Salt Fat Acid Heat

Good food is to be enjoyed with passion, with friends, with good wine, with skill, with good ingredients and most of all because it is such an important and essential part of our life and our lives together. One wonderful and positive outcome of the Coronavirus Pandemic is the fact that it has brought out the cook and baker in so many of us. In our community, it can be a bit of a challenge to find a sack of flour or a package of yeast, and the baking section in many grocery stores are hardly managing to stay stocked. This might just be a good time to sit down with your family and watch the Netflix series, Salt Fat Acid Heat, based on the cookbook of the same title by author chef Samin Nosrat. 

Nosrat has traveled the world as a curious adventurer for good food and breaks it all down to four essentials that bring out the best flavors in the many foods we love to eat: salt, fat, acid, and heat. This is something she learned from her teacher chefs at Chez Panisse in San Francisco and realized she could pass on to readers and viewers. The cinematography makes the four-part series so lovely to watch, as much about food as it is about travel. You just want to be there. Samin Nosrat takes us around the world, introduces us to some amazing chefs, markets, and farms, and lets us watch the mouth-watering final food experience as she sits with friends, new and old, to savor.

The experience of watching the series is through Nosrat’s inspiration and in the way in which she builds our confidence, unlike many of the male chefs whose egos seem to get in the way of the food experience. It’s just so simple. “Season food with the proper amount of salt at the proper moment; choose the optimal medium of fat to convey the flavor of your ingredients; balance and animate those ingredients with acid; apply the right type and quantity of heat for the proper amount of time—do all this and you will turn out vibrant and beautiful food, with or without a recipe.”  At the end, you say to yourself, “Hey, I can do that!”

The entire viewing experience is comforting and cozy. Save it for a couple of rainy nights and get ready to do some serious cooking the next day. If you are self-isolating with family, cook together. If you are alone, teach yourself some new skills and prepare for a big party when some of the restrictions are lifted or have a Zoom cooking dinner party. (Netflix)