Tasting time

Kate Underwood, Food Editor @relishthememory @eat.newzealand

What does time taste like? Time has the power to transform an ingredient, allowing a new experience of flavour, texture, and intensity. I’ve been thinking about how many of my favourite foods involve the transportation of an ingredient through time. It’s the one thing we can never change or get back, but if used well, particularly in the kitchen, time can be our greatest asset. Most surprisingly, it can take an ingredient you aren’t so fussed about and modify it to become something you can’t live without.

When I consider the relationship between food and time, my mind wanders to spongy sourdough, tangy sauerkraut, tart vinegar, salty miso, piquant pickles, fizzy kombucha, and deeply savoury, meltingly tender cured meat.

Time is crucial to some of our most soughtafter tastes, from charcuterie to wine and cheese. There is nothing more glorious than crunchy crystal edges around a block of vintage cheddar or gouda. The godfather of cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano, is required to be aged for a minimum of 12 months and up to 36 months. If you ever get the opportunity to taste a giant wheel of freshly cracked Parmigiano, take it. The flavour is unlike anything else.

Time imbues flavour. It intensifies, develops nuance, and produces an outcome that can demand a greater appreciation than the original form. Ever wondered why that curry you make tastes better the next day? Time gives ingredients a chance to relax into each other, to become friends and to mingle. Marinating does the same.

Time also alters form. The mere act of preserving food changes it from one state to something completely different. You can use time to soften crunch, change acidity or pH, and even dull bitterness – think pickled radishes. Preserved lemons, for instance, originated as a practical solution for utilising citrus long after the season had finished. With the help of salt, lemons go from being firm and zingy to a softer, fleshy, bright, and umami flavour bomb.

I often see my fridge and pantry as a time machine. There are jars of my mum’s black Doris plum jam from January 2020, when Dad’s tree had a particularly bumper crop. Pickled cherries I found in Central Otago during Easter 2021 and pickled carrots from last year, which I eat on toast with crunchy peanut butter. Even the Greek yoghurt, a mainstay in my fridge, requires time to produce.

Today you’ll find dry-aged fish or beef on restaurant menus across town. The technique of air-drying places a protein in a controlled environment, causing it to lose moisture and produce a more concentrated flavour. The process encourages tenderness by allowing time for the tough muscle fibres and connective tissue to release tension. A 52-day aged rib eye, for example, intensifies umami and creates a stronger, nutty, almost cheesy flavour.

Observing time as flavour reminds us to trust the process. It inspires us to take that abundant summer produce and transform it. Make apricot jam, turn cucumbers into bread and butter pickles, and tomatoes into relish, and be rewarded with flavour in the future.

Sam Parish @sam.parish.food