What are ingredients?

We begin this chapter with a simple question - What are ingredients? One answer to this question is quite simple. The Oxford English dictionary defines ingredient as "Any of the foods or substances that are combined to make a particular dish." What could be simpler. An ingredient is any part of the whole.

There are two problems with this perspective. It is both too broad and too narrow a definition. To see that it is too broad a definition, we only need to look at the ingredients list from a recipe for tahini found in "[Secret] Sauces - Fresh and Modern Recipes. The list is:

  • ½ cup tahini
  • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • sea salt
Thus, one ingredient in tahini is tahini. I don't really have any better of an understanding of what tahini is now than I did before I read the recipe. On the other hand, if you've ever tried to brown meat and used a pan that wasn't hot enough, you know that how you apply heat to food can dramatically change the flavor of a dish. Thus, while heat is not a food or substance that makes up part of a dish, it is an essential element of the flavor of a dish.

So, we're right back where we started - What is an ingredient? A lot of recipes call for ketchup as an ingredient. However, ketchup itself is a combination of lots of other ingredients. Recipes for ketchup generally call for tomato paste, salt, sugar, garlic, onion, etc. Still, it seems reasonable to use ketchup as an ingredient. Another common ingredient is tomato paste. If you look at the list of ingredients in tomato paste, you will see something along the lines of tomatoes. Some pastes will call for salt or other preservatives, but tomato paste is essentially just tomatoes. To make it you purée tomatoes and reduce them. Still, tomato paste is substantially different than tomatoes and provides a substantially different texture and flavor.

So, where does that leave us? We still do not have a definitive answer, but for the sake of this website we will consider an ingredient to be any pre-made, pre-purchased, or naturally occuring substance whose flavor or consistency gets substantially altered while making a dish. This definition is still loose. Afterall, what constitutes a substantial alteration. Furthermore, we need the caveat that both flavor and texture can be altered by processing. In essence, ingredients are the things you grow, make, or buy that you process and/or combine to make food.

A note on natural ingredients

A lot of books by well-respected chefs talk about the importance of using locally sourced, natural ingredients that are in season. I do not disagree. At the same time, there is a lot of mis-information out about natural ingredients. Among the benefits that people frequently list of using natural ingredients in your food are that your food will

  • be more pure
  • have less chemicals
  • be healthier
  • be less processed
  • be more environmentally friendly
  • help local farmers
  • have more nutrients
  • be low in sugar
  • be high in fiber
  • control blood sugar
the list goes on.

While some of these are certainly true, helping local farmers for instance, a lot of them are completely false. In fact, if natural foods had the same requirements as processed foods, the ingredient list you would see for an apple would look something like:

water, vegetable oils, sugars, starch, carotene, tocopherol(E306), riboflavin(E101), nicotinamide, pantothenic acid, biotin, folic acid, ascorbic acid(E300), palmitic acid, stearic acid(E570), oleic acid, linolic acid, malic acid(E296), oxalic acid, salicylic acid, purines, sodium, potassium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorous, chloride, colors, antioxidants.
One of the big differences between natural and man-made ingredients is that man-made ingredients tend to be simpler. We don't add as many chemicals or impurities as show up in natural foods because this is difficult to do.

We also don't add as many chemicals and impurities because they can lead to negative health connotations. Just think about natural hemlock. If you used that ingredient in your cooking, it could cause death. But, some say, that's not a food ingredient. Natural food ingredients are healthier than man-made ones. Well, another example is cassava. Natural cassava contains cyanide. Because of this, at least in Zambia, it is processed by letting it sit in fast moving streams to leach out the cyanide before being used to make shima, a staple of the Zambian diet. In other locations, it is processed to form tipioca flour.

Still, in general natural ingredients are superior to man-made ones when it comes to health. That is not because they are more pure, but in spite of the fact that they are less pure. It really comes down to the fact that are preferences in taste are determined evolutionarily. Thus, we crave sweet flavors because naturally sweet foods are healthy. We limit the amount of bitter flavor because many poisons have a bitter flavor. Man-made foods are usually made with flavor and convenience set above health. Thus, the fact that we now have the ability to mimic those flavors that trigger our bodies to say this is a healthy food in unhealthy foods means that flavor doesn't tell us anything about how healthy a man-made food is. Whereas, in general natural foods that are healthy also taste good to us.

So, let's talk about flavor in Chapter 3: The Language of Flavor.

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What are ingredients?

We begin this chapter with a simple question - What are ingredients? One answer to this question is quite simple. The Oxford English dictionary defines ingredient as "Any of the foods or substances that are combined to make a particular dish." What could be simpler. An ingredient is any part of the whole.

There are two problems with this perspective. It is both too broad and too narrow a definition. To see that it is too broad a definition, we only need to look at the ingredients list from a recipe for tahini found in "[Secret] Sauces - Fresh and Modern Recipes. The list is:

  • ½ cup tahini
  • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • sea salt
Thus, one ingredient in tahini is tahini. I don't really have any better of an understanding of what tahini is now than I did before I read the recipe. On the other hand, if you've ever tried to brown meat and used a pan that wasn't hot enough, you know that how you apply heat to food can dramatically change the flavor of a dish. Thus, while heat is not a food or substance that makes up part of a dish, it is an essential element of the flavor of a dish.

So, we're right back where we started - What is an ingredient? A lot of recipes call for ketchup as an ingredient. However, ketchup itself is a combination of lots of other ingredients. Recipes for ketchup generally call for tomato paste, salt, sugar, garlic, onion, etc. Still, it seems reasonable to use ketchup as an ingredient. Another common ingredient is tomato paste. If you look at the list of ingredients in tomato paste, you will see something along the lines of tomatoes. Some pastes will call for salt or other preservatives, but tomato paste is essentially just tomatoes. To make it you purée tomatoes and reduce them. Still, tomato paste is substantially different than tomatoes and provides a substantially different texture and flavor.

So, where does that leave us? We still do not have a definitive answer, but for the sake of this website we will consider an ingredient to be any pre-made, pre-purchased, or naturally occuring substance whose flavor or consistency gets substantially altered while making a dish. This definition is still loose. Afterall, what constitutes a substantial alteration. Furthermore, we need the caveat that both flavor and texture can be altered by processing. In essence, ingredients are the things you grow, make, or buy that you process and/or combine to make food.

A note on natural ingredients

A lot of books by well-respected chefs talk about the importance of using locally sourced, natural ingredients that are in season. I do not disagree. At the same time, there is a lot of mis-information out about natural ingredients. Among the benefits that people frequently list of using natural ingredients in your food are that your food will

  • be more pure
  • have less chemicals
  • be healthier
  • be less processed
  • be more environmentally friendly
  • help local farmers
  • have more nutrients
  • be low in sugar
  • be high in fiber
  • control blood sugar
the list goes on.

While some of these are certainly true, helping local farmers for instance, a lot of them are completely false. In fact, if natural foods had the same requirements as processed foods, the ingredient list you would see for an apple would look something like:

water, vegetable oils, sugars, starch, carotene, tocopherol(E306), riboflavin(E101), nicotinamide, pantothenic acid, biotin, folic acid, ascorbic acid(E300), palmitic acid, stearic acid(E570), oleic acid, linolic acid, malic acid(E296), oxalic acid, salicylic acid, purines, sodium, potassium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorous, chloride, colors, antioxidants.
One of the big differences between natural and man-made ingredients is that man-made ingredients tend to be simpler. We don't add as many chemicals or impurities as show up in natural foods because this is difficult to do.

We also don't add as many chemicals and impurities because they can lead to negative health connotations. Just think about natural hemlock. If you used that ingredient in your cooking, it could cause death. But, some say, that's not a food ingredient. Natural food ingredients are healthier than man-made ones. Well, another example is cassava. Natural cassava contains cyanide. Because of this, at least in Zambia, it is processed by letting it sit in fast moving streams to leach out the cyanide before being used to make shima, a staple of the Zambian diet. In other locations, it is processed to form tipioca flour.

Still, in general natural ingredients are superior to man-made ones when it comes to health. That is not because they are more pure, but in spite of the fact that they are less pure. It really comes down to the fact that are preferences in taste are determined evolutionarily. Thus, we crave sweet flavors because naturally sweet foods are healthy. We limit the amount of bitter flavor because many poisons have a bitter flavor. Man-made foods are usually made with flavor and convenience set above health. Thus, the fact that we now have the ability to mimic those flavors that trigger our bodies to say this is a healthy food in unhealthy foods means that flavor doesn't tell us anything about how healthy a man-made food is. Whereas, in general natural foods that are healthy also taste good to us.

So, let's talk about flavor in Chapter 3: The Language of Flavor.