Last year on the Fulbright trip to Greece and Cyprus, I found out that no one in the world except me pronounces the word "marinade" with the second "a" as in "father."
I was talking to Pam about it, and she laughed uproariously at my usage. I then went to every other participant in the seminar and asked how they pronounce it. Everyone said "Mayr-ih-NAYYYYD," as in parade, lemonade, and made-in-the-shade. So does dictionary.com, for that matter.
Maybe this is a product of my French-Swiss grandmother, for whom English was a second language, and who always pronounced "mayonnaise" as "My-oh-NEZ." But I never pronounced marinade with a long second a. Is there anyone out there who says it the way I do?
Regardless of the pronunciation, the book Marinades by Jim Tarantino is my favorite cookbook and has just been reissued by Ten Speed Press in a new, expanded edition.
I am a griller from way back. As a newlywed I marched out to the back porch of our apartment and began my education with hamburgers on a Weber charcoal grill. One tip: don't use pine straw as a starter for the coals. Three reasons: the smoke, the smell, and the bad taste on the food afterwards.
I soon graduated to barbecued chicken, and made the mistake of letting it sit on a hot grill covered in sugary, tomatoey barbecue sauce. Burned to a crisp.
But that first Easter we tried a family recipe for marinated leg of lamb, and it was magical. Rosemary, brown sugar, olive oil, and most importantly, aged wine vinegar went into that graceful brew. It has never failed to amaze guests at Easter dinner.
During the early part of my education we acquired the first Marinades, which was published in 1992. The greatest virtue of this edition was a thumbnail guide for which marinades went with which kind of meat or fish, and-- most importantly-- for how long the grill food would have to soak. I love coming home from work a little early and throwing together a spontaneous meal, so I scoured the book for 2-3 hour marinades, and eventually had more and more grilling success.
This book is bigger, longer, with smaller print, more recipes, and added sections on things called "brines," "cures," "rubs," and "glazes." Brines are salty solutions for dunking meat, cures and rubs are mixtures of ingredients rubbed on to the meat, and glazes are (often sweet) sauces brushed on at the end of grilling.
There are also out-and-out recipes, such as Grilled Iberian Pork Tenderloin with Blood-Orange Sherry Sauce.
Tarantino is a purist and a perfectionist. He minutely dissects his subject, getting into the chemistry of meat tenderization and freezer burn. He is the king of the specialty ingredient; if you want to run with the big dogs of grilling, you have to be willing to find and buy such things as juniper berries, banana leaves, and Coco Lopez cream of coconut.
But if you just want to grill some chicken legs on the back deck and sip wine at sunset, Jim Tarantino is still your man. There are simple recipes, and you don't have to add every single ingredient for a marinade to make its object taste good. Plus, it is such a high to create your own barbecue sauce (now we must call it "glaze") instead of relying on the bottled stuff that is so expensive and yet consists mostly of corn syrup, tomato goop, and MSG.
Tarantino is also a student of history, which pleases this student of history. He reports that sauerkraut comes from the Mongols, who invaded the West with crocks of pickled cabbage in their saddle bags. Reading Marinades puts me in the mood to share conversation and Grilled Beef Tenderloins with Ancho Chile Sauce with a food historian.
As Tarantino accurately points out, grilling is the oldest form of meat cooking technique; when first one of our ancestors stuck a piece of meat on a stick and held it over a campfire, grilling was born.
In ancient Greece, grilling was done kebab style, by cutting meat into chunks, spearing the chunks on skewers, and suspending them over a fire. Here's one of Homer's many descriptions of the ancient grill-out:
They slaughtered and flayed the oxen,
Jointed the thighbones and wrapped them
In a layer of fat with cuts of meat on top.
The old man roasted them over charcoal
And doused them with wine. Younger men
stood by with five-tined forks in their hands.
When the thighpieces were charred and they had
Tasted the tripe, they cut the rest into strips,
Skewered it on spits and roasted it skillfully.
(From Book I, Lombardo translation. Buy the newly released audio book)
Homer describes the essential elements of a marinade, fat and acid (wine): the fat melts on the fire and keeps moist the meat lying on top of it. The wine flavors the meat and tenderizes it. The marinated meat is then finished on kebabs.
We tend not to eat organs anymore, but the ancient Greeks had a meat-poor diet, and so tripe was considered a delicacy.
Homer also accurately depicts the scene around the grill. If there are men at a cook-out, they are all there with five-tined forks, putting in their two cents' worth.
Happy summer and happy grilling, everyone. You are engaged in an age-old pleasure.
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