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“Optional” Versus “Variations”

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top 1000Jeremiah Tower Cooks
Jeremiah Tower Cooks

By Jeremiah Tower

Published 2002

  • About
“Optional” is a word that recipe writers love to put next to any ingredient that looks as if it might cause the reader some discomfort or anxiety. I have chosen not to use the term because I know the reader can figure out that if a secondary ingredient—a garnish or one flavor among many—is out of season, too expensive, or unavailable, it can be omitted and the dish can be cooked anyway without a huge problem.

If the dish is french-style scrambled eggs with black truffles and you don’t have any truffles, then obviously the alarm goes off—if you don’t have the truffles, don’t make the dish. But in the case of a recipe that includes variations, such as meringues with longans, you will find that when longans are out of season, you may substitute rhubarb or cherries, which are from a different season than longans, or use anise-flavored mascarpone, which is available all year long.

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