How to Teach Culinary Students to Balance the Palate
02 October 2012
Demonstrating the importance of adding a little acidity to the final flavor of a dish is especially important when developing low-sodium recipes.
By Carrie Stebbins
In both culinary and dining classes I talk a lot about the balance of a food or beverage on the palate.
It seems like we teach our culinary students to add salt at many stages, but we only encourage them to add acidity on specific occasions. What I like to emphasize is that acidity can brighten a dish without making it taste sour.
A few years back I attended a wine and food pairing seminar given by Jerry Comfort of Beringer Wines. We tasted foods that represented the basic four flavors, plus umami, along with a variety of wines. The results were negative as often as they were positive! Some of the multiple combinations, however, were the best. I decided to try a similar technique with my culinary students at the beginning of a class to show how important adding a little acidity is to the final flavor of a dish. This is especially important for developing low-sodium recipes.
The tasting is very simple to set up. I have the students prepare lemon or lime wedges and a container with salt. For the umami, or protein, the students cut small pieces of a white fish, poached with no aromatics, just plain water. The result is pure umami.
For the tasting itself, each student takes several pieces of the poached fish. First they sample the plain fish—I warn them ahead of time that umami on its own will not taste great! Next I have them taste a bite of fish drizzled with a couple drops of lemon juice. A lot of eyes tend to open wide at this point. Next I have them taste fish with just the salt. The fish with salt is expected and generally enjoyed, but not necessarily as much as the lemon juice on its own. We then finish with the classic fish plus acidity plus salt to end on a high note. If time permits, sweet or bitter elements can be added to the tasting, offering many more combinations to explore.
The exercise has two important discussions. The first is how the palate reacts at each tasting. Not all students will like or dislike the same combinations, and learning to accommodate more than just their personal preferences is an important point of the exercise.
The second discussion is to discuss how to apply this information to make their food more appealing or to fix a mistake. I point out that when citrus and salt are both present in the correct amount the dish is neither salty nor acidic, though both elements are present. I also mention that a subtle addition of sweetness or bitterness can add complexity to a dish, as can earth notes. On the other hand, we discuss how a small amount of sweetness can balance a vinaigrette or how a little potato (starch = sugar) can save an over-salted soup, even though the sodium level stays the same.
The results are very evident in the food the students then prepare.
An associate instructor at Johnson & Wales University, Denver, Carrie Stebbins is a board member of the American Institute of Food and Wine.