A Casual Culinary Chat About Handmade Pasta with Christopher Kimball

Summary

The Joy of Cooking Podcast: A Casual Culinary Chat About Handmade Pasta with Christopher Kimball
Release Date: May 9, 2025
Hosts: John Becker, Megan Scott, Shannon Larson
Guest: Christopher Kimball

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Introduction

In the May 9, 2025 episode of The Joy of Cooking Podcast, listeners are treated to a delightful conversation centered around handmade pasta, anchored by special guest Christopher Kimball. Hosted by John Becker and Megan Scott, alongside co-host Shannon Larson, the episode delves deep into culinary techniques, personal anecdotes, and the art of food writing, all while celebrating the timeless legacy of The Joy of Cooking.

Recent Culinary Adventures

The episode kicks off with the hosts sharing their recent kitchen endeavors. Megan Scott reminisces about creating a vibrant mayonnaise infused with lovage, highlighting her breakthrough in utilizing this strong-flavored herb:

"Last night I made a mayonnaise that had blanched lovage in it... It was delicious. I will be making that again."
— Megan Scott [02:21]

John Becker discusses his successful attempt at grilling stuffed whole trout, praising the resilience of trout on the grill compared to more delicate fillets:

"Whole fish generally is, you know, a little bit easier. Filets especially are a little bit more difficult."
— John Becker [01:32]

Shannon Larson adds her enthusiasm for Syracuse salt potatoes, lauding their perfectly seasoned and textured outcome:

"They were so good."
— Shannon Larson [02:34]

Introduction of Christopher Kimball

The conversation takes an exciting turn as Christopher Kimball, founder of Milk Street, joins the table. Megan warmly welcomes him:

"I would love to welcome Christopher Kimball to the table. [...] Christopher, welcome to the Joy of Cooking podcast."
— Megan Scott [05:12]

Christopher shares his recent culinary creations, including chicken on cocotte with a traditional French white sauce and Neapolitan meatballs rich in panade:

"I made Neapolitan meatballs which have a ton of panade in it. It's like 40% bread. It makes a very soft, tender meatball."
— Christopher Kimball [05:24]

Exploring Food Writing and Culinary Evolution

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the evolution of food writing. Christopher criticizes the overuse of superlatives in modern recipes, advocating for more straightforward, descriptive language:

"Just describe it like you describe anything else and get rid of all the salesy stuff. I'm not an idiot."
— Christopher Kimball [15:26]

He emphasizes the importance of quality over quantity in content creation, especially on social media, and praises home cooks for their authentic contributions:

"People want point of view and want people who really have something to say, even if you don't agree with them."
— Christopher Kimball [18:23]

John Becker echoes this sentiment, highlighting the value of home cooks in inspiring better culinary practices:

"There's all these people who are enormously talented, who you never would have heard of because they don't have a job at Food and Wine or Bon Appetit... they're just really good."
— John Becker [21:14]

First Encounters with The Joy of Cooking

Christopher shares a heartfelt memory of his initial encounter with The Joy of Cooking, recounting his childhood attempt at making the seven-minute frosting:

"I made this pretty awful cake, and I think the cake was okay, but the frosting was awful."
— Christopher Kimball [11:46]

Megan agrees, noting the challenges of starting with complex recipes:

"That's a heck of a frosting to start with in your culinary journey. Not recommended."
— Megan Scott [12:56]

Global Culinary Perspectives

The conversation shifts to global cooking techniques, with Christopher highlighting the differences between French and other international cuisines. He discusses the efficiency of stir-fry methods compared to the time-intensive French approach:

"In America, we've completely forgotten to make sauces. Nobody makes sauces anymore unless it's au jus."
— Christopher Kimball [05:24]

He shares insights from his travels, including the ingenious stock-making methods in Transylvania:

"She made water soup. This is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. She takes caraway and toasted it in a pan and added water to it. That was her stock."
— Christopher Kimball [37:26]

Megan and John expand on these ideas, discussing the accessibility and authenticity of various international dishes, such as rigatoni with cherry tomatoes and anchovies—a favorite from Shannon Larson:

"I wanted him to make the recipe. [...] It tasted so elegant."
— Shannon Larson [28:17]

Handmade Pasta: Techniques and Tips

A focal point of the episode is the art of making handmade pasta. Addressing a listener's question about the necessity of a pasta machine, the hosts provide practical advice:

"It's perfectly reasonable to make pasta by hand. If you have a little bit of money to spend, I think the roller is probably a good idea."
— John Becker [40:55]

Christopher emphasizes versatility, suggesting that a pasta machine can enhance dough quality and streamline the process:

"I would start with that, and if you get good at that, then you can move on."
— Christopher Kimball [42:13]

Megan advises beginners to experiment with hand-rolling before investing in equipment:

"Try making it by hand a few times, see how you like it. And if you decide yes, this is great, perhaps then it's time for the pasta machine."
— Megan Scott [41:18]

Joy Scouts Recipe of the Week: Tagliatelle with Wilted Greens

The hosts promote the Joy Scouts recipe of the week: Tagliatelle with Wilted Greens. Megan describes it as a simple yet elegant dish featuring onion, garlic, pepper flakes, and a selection of greens such as arugula, spinach, kale, or mustard greens:

"It's really, really simple. It's just some onion, garlic, pepper flakes and then your choice of greens."
— Megan Scott [43:52]

John Becker complements the recipe, especially praising its texture and ease of preparation:

"I love how the fresh pasta and the lasagna gets the texture of it along the edge where it gets a little crispy."
— John Becker [42:12]

Looking Ahead: Next Week’s Topic

As the episode draws to a close, the hosts preview next week's discussion on rhubarb and tease the upcoming answer to a listener's question about sandwiches:

"Stay tuned for next week where we will tackle rhubarb."
— Megan Scott [47:30]

Conclusion

This episode of The Joy of Cooking Podcast offers a rich tapestry of culinary insights, ranging from personal cooking experiences to broader discussions on food writing and global cooking techniques. Christopher Kimball's presence adds depth to the conversation, providing expert perspectives that enrich the episode's content. Whether you're a seasoned home cook or a culinary enthusiast, this episode serves as an inspiring guide to the joys and nuances of handmade pasta and beyond.

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Notable Quotes:

• "You just have to say instant grits are inedible. It's like instant oatmeal."
  — Christopher Kimball [27:53]

• "Everyone wants point of view and want people who really have something to say, even if you don't agree with them."
  — Christopher Kimball [18:23]

• "The sweetness from the peppers. So that sounds like a really stupid recipe that shouldn't be any good. But now, your last name's Becker, right?"
  — Christopher Kimball [06:27]

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Key Takeaways:

1. Handmade Pasta: Starting without a pasta machine is feasible and allows for creativity; investing in a machine can enhance consistency for regular use.
2. Food Writing: Emphasizing clear, descriptive language over superlatives fosters better understanding and appreciation of recipes.
3. Global Techniques: Incorporating international cooking methods can elevate home cooking, offering new perspectives on flavor development and recipe execution.
4. Home Cook Contributions: Home cooks play a crucial role in culinary innovation, often bridging gaps between traditional and contemporary methods.

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For more insights and recipes, subscribe to The Joy of Cooking Podcast and follow them on Substack and Instagram.

Transcript

[Christopher Kimball]

Sa.

[Shannon Larson]

Hello, and welcome to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Each week we set the table for a discussion about recipes and stories from the authors of the Joy of Cooking, kitchen victories and misadventures, and most importantly, what we are cooking and eating right now. We're glad you joined us at the table today. I'm Shannon Larson, home cook, ardent Joy of Cooking user and fan and tabbouleh enthusiast.

[Megan Scott]

I'm Megan Scott, co Author of the 2019 edition of the Joy of Cooking. I'm a food editor by day and avoider of dish duty by night.

[John Becker]

Night.

[Megan Scott]

And I finally figured out how to cook with lovage. Not to be confused with love. I know how to cook with love.

[John Becker]

I'm John Becker, 4th Generation Co author and steward of the Joy of Cooking, America's oldest family run cookbook. And grilling fish for company never fails to stress me out a little. Yeah.

[Shannon Larson]

But it was so good. It was perfect.

[John Becker]

I'm glad. I'm glad it turned out well.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. John grilled some stuffed whole trout. I feel like trout are pretty safe on the grill. Like, they. They hold together well.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah.

[John Becker]

And whole fish generally is, you know, a little bit easier. Filets especially are a little bit more difficult.

[Megan Scott]

We stuffed them with. Actually, speaking of lovage, I have a giant lovage plant in our garden that I mostly just like looking at because it's so huge and beautiful. Like, it'll get to like, 7 or 8ft tall in the summer. But I never really cooked with it much because it's a super, super strong celery. It's like super celery. Very strong, kind of bitter. I hadn't really cooked with it much, but last night I made a mayonnaise that had blanched lovage in it. So you just pureed it all up with some garlic and lemon juice and a little water and egg yolk and oil and turned it into, like, almost an aioli. It was delicious. I will be making that again. I'm very happy I finally figured out a way to use it.

[John Becker]

No, definitely a caper. It was great with the fish as well as the salt potatoes that we served with it.

[Shannon Larson]

And the color of it was so beautiful.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. Super vibrant.

[Shannon Larson]

Loved it.

[Megan Scott]

What was your favorite part of dinner last night, Shannon?

[Shannon Larson]

Well, John, I loved the trout, obviously, but those potatoes, I think we talked about them on the podcast before, but it's the whole potatoes that you boil in a ton of salty water. I hadn't actually had them before. They were so good.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, they're called Syracuse salt potatoes. And you do use a ton of salt, but they come out just perfectly. I don't think a potato can absorb too much salt, but they're perfectly seasoned and just have a really nice texture. So be making those again.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah, those were amazing.

[Megan Scott]

What about you, John? Can you describe something we've made in the past week that you were excited about or something you want to talk about?

[John Becker]

You're putting me on the spot. No, there was that chicken ramen that we made with some, you know, some sun noodles, so nice fresh ramen. And then, yeah, there was braised medallions of daikon that we had that's, you know, shout out to a local Thai restaurant, Khao Mu Dang, for their superlative Bame Tom Yum, because they, they do a really nice big medallion of braised daikon in that soup and so definitely took a page from their book.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, I'm kind of falling in love with braised radishes. The large radishes, not the small, you know, like red radishes, but like a Chinese radish or a daikon. They have such a nice. Even when you cook them to like complete doneness, they still have a bite to them. And I really appreciate that they don't just turn into mush, you know?

[John Becker]

Yeah, no. Very pleasant texture.

[Megan Scott]

I wanted to talk about the Joy Scouts recipe of the week because this was definitely a more involved recipe. Did you, did you make the cake, Shannon? No.

[Shannon Larson]

We had family in town and so I just wasn't able. I mean, I planned the whole dinner and they had fruit salad for dessert because I just didn't get that far. But I want to, I've marked it in the book for my husband to make.

[Megan Scott]

Well, last week we made a coconut milk cake, Cockayne, which is a three layer coconut cake with just a very simple like whipped cream frosting and then lime curd in between the layers. If you make nothing else, definitely make the lime curd, the lime curds where it's at. And I love that the recipe uses whole eggs instead of just egg yolks because I just don't, I don't want to separate eggs and I, I don't, I don't want to have the leftover egg whites. So it solves those problems. Yeah, yeah.

[Shannon Larson]

Did you end up making it this week?

[Megan Scott]

Okay. Yeah, we made it over the weekend for a birthday, but now there were only four people at the birthday. So now we have half a cake. That's the problem with two people and baking these big baking projects is now we have to figure out what to do with all this cake.

[John Becker]

Make some new friends, I guess.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, I know it doesn't sound like a problem, but it kind of is. It's taking up a lot of space in the fridge right now. Yeah. All right. I would love to welcome Christopher Kimball to the table. Christopher Kimball is the founder of Milk Street, a food media company dedicated to traveling the world to meet home cooks who teach us bolder, easier ways to cook at home. Christopher, welcome to the Joy of Cooking podcast.

[Christopher Kimball]

Hey, thanks for having me. My pleasure.

[Megan Scott]

What have you been cooking and eating this week that you're excited about besides.

[Christopher Kimball]

Instant ramen on a Tuesday night?

[Megan Scott]

That counts.

[Christopher Kimball]

I actually did that last night. Unfortunately, I added some other stuff to it. But let's see. This weekend, I did chicken on cocotte that I made up. And then I made, you know, I made a traditional French white sauce, white wine, butter, mustard, some herbs. And that was. I'd forgotten how good sauces are. I think in America, we've completely forgotten to make sauces. Nobody makes sauces anymore unless it's au jus, you know, and I think that's really, you know, you just throw a chicken and you can brown it or not. In a Dutch oven. I throw in the oven. Or you put it on top of the stove for a while with a little bit of liquid. Maybe you can throw some leeks in the bottom or herbs or garlic, whatever you have, and take the chicken out, reduce the liquid down, and then finish it off with whatever. Just so simple to do. I made. What else did I make? I made Neapolitan meatballs which have a ton of panade in it. It's like 40% bread.

[John Becker]

Oh, wow.

[Christopher Kimball]

Which, you know, they do to extend the meat, but it makes a very soft, tender meatball. But it's. One of my friends at the table said, yeah, they're soft and tender, but they have no flavor, so.

[Shannon Larson]

Oh, no.

[Christopher Kimball]

I think there is something to be said for too much panade in your meatballs. But they were pretty good. I also made a. This is a recipe I found in Calabria last year. You start with oil. In Italy, of course, they almost never mince garlic. Right. They take whole cloves, they throw them in, they brown them, take them out. And then I put a little tomato paste in, some cherry tomatoes and some chopped up sweet peppers. And you can also add. I use some Turkish red chili flakes, but you could use a cubanelle pepper or whatever, a little bit of spice or a serrano. And I just cooked that for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. On low. I kept adding some water to it, cooked some pasta, and put it on top. It was just absolutely amazing. I mean, it's so much better than a typical tomato sauce because it has that sweetness from the peppers. So that sounds like a really stupid recipe that shouldn't be any good. But now, your last name's Becker, right?

[John Becker]

That's correct.

[Christopher Kimball]

Now, I met your father or uncle or somebody back in the 80s. I flew out to see him, and I said, hey, you know, you guys should take the joy of cooking and redo it. He said, that's a great idea. And then I never heard back from him. So, anyway, I just want you to know I had that idea back in the 1980s, but I don't think I was the right partner to do it. But.

[John Becker]

Well, yeah, that was my father, Ethan, and he actually said to say hi. Yeah, he definitely remembers that meeting.

[Christopher Kimball]

Yeah. So, I mean, it was. You guys did a great job. But I just wanted to mention that there is that 6 degree of separation.

[John Becker]

Yeah. Well, I feel that you've been in the industry so long that the degrees of separation are pretty small between you and just about everybody in the business.

[Christopher Kimball]

Well, it's getting to the point where I remember working with James Beard, people go, like, wasn't that back in the 1920s or something? It makes you feel like you were around, you know, during the first World War or something. So, yeah, it's been a long time.

[Megan Scott]

Did you. So you did meet James Beard and spend some time.

[Christopher Kimball]

I was introduced to Jim in 1979 when I was starting cooks and at his townhouse on 12th Street. And, yeah, we, you know, had a few meals together and spent some time together. He was very helpful, really engaging guy. Really nice guy. Yeah, that's how I got started. Was a mutual friend, knew him and was kind enough to introduce me. He had a great townhouse with a. I guess the Beard house owns it now. Well, I guess it is the Beard house. What am I saying?

[Megan Scott]

Oregon native. Very, very proud of James Beard. So we cooked a couple recipes from the latest Milk street cookbook this week, Backroads Italy, which is a really great book, but I just wanted to say I especially loved the. There's a rigatoni with a broccoli sauce. Delicious. I mean, I know that broccoli sauce is somewhat common, but I had never made it before and really, really enjoyed it. Also, rigatoni is maybe my new favorite pasta shape.

[Christopher Kimball]

Every time somebody says, yeah, we made a recipe out of your book, I always. There's a little pause. You're just waiting for, you know, I really wanted to like it but the thing that was wrong about it was or I used to have somebody, I remember a sister in law and every time she came over she said this is really good. But you know, I used to, I make this recipe and then she'd tell me like in Bon Appetit how they make it. So I always get the this really good. But you know, it's like, no, I.

[Megan Scott]

I feel your pain. That happens a lot with Joy of Cooking. It's like someone will try the recipe and I'm like, how'd it go?

[Christopher Kimball]

It got to be a real thing after a while. But anyway, so.

[Megan Scott]

Well, everybody has their own special opinions about recipes, especially.

[John Becker]

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[Megan Scott]

I wanted to ask, what was your first experience with Joy of Cooking?

[Christopher Kimball]

Oh, it was in our, always in our house, I cooked. Actually, I think it was out of joy. I did a cake with a seven minute frosting. You know, seven minute frosting is actually really hard to do.

[Megan Scott]

It's annoying to make.

[Christopher Kimball]

It is annoying. And so it came out. I still remember it. It was my first baking experience and I was like 10 or something. And the 7 minute frosting looked like snot. I mean, it actually looked just like snot. This thin lump. It was just awful. And I frosted the cake and my parents said, oh, how great and delicious it was. I think some comedian has this whole routine about how lying to your children is, like, really important lying sometimes. Sometimes is a very good thing because that's how I got started with food. I made this pretty awful cake, and I think the cake was okay, but the frosting was awful. I didn't understand that you should never start out with Seven Minute Frosting. Whipped cream.

[Megan Scott]

I was gonna say that's a heck of a frosting to start with in your culinary journey. Not recommended.

[Christopher Kimball]

Syrup is not ideal. Yeah, you don't really want to do that. We always had the booker and I cooked out of a lot. Fanning Farmer. An old Jim Beard book I had at the time. We had maybe five cookbooks. And those are the days when you had the big books, right? You'd been at Homes and Gardens. You had the settlement cookbook. You'd have, you know, the big tomes. And it wasn't the day where you had, you know, three books from Moroccan cooking and four books from Mexico and six books from India. And those came later. But back in the 50s and 60s, there was just the. The basic American big cookbooks.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, we're still trying to do the big American cookbook to some degree. We're coming up on the 100th anniversary, so we're going to have to get it together.

[Christopher Kimball]

Well, I'd like, you know, I have a lot of the old fanny farmers starting in the 1890s, and I think she died in 1913. But, you know, you can see the progression where there are more and more French fied recipes. And there's something. She has things under glass and a black and white photo, you know, and so you can tell that she was really trying to sex it up with going to New York to the famous restaurants and bringing back recipes and, you know, having these. These faux French recipes. The thing I like about the older books is they tell you a lot about what people knew. Like, people made pies, like, every day. I mean, making a pie was like you could do it in your sleep. And so the first line of every pie recipe was make a paste. Paste was pie, pastry. And so they didn't tell you, like, what you make it out of or how to do it, or the butter should be cold or you should use leaf lard or whatever. There were no instructions. So I sort of like that because it tells You. I think Jim Beard's American Cookery was another great book because he told the story of America through the book, you know, the headnotes. And he'd say that so and so she. Crab soup was good, but so and so from Atlanta actually had a more interesting recipe and there was a lot of sort of catty back and forth about who had the best recipe. And I miss that. Sometimes in modern books you don't get that really personal kind of behind the scenes, what's really going on thing, which I really like.

[John Becker]

Yeah, Irma definitely had that kind of. Not trash talking necessarily, but just like she's publishing this recipe and she's saying like, oh, this is pretty good.

[Megan Scott]

But yeah, there were a few where she would say something like, someone requested that I put this recipe in. They really like it.

[Christopher Kimball]

You know, I like that because otherwise you get all the superlatives, which I think I've always had this argument about food writing. I don't think there should be anything called food writing. It's just writing. Like there's good writing and bad writing. It's like food writing is just writing. So people, you know, years ago they got into this, this model of superlatives and the basal fleck, the risotto.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, no.

[Christopher Kimball]

And the tender crunch of the. Please just spare me. Like, why can't you describe it like you describe anything else and get rid of all the salesy stuff. Like you're not going to sell me because you use a bunch of adjectives. Or people say the mouth feel right. And it's like, I don't even know that. Just I don't understand what that means. But just like describe it to me. Like tell me what it is and if there's an origin story, great, tell me the origin story. But don't sell me on the recipe. I'm not an idiot. I don't need to be. I don't need all that adjectives. Just get the adjectives out. So it turns out that food writing became this thing and it was mostly bad food writing. Now you're going to get. I'm going to get thousands of. Most food writing is really pretty terrible because they try to write in this different way, describe food the same way you describe anything else. I don't know. So anyway, and I think today food writing is much better. I think people have gotten away from that sort of, you know, 70s, 80s. Everything is super wonderful. It's like, you know, it's sort of like Mary Poppins, you know, practically perfect in every way.

[Megan Scott]

You know, it's like, how do you feel about the brothy beans or the garlicky? This, you know, I feel like, why? Just gets added to a lot of words to describe recipes now.

[Christopher Kimball]

I think writing is really hard.

[Megan Scott]

It is.

[Christopher Kimball]

And I think if you use those crutches to get you through, it's just a crutch. And what you ought to do is take that out and just try to be a better writer. And a lot of writers out there, I mean, Jeffrey Sterngarden, you know, Vogue, you know, he's just an amazing writer, and he doesn't use any of those tricks. He just is a terrific writer. So there are plenty of people out there. You know, Adam Gopnik from the New Yorker, who's on our show, who's just an amazing writer. You know, the Table Comes first was a book he did in the 90s about living in Paris. Just be a better writer. And being a writer is hard because you have to, I think. Who is it? Mario Puzzo, who wrote the Godfather, was asked about writing, and he said, it's just rewriting. All you need to know about writing is you rewrite 20, 30 times. And that's what you need to do is go back and take out all the stuff that isn't working and. And redo it, you know, but it's. It's time consuming and it's. It's hard and it's easy to say garlicky.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. There's such a push for, I think just a push for content, to create content more and more and more and more content, like feed. Feed the algorithm, because that's how you get seen. And so it's more of a, like, quantity over quality issue.

[Christopher Kimball]

Yeah. But if you look at what works out there, like on our feedback on Instagram, I started a year and a half ago doing more, and I think one of the first ones I did was something like, everyone's wrong about garlic. So I have this thing about, you know, Americans, again, everyone's going to hate me, but they just don't understand garlic. It. Like, you should never. If. I've never in Italy ever had garlic breath, ever. Because they don't mince it, rarely mince it. They use, as I said, whole cloves. It's. It's subtle, right?

[John Becker]

Yeah. You were saying that a lot of the time the cloves get thrown out.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah.

[Christopher Kimball]

They'll take cloves. Sometimes they don't even take the paper off. And their cloves are smaller than they are here. And they will take two cloves and a quarter cup oil or whatever they use, put it at sort of moderate heat and cook it two or three minutes to the cloves, just lightly brown. And they take the cloves out and throw them away.

[John Becker]

Wow.

[Christopher Kimball]

If you watch. I've seen this many times, if you watch someone make a quick tomato sauce, the first step is always garlic and oil. And they. I see in restaurants that's, you know, home cooks, and they take the garlic out and throw it out. So there's a very subtle flavor of garlic. They understand that everything's about balance. And if you have a tomato sauce, you don't want this massive amount of garlic there. So anyway, when I did that, yes, I got some negative comments, but all of a sudden people were interested. So I do think the thing about social media is, yes, it demands constant content, but people want point of view and want people who really have something to say, even if you don't agree with them. So I don't think flowery content works very well on social media. I think in your face, honest, no nonsense stuff tends to work better, at least in my experience. Again, I mean, there's a million ways to do it, but in my case, I find having a strong opinion and being very honest with people seems to cut through all the nonsense better. So maybe that's a good thing for food, right?

[Megan Scott]

Yeah.

[Christopher Kimball]

And also the other thing I have to say is I am amazed that the number of people out there who know a ton about cooking, who've never been to cooking school, they don't work for a big magazine, they've not written a cookbook, but they make, like, fabulous bread, and they're just really, really good. And so I think that's been a huge benefit for the world of food, is all these people who are enormously talented, who you would never. You never would have heard of because they don't have a job at Food and Wine or Bon Appetit or they don't have cooking. Right. I mean, they're just really good. So I. I love. I love those people.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. I love learning from home cooks. I feel like you can learn so much from home cooks because you're working with a set of limitations, a different set of limitations in a home kitchen and with your limited experience. And I think sometimes that makes for asking better questions.

[Christopher Kimball]

Yeah. And there's also the guy who opens the cans and Southern accent and pours all his crap into the bowl, into the pan. And it's just. It looks like. Like you'd never want to eat it. But that's. There's that too, but, you know, it's. It's entertainment. Or the guys eating the super hot chilies and stuff who end up throwing up on camera.

[Megan Scott]

Whoa.

[Christopher Kimball]

But I'd say overall, the quality of a lot of food content is really high. I mean, it's. It's really amazing.

[Megan Scott]

I had a question about the latest Milk street cookbook, the Italian Cookbook. I was curious, what was the biggest surprise in the book? Like, a recipe that seems unassuming but is actually fantastic.

[Christopher Kimball]

You mean a recipe that looks terrible, but it's actually good?

[Megan Scott]

Terrible, but maybe not the most eye catching.

[Christopher Kimball]

Most of the recipes you come across, you've never heard of. Hey, and you'd think after all the boondoggle trips from, you know, the Italian Olive Oil Commission, right? All my friends were taking the 80s and 90s and getting free trips. You think by now, like, we would have kind of seen 50% of these recipes, but 95% of them in Calabria or wherever. This one town makes this dish, but you go to the next town, they never heard of it. So the number of recipes that were totally new to us was a huge surprise. Number two, the recipes you have heard of are inevitably done differently. Like, very often, like polenta south of Milan, where they grind corn. They would basically put it in a big pot and stir it for the first five minutes and then leave it alone for an hour, come back, stir it again, and leave it alone for 20. I mean, they wouldn't be there stirring all the time. I think specific recipes that were really amazing to me was in Bari, Italy. There's a focaccia where the hydration is 90%, which means the weight of the water is 90% of the weight of the flour. You know, in most pizzas or focaccias probably run 65% or 70%. Most breads are 55 to 70. So the bread was so wet you couldn't knead. Was the original. No knead bread. Right. So they let this thing sit, and as you know, you develop gluten either with water. In water, it'll develop gluten or mechanical kneading or both. But there was no kneading, really. Then the guy would let it rise and then it would collapse, and they used a massive amount of yeast. It would collapse and then would rise again, and then it was so loose that they just put it on a big pizza pan, essentially, or tray, and they would bake it on the tray. And it was just absolutely wonderful. But it broke all the rules. It's like, you know, let it rise to its Twice. Well, it rose to. Was three or four times in volume, then collapsed on itself. And you use massive amount of water. And so that. That was really interesting. The other thing was in Abruzzo, they. They actually make spaghetti meatballs. Now. I thought that was a purely American deal, you know, because meat was expensive, people were poor, but they'd make polpetti, little tiny meatballs that are like half an inch wide, and they actually. They're sort of part of the sauce. But that does exist, which I been saying for 30 years, does not exist. So I was. In other words, you go to Italy and figure out you're wrong about everything. Alfredo is essentially pasta with butter and cheese, and they made it for kids who weren't feeling well. Mother's recipe for the kids. You know, it wasn't this creamy, big Hollywood production they have in a couple of restaurants in Rome. So it was. The stuff I didn't know was surprising, and the stuff I thought I knew, but I didn't know was also surprising.

[Megan Scott]

I feel like the online Italians are correct, perhaps. You know, I feel like anytime someone posts an Italian recipe, it's like, that's not how it. That's not how we make it. Maybe they're right.

[Christopher Kimball]

Well, I mean, yeah, the ingredients changed. The. You know, it's like in the Godfather when he's making these, you know, they take the mattresses out, there's the war, and he's making the. The Sunday gravy. You know, he's putting in the chops and the sausage and the red wine. Well, yeah, but they don't. I mean, that's a very American thing because meat was cheap, right? You weren't doing. You weren't pouring $50 of meat into a tomato sauce in Italy, because, I mean, even today in Calabria in the south, there's like 40, 50% unemployment. You know, a good salary is $1,200 a month. Everything's local. I mean, that's what kills me about the United States is local. Well, okay, most places in the world, it is local, because they don't. They're not shipping stuff in from Chile and California. So, yeah, of course it's local. And they have the greens and the beans and the artichokes, whatever. And it's local because that's what it is. Just the cucina pavra. The other thing is, you know, cucina pavra, which is inexpensive food. Right. That's what you learn about Italy is, especially in the south, is that some of the best food in the world is just super simple I mean, like pasta, for example, the Italians will tell you a pasta dish is about the pasta, not the sauce. And I didn't quite understand what this person meant. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, pasta, if you think about it, was the cheapest way to fill your stomach. And they would make pasta out of any kind of flour, like buckwheat flour, whatever. Whatever was on the floor. Sometimes they'd make flour out of it. And so it was super cheap. So if you make a sauce too, that's fine. But essentially it's about the pasta. And so the texture of the pasta and the taste of the pasta is really important. And here in America, it's not about the pasta. It's always about the sauce. But they don't use that much sauce, right? I mean, they don't drown their pasta and sauce. So it's a different way of thinking about food, which I like.

[Megan Scott]

That reminds me a lot of grits in the south being a very accessible and affordable food now. It is a lot of instant grits, which completely lose the magic of the stone ground cornmeal.

[Christopher Kimball]

No, you just have to say instant grits are inedible. It's like instant oatmeal. Just. Just go at it like, you know.

[Megan Scott]

Well, an oatmeal only takes five to ten minutes to cook. I don't know, like, how instant do we need it to be?

[Christopher Kimball]

Well, I. I like steel cut and still cut the night before. Take a cup of steel, cut three cups of water, bring it to a boil, put the top on, let it sit overnight. In the morning, wake up, put another cup of liquid in and cook it for 10 minutes and you're done. And steel cuts like 5,000 times better than any other kind of oatmeal. And it's really not that hard. You're right. I mean, how quick do you need it?

[Shannon Larson]

The recipe that I really liked from the new book was the rigatoni with cherry tomatoes and anchovies. And my husband made it. I wanted him to make the recipe.

[Christopher Kimball]

He's a.

[Shannon Larson]

He follows recipes better than I do. And I think one of my favorite things about it was how long it cooked in the sauce at the very end. It seems like a really simple recipe. It sounds really simple, and it is pretty simple to cook. But it tasted so elegant. I will be making it constantly. It's my new favorite.

[Christopher Kimball]

Well, in Italy, they, as you know, most of the time, they undercook the pasta little and they finish it in the sauce, right?

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah.

[Christopher Kimball]

But that way the sauce gets more absorbed into the pasta.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah.

[Christopher Kimball]

The other thing is they never serve chewy pasta. So if I ever hear someone mention on a cooking show, al dente one more time, Italians don't mean chewy. When they say al dente doesn't mean it means to the tooth. I mean, it means it has some texture to it, but it's cooked. And so I. I've had restaurant meals in New York, you know, where the pasta was half cooked. You just go like, well, that's not the point. And as you said, yeah, they slightly undercook it and then finish it off, reserve some of the cooking water. And then now the. One of the most. Actually one of the most interesting recipes you had asked earlier was cacio e pepe, which is impossible to make well, I mean, that's when it's made well, it's great. But when it's not made well, it turns gluey in about a minute and the cheese gets stringy and blah, blah, blah. Well, it turns out, and I had it. I went to Rome a couple years ago and went to all these different places. The woman who was taking me around had her own recipe and she cooked it in a skillet like risotto. So you put all the pasta in with some of the water, you. And a little bit of the cheese, and you cook it in the skillet. And it turns out that what happens is the starch in the pasta. If you buy a bronze dye pasta, which is the higher quality pasta, it's rougher on the outside and the starch releases better. So the starch releases into the water and that helps bind the cheese and the liquid in the pasta. So you end up with a sauce that actually is not going to turn on you and the cheese is properly melted. And so that was a surprise. It was, you know, essentially doing in a skillet. And then there's also something called alasasana, which is also done the same way with a tomato sauce, loose tomato sauce. And you cook it in a skillet and you end up cooking it to the point it almost gets burned. You know, you char it a little bit. And so that's also, you know, pasta in a skillet. So, yeah, who knew?

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, that's a fantastic dish. We only made it the one time, but I would definitely make that one again.

[John Becker]

Definitely on the repeat list for sure.

[Christopher Kimball]

Well, if there are anchovies in a recipe in Italy, we'll cut them by two thirds here. They use a lot of anchovies. When they go down that road, they're serious about their anchovies.

[Shannon Larson]

I love that. I love anchovies.

[Megan Scott]

Me too.

[Sarah Marshall]

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[John Becker]

Pulling back a little, we're certainly familiar with Milk street, but could you share your inspiration for the project and how you see it in relation to your previous work?

[Christopher Kimball]

Yeah, I mean Milk Street, I didn't get bored, but you know, I'd done a classic American cooking, New England cooking all my career and you know, I'd done oatmeal cookies 12 times and you know, you don't how many times you can do roast chicken. So. And I'd always traveled and I re. And what I realized was at one point was it wasn't just a function of finding new recipes. What it really was is a different way of thinking about how to cook like that. The whole everything you thought when you walked in the kitchen was different. The example I often give is French cooking, which is about time, heat and melding flavors. So you start with fairly bland ingredients. There are no spices, there are no chilies, there are no fermented sauces. Right. There are a few herbs. And you use technique and time and heat, like bourguignon, you know, to slowly develop flavor and to meld flavors. It's more of a melting pot. So when you have bourguignon, it's great. It is complicated, but it's all, it's subtle, right? It's all, it's one flavor profile with lots of sub flavors. If you do a stir fry and you're starting off with fish sauce and lime juice and sugar as your basic sauce, and you have lemongrass and you have garlic and you have ginger, you don't have to spend three hours developing flavors. You develop flavors in the first 10 seconds. So many other places in the world don't develop flavors. They start with flavors because they're using. A lot of places like Eastern Europe have a lot of fermented foods. Right. So as, you know, do in Korea and other things. So you can think about developing flavors in a dish in lots of different ways. And then you think about, well, most places in the world have sweet and sour and savory altogether. They don't have dessert. Right. The sweets in the dish, like in North Africa or the Middle east. Or you think about chard. Chard is really important in Mexico. If you're going to make a salsa, you always start by charring tomatoes and a little bit of onion and garlic, whatever, or pepper or chili on a comal or in a skillet, and you throw in a blender with some liquid, and then that's the basis for your salsa. So they. They char to bring out flavor. So there are lots of different ways about thinking about food and cooking, and a lot of them don't require time. You know, stir fry is not about time. It's some prep, but it's not about time. So. And you think about flavors differently. In Somalia, they do chicken soup, but they have raw cabbage and radish on top, and they have two different hot salsas, a green one and a brown one. So you have two different sources of heat. You have crunch, you know, and the chicken soup we make chicken noodle soup or whatever we make here in this country is. Well, I grew up with it, but it's not my favorite in the world. Other places do more interesting things. So to answer your question about starting those street, I got fascinated with how other people think about what cooking is, and that's changed how I cook totally. Now I think about it very differently. You can throw a pork shoulder, some miso, couple other things in a pot for three hours in the oven and come back and you're done.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, it is a. It's a total mindset shift when you're looking at other cuisines. I was actually just thinking about as you were talking, it made me think about pho, because you do a little. That one is an interesting combination of a couple different things going on. Like, you do have. You char your onion, you char maybe some ginger, and you're working with, like, star anise and spices in the broth. But you are simmering a broth with bones for a long time, and you're skimming it and you're, you know, blanching the bones and. But then at the end, you're coming in with, you know, it's expected that when you eat pho, you're going to add your own condiments and kind of tweak it to your. To your taste.

[Christopher Kimball]

What's the taco in Mexico City? It's usually a soft tortilla. You can put any. Any of 40 or 50 different meats or whatever you want to put on it. But then you have eight salsas at the table. It's not about the tortilla so much. It's really about the salsas, really, when you get down to it. That's right. And also most places. The other thing that drives me nuts is I grew up more in the French tradition, and everything was starting with stock. Well, nobody uses stock in the world. It's all water. If you cook a chicken in water, you get stock. You don't need to start with stock. It's just insane. I was in Romania a year ago in Transylvania, just north of the Carpathian Mountains, about six hours north of Bucharest. And I got to this woman's house. They have these little Saxon villages. They were established in the 14th century. Germans came over. They're good fighters, good farmers. They were enticed to come to live there. They built these villages of very small numbers of homes, and they still exist. And everyone has this long piece of land. It's long strip of land, and they have gardens in the back, and everybody has a root cellar. So it's. It's pretty cool. But she made water soup. This is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. She takes caraway and toasted it in. In a pan and added water to it. That was her stock.

[Megan Scott]

Wow.

[Christopher Kimball]

Yeah. Vegetables and. And a couple other things. But the point was, she made stock with toasted caraway seeds. Well, okay, why not? I mean, this thing about it takes 10 hours to make a bloody stock, and it has to be on the back burner all day. Well, the reason they did that was in a Victorian kitchen like Fanny's or in a restaurant, they never. They were very frugal. They never threw anything out. So if you cook cabbage and water, you throw the cabbage water into the stock. Every bit of trimming was put in the stock. The French are notably frugal. You know, at least they used to be. And so that's why they use bones and everything. I mean, it's not because bones make great stock. It's because you don't throw them out. So then you have to roast the bones first. And, you know, it's like, really. I mean, okay, if you have 10 people in the kitchen or you had Someone in the Victorian kitchen, they start at 5 in the morning. They cook 16 hours a day. Or somebody was in the kitchen making stock. Made sense because you had a back burner, which I used to cook on a big coal stove years ago, and you have back burners. And the back burners were the low burners. Right. Because they were not near the heat source. So you throw it in the back burner and you make stock, which makes perfect sense, but it makes no sense whatsoever in today's kitchen. So that's why most people in the world, they couldn't afford to make stock. I mean, so they just use water. Like, that'll be my next point. Use water for stock. I mean, when you finally wake up in the morning, go like, oh, you don't need to have stock most of the time, unless you're doing a very quick sauce or something. Yeah, now it makes sense to me.

[Megan Scott]

Right, well, we have to move into answering our weekly question in a second, but I have one question I really wanted to ask, and it's just for fun. So you're taking a trip to Italy and you bring an extra suitcase. What are you buying in Italy, ingredient wise and bringing back to the States?

[Christopher Kimball]

Well, calabri and chilies, although some of them actually turn out to be quite mild. I thought they would be super hot olive oil. Actually. We found this supplier in Lebanon. It's this incredible guy called Maloof, and he makes this buttery, yellow, golden, unfiltered olive oil. So I'm. I'm way over Italian olive oil. They make great olive oils, too. But so I'm sort of over that. I don't bring too much stuff back because I don't check my luggage. So I like to get in and out as fast as I possibly can. But it has to be something really special and unique. I can't find somewhere else usually. So that would be like. Like Calabrian chilies would be the thing I would definitely bring back. From Turkey, I brought back their version of Aleppo pepper, which is a red pepper flakes. They're soft and they're very fruity, which I think is. I'm really big on chilies or chili peppers or flakes that have a fruity or have a lot of flavor to them. For $10, I got a bag about this big worth of those. I still have jars of them. Those are absolutely outstanding.

[John Becker]

I am a chili hoarder as well, and I see you respect it.

[Christopher Kimball]

It's just not about heat. It's about flavors.

[John Becker]

Absolutely.

[Megan Scott]

All right, so we're going to Move into answering our question of the week. Sarah, can you read the question?

[Sarah Marshall]

I want to make my own pasta. Do I need a pasta machine to roll it out? I am hesitant on purchasing new kitchen gear before starting a new hobby.

[Megan Scott]

John, I'm going to let you start the conversation on this one because you are the historical pasta maker in our house.

[John Becker]

The historical pasta maker. It's perfectly reasonable to make pasta by hand. We inherited a hand cranked roller. If you have a little bit of money to spend, you know the chances of you actually turning it from, you know, just like a one off project into an actual something you do out of habit. I think the roller is probably a good idea. But there's tons of shapes you can make just by hand.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. And I guess my opinion on it is try making it by hand a few times, see how you like it. And if you decide like, yes, this is great. I really want to keep doing this. Perhaps then it's time for the pasta machine. We love our little hand crank guy. And it's probably from the 70s. You could probably find a pasta kit or a pasta machine on like Facebook Marketplace or even buy nothing. So you don't if you're not, you know, if you're concerned about spending the money, you can probably get one for relatively cheap.

[John Becker]

Yeah. And fresh pasta. For lasagna. I personally will never go back to just using dried. There are some people that claim that you have to actually cook the fresh pasta sheets before you use them to assemble your lasagna. I do not do that. And it turns out great every time.

[Megan Scott]

I love how the fresh pasta and the lasagna gets the texture of it along the edge where it gets a little crispy. Ooh, that's so good.

[John Becker]

So nice.

[Megan Scott]

Christopher, what do you think? Should they buy a pasta roller?

[Christopher Kimball]

Oh, yeah. I mean, no question. It's 45 bucks. You buy an Alice pasta machine or whatever it is, probably get a used one for 20 bucks. The thing about it I like is that it actually needs the dough as you put it through the roller in different thicknesses. And so it helps produce a really good dough. You throw the dough in a food processor, really, if you like, but then the machine does a lot of that work for you. But they're all alternatives. Like in Korea, they have torn noodles. You just get a ball of dough with your thumb. You sort of press it out and throw it in the, in the soup or whatever. So you can make those kinds of pastas without any machine or rolling them out at all. But I would start with that, and if you get good at that, then you can move on. Or you could do like a ravioli style where you can actually just roll it out with a rolling pin, throw it over the form, stuff it, put the top layer on and roll it up. And that. That's actually not hard to do. And making your own ravioli is phenomenal.

[John Becker]

Yeah. And those forms are really nice too.

[Christopher Kimball]

You know, they're easy to.

[Megan Scott]

And so that's going to lead us into our Joy Scouts recipe of the week, which, you know, we are hoping you try the fresh past for this recipe, but also if you make it with store bought, totally fine. No one's checking. Is tagliatel with wilted greens. And it's on page 299 of the 2019 edition of Joyo Cooking. It's really, really simple. It's just some onion, garlic, pepper flakes and then your choice of greens. We suggest either arugula, spinach, kale, or mustard greens. So it can be, if you have a garden, whatever you're growing in your garden or whatever looks good at the store or the farmer's market.

[John Becker]

Yeah. Or a mix of stuff. I also wanted to keep it a little simple. After.

[Megan Scott]

After have asking people to make a cake probably nobody made. Which is fine. It's fine.

[John Becker]

No judgment.

[Megan Scott]

If you have a topic, ingredient, or joy story to share, call our hotline at 503-395-8858. Leave us a message or send us a text. We would love to hear from you, Sarah. Can you please read next week's question?

[Sarah Marshall]

I made the Joy Scouts olive salad and served it with warm ciabatta bread. Then I made the muffuletta and I loved it. What other sandwiches do I need in my life?

[Megan Scott]

Awesome. Well, we'll answer that question in next week's episode. All right, everybody, what are we thinking about cooking this week? What are you excited about, Shannon?

[Shannon Larson]

Well, now I'm excited about that Joy Scouts recipe because my arugula in my garden has just like it was normal looking a couple days ago and then I went out there yesterday, I'm like, what happened? It's so huge. So I will be making that and I'm very excited. It's also bread week at our house, so John is gonna bake bread and he's been baking walnut rye bread and it is my new all time favorite. It's so, so good. So I'm excited for that to happen.

[Megan Scott]

Is he making like a boule or doing a loaf?

[Shannon Larson]

We do both because we have enough to make two. So we Always make both of them on bread.

[Megan Scott]

We can. What about you speaking about? This is a new to me recipe. It's not new by any means, but it's called green spaghetti and it is from Texas. It's like a border recipe. So it's like a roasted poblano sauce with sour cream. Or sometimes people use crema, some kind of rich dairy, but it's all blended together. So it's like a bright green sauce just with spaghetti. And it's served with parmesan. I found a recipe for it on the Homesick Texan blog, but it was also written about in. Was it Texas Monthly?

[John Becker]

Yeah, Texas Monthly.

[Megan Scott]

But it looks fantastic and I love. I love the flavor of roasted poblanos, so. Or maybe we would substitute chilakas.

[John Becker]

Yeah, chilakas. I feel like we usually substitute in chilakas now because there's a market nearby that has them. If you're actually trying to peel poblanos, which I wouldn't even recommend, it's kind of difficult, but chilaka is definitely.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. And then I've also been watching. There's a guy who cooks for a sorority who posts on.

[Shannon Larson]

Oh, I've seen him.

[Megan Scott]

You've seen him. He's really cool. I love watching all his videos. And everything he makes is very comfort food. And he recently made Salisbury steak. And for some reason, this is like a dish from my childhood that I haven't probably had in 10 years. But now I'm like, it's all I can think about. I really want to make some Salisbury steak with a mushroom gravy. It doesn't sound good to you?

[John Becker]

Oh, well, we'll talk.

[Shannon Larson]

Okay, I'll come over for that.

[Megan Scott]

Okay, that's good. And I feel like this is. I almost don't need to ask this question, Christopher, but where can listeners follow you if they don't already?

[Christopher Kimball]

They can run after me when I go out to lunch. No, we have Milk street radio podcast where you can get that anywhere you get your podcasts, weekly podcasts. We've been doing that for, I don't know, hundreds of episodes. We have a Milk street television show on public television, of course, for many years as well. It's usually on the weekends. It's depends on which market you're in. You can go to our website, which is 177 Milk street which is actually the address of the office in Milk street in Boston. So this is the same street Benjamin Franklin was born on, actually. So.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, wow.

[Christopher Kimball]

I don't know what that has to do with food.

[Megan Scott]

Quite a pedigree for a street.

[John Becker]

Pretty cool.

[Christopher Kimball]

I don't think he was a great.

[Megan Scott]

Cook, but anyway, well, thank you so much for joining us today.

[Christopher Kimball]

Yeah, thank you.

[Megan Scott]

Thanks for listening to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Before we go, show some love for your favorite podcast by subscribing to the show and leaving us a review. Follow us at joyofcooking.substack.com and on Instagram at the Joy of Cooking. Stay tuned for next week where we will tackle rhubarb. And don't forget to make this week's recipe, Tagliatelle with Wilted greens on page 299. Call in with questions, hopes, history, or where you find joy in the kitchen. Our number is 503-395-8858. That's 503-395-8858.

[Shannon Larson]

And we could not do this without our fantastic team at the Joy of Creation production House. Thank you to Dave Drusky, our production coordinator, Hailey Bowers, our audio engineer, and Sarah Marshall, our producer.