Leather Storrs: How to Achieve the Perfect Bite

Leather Storrs: How to Achieve the Perfect Bite

“One perfect bite,” was the goal in the final challenge of Food Network’s “Extreme Chef." Of course, this bite would be prepared on a Sterno can by a wet chef (me) who had just emerged from a swimming pool clutching the spoon on which the bite was to be presented. Oh, and the ingredients would be sourced from a school lunch bag held by a kid who was pissed off that I jumped into his pool (Can you believe the show only lasted 2 seasons?!).

I made a sort of Spanish/North African mash up of caramelized cauliflower, carrots, parsley, raisins plumped in sherry vinegar, almonds and Pimenton (smoked paprika). It was good enough to win, but no masterpiece. The Pimenton was heavy and the acid was a little out of whack, but the combination was grounded by geography and culture and the flavors engaged the mouth completely. There is no magic formula for combining food into a whole greater than the sum of its parts, but there are tools and fundamentals that can help you towards that goal.

There are four sturdy receptors (and one fuzzy) in taste buds: sour, sweet, salty, bitter and “Umami." Umami is the “pleasant, savory taste” distinct from salty in that it is read by glutamate receptors (the ones that sense MSG). Fish sauce, cheese, cured meat, Vegemite and breast milk are some representatives of Umami flavor. It’s funky, assy, savory (sorry breast milk, I’m just reporting). 

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When I build dishes I try to engage the whole mouth and I try to present textural contrasts. The endive salad we make at Noble Rot is the dish I trot out when I’m talking about successfully engaging your whole mouth. Bitter, crisp leaves of Belgian endive are tossed with a blue cheese (Umami!) and hazelnut dressing. The salad sits on top of some roasted beets and gets a topical dusting of more cheese and hazelnuts. Bitter greens, salty cheese and nuts, sweet beets and champagne vinegar in the dressing for sour. The endive and nuts offer crunch.

I’ve completed my culinary Sudoku, so why doesn’t everybody like it? Maybe it’s because bitter foods are something we warm to as we age—our natural instinct as animals is to avoid bitter because it’s an indicator for poisonous foods. Maybe it’s because someone smashed a hunk of Gorgonzola in your face to haze you when you were a kid and your association with the event prevents you from enjoying blue cheese. Maybe beets gross you out and you’re afraid of red poop… There is no winning solution to appease all palates because we are products of our exposure and our experiences: our tastes are different.

Thus the notion of balance is subjective. I like acid so my food reflects that. I prefer salty to sweet and my interest in bitter grows. I sneak fish sauce into almost everything. I like temperature changes and I insist on crunch. That’s my evolving target; the lens through which I view combinations and dishes. It’s an academic checklist we apply to dishes that we put on the menu. Sometimes though, you’ve got to go for the jugular.

I have been invited to “Feast,” a very snazzy food festival, and I want to win. It’s not a contest, per se, but I want a line at our booth and I want strokes so I’m chucking the idea of balance in favor of salt, fat, crunch and shameless pandering. The event is called the “Night Market” and it’s sponsored by USA Pears, so my dish features pears… twice. It’s a yeasty (Umami!) griddle bread cooked on the spot with rich pork rillettes (pork poached to tender in pork fat), pear leather, a tangy pear relish and a silly, super crunchy “granola” made of chips, pretzels and saltines ground up and bound with cornstarch and whipped egg whites that gets baked again into craggy, breakable chunks. For the coup de grace I may put MSG in there to honor Vince Lombardi who famously said “If you’re not willing to cheat, then you don’t want to win bad enough.”

Leather Storrs is an Oregon native who has served 20 years in professional kitchens. He owns a piece of area restaurant Noble Rot, where he yells and waves arms. He quietly admits to having been a newspaper critic in Austin, Texas and Portland.