Preservation all’Italiana
Photos by Michael Piazza
Finding ways to make food richer, healthier and more complex in flavor is a large part of why I practice preservation in the MIDA kitchen and why our food tastes so good. I do it for depth of flavor and the ability to keep great ingredients longer and apply them interchangeably to both savory and sweet dishes.
Since the dawn of time humans have preserved food as a way to get the most out of their harvest. Preservation allows us to use up and repurpose ingredients to create something magical, like my day-old sourdough bread, which I use to make MIDA’s Pangrattato, a flavorful and textural addition to so many of the restaurant’s dishes.
Preservation also makes everything just a little easier in a professional kitchen. You can make big batches inexpensively and quickly and still get the most flavor out of the ingredients. Ultimately, it creates a pantry of staple condiments that I can rely on for weeks and months on end, which helps us in our daily service. And those consistent flavors are what keep our guests coming back.
I’m inspired by the flavors that preserved foods bring to MIDA’s cuisine, but the idea of preservation itself is really about utilization and efficiency. The inspiration comes when I know I have preserved goods at my fingertips and they can help enhance a dish I’m working on.
As a home cook, I always suggest starting simple with preservation, using what’s fresh, in season and readily available to you. A strawberry jam in June, citrus mustard in the winter or even cucumber pickles or tomato sauce in the summer. You can choose to dial up different flavors with accompanying ingredients or play around with texture or acidity. And it’s kind of nice when, months later, you crack open that Mason jar of pickles you made in the summer and recall the flavors and memory of that particular moment in time.
As the weather cools down, the late-season harvest will be at top of mind and readily available, especially winter squash. These vegetables are nutritious, plentiful and full of water, flavor and possibilities.
Salting, pickling or even submerging vegetables in clarified butter or oil flavored with herbs (to confit) are great ways to preserve on the stove and then transfer to the fridge for storage. Spicy, crunchy, salty, unctuous—these flavors are all possible because preserving stops time, allowing you to unlock peak ingredients later in the year. Preserving can say a lot about who you are, your tastes, what you desire—all while allowing you to improve your health, forge an appreciation for seasonality and a newfound respect for the lovely and unique regions of New England that we have the pleasure to call home.
