A Single Man's Kitchen, Aug 11, 2006
By Jeremy Goodwin

Culinary imposters

For decades, I have been an avid sushi eater. I love not only the tastes and textures of raw seafood, but also the precision and art of the assembly of ingredients by a master.

Over the years, my tastes have changed, and I have learned to love the little sparkling lights of flying fish roe, the sweetness of toasted eel with sesame seeds and the crisp and highly nutritious salmon skin.

I quickly learned to use the lower-sodium soy sauce-it has the same flavor, with less salt-and mix a little sake into it along with wasabi to heighten the flavors of the sushi. I also learned to ask for the yakitori menu, because many places that serve sushi prefer not to advertise that they actually cook food, too. On the kitchen menu there are often superb examples of Japanese cuisine: gyoza, or fried dumplings, slivers of tender calve's tongue, quail's eggs boiled and then grilled, chicken skins, the tiny grilled whole anchovies and, probably my favorite, flash-fried tiny crabs, called sawakani.

It was with some surprise that just recently I found out that I had never had genuine wasabi in conjunction with all these fabulous examples of Japanese cuisine, and that the substitute bears little resemblance in taste to the genuine article.

The fake wasabi does contain two of the ingredients normally found in my kitchen, hot mustard and fresh horseradish root, both testaments to the falsity of the myth about the lack of spices in English cooking-combined with cornstarch and food coloring. When I learned this important fact, which had managed to elude me for so many years, I immediately went on a search for fresh wasabi.

My first big surprise was that the Japanese have no problem selling horseradish paste labeled as wasabi to the rest of the world, because in their language, horseradish is called "seiyo" (western) wasabi due to their similar pungency. The truth of the matter is that they cannot produce enough wasabi for themselves, even the soil-grown oka wasabi, considered far inferior in quality but much easier to farm than the semi-aquatic sawa wasabi. The soil-grown plant is much more abundant and much cheaper, although things may be about to change. 

In Canada and along the northwestern seaboard of the United States, there exists a series of projects growing Wasabia japonica, mainly of the variety "Daruma."

To the disappointment of enthusiastic cooks like myself, the justification for the heavy research and development costs has little to do with the unique burst of flavor and residual sweetness gained from the freshly grated root, or the piquant addition of fresh wasabi leaves to a green salad, but everything to do with making pills.

It has long been known by the Japanese, and recently "discovered" by Western medicine, that wasabi, being a member of the cruciferous family, contains the same cancer-fighting isothiocynates as its cabbage relatives and that eating several portions a week radically reduces the incidence of all kinds of cancer. 

In true North American tradition, they would rather have you swallow a little pill five times a week than spend time enjoying what you eat and getting the fiber along with the isothiocynates, because that might reduce the sales of the dietary fiber drinks and pills. There is a lot more profit in a plastic bottle than in a variety of cabbage, even when fresh. Stream-grown wasabi currently is marketed at around US$100 per pound.

No matter how much of a secret researchers tried to keep it, the interest of greenhouse farmers was piqued when they learned that wasabi had successfully been cultivated in a variation of the hydroponic method known as nutrient flow technique (NFT). Most of the farmers are reconciled to the fact that they can go broke very slowly producing fabulous tomatoes and fresh lettuce. The Japanese market still has a high demand for top-quality wasabi rhizomes, and the American market has room to grow without impinging on the pill pushers' market. 

The next time you find yourself about to go out for sushi, call ahead and see if they have a sharkskin grater and some fresh rhizomes and are willing to put the greens in your miso.

After the lecture on wasabi, many of you must be thinking: "What can this have to do with my life in San Miguel and a recipe we can duplicate here? The segue is that the fake wasabi bears little resemblance to the real thing, but there is a root vegetable in San Miguel that we really miss, and that is the Idaho potato. The thought came to me when reading an anecdote by a French culinary master about his learning to make pommes de terres soufflées and how the waxy potatoes generally available here are completely unsuitable for successful frying. This is one of the very few instances where I would suggest that you are better off buying frozen fries in Costco or Sam's than trying to do it with local produce. 

That was before I had an experience similar to that of the legendary chef Collinet and Louis Phillippe, the king of France-at least as the story goes. I had some taro root simmering away on the stove but took them off the heat because my guests were late. When the tardy dinner companions finally arrived, I threw the taro root in some hot peanut oil for a few minutes. The immediate comment on these delicately flavored and delightfully light slices of tarot was, "What kind of potato is this?"

Thus, an accident led to one of my great discoveries in the kitchen.

Fried taro slices

When selecting taro, the small ones are better candidates for producing light and airy slices. The larger ones tend to be a little on the woody side.

The recipe is per person, so increase the proportions as necessary. Do not overcrowd the pan because the temperature of the oil will drop and the results will suffer.

3 small taros, peeled and sliced

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon white pepper, finely ground

1 cup peanut oil

Peel and slice the taro, then immediately place the pieces in a saucepan and cover with water to prevent discoloration. Add the salt and bring to a boil. Simmer until they are easily pierced with a fork and then drain and allow them to cool to room temperature.

Heat the oil until it is almost smoking; you will notice it becoming fragrant when it is at the correct temperature. Add the taro slices and fry them (about 5 to 7 minutes) until the bottom side is golden brown and then flip them for another two or three minutes.

Remove them from the oil and drain on a paper towel or place them on a wire rack in a 250°F oven to hold for up to 10 minutes.

Jeremy Goodwin is an author, freelance food writer and owner of The Best Kept Secret. He may be contacted at Jeremy@dcnet2000.com