Crunchy is no longer enough. Dinner must now detonate.
I get the New York Times Cooking newsletter in my inbox. I usually take a look – sometimes skimming, sometimes reading. It’s fun, often entertaining, and a good source of ideas for what to cook next or put on the shopping list.
Now and then, Chaucer comes to mind – specifically the Pardoner, who – in his sanctimonious sermon rant – mocked the cooks of his day for grinding, stamping, and straining to produce ever more luxurious dishes for the sinfully self-indulgent and gluttonous:
These cookes, how they stampe, and streyne, and grynde –
Would he have approved of Kay Chun’s Roasted Salmon With Miso Rice and Ginger-Scallion Vinaigrette? Or Yotam Ottolenghi’s Sunset Pavlova with Sweet Vinegar and Rosemary? Hard to say. Food fashions change. Human indulgence, not so much.
There’s no denying the writers’ efforts. I sympathize with the task: to describe taste, texture, and technique in ways that are vivid and new, without lapsing into cliché. There are only so many ways to say spicy, sweet, and delicious. Food is now sheet-panned, pan-seared, roasted, braised, buttered, blistered. Dishes are buttery, chewy, creamy, unctuous, golden, seasonal, pantry-friendly, and – that 21st-century blessing – viral. Sometimes they’re “family-style” and rustic. Sometimes “restaurant-quality” and “perfect.” But – if they’re crisp?
Then they are shatteringly crisp.
Let’s pause on that phrase. Shatteringly crisp. This is no mere texture. It is an achievement. A destiny. The sound of success.
And once you notice it, you see it everywhere.
Melissa Clark uses it to describe chicken skin and caramelized French toast with “shatteringly crisp outsides, delicately custardy insides.” Ali Slagle’s air-fried drumsticks promise it. Kenji López-Alt delivers it in schnitzel that is “terrifyingly puffy” and “shatteringly crisp.” Baguettes, borek, baklava, tofu, artichokes, lumpia, veal Milanese, meringue. – All shatteringly crisp.
There is no limit. There is no escape.
Crispy salmon with a crunchy coating of seeds? Shatteringly crisp skin.
Shanghai lumpia? Stuffed with juicy pork, wrapped in shatteringly crisp pastry.
Baklava? Only if you butter every single sheet of phyllo.
Artichokes? Fried until shatteringly crisp.
Vodka-battered fish? Shatteringly crisp crust, deeply moist cod.
Pizza in Chicago? Crackling, thinner-than-a-saltine, shatteringly crisp.
Toasted tomato bread with shrimp? Toasted in a skillet of olive oil until… yes, you guessed it.
Even Alison Roman, who keeps her toaster in a cupboard, knows that true toasty transcendence lies in the skillet – where bread becomes shatteringly crisp.
The language gathers momentum. There’s poetry to it – or at least a refrain. Everything is better when it’s shatteringly crisp. Crunch isn’t good enough. The food must explode. There must be consequences.
And I get it. How many synonyms are there for crispy-crunchy goodness before we stumble into tooth-breaking territory?
Still, with shatteringly as the modifier of choice, I’m reminded of the time the New York Times Book Review ran an issue in which the prose of at least four novels was described as luminous. Can searing and incandescent be far behind? You feel for the writers. It must be like composing blurbs for poetry collections: no criticism, please – this is for promotional use only.
Sometimes, I try the recipes. Sometimes, I discover something genuinely wonderful and not too hard even for me to replicate. When I do, it goes on heavy rotation.
But – critical commentary aside – I’m grateful – to the writers, chefs, cooks, food stylists, recipe curators, cuisiniers, and culinary emissaries of the global diaspora who streyne to bring me interesting recipes from around the world.
And if I pick a dish to make, I read the Notes section beneath both for the helpful advice and intentional and unintentional comedy. (That comments section is worth a blog post of its own.)
So yes. I’m reading. I’m cooking. And I’m hoping that someday, I too will produce a chicken skin so crisp… it shatters. But not my teeth.
Meanwhile – for the poetry lovers – a little more from Chaucers’s Pardoner in middle and modern English. And bon appétit one and all.
| O wombe! O bely! O stynkyng cod! Fulfilled of donge and of corrupcioun, At either ende of thee foul is the soun; How greet labour and cost is thee to fynde, Thise cookes, how they stampe, and streyne, and grynde, And turnen substaunce into accident, To fulfillen al thy likerous talent! Out of the harde bones knokke they The mary, for they caste noght awey, That may go thurgh the golet softe and swoote; Of spicerie, of leef, and bark, and roote, Shal been his sauce ymaked by delit, To make hym yet a newer appetit. |
O gut! O belly! O you stinking cod, Filled full of dung, with all corruption found! At either end of you foul is the sound. With how great cost and labour do they find Your food! These cooks, they pound and strain and grind; Substance to accident they turn with fire, All to fulfill your gluttonous desire! Out of the hard and riven bones knock they The marrow, for they throw nothing away That may go through the gullet soft and sweet; With spicery, with leaf, bark, root, replete Shall be the sauces made for your delight, To furnish you a sharper appetite. |
And for the truly adventurous here are a two recipes to consider:
NOTE: Both dishes are enhanced by non- skillet toast liberally dressed with Marmite.
The featured image photo by Mitchell Soeharsono on Unsplash
Brilliant–and so funny. You are right, we humans haven’t changed that much in our over-indulgences. Apt juxtaposition with the Pardoner, too.
My use of shattered is much more dated. When I’m exhausted I’m shattered. I associate it with the late 1970s/early 1980s. When, along with two others, I ran a small press, we occasionally used a typeface called “Shatter” (https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/3966/shatter) when we printed bumper stickers. I think we used it for “Nuclear War: No Winners.” And then there’s the late 70s Rolling Stones song, “Shattered.”
To me, as with you, “shatteringly crisp” suggests tooth-shattering–decidedly unappealing. Surely there comes a time when more becomes too much.
Terrific piece!
Thanks for those thoughts Josna. “Shattering” goes along with that Brit habit of adjectival extremes. (Things are not just bad – they are dire!. You not just tired, you’re knackered.) Which of course is countered with understatement as in calling a catastrophe a “bit of a sticky situation”, a plane crash – a prang, and an impossible position “rather a pickle”.) I didn’t know about the shatter typeface. Language is so interesting.
Hilarious!
And I think my favorite parts are:
“Requires at least three specialty grocers and a
willingness to ignore tradition”
“Only achievable with a cast iron stomach, a vintage
KitchenAid, and an emotional support garbage disposal unit.”
Mustn’t let little things like that get in the way of fine dining.
Shatteringly clever column today!
Thank you, kindly!
Very, very clever—and you manage to throw in some Chaucer, too. Shatteringly funny.
Oh this is perfect! I think Nigella Lawson did quite a bit to sex up the language of cooking, but luckily she has some really useful recipes too.
It’s good when there is both!
You know I never read the blurbs. Perhaps I should, if only for the amusement factor. If there’s a photo, and it’s appealing, I look at the ingredients and then the directions, which is more than enough to decide if it’s worth a try. If no photo, then the recipe itself have to do. It’s like reading the blurb for a book–of course they are going to say ridiculous and nice things. I don’t need their pre-determined opinion.
Makes sense. After all, life is short and time is limited.
That said, blurbs (in recipes as in poetry reviews) do give information (sometimes essential if one intends to cook) and can provide some wonderful entertainment is one is inclined to find language itself a source of entertainment.
I have been making a collection of some of the best (aka worst).
I have to admit that the pretentiousness of some food writers and/or cooks is entertainment, and almost art, in itself – lol!
I feel their pain!
The food-writer adjective which has always jumped out at me oddly is “toothsome.” I love YOUR prose in this blbog post. For example: “Crunch isn’t good enough. The food must explode. There must be consequences.” Well done!!!
Thanks Will. Can something be both toothsome and noisome one wonders?
Shattering like brandy snaps. Do you remember them? Not sure they qualified as shattering but that’s what came to mind, something I haven’t thought of in many score years!
Brandy snaps! – The ultimate in shatteringlyness. Delicious too!
Foul smelling at both ends but hopefully not still shattering. Our bodies are turning gourmet delicious into something a lot less so as we chat with each other. How clever and weird.
Most wondrous weird!
Wonderful – particularly “heavy rotation” – Pretty and I have several favorites for heavy rotation!
Usually not the crunchiest…
In my experience – usually the simplest, tastiest, and most reliable.
(Heavy rotation – is that when a steam roller spins in circles?)