, “hand,” in Filipino) refers to the pre-colonial tradition of eating without cutlery. Sixteenth-century Italian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta, who documented Philippine history during the Magellan expedition, noted that natives used wooden spoons for serving and cooking—but not for eating. Nowadays, kamayan is synonymous with a communal feast of rice, grilled or roasted meats, seafood, and fruit, all laid atop a banana leaf-lined table, floor, or ground. The bounty is…

My first connection with Senegal was a fragrance. The scent was not a culinary one; rather, it was an astonishing mix of musk, amber, myrrh, and smoke—perhaps even a hint of Shalimar or Chanel No. 5.1 would later learn it was the incense known as thiouraye ("CHEW-rye"), a resinous mixture made from assorted local plants. It emanated from the elegant woman seated next to me on the plane and signaled that I was heading into a world unlike any I had visited before, one that would challenge all of my five senses. It was 1972, and this was my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa. Both familiar and foreign, and occasionally frustrating, Senegal would, over the next half-century, become one of my heart’s homes—a place where I now have friends as…

Elvira Fernández García strides out to the vegetable patch, a basket under her arm, while a train rattles along the valley in the distance. She cuts a handful of collard leaves for pote de berzas, a mixed-meat, bean-and-vegetable stew that hinges on the Spanish variety of this leafy green. Back in her kitchen, several large stew pots bubble gently on the stove. Born and raised in Asturias, the lush region on Spain’s northern coast, Elvira, or “Viri,” runs a small restaurant in San Román, where acres of farmland sit beside the river Nalón. El Llar de Viri, or Viri’s Hearth, occupies the ground floor of the house where Elvira’s parents once had their farmstead, grain mill, and butchery. Over the course of a quarter-century, together with her daughter-in-law María José…

WHERE THERE’S A KITCHEN, there’s a good chance of blood—that’s the hook for countless mystery and crime writers as they sprinkle culinary intrigue throughout their novels. But the allure of good food might be even deadlier than the sharpest knife. Such is the threat in the 2024 translation of Butter by Japanese author Asako Yuzuki: Journalist Rika Machida finds herself face to face with a famed serial killer and food blogger, and the characters’ conversation quickly turns to home cooking. The murderer’s recipe for freshly cooked rice, studded with cold slivers of French butter and drizzled with soy sauce, intrigues Machida. Upon replicating the dish at home, the protagonist finds herself lost in its pleasures, falling into an affinity with the notorious killer, a trap tinged with gastronomic awe. Food…