HUNGRY GERALD

There are some supermarket staples that are splendid, unchanging and need no improvements. They define what they are, beat back all challengers and laugh at innovation. They are so basic that we have the tendency to know just the substance and not the manufacturer. Some examples: Ketchup (Heinz); Mayonnaise (Hellmans); Tabasco (McIlhenny); English Muffins (Thomas); Worcestershire Sauce (Lea & Perrins). Sadly, much of what clutters supermarket aisles consists of “snacks”, sugary junk, sodas and “energy drinks” and should be flagged like cigarettes, with skull and cross bones warning: “Harmful To Your Health.” That said, there are a few items of negligible nutritional value that HG cannot resist: Keebler’s Club Crackers, Pepperidge Farm Thin Sliced White Bread, Uncle Ben’s Long Grain Rice. And, from the frozen foods case: Haagen Dasz (their salted caramel gelato and dulce de leche ice cream are really special). Bubbie’s very superior pickles were only found at Whole Foods but are now sneaking into some lower priced grocery stores. Sriracha from Huy Fong Foods is now omnipresent. Much applause from HG. No food remains bland while that hot chili sauce is at hand.

Over the past years HG has lauded a few hot sauces — Sriracha, Matouk’s West Indian Flambeau Sauce, Frank’s Red Hot and the old stand-by, Tabasco. Great hot sauces are “improvers,” a concentrated burst of piquant flavor that help lead a dish to the Promised Land by elevating the essential flavors rather than overwhelming them. Well, HG is happy to welcome a new Hot Sauce to the pantheon of tongue tingling heroes: Queen Majesty’s Scotch Bonnet & Ginger Hot Sauce. Handmade in Brooklyn (where all the good food seems to be coming from), the sauce blends the scorching, yet fruity, flavors of Scotch Bonnet peppers with the zing of ginger. The result is a highly nuanced hot sauce with pronounced Caribbean notes that works especially well with meaty stews like oxtail or robust curries. HG has also found that a couple drops of QM’s sauce in a Bloody Mary takes that classic cocktail to epic heights.

At the urging (very vigorous urging) of BSK, obedient HG has given up vodka as a pre-dinner cocktail. A sobering move. Instead, creative HG fills a wine glass with ice. In goes some cheap, indifferent white wine plus some Campari and generous squeezes of lime. A refreshing, lightly alcoholic drink. Perfect for summer. While sipping, HG thought how Campari is one of the Great Improvers — it enlivens sparkling water, tonic water and, when living dangerously, it can make even the most pedestrian vodka sing; an even better pairing is vodka, Campari, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth and lots of ice. Strained into a chilled martini glass — delicious. Other members of the Great Improvers Club are Sriracha, Parmesan cheese and sour cream (or Greek yogurt). Few things are not made better by a judicious squirt of tongue tingling sriracha. It first made its appearance on the tables of Vietnamese restaurants in the United States. Now,it can be found in every supermarket and in every professional kichen — a Sriracha flavored Dorito chip cannot be far behind. Parmesan is the savior of indifferent Italian cooking (and salad making). Sour cream and/or thick Greek yogurt rescues many Jewish/Russian/Eastern European dishes. Borscht, schav (chilled sorrel soup) and pelmeny (Siberian ravioli) should always be served with abundant dollops of sour cream. Karnezelach (beef-onion-garlic-parsley burgers formed into fat cigar shapes and pan broiled) are attractive with Greek yogurt enhanced by garlic, olive oil and some sliced radish. Latkes (potato pancakes) become poetic with good sour cream. As for blintzes, pierogi, etc. All are simply excuses to eat lots of sour cream.

HG has always loved fish cakes but has rarely had good ones (except in London and at the Downy Flake restaurant on the island of Nantucket where they are served with a scrumptious egg sauce). Splendid fish cakes are (happily) turned out by Brilliant Lesley R. And, that’s what La Famiglia Prince Edward Island ate last night with copious amounts of sauteed snow pea pods and Theresa’s Mustard Pickles. Here’s how BLR made them. A modest amount of mashed potatoes was added to two pounds of poached cod. This was mixed with chopped onions, fresh garlic, garlic scapes and parsly. Some beatend eggs bound the mixture. The cakes were fried to crispness and then finished in the oven. Before going in the oven, each cake got a dollop of garlic mayonnaise enriched with some Sriracha. This gave the cakes interior moisture and a bit of heat. Post dinner watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. The spectacle confirmed La Famiglia’s belief in English eccentricity. Engagingly crazy.

Nestled in a convenient corner of HG/BSK’s refrirgerator is the bright red squeeze bottle (adorned with a rooster) of Huy Fong Sriracha. And, wow, does that bottle get a lot of use. Sriracha adds a tangy zing to everything from eggs to soups, hamburgers, stews and much more. At first, the sauce was intended to enliven that essential dish of Vietnamese cuisine — pho. Vietnamese in the USA latched on to Sriracha but it soon burst out of any ethnic pigeon hole. Though based on Asian hot sauces, Huy Fong Sriracha is an All-American sauce created by David Tran, a Vietnamese emigre. Virtually every American chef, including such luminaries as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, adds it to a host of dishes. As a condiment, it is probably only surpassed by ketchup, mustard and, maybe, Tabasco.

The Thai gentleman who invented Red Bull, the energy drink, died recently. His net worth was estimated at $5 billion. Don’t know David Tran’s net worth but presume it must be substantial. Capitalism works (sometimes).