BUILDING FLAVOR, BODY AND TEXTURE: PART 9
Red pepper is the most difficult of the peppers to use. It is quite hot and easily overdone. Two kinds are used as seasonings: cayenne and one called simply red pepper. Both are hot, but the flavor of cayenne has a great deal more to it than hotness. Used with restraint in soups and sauces, cayenne is one of the better seasoning peppers.
Fresh lemon juice. Lemon juice is seldom called a seasoning, and yet its use as a seasoning is not unusual. Many recipes call for small amounts of lemon juice, primarily with fish dishes. When it is used with restraint to spark the flavor of the dish itself and the lemon flavor cannot be perceived, lemon juice is a seasoning. Seasoning with fresh lemon can enhance many chicken and veal dishes and cream soups such as asparagus, mushroom, cauliflower, and broccoli.
MSG. A crystalline substance made in the laboratory, MSG is also a natural ingredient in seaweed, soybeans, sugar beets, and mushrooms. Known and used for centuries in the Far East, it is an essential feature of contemporary oriental cuisines. It is also a popular additive in today's packaged foods.
MSG looks something like salt. But unlike salt and the other seasonings, it does not really bring out flavor in a dish. Instead, in some mysterious way it heightens the diner's perception of flavor, possibly by sensitizing the taste buds. Wide-awake taste buds can fool the taster about the food, which has not changed at all. Ordinary celery soup can taste like super celery.
As a seasoning MSG should be used with caution or not at all. It is easy to overuse it. Even a slight overuse can give a food an unusual flat taste, and the taste of MSG itself is far from pleasing. Used in great quantities it has been known to cause headache, chest pain, and numbness among susceptible diners, plus great embarrassment for offending restaurants.
If food is properly cooked using high-quality products, MSG should not be necessary. It should never be used as a salt substitute, a cover-up, or a crutch.
How to season. Seasonings must be added in suitable proportions in order to bring out the flavor of a food without adding their own. There are no rules for defining "suitable proportions" because every product is slightly different every time you make it. The process is one of trial and error, or, more accurately, trial and taste. Add, taste, adjust, taste, adjust, and taste, until your product has reached its best possible flavor.
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