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Mark Bitterman, selmelier (think sommelier for salt), is trying to conduct a salt tasting for 30 food writers, chefs and other culinary professionals gathered for a symposium at The Greenbrier, a West Virginia resort. It’s long after dinner and the writers are in full party mode, making this an extremely difficult audience. But Bitterman smiles shyly and continues his disquisition, waving a bottle of fleur de sel.

As food professionals, we’re all way beyond iodized table salt. Boxes of kosher salt fill our pantries and flavor our recipes. But are we ready to abandon kosher salt, as Bitterman advises, in favor of a good sea salt?

Since this is an improvised tasting, there are no vegetables or bread and butter on which to taste the salt. Instead, a volunteer passes through the crowd, spooning a tiny pile of salt on the side of each attendee’s fist in a manner reminiscent of other parties, a fact not lost on the crowd. A waiter circulates with bottles of water.

As we work our way through the salts, Bitterman describes, and we taste and ask questions. Since most finishing salt comes in larger crystals, one cookbook author wonders, “What about baking?” There is a ground fleur de sel, Bitterman answers. “If you could only pick one salt, which one would it be?” asks an editor. Bitterman points out the Fleur de Sel de Guerande from the Loire-Atlantique region of France.

Try as I might, it’s going to take a far better palate than my own to distinguish the minerals among the various salts. They seem mostly to vary in the shape of their crystals, which affects the intensity of their saltiness.

Bitterman moves on to the specialty salts: Turkish black salt, mixed with a touch of charcoal; smoked salts, dried over smoky wood fires; and an amazing truffle salt, containing small pieces of truffle that have infused the salt with an intense woodsy flavor. “That’s the one for scrambled eggs,” observe several authors almost at once.

Kosher salt is made for kashering, the process which draws blood from meat. It is 100 percent dry and absorbs moisture more rapidly than the moist sea salts. Bitterman recommends avoiding it in favor of a good sea salt. A number of chefs, no doubt thinking of the cases of kosher salt in their pantries and the cost of sea salt, seem reluctant to throw away their kosher stash. However, we all agree that a good finishing salt belongs on the table.

The next morning, I wake with a tongue that feels like the Bonneville Salt Flats and a newfound respect for salt.

Salt, the only mineral we eat in its raw form, is a simple chemical compound, sodium chloride. Both sodium and chlorine are essential for proper body functioning. Our bodies lose salt daily, through tears and perspiration, and we need to replenish it. There’s an old story about 18th-century bread recipes: They did not call for salt, because enough sweat dripped from the kneader onto the dough. In recent years, salt has been linked to high blood pressure and limiting salt intake has become something of a fetish. The culinary writer Jeffrey Steingarten, a contrarian to the last, has cited studies that seem to vindicate salt and instead blame fat and lack of exercise for health problems. Try telling that to Attila the Dietitian, my wife, for whom salt is only slightly less poisonous than arsenic.

Salt is hygroscopic — that is, it draws moisture out of plant and animal tissue. It also slows the rotting process long enough for the bacteria responsible for fermentation to grow, which is why salt preserves foods. Virtually every culture in history has used salt to preserve vegetables, fish and meat and created condiments with high salt content (soy sauce, fish sauce, the Roman garum, to name a few). What would prosciutto, herring, Maryland crab boils, bacalau, kim chee, sauerkraut, pickles, soy sauce or Tabasco be without salt? The Egyptians used natron, a naturally occurring mixture of sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate and sodium chloride, in the mummification process, although cut-rate mummies were preserved using only sodium chloride. If you are interested, I recommend Mark Kurlansky’s book “Salt” for a detailed look at its history.

In the earliest days of the planet, moisture washed away the soluble minerals which collected in depressions of exposed rocks. As the oceans formed, water evaporated, but the dissolved minerals stayed. Sodium chloride was among the most common of these minerals, and the oceans became increasingly salty over time. In fact, one method used to estimate when amphibians evolved is to measure the salt content of their blood and calculate when the ocean was that salty.

Sometimes parts of the ocean became blocked and evaporated, leaving salt deposits. Sometimes brine was forced from underground up into cracks in the rock, where it evaporated and left salt domes. Oceans, mines and domes are the sources of most of the salt we use.

The process for making salt from brine is essentially the same everywhere. You find a naturally occurring source of salt water — the ocean, a salt marsh, a brine spring — and evaporate it. As the water is reduced, the salt crystals form on the sides and the bottom of the container. The crystals are then raked into piles and removed.

When salt evaporates in ponds, most of it sinks to the bottom since brine is heavier than freshwater. In France, this salt often picks up traces of clay from the lining of the salt ponds, giving it a grayish color and a mineral taste. This salt is called sel gris, gray salt. Some salt evaporates as crystals that float on the surface of the ponds. This salt remains white and is called fleur de sel, flower of salt.

Much sea salt, such as Maldon salt, is evaporated in a series of basins that use the same principle as a maple syrup evaporator. Early settlers denuded Cape Cod’s forests to make the salt used to preserve codfish until 1776, when John Sears built a salt works that used the sun to evaporate the water. Windmills provided the power to pump the brine into evaporation trays.

Salt mines, which contain a layer of salt from prehistoric sources, are often mined like any other ore. Sometimes the salt is dissolved in water, with the brine then pumped to the surface, where it is evaporated.

AFTER ATTENDING THE TASTING at The Greenbrier, I decided to conduct one of my own. I bought a starter set of finishing salts from Bitterman, who with his wife runs The Meadow, a salt, chocolate, wine and flower shop (www.atthemeadow.com) in Portland, Ore. I added the Hawaiian red salt I’ve been using for a couple of years, plus some other locally obtained sea and smoked salts. My wife set out tiny salt dishes and we spooned out 12 salts, plus slices of cucumber, tomato, and bread and butter.

As we progressed, I served grilled chicken thighs, baked potatoes and salad. For dessert, we had a selection of chocolate-covered caramels provided by some friends in the chocolate business, Cocoapelli Chocolates (www.cocoapellichocolates.com).

The results were interesting. People gravitated toward the French sea salts, especially the Fleur de Sel de Guerande and to the Maldon salt, an English sea salt with large flat crystals. Bitterman had rhapsodized about crunching Maldon salt on a salad or a piece of roast chicken. Previously, the only salt crystals I’d crunched had been on pretzels, not an entirely pleasant experience. I can say that Maldon crystals are much more delicate and that, yes, crunching Maldon salt on a salad or a piece of grilled meat is delightful.

Both the Maldon and a lightly smoked Halon Mon Gold were amazing on the caramels, especially the soft runny ones. See the tasting notes on this blog, Salt Tasting Notes.

The consensus seemed to be that finishing salts do vary enough to make the search for one you like worthwhile. The more fun salts added a nice note to the table.

For mail order, look at The Meadow’s Web site, which offers around 50 kinds of salt, including a slab of Himalayan pink salt that you heat in the oven and cook on directly. Locally, Whole Foods in Hadley has a nice array of finishing salts at the cheese counter and Cooks Shop Here in Northampton also has a good selection (I recommend the Iburi Jio, a heavily smoked Japanese salt).

Some salt-related suggestions:

Never use table salt because it is mixed with aluminum anti-caking agents and the crystals are too small. Use a crystal salt — sea salt, gray salt or, yes, kosher salt — for salting food while cooking or at the table.

Toss shrimp with a tablespoon of salt and let sit for an hour before cooking to revive the sea taste.

Toss salt on grilling chicken or steak for a simple yet powerful flavoring.

Dress a delicate summer green salad with a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil (I use an oil pressed with blood oranges), a splash or two of balsamic and a sprinkling of Maldon salt.

Try various salts on cut tomatoes.

Sprinkle a smoked salt on potato salad or grilled corn.

Don’t omit desserts from the list. My father has always sprinkled salt on his watermelon, and adding salt to chocolate or caramel has become a trendy dessert of late.

Recipes

Ma La Shrimp

Homemade Hot Sauce

Cucumber Salad

Orginally published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, May 30, 2008.

When I told a friend I was writing about artisan bread, she asked what that was. “Any bread you can’t roll into a ball the size of a marble,” I answered flippantly. Actually, I wasn’t too far off. The term is used to refer to bread made by professional craft bakers — not the airy loaves produced by large production-line operations. The loaves contain flour, water, yeast or sourdough, and perhaps a few other ingredients, but no artificial leaveners or chemical preservatives.

Bread has been with the human race almost as long as we have been eating grains. The first breads were mixtures of ground grains and water, baked on hot rocks and unleavened. The discovery that bread could be made to rise, using either airborne yeasts or the yeasts left over from making beer, gave rise (so to speak) to the breads we commonly eat today. From Greek and Roman days, the whiter the bread, the more refined and hence expensive and desirable it was.

The search for whiter bread culminated in the Wonder Bread of the 1950s and ’60s. Pure white, airy, loaded with vitamins to replace those removed in the milling of the flour, and flavorless, Wonder Bread became the symbol of where our culture had gone wrong. The search for good bread began.

During this period, I ate dozens of dense brown loaves that might have been good for me but were decidedly not good to my taste buds. That’s all changed today. Artisan bakeries are springing up in virtually every city and town. The bread may be white or brown, but it is both good for you and tasty.

The artisan breads you’ll find these days have a few things in common. The ingredients are flour and water, a leavener such as yeast or sourdough, and salt. Add-ins may include olives, herbs, cheese, or dried fruits and nuts. Depending on the type of bread, there may be other flours, such as rye, and eggs and seeds. Whether the ovens are gas-fired or wood-fired, the resulting loaves are crusty on the outside and soft on the inside — and they taste like bread.

The chemistry of bread baking is fascinating and complex. Harold McGee’s “On Food and Cooking,” an indispensable reference for the serious cook, has a complete discussion, including electron microscope photographs of flour and gluten. Simply put, the proteins in wheat, called glutens, form long chains that hold the starches and the gas bubbles produced by the leavening agents. Kneading the bread causes the glutens to form regular chains that trap water and gas which help the dough rise. You don’t want this behavior in pie crusts, which is why you work these as little as possible to make a flaky crust.

In this area, there are the two grand dames, if you will, of artisan baking, BAKERY NORMAND at 192 Main St. in Northampton and HENION BAKERY at 174 North Pleasant St. in Amherst (www.henionbakery.com). Each offers a range of baguettes, country white, wheat and other specialty breads. I look for Henion’s corned rye, a dense rye bread.

In Amherst, there is also the new WHEATBERRY, 321 Main St., whose bread is also available at the CUSHMAN MARKET in North Amherst. In Northampton, HUNGRY GHOST BAKERY at 62 State St. offers wood-fired sourdough bread with serious crust. I especially like their 8-grain bread. I first had BREAD EUPHORIA’s bread at their stand at the Amherst Farmers market; its bakery is at 206 Main St. in Haydenville and is worth a stop. In Easthampton, there is SUNRISE PASTRY SHOP, 42 Cottage St.

And then there is EL JARDIN (www.eljardinbakery.com). The Holyoke-based bakery was started by Nuestras Raices, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable development in Holyoke, and it’s now owned by its former head baker, Neftal? Dur?n. El Jardin bread is available in many locations (Atkins Farms Country Market in Amherst, Serio’s in Northampton, McCusker’s Market in Shelburne Falls, Blue Moon Grocery in Easthampton) and is served at local restaurants, including Chandler’s in South Deerfield and Chez Albert in Amherst. El Jardin has just opened a cafe in South Deerfield at 265 Greenfield Road. The bakery proves that you can bake wood-fired sourdough in commercial quantities without having to compromise.

You typically buy artisan breads unsliced, which keeps the bread fresher. A serrated blade is best for slicing. The trend is for offset bread knives, shaped like Harry Potter’s lightning-bolt scar, which let you slice all the way through the loaf without hitting your knuckles on the cutting board. I have a great offset bread knife from Lamson & Goodnow, but these knives are available everywhere.

Smeared with butter for breakfast or dipped in olive oil at dinner, artisan breads need no other embellishment. The loaves tend to disappear quickly in my house so there is no need to store the bread more than a day. If a loaf does stay around longer, freshen it by sprinkling some water on it and reheating it in the oven. You can also use it for toast. Or you can cook with it. Here are some ideas:

First of all, there’s garlic bread. Toast the slices of bread, and at the same time melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan, adding an equal amount of olive oil. Mince or grate garlic to taste (I use about 7 cloves) into the butter and saute gently until the garlic is fragrant. Add some dried or fresh oregano, marjoram, hot pepper flakes and/or basil. Drizzle or brush the oil mixture over the bread. Top with some fresh-grated Parmesan and bake in a 400-degree oven or broil until the cheese is lightly browned. The same mixture, with less garlic and a little more oil, can be stirred into a couple of cups of bread cubes. Bake the cubes at 400 until they are crisp and use them as croutons in salads or soups.

Italian panzanellas use stale bread cubes as salad ingredients. Dip the bread into water, pat dry, then mix it into a tomato salad and dress with olive oil and vinegar. Add lettuce, cucumbers, onions and herbs to taste. Let the salad sit for 10 minutes or so before serving.

Soaking stale bread in a milk and egg mixture and frying or baking the resulting custard takes many forms. The French call French toast pain perdu, or “lost bread,” a much more poetic name for the perfect use for leftover bread. Challah, a Jewish egg bread usually served on Friday nights, is available in many local bakeries and makes superb French toast. You can vary the basic mixture, which is ½ cup of milk and two eggs, by adding cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg or allspice. Dip the slices briefly into the mix and saute over medium heat in a little butter.

The recipes that follow use artisan bread as ingredients. I haven’t given any recipes for bread. I’m not a baker and, besides, my goal is to get you to try the artisan breads that are available locally. Bon appetit.

Recipes:

Bread Pudding

Strata With Praline Topping

Bread-Crumb Baked Chicken Breasts

Originally published Daily Hampshire Gazette, September 28, 2007

After the article was published, a friend told me I’d left out some of the best hidden markets–the Asian markets. I told him I’d already written about them, but should have mentioned them. So, here’s the link to an article about those markets, http://blog.russelnod.com/2007/06/28/asian-aisles-navigating-the-pioneer-valleys-most-plentiful-ethnic-markets/.

Chef’s Best: Hidden Hadley - Fabulous finds at out-of-the-way markets

Part of the fun of food adventuring is discovering a new place to shop or eat. I’m not ashamed to admit that when my wife and I first visited Grand Bahama Island, our first two stops were the local supermarket and the food stands. The beach came later. When I hitchhiked to California back in the early ’70s, my friend Richie and I haunted the supermarkets and farmers markets, easing our way with rides and overnight accommodations by cooking breakfasts and dinners.

You don’t have to hitchhike to California for a food adventure. The Pioneer Valley abounds in farm stands, little markets, and ethnic stores and restaurants. Hadley, too often a movie and mall destination or a midpoint between Amherst and Northampton, has its share of treats.

There are some places that I’d like to keep secret, just to ensure that they don’t get too crowded for my taste. But I’ll write about them anyway. FLAYVORS OF COOK FARM at 1 East Hadley Road (the road between the two malls) is a dairy and ice cream stand selling innumerable flavors of ice cream (asparagus anyone?) made from milk and cream from their farm; it also carries milk and butter, local breads and pastries. Flayvors arguably has the best ice cream in the area. My favorite is the flavor known as Inez — coconut ice cream with chocolate-covered almonds mixed in.

ESSELON CAFE at 99 Russell St., Denis and Essie Laflamme’s new eatery across the street from Carmelina’s, has also become too popular, to my way of thinking. Aside from the coffee drinks and teas, which are up to the high standards set by co-founder Scott Rao, of Rao’s Cafe in Amherst, Esselon offers breakfasts and lunches. The place keeps growing, from a nicely redone dining room to an enclosed four-season porch to outdoor tables. I had lunch there with a colleague recently. She and I walked in, looked at the sandwiches — brie and pears, prosciutto on ficelles (the smaller version of baguettes) — and both instantly thought “France.”

Driving down Maple Street, perhaps on your way to Flayvors, you’re likely to catch a glimpse of MAPLE FARM FOODS, in the old Letourneau Flooring building at 10 South Maple St. Stop by. Steve and Nuray Selik have stocked their store with fresh produce and groceries, shot through with the unexpected. There is a large selection of Napoli brand Italian foods and the odd-shaped pastas that you don’t often see in supermarkets. The produce selection is both large and varied, with much of the fruit just at its peak, which means that when you need those fresh nectarines or cherries for tonight’s dinner, this is where you want to come. There is a wall of Polish foods interspersed with Turkish foods: Polish jams, jellies and pickled goods sit side by side with grape leaves, hot pepper relish, pomegranate molasses and six kinds of halva. Couscous, both the small and larger Israeli size, dried fruits and nuts, fruit drinks, a good selection of chocolates and thick Turkish yogurt round out the picture.

I don’t know how anyone can walk through Maple Farm Foods without being seduced by the display. Everywhere I look I spot something I want to eat out of hand, or find some use for in a recipe. I passed by the Turkish fruit sausage a couple of times before I broke down and tried it. A combination of grapes and walnuts, it is a knobby sausage and tastes like a stiff grape leather with walnuts in the center. Nuray Selik and I traded ideas for the yogurt, and she suggested a drizzle of the pomegranate molasses.

The couple has been in the food business forever, it seems. They owned Martini’s Italian restaurant in Northampton once upon a time, and a number of places in Connecticut besides. You can tell a chef is behind the ordering — I’m sure Steve Selik wants to cook with what’s on his shelves as much as I do. Maple Farm Foods is open seven days a week, 9 a.m. until 8 p.m., except on Sundays, when it closes at 6 p.m.

I revisited MI TIERRA, at 206 Russell St., especially for this article. I expected to find what I’ve always found, a Mexican grocery with a small restaurant attached. Instead, I found a larger restaurant with an attached small grocery. The restaurant has been busy every time I’ve stopped in. It serves Tex/Mex-style burritos and tacos, but also more authentic Mexican food. In the film “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” there is a scene in which the characters wander into a small-town eatery and order beers and shrimp. Mi Tierra’s restaurant has that comfortable feel and I’m glad to see that it is doing well.

However, the success of the restaurant has shrunk the grocery to the point that it seems endangered. In addition to the rice, dried and canned beans, salsas and canned chiles that you might expect, there is a shelf of candies and treats that makes me think of school kids and birthday parties in Mexico City. A number of brands of coffee and yerba mate line the shelves.

There is a wall display of Oaxaca brand dried chiles, herbs and spices. My shelves are already crammed with bags of peppers — ancho, mulato, pasilla and chile arbol — but I had to pick up some more. There is dried Mexican oregano, stronger than the more common oregano, and bags of true cinnamon. Most of the cinnamon we get in stores is really cassia, and true cinnamon is milder. You can tell the difference because cassia rolls look like scrolls, rolled at either end toward the middle, while cinnamon is thinner and rolled singly or in pieces.

Mi Tierra is another family affair, this one run by George Sosa. The guy at the counter told me Sosa is limiting the groceries to the items that people really want. Stop in for dinner, but pick up some groceries at the same time, to encourage Sosa to keep the grocery part of Mi Tierra up and running.

The glass milk bottles from MAPLELINE FARM are a familiar site at Atkins Farms Country Market in Amherst, Cushman Market in Amherst, Whole Foods Market in Hadley and many more places. You can even get Mapleline Farms milk, with Outlook Farm bacon and Diemand Farms eggs, left in a milk box outside your door by an honest-to-goodness milkman. The milk is hormone-free, which for me is as organic as I need.

Mapleline is a family farm, run by the fifth generation of Kokoskis. Located at 63 Comins Road in Hadley (www.maplelinefarm.com), it has a small store that is open several days a week. In addition to milk, and the aforementioned bacon and eggs, Mapleline sells a variety of homemade, local and small-company products. The freezer is stocked with chopped beef and steak from the farm, along with pierogi, frozen pies and four kinds of kolachi (a Polish pastry that resembles a yeast-bread strudel). There are homemade soups.

The store has a nice selection of surprises: Black Jack chewing gum, pints of homemade ice cream, a selection of Amish-style pickles from Pennsylvania, and Harmony Springs soda in returnable bottles. This last is produced locally in Ludlow using cane sugar, not corn syrup.

What’s a sugar house to do in the off season? At North Hadley Sugar Shack, 181 River Drive, the solution is to become a farm stand, and it’s up and running for the summer season. In addition to local produce, there is a large selection of maple syrup and maple products, some local jams and jellies, and an array of tasty baked goods. The baker used to work with my wife and we’ve eaten our share of her pies, so I can vouch for the fact that they are first-rate.

Recipes

Yogurt and Cantaloupe Fruit Soup

Picadillo

Orginally published Daily Hampshire Gazette, June 29, 2007

8 a.m., Saturday morning, downtown Amherst. My wife and I stop at our respective banks, get the market basket from the car, and wander down the Spring Street parking lot. Vendors are already set up or finishing their displays. The Gazette’s Phyllis Lehrer is arranging vegetables at Bill and Connie Gillan’s SUNSET FARM stand. I stop at Larry Siegel’s PROSPECT HILL stand, looking to see whether he has any wild mushrooms. My wife picks up a large bouquet at Marie Fowler’s LITTLE POND FLOWER stand. Marie and I have known each other for years, and her flowers have graced many a weekend dinner party.

A little further down, Jim Davis is displaying the first tomatoes, basil and tiny potatoes at the DELTA ORGANIC FARM stand. Newcomer Sara Coblyn Porth of ATLAS FARM is encircling a large bowl of tomatoes with bunches of fresh basil. This is Atlas Farm’s first year at the Amherst Farmers Market, but Porth is no stranger to such events, serving as the volunteer president of the Federation of Massachusetts Farmers Markets (www.massfarmersmarkets.org). She’s happy to be at the Amherst market, which operates from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., April through November. “The people here get it,” she says. I have plenty of basil at home, but into the basket go arugula and yellow and red heirloom tomatoes for tonight’s meal.

We make a stop at ASTARTE FARMS to get some fresh garlic and look at beets and greens. We stroll past CRYSTAL BROOK FARM’S cheese and the BERKSHIRE MOUNTAIN BAKERY, past the APPLE DUMPLING GANG’S apples and raspberries, past CHASE HILL FARM, which has great farm-raised beef. I stop at SIMPLE GIFTS, which always seems to have a large selection of heirloom tomatoes, and at JIANG FARMS, where I buy some Asian spinach.

Now that I have the lay of the land, I go back, picking up baby carrots, a bunch of beets and a large bunch of red and white radishes. If I could paint, they’d all go into a still life, brighter than the Dutch masters, but no less lush. As it is, I am merely a cook. I’ll fill the table with richly colored bowls of food that look like their ingredients and taste clean and fresh.

In Northampton, the same scene is being repeated on Gothic Street on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. A tighter, more urban market, it is smaller than the Amherst market but has some different offerings. The space is limited and the waiting list for vendors is long, so the market tries to vary what is available. The criterion here is that you must grow what you sell, making it a true farmers market (this makes it hard for bakers, since 50 percent of the ingredients in the baked goods need to be grown by the baker). The market is always crowded, spilling over onto the lawn in front of the former Fleet Bank. As in Amherst, there is often a table or two of political activists, seeking signatures and contributions and distributing information.

In previous centuries, farmers markets were an important part of the food distribution system. They went into eclipse in the 20th century as distribution became more centralized and most people got their produce at supermarkets. There are a number of reasons why farmers markets are flourishing again. For one thing, the quality and freshness are high. As far as I can recall, I have never bought vegetables at the market that turned out to be less than fresh once I got them home. Most of the farmers practice organic-style growing methods, whether or not they are certified as organic.

Price is not necessarily one of the reasons to shop at a farmers market. Compared to the cost of conventional produce trucked in from far-away farms, the prices at farmers markets are high. But if you compare apples to apples, so to speak, and look at the prices for organic produce, they are reasonable. Besides, I’d rather give my money to a local farmer, so he or she can continue to practice agriculture on a local scale. How to feed the world is a larger question and one worth pursuing. But here, on a sunny July morning in Amherst, I am pleased to talk with my neighbors and buy food that was raised within 50 miles of where we stand.

Amherst and Northampton aren’t the only area communities with farmers markets. The Greenfield Farmers Market runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays, and while it is average in size, it’s in the center of town and hard to miss. In addition to produce, it has jewelry, wool, Recycleze clothing (handmade cloth diapers, and sweaters made from second-generation wool) and EL JARDIN BAKERY. The feeling is relaxed and a visit there makes for a pleasant stroll.

I missed the Holyoke Farmers Market, which operates on Thursdays from noon to 5 p.m. on Dwight and High streets in front of City Hall, but I plan to visit soon. There is music and prepared food in addition to the produce.

My daughter-in-law loves the Florence Farmers Market, at the Florence Civic Center at 30 Park St., which is open on Wednesdays from 2 to 6 p.m. There is a farmers market on Union Street in Easthampton on Tuesdays from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. There are markets in Chicopee, Springfield and all over the region. You can find additional listings at www.farmfresh.org and www.starchefs.com.

If you want to see a truly impressive farmers market, take a trip up Interstate 91 some Saturday to the Brattleboro Farmers Market, on Route 9 West, just off Exit 2. We estimated about 40 booths, of which perhaps 15 were selling produce. There is a huge amount of prepared food — Thai, Mexican, Indian, West African. There are jewelry stands, the PUTNEY MOUNTAIN WINERY (apple, cassis, etc.), a masseuse, PURPLE CHEF’S line of marmalades and chutneys, and some amazing sausage at NOT YOUR ORDINARY FARM. There were bluegrass musicians the day we were there and a sandbox for kids. It felt more like a county fair than a farmers market but who cares? All the produce seemed to be organic and it was lovely to behold. The market is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

If you are imagining that the local food you’ll find at farmers markets is limited to what would look at home on a 19th-century table, think again. Heirloom tomatoes may hark back 100 years, but what would Emily Dickinson make of fresh basil, Japanese eggplants, orange beets, arugula or mesclun mix? Cheddar may be the traditional cheese, but Taylor Farms in Brattleboro sells varieties of Gouda, and Hillman Farms in Northampton sells an aged washed-rind goat cheese as well as fresh.

The best thing to do with all this produce is as little as possible. Here are some recipes that I make fairly often. Some of the ingredients aren’t local. That’s OK. Think “Buy Locally, Cook Globally.”

Originally published Daily Hampshire Gazette,  July 27, 2007

Recipes

Cooked Beets

Carrot, Radish, and Orange Salad

California Caprese Salad

My mother once told me I’d know when I was old because I would start reading obituaries. Honestly, I just happen on these articles altho I do read obits now. Scary when more and more of the names are (were?) younger than I am.

Anyway, I saw an article about Vincenzo Marchesi’s, the owner of Amherst’s Donatello Baker, death from liver cancer last Thursday. I bought an inordinate amount of marzipan cookies and almond horns from him. He’d always call me Signore, making me feel like the transaction was happening in a small town in Italy rather than a small town in Western Massachusetts. I bought frozen gnocci and tortellini for my freezer. For small dinner parties, I’d go in, buy five or six slices of different cakes, which we later split and fought over.

Sorry to see him go. He was a good baker and a nice man and his bakery was a good addition to the local market scene.

When I first started cooking Chinese food in the mid-1960s, getting any ingredient more exotic than soy sauce involved a trip to New York’s Chinatown. A decade later in Cambridge, my housemate and I had to trek to Belmont for an Indian grocery. When I moved to the Pioneer Valley in the late ’70s, there was a deli in Northampton that carried some Chinese staples, but for the most part, I had to stock up on my trips back to Cambridge or New York.

In the 21st century, things are different. The supermarkets all have international foods aisles so the by-now-familiar Chinese sauces are laid out for you along with some Thai, Mexican, Hispanic, Polish, British, Jamaican and Jewish favorites. But the selections are limited to the brands with larger distribution. If you want a better selection or something more than hoisen or oyster sauce, you’ll have to visit the ethnic food markets that dot the area.

There are a number of Asian markets along Route 9 in Hadley and Amherst. In the last few years, they have evolved to fit the needs of the community. The new model mixes Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Southeast Asian and often Filipino and Hispanic foods. The difference between shopping at one of these markets and in your supermarket’s international aisle is variety. The stores carry staples and specialty foods that haven’t made it to the American mainstream. For example, instead of the one or two familiar soy sauces, there are a dozen brands and half a dozen types of soy. Most of the labels are in languages other than English, which is often translated haphazardly. If you are trying to minimize your intake of processed foods, coloring agents and preservative chemicals, you’ll have to check the labels closely. The amount of choice works in your favor here since you can usually find something that contains only natural ingredients.

The layout of the stores is similar: You enter to an array of phone cards, Indian videos, over-the-counter medicines, scents and packaged snacks. Most of the stores take credit cards. The aisles are roughly divided by country or by food type. Typically, there is a row of dried noodles ‘ rice, wheat, cellophane (pea flour), fat and thin ‘ and spring roll wrappers. The soy sauces, oyster sauces, Sriracha hot sauces and fish sauces fill nearly an entire aisle. There is aisle of bulk spices, dals (lentils) and canned fishes. Half the merchandise seems to be Asian and Indian convenience foods ‘ packaged soups and sauces, boxes of mixes, etc. ‘ catering to the student kitchen as much as the busy family. There are sacks of rice and another aisle filled with cooking and serving pieces.

The Asian stores typically have a fresh foods case with some harder-to-find items such as Thai eggplant, curry leaves and lemongrass, as well as bags of bean sprouts, pea pods and more familiar vegetables. Often there are fresh noodles, soy milk and several types of tofu. There are also refrigerator cases and freezer cases filled with dumplings, a dozen kinds of frozen fish and other straight-from-home delicacies.

Driving from Northampton, the first market you come to in Hadley is TRAN’S WORLD FOOD MARKET at 50 Russell St., on the left just past Bay Road. Relocated from its old spot by the Coolidge Bridge, Tran’s is the largest of the local markets. It has a full range of Asian, Indian and Filipino foods.

Next, on your right, is KIM’S ORIENTAL MARKET at 111 Russell St., which is part of the Korean restaurant next door. It is the smallest of the markets and seems to focus on Japanese and Korean foods.

Like Tran’s, ASIAN INTERNATIONAL IMPORTED FOOD MARKET at 206 Russell St. is large. It seems to have more Indian food and less Filipino, but it has a full selection and I’ve been a regular there for years.

Going past Amherst center toward Belchertown is MOM’S HOUSE at 318 College Road in Amherst. Mom’s is a little smaller, but it has some different brands and the best fresh vegetables, making it well worth the trip. Mom’s also sells excellent homemade Chinese food to go, and the portions are enormous.

You’ll want to walk the aisles no matter what you’re looking for. If you are a cook or you have a list, you know what you want and the question is which brand to choose. Asking questions of the help can be a problem, but that’s due to different culinary expectations rather than a language barrier. Price sometimes indicates quality, but not always. Sometimes the choice comes down to fewer additives. Trust your instincts.

If you’re just getting your feet wet, consult cookbooks or do an Internet search for recipes before you shop. Pick up some bags of frozen dumplings to steam or saute. Try chutneys, especially with some pappadams, but keep in mind that there is a big difference between mango chutney (sweet and mild) and mango pickle (salty, sour, and much hotter).

Recipes

Tandoori Chicken

Cucumber Raita 

Originally published Daily Hampshire Gazette on: Friday, August 25, 2006

My wife always knows when business takes me to downtown Springfield. Afterward, our freezer is crammed with bags of frozen tortellini, the refrigerator stocked with bright green Cerignola olives, homemade sopressatas, salamis and fresh sausages, and the pantry refilled with dried chestnuts and cans and boxes with Italian labels. I visit the Italian markets of the South End as often as I can and I am never disappointed.

Springfield’s South End is the former Italian section of the city, and some businesses still reflect that heritage. When you stumble into a pocket of the Old Country that is alive and well, you walk in parallel universes ‘ times long past and the present ‘ as if you were in some science fiction novel.

Springfield’s South End is down Main Street, south past the Mass Mutual Center. You’ll know you are there when the businesses, law firms and Spanish stores are sprinkled with Italian restaurants and groceries. Parking is easy on the side streets, although most of them are one-way in the opposite direction you want to go. You can park, spend some time shopping at the various markets, grab some pizza at the Red Rose Pizzeria, an espresso and pastry at the original La Fiorentina’s, maybe some Italian ices at Albano’s Market, and, if you’ve thought to bring a cooler for your booty, have a meal in one of the restaurants before heading home. They are all within walking distance of each other and you’ll appreciate a couple of blocks’ walk to work off all that noshing.

FRIGO’S GOURMET FOODS at 90 William St. is the mother lode of Italian delis. It keeps the traditional foods available while adding modern touches. There is another Frigo’s on Main Street, but it is newer and I’ve never been in it. Frigo’s does a great lunch trade and as soon as you walk in, your eyes will likely be drawn to the large deli counter to your right. All manner of sandwiches are available, from combinations of capicola, prosciutto, salami and Asiago cheese to meatball, sausage and various Parmesans. Some are Boar’s Head and others imported brands. The deli case is packed with salads, cooked broccoli rabe, seafood salad, breaded chicken and eggplant cutlets, chicken cordon bleu, shiitake mushroom ’sandwiches,’ caprese salads and more. You can pick up a container of what looks good, eat some for lunch and take the rest home. Frigo’s tends to have a more liberal touch with olive oil than is currently popular, but olive oil is practically a health food, right?

There is a large selection of olives. I recommend the Cerignolas, a shockingly bright green olive that is fresh tasting and not at all salty or tart. You can get hot cherry peppers stuffed with cheese and prosciutto. There is a small meat counter with beautiful veal cutlets just crying out for a special dinner. Homemade sausages look homemade and taste wonderful. A small cheese cooler stocks Italian cheeses, as you would expect, but these are a cut above the cheeses with the same names at your local supermarket. Shelves are filled with Italian pastas, preserves and packaged pastries and there are always little surprises on one counter or another. There is a pile of fresh peasant-style bread near the checkout.

I was first taken to Frigo’s by a woman whose aunt and uncle used to run one of the local restaurants. While we were waiting for our sandwiches, she filled a basket with treasures, and added half a dozen salads and prepared foods from the deli counter. I passed along the favor by taking another friend there for lunch. A former restaurant manager now managing Web designers, she tells me she now eats at Frigo’s once a week or more.

Frigo’s does catering and I see its foods at various events. It also has specialty foods during the Christmas and Easter seasons. Frigo’s will be closed for vacation July 31 through mid-August, so take that into account when you plan your visit.

MOM AND RICO’S at 899 Main St. is an Old World grocery ‘ but an Old World grocery that takes debit cards.

The store is festooned with bocce and Italian soccer paraphernalia. There’s a small deli counter and, during lunch, a buffet. However, Mom and Rico’s boasts a larger grocery than Frigo’s, and is stocked with items that are not to be missed. Cans, jars and packages of European foodstuffs, of course, and bulk coffee and spices. But the freezer cases are filled with packages of homemade tortellini (nutmeggy cheese, meat, spinach and gorgonzola, to name a few). Buy more than you think you’ll want; you’ll appreciate your forethought in a couple of weeks when you find a bag in your freezer.

Mom and Rico’s freezer case boasted tripe and rabbit the last time I was there and the refrigerator cases held containers of homemade marinara sauce. The buffet, priced at $4.99 per pound, can be eaten there (a restaurant is attached) or taken away for later. The broccoli rabe is sweet and tender, oily and garlicky, no small feat since the green tends to be bitter in the hands of lesser cooks.

ALBANO’S MARKET at 1167 East Columbus Ave. is a small grocery with a secret. My office manager, Amy, grew up in the area, and went to Our Lady of Mount Carmel school just down the block from Frigo’s. Many of the places she remembered are now closed and her mom shops for sausages at a place in East Longmeadow.

But Amy told me that during recess, she and her friends would head to Albano’s Market for Italian ices. ‘The best ever’ were her exact words. I had to see for myself.

When I stopped in at Albano’s, two women of a certain age were reminiscing with the woman behind the ices cooler and a man holding a tray of freshly made Italian ice. I tried the lemon, which was slushy and clearly homemade. Amy was right. The lemon ices were intensely lemony without being bitter or sharp, sweet without being cloying, and the texture was perfect. I bought Amy a pint by way of thanks. Try the ices. You’ll thank Amy, too.

Memorial Day weekend means that grilling season is upon us. Now, you can grill your hamburgers and hot dogs, chicken, tuna and portabella mushrooms. You can slow cook ribs and Boston butt. But sometimes, nothing is better than a juicy steak sizzling on the grill.

I grew up in an era when beef was king. My mother served steak and roast beef often enough that meatballs and spaghetti were a welcome change. These days, between dietary prejudices and health concerns, eating a steak seems as risky as chancing blowfish toxin in a plate of fugu. However, try this test. At your next grill-out, serve grilled steak, grilled chicken and grilled vegetables. The steak will disappear first, guaranteed.

There are dozens of cuts of beef and even more names for each of these cuts. Briefly put, sirloin and London broil are flavorful, but they can be tough. They are also less expensive. Chuck steaks are better for braising. Skirt steaks are fantastic, especially when you slice them crossways for fajita-style dishes, but not as steaks. Filet mignon is tender, but in my opinion, doesn’t have that much flavor. When you really want to do it up, look to the T-bone, Porterhouse, New York strip and my favorite, the rib eye. These are all flavorful and marbled with fat that will baste the meat as it cooks.

In the supermarket, a rib eye or strip steak will cost upwards of $10 per pound. They are often a half-inch thick, which is too thin for a good steak. The butchers can sometimes cut thicker steaks, but often the meat comes in already cut to order. For that special cut, it’s worth a special trip.

My first choice would be HATFIELD BEEF, 42 North Hatfield Road, Hatfield (247-5441). My stepson Gideon and I make the pilgrimage several times a year, often with his son Oscar in tow. When you walk into Hatfield Beef, you know you are in good hands. The building is old and well-used, but clean and clean smelling. The long cases are heavy with condensation and filled with thick slabs of beef, some sausages and chicken. The walls are covered in old posters illustrating the cuts of beef and pork. The prices are fantastic: The last time I was there, I got inch-thick rib eyes, bone in, for $6.50 per pound. You can also buy in bulk. Hatfield offers various combinations of excellent steaks, roasts and chopped meat, from 80 to 150 pounds, at a price that works out to under $3 a pound. If you are planning to stock up, or share the purchase with some friends, you can’t go wrong. The counter staff are all friendly and they’ll cheerfully cut what you want.

ARNOLD’S MEATS, 307 Grattan Street, Chicopee (593-5505) and 359 Shaker Road, East Longmeadow (525-5115), is a wholesale meat market that is open to the public. Arnold’s provides meat for many area restaurants and the quality is quite high. The stores usually have veal bones and chicken backs for those stock-making sessions, and they carry a variety of frozen foods, seasonings and other items. The prices are a little higher than Hatfield Beef’s. The staff is also friendly and helpful, leading me to believe that working with meat somehow makes one cheerful. I got some excellent porterhouse steaks, cut to order, for $8.29 per pound and 10 pounds of chicken backs for 49 cents per pound.

There are a number of local sources for organic and “farm-raised” meat. Organic meat follows strict standards. If the meat is raised using organic methods, but isn’t officially certified, farmers usually call it farm-raised. Farm-raised meat tends to be more strongly flavored than commercial. It is often not that much more expensive than supermarket beef and there is a world of difference in the taste.

Many of these farms also carry pork, lamb or veal. If you avoid commercial veal because of the way it is raised (calves which get no exercise, and little iron in their diet), you’ll find that farm-raised veal is guilt-free. It is also delicious. Conveniently, these farmers are often at local farmers markets, making it easy to get their products.

CHASE HILL FARM, 74 Chase Hill Road, Warwick (978-544-6327; chasehillfarm@yahoo.com), is primarily a dairy business selling cheese and raw milk. The cows are 100 percent grass-fed. The farm also sells veal, and pork from whey-fed pigs. I can vouch for the ground beef ($5 per pound) and the T-bones ($10 per pound). Chase Hill Farm is at the Amherst Farmers Market on Saturdays.

CRABAPPLE FARM, 100 Bryant St., Chesterfield (296-0310, crabapplefarm@verizon.net), sells certified organic vegetables. Its livestock is raised using organic standards, but farmer Tevis Robertson-Goldberg is careful to avoid calling the meat organic. The farm sells some beef and lamb and its production is increasing. Crabapple has a farm stand and is at the Greenfield Farmers Market on Saturdays. The prices are reasonable, with ground beef at $4.75 per pound and rib eyes at $11.75 per pound.

RIVER ROCK FARM, 81 Five Bridge Road, Brimfield (245-0249; www.riverrockfarm.com), sells farm-raised beef to restaurants and markets in Boston, as well as Serio’s in Northampton and Blue Moon Grocery in Easthampton. River Rock is also at the Northampton Farmers Market on Saturdays. The meat is aged for up to 28 days. Ground beef is $6.45 per pound and rib eyes are $17 per pound. River Rock will deliver if you order $20 or more.

Once you get your meat, you’ll want to treat it with respect. First, let it come up to room temperature before you cook it. This means up to an hour out of the fridge. As far as seasonings go, do as little as you can to let the flavor of the meat and the taste of the fire shine through. Leave the marinades and barbecue sauce for less expensive and longer-cooked cuts that need the flavor boost.

The simplest seasoning is a sprinkle of kosher salt, sea salt or another crystal salt just before you serve. I usually rub some mashed garlic and cracked black pepper into the meat about 15 minutes before I cook it and sprinkle it with red Hawaiian rock salt just before I serve. My friend Paul turned me on to Montreal seasoning, a commercial mixture that includes garlic and some dill seed. You can go Southwestern with a cumin, coriander and ancho chili rub, but you risk obscuring the taste of the beef. You could top the meat with an herb butter or a slice of Roquefort or Stilton, if you are willing to risk a lecture on cholesterol from some well-meaning guest. My guilty pleasure is Worcestershire and A1 sauces. A drizzle of good balsamic vinegar or soy sauce is sometimes nice, but that’s about as far as you should take it. Save your creativity for the side dishes.

The most consistent arguments we have in our house concern the cooking of meat. My wife is a Southern girl and she likes her meat well-done. I think that medium-rare keeps the meat cooked and juicy. We both agree on a crispy rim of fat and well-caramelized crust. I try to achieve it without drying out the meat.

An Internet search for “steak cooking times” will yield about 1.5 million hits. Essentially, a rare steak has a cool, red center and is 80 degrees Fahrenheit. It is kind of mushy to the touch. A medium-rare steak has a pink, warm center and is 126 F. Medium has a hot-pink center and is 135 F. Well-done is 160 and is firm to the touch. Pittsburgh-style, by the way, is rare on the inside and charred on the outside. Avoid it.

There are four ways to test for doneness. You can cut into the steak and look, but this lets juices leak out and makes it hard to keep the steak medium-rare. You can judge doneness by feel. This is reliable, but it requires a lot of practice, something you are unlikely to get without cooking at a steak house. Inserting a quick-read thermometer at an angle into the center of the steak, if done judiciously, is also reliable. You can time the steak, but this is risky, unless you know your grill.

I recommend a hybrid approach. On my gas grill, with the grates hot and the burners turned high, a 1-inch thick steak will require about 8 minutes for medium-rare and 15 for well-done. The outside will be crispy without being charred. If you can hold your palm 2 inches over the grate and count to “two Mississippi” you’ve got a hot grill; “three Mississippi” and it is medium-hot.

Grill marks are key. Chefs use a technique called “walking the meat across the grill” to get good marks and to help time their steaks. Put the steak at a 45-degree angle to the grates, pointing to the left. After 2 minutes, using tongs, move the steak to face 45 degrees to the right. After 2 minutes more, flip the steak and align it at 45 degrees to the left. After 2 more minutes, flip to the right at 45 degrees. You will have beautiful cross-hatches and a medium-rare steak. It should feel kind of springy. Move it to a slightly cooler part of the grill to let it sit if you want it cooked more.

Remember that the meat will continue to cook as it sits on a plate. Let it sit for 5 minutes before you cut it. You will lose less juice that way.

If you like, top the meat with grilled onions or grilled mushrooms. Accompany it with grilled corn, grilled potato slices, a grilled eggplant caponata or simply some sliced tomatoes and red onions. Serve with a good red wine, a good local beer or iced tea.

Recipes

Grilled Onions

Roast Eggplant Caponata

Originally published Daily Hampshire Gazette, Friday, May 25, 2007

New Year’s Eve 1977. I am on a date with a woman I barely know. At her suggestion, we are eating at the Casa Portugal, a venerable Portuguese restaurant in Cambridge’s Inman Square. I remember fish on rice, a melange of clams and pork cubes, and Portuguese fries, small fried rounds, soft rather than crunchy. It is honest food, strong flavors of garlic, wine, tomatoes, cumin, paprika and other seasonings that enhance rather than mask the fish, shellfish and meat with which they are cooked. After dinner, some tables are cleared and a man begins to sing. I understand not a word but the songs convey love, longing, loss and a noble sadness. Fados, songs of fate. I never see my New Year’s date again, but a lifelong relationship has been born. 

Portugal shares much of the common European heritage — waves of invasions, exploration and conquests in the Americas and Africa, and absorption into the European Economic Community. It has its own unique character as well and the food is at once familiar and different from the other southern European cuisines.

Ludlow, for some reason, has a sizable Portuguese community, and I am walking down East Street ready to explore. I pass a sign that advertises “Falamos Portugues” as well as “Hablamos Espanol,” stare at the names like Silva and Mello that grace the doors of otherwise mundane businesses, and something inside begins to tingle. 

My first stop is the ALIANCA MARKET at 223 East St. The Alianca has a small but good fish market, imported groceries such as olive oil, tuna and sardines, and a line of Gonsalves spices, beans and other specialties. Boxes of bacalhau (salt cod), both boneless and bone-in, sit on their own shelves. I buy fresh squid, striped bass and tilefish as well as a slab of bacalhau.

The woman behind the counter shrugs when I ask her about the tilefish, and points me to the woman at the register. She and I have a long conversation about the merits of striped bass (”tastes good but too much mercury”) and the tilefish, which I have never seen before. The tilefish has a beautiful grey and yellow mottled skin like some species of aquatic snake. The taste is milder than striped bass, more like halibut. I buy some imported tuna and sardines, and look fruitlessly for Portuguese All Spice, a blend of paprika, allspice, cinnamon and more. A bottle marked Jamaica raises my hopes but is merely cominos, cumin. They pack my fish on top of ice for me. I stow it in my car and continue down the street.

The LUDLOW CENTRAL BAKERY at 270 East St. is a block or two down from the grocery. The usual baked goods mingle with little tarts of coconut, rice and fejoda, which the young woman behind the counter explains “means beans but there are no beans in it.” There are fried donuts and packaged baked rings. I fill a box and continue.

A few doors down, at 276 East St., I hit a gold mine, the J. R. BUTCHER SHOPPE. Behind the counter hang lengths of homemade chourico. I have been on a quest for this for quite some time. The supermarket brands like Gaspar’s are good, but I want to taste homemade. Bread & Circus had homemade chourico, but like many of its sausages, they tasted good but utterly unlike chourico. This is the real thing. Chourico (pronounced “cherice”) is chunks of pork and fat, spiced with paprika and other good things and hit with a shot of vinegar which contributes to the unique taste. You can also find linguica, a similar but thinner sausage. Over the years, I have heard many explanations of the difference (linguica is ground, not in chunks, chourico is spicier) but nothing definitive. The taste is similar, but I prefer the chourico.

The butcher advises me to grill the links until they sizzle. He is clearly proud of them and, when I taste them once I get back home, he has a right to be. His chourico has a vinegar tang as well as a strong paprika taste and it cooks up without the pink of the nitrates that usually go into the commercial versions. It tastes as good as it looks.

On a subsequent visit, I look past the chourico and blood sausage links to whole smoked hams, the outsides red with spices. “Presunto,” explains the woman behind the counter. They are about 12 pounds each so I exercise restraint and buy only a half. She slices some for me so I can taste it. It is like prosciutto, a little saltier, and the overlay of spices rubbed all over it adds a piquancy that is quite appealing. They advise me that I can eat it sliced thin without cooking, and use cubes in cooking as well. J R Butcher has a freezer case, a box of bacalhau, and a set of shelves with canned and packaged groceries.

Clutching my goodies, I ignore the many good Portuguese restaurants, the Matador, Primavera and the like, and head home for a weekend of cooking: mussels cataplana, salt cod casserole, and a green bean recipe that looks good. I have other plans for the striped bass and tilefish: cataplana, a seafood stew.

The cataplana is both a cooking utensil and the dish itself. The dish, a tomato- and chourico-laced broth, is traditionally cooked with the small clams of Portugal. The utensil is like a wide hinged wok. Halfway through the cooking you invert the dish so the fragrant juices can trickle down and flavor the clams. On the Cape, I make a cataplana with the smallest littlenecks I can find, but here in western Mass, I use mussels or a combination of mussels and clams. Lacking a cataplana, I use a technique from Jean Anderson’s “Foods of Portugal,” and layer the sauce and the shellfish.

Howard Mitcham, whose “Provincetown Seafood Cookbook” is still a classic of Portuguese American cooking, uses linguica, chourico and bacon in his cataplana. “Foods of Portugal” uses chourico, prosciutto and baked ham. I have made cataplanas with various mixtures of sausages. I like them all, but I like the taste that the bacon imparts the best.

For those who like southern European cooking, but want to branch out from the Italian and Spanish staples, try Portuguese. Jean Anderson’s “Foods of Portugal” and “Portuguese Homestyle Cooking” by Ana Patuleia Ortins are two good cookbooks. Mitcham’s “Provincetown Seafood Cookbook” is currently out of print and hard to find ever since Anthony Bourdain touted it in “Kitchen Confidential,” but if you can find a copy, grab it. It cooks as good as it reads.

Ludlow is only a short hop away from Northampton and Amherst. Even if you don’t make the trip, the local supermarkets have what you need.

Originally published, Daily Hampshire Gazette, January 26, 2007.

Recipes

Clams and Mussels Cataplana