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Podcast Summary: This Is TASTE - Episode 260: Lior Lev Sercarz
Episode Overview In this episode of *This Is TASTE*, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard interview Lior Lev Sercarz, a renowned chef, spice blender, and the owner of La Boîte, a spice company based in New York City. The discussion centers on Lior’s journey from Israel to the high-end culinary scene in New York, his new culinary ventures, including a cooking school in Northern Israel, and his recently published book, *A Middle Eastern Pantry*. The hosts also touch on upcoming fall cookbooks, sharing their early impressions.
Key Themes & Discussions
Lior Lev Sercarz's Journey
- Background: Lior shares his unique path from Israel through various famous kitchens in New York.
- Culinary Education: He is founding a culinary school in Northern Israel, emphasizing practical experiences in food production, cooking, and food journalism.
- Spice Expertise: With a deep background in spices, Lior discusses how he transitioned from a focus on spice blends to a broader exploration of pantry staples in his latest book.
A Middle Eastern Pantry
- Book Insights: *A Middle Eastern Pantry* is described as a defining work that categorizes not only spices but also syrups and condiments essential to Middle Eastern cuisine.
- Culinary Representation: Lior explores what constitutes the Middle East from a political and cultural perspective while highlighting the important figures behind the ingredients.
- Culinary Techniques: The book emphasizes techniques like pickling, fermenting, and drying to preserve ingredients at their peak.
Importance of Middle Eastern Flavors
- Flavor Profiles: Lior explains why Middle Eastern flavors resonate well with contemporary palates, focusing on the clean ingredients and umami-rich, plant-based nature of the cuisine.
- Culinary Trends: The popularity of ingredients such as pomegranate molasses and za’atar is attributed to their versatility and the evolving American palate that seeks more diverse flavor experiences.
Cooking Techniques and Ingredients
- Sumac and Dukkah: Lior shares insights on using sumac, likening it to “Middle Eastern vinegar” and discusses dukkah, advocating for its use in various dishes, showcasing the adaptability of Middle Eastern spices in everyday cooking.
- Olive Oil: The discussion includes evaluating olive oils, emphasizing the importance of knowing the source and quality of the oil.
- Culinary Philosophy: Lior advocates for seasoning dishes thoughtfully, prioritizing flavors from the ingredients rather than defaulting to salt.
Upcoming Cookbooks Overview
- The hosts preview anticipated cookbooks for the fall season, including:
- *Snacking Bakes* by Yossy Arefi
- *Make It Japanese* by Rie McClenny
- *My Everyday Lagos* by Yawande Komolafe
- *Simply West African* by Pierre Thiam
- Various other notable titles from authors like Jing Gao, C Pam Zhang, and Dwight Garner.
Key Takeaways
- Culinary Education: Lior's new cooking school aims to blend practical cooking skills with an understanding of food technology and cultural context.
- Culinary Identity: Lior emphasizes the importance of understanding the cultural richness and diversity of Middle Eastern cuisine.
- Seasoning and Cooking Philosophy: The episode advocates for a thoughtful approach to cooking, encouraging cooks to explore flavors beyond traditional norms.
Conclusion Lior Lev Sercarz’s insights into spices, Middle Eastern cuisine, and his culinary journey provide a rich framework for understanding contemporary cooking trends. The episode not only highlights his personal story but also serves as a reminder of the significance of cultural heritage in the culinary world. The hosts' discussions about upcoming cookbooks inject excitement and anticipation for the fall cooking season.
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Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Eastern Mediterranean or the Middle East, however you want to call it, it's a combination of very clean ingredients with a lot of flavor. The fact that it's a vegetarian, vegan cuisine is very appealing. So you can bring a lot of umami, a lot of depth, a lot of savory to a vegetable or fruit.
0:52This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.
0:59Lior Lev-Serkars is a chef, spice blender, and owner of La Boite, a world-renowned spice shop located in New York City. On this episode, I catch up with Lior about his unique path from Israel to some of the most famous restaurants in New York City. We talk about the culinary school he's founding in northern Israel and dive into his incredible new book, A Middle Eastern Pantry. For real, this is one of my favorite books of the year, and we go over so many spices and condiments that shape this amazing culinary history. Lior is a true one-of-one, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
1:42Lior Lev Serkars, welcome to This Is Taste. Thank you for having me. It's wonderful to see you. It's great to see you too. Gentlemen, I feel like I've been in your orbit. You've been in my orbit for 15 years. And we're finally having a real conversation with microphones in our face. Finally. Can I say some nice things about your book? Thank you, please. It's just a Middle Eastern pantry is, to me, a defining work. What you're doing is very hard. You're defining not just the spices, but the syrups and the condiments, All the ingredients that we hear about in food media, we write about in food media from the Middle East.
2:21And that's a general term. And we'll get to your definition of that. But you do it in a way that's it's not boring. And that's hard to do in a pantry book. Thank you. Thank you. It was really I mean, I'm a big fan of pantry, not necessarily the Middle Eastern. I think the notion of having a pantry, I don't know if it's a disappeared, but who has a pantry in their homes? So I'm a big advocate of pantry items. they make my cooking really easy. And then obviously being from the Middle East and passionate with the culture and the art form of steel pickling, fermenting, drying, in a sense to capture the ingredient at its peak.
3:01It's not an afterthought. It's on purpose, which, you know, I think, and I really want to highlight the people behind the food, the growers, the makers, the farmers, the traders, in a very unique way. And it says it at the beginning of the book at some point that we're highlighting and we're bringing my interpretation of the region. It's by no means 100 % copy of the recipes, the way they're done originally. And it's how somebody in the U.S., North America, or around the world could bring these ingredients into their homes with their food. Okay. We know you from Le Bois, which is a spice retailer, wholesaler to many of the finest restaurants in our country.
3:40So you have this background in spice and you've written books about spice, but you're expanding it even beyond. You're talking about all the products in the pantry. I want to ask you first, how do you define the Middle East? It's a tricky topic. I feel like it's not easy to make, like draw a map, but how do you define it? So it was an interesting challenge when we started working on the book with Emily Stevenson that wrote the book with me and is an incredible writer. it is a political definition more so than geographical. Egypt being part of the mix doesn't really make sense it's in Africa it was defined in the early 1900s by you know the British that occupied the region and kind of probably were the first to put that name Middle East on that.
4:30I was super excited about this because I can throw Egypt into the mix and then we'll go all the way to Iraq and Iran and even Yemenite influences, which again, one could argue. So that's kind of how we defined it. We looked at the political map of it without getting into politics, just kind of what countries were part of it. In some cases, there was not a whole lot to talk about in terms of ingredients or recipes. And in some cases, there was too much to talk about. I think that if there's ever a volume two, might need to be dedicated to Persian cuisine and Iraqi and Turkish and Lebanese because each of these countries deserve a book on their own.
5:09And they all have great books too. And I think what makes your book so special is that you're able to finesse through these geographical territories without being reductive, without being basic. And there's wonderful recipes. I'm going to back up and go back to your history. You worked at Daniel in the early 20s. Correct. Danielle, I'm sorry. I love how I call it like a Texas banker, like Daniel. Well, most of you are like, oh, you were Daniels. I was like, it's Daniel. It's Daniel. But you worked there in the early 2000s in an amazing time at that restaurant. What was that like? I came, I was in France for five years.
5:46I went to culinary school at the Paul Bocuse Institute, stayed three more years working and decided that I did not want to have anything to do with France or French people and anybody from Lyon. and I ended up at Daniel, who was born and raised in Lyon, French restaurant, got there. I never intended to come to New York. My ex-girlfriend at the time convinced me to come and left me a week before. I already had a job and a plane ticket, so I guess I just come. I walked in, I met Alex Lee, back then the executive chef, and from there everything else made sense. I met Daniel, the team, had amazing six years at Daniel.
6:22Wow, and who are you working with? I mean, this is a crazy time at Daniel. So Alex was his last year at Danielle. For people who know Alex Lee, a really iconic figure in the culinary U.S. world, Danielle. I'm trying to think. Johnny Eusini was just leaving, I believe, the pastry. Sandro Michelli. Then Dominique Ancel came through. So I've seen quite a few people who are now doing their own thing. Gail Simmons and I, I think, walked through the door the same day or one day apart from each other. She was doing PR. I started cooking. But she'd jump on the line sometimes too because Gail is a great chef.
7:00Absolutely. And we still talk about we are good friends and we do some cooking events. So it's amazing. Danielle just celebrated their big anniversary and going there and seeing all the talent that came through that kitchen. It's remarkable. Some people are still in the industry. Some people are doing other things. Great school. I loved every second of it. Yeah. And then you decided at some point you were going to leave the restaurant world and open your own business. And La Boite has become a go-to, as I said, spice purveyor for both retail and wholesale, correct? Yeah. So I started La Boite out of my apartment in the late 2006, 2007.
7:43There was no real plan. The plan was to make food better, is how can we really enhance food? And the answer was spices. and slowly started building up this network of partners and vendors and growers. Exciting 16 years of really changing the way people cook at home and on the restaurant front with La Boite. It's food first for us at La Boite. We think food and then we figure out a way on how to make it better. Yeah, I mean the spice business has become a huge business, especially with direct-to-consumer brands selling spices, selling spice packs. But you were doing it 16 years ago. When was the first time za 'atar hit?
8:26I'm just like joking because we talk about za 'atar a lot on the show. But I feel like you probably were one of the first to sell za 'atar in New York. There were a few items that I'm a big advocate or ambassador. Za 'atar and tahina and amba and all of these. And finally, you know, you go to, I don't know if a 7-Eleven at this point But they might. I think it took some time to change the perception of, first of all, ethnic food, which wasn't a conversation when I started. Yeah. And also just home cooking and emboldening chefs and home cooks alike to use the global pantry using a bad cliche. But it's articulated.
9:04I think it's important to note that it wasn't always as easy to get good spice. No, it wasn't. I mean, the situation is much better today, but definitely was alarming. in fine dining, in people's homes, the lack of knowledge, you know, and we talk about spices and ingredient at La Boite. It's not an afterthought. So the same way that you spend money and time on purchasing protein and produce, should do the same. Big question here. The flavors of the Middle East, they're undeniable. Like in food culture, you're seeing pomegranate molasses like leak into like modern American bistros. You're seeing Amba.
9:44You just referenced that. You're dipping like bar bites into Amba. So let me ask you, why is the Middle Eastern flavor profile so prominent right now? I think there's a couple of things. A, it's got flavor. It's full of flavor. There's a burst. And it's an interesting contrast in the Eastern Mediterranean or the Middle East, however you want to call it. It's a combination of very clean ingredients with a lot of flavor. and that I think is a great contrast. You can also claim that the ability, the fact that it's a vegetarian, vegan cuisine is very appealing. So you can bring a lot of umami, a lot of depth, a lot of savory to a vegetable or fruit.
10:25And I think people want flavor. I think that, you know, we are luckily at the point today where we're looking not necessarily for heat and I love hot sauce, don't get me wrong, but we're looking for acid, we're looking for bitterness, we're looking for salinity So I think that the Middle Eastern products and pantry items are there and it hits you right away. I think that's why they're so popular. Yeah. Really smart words there, articulate, because I think you're right. It is clean and it really works with the plant-based diet in a way that in certain other cultures, their animal products kind of leak in just by default.
11:00So well said. Let's talk about some specifics. I have a couple marked down. The way you write about Spice 2, I just love it. It's why I love this book so much. Sumac you're calling the Middle Eastern vinegar. I love that. I've over the year had to kind of figure out how to describe it to people. You know, when you say it's a berry, it's like, oh, I don't use berries. And when you say tart and acid, it was like, boom, that doesn't sound great. But vinegar, that's approachable. I think people understand vinegar or red wine vinegar or, you know, berry vinegar. And I think that's what it does. I think that's why it was created.
11:34You know, it's to bring acid into food in a dry form. So I think that's what's kind of our way of describing it. Really, really smart. And, you know, the crimson hue of sumac when you get it fresh and you smell it. But then it has this like lightness to it and this like citrus. And so vinegar makes a lot of sense. How do you cook with it? I use it on a lot of things. Whether I don't cook at all, I just, you know, slice some onions and toss them in sumac and olive oil and done deal. There's a salad. The beauty of sumac is that it holds its acidity and tartness even in roasting and cooking while lemon juice will just disappear.
12:11So just from a, you know, a roast chicken with sumac, a fish, which is beautiful, just braised or oven-baked with sumac. Yeah. I love roast chicken with sumac, to your point. Gives beautiful color to a full, like a full bird. But also it doesn't, it's like lemon plus lemon plus lemon plus lemon. It's giving you all this lemon without it burning off. Correct, yeah. Really well said. Let's talk about dukkah. It's been a favorite in our household. I sometimes don't quite know how to use it. I put it on a lot of things, but I think you're more articulate than me. So how do you cook with dukkah? Dukkah, the Middle Eastern Egyptian spice blend, where they're using walnuts or hazelnuts in the conversation.
12:55There's as many conversations as different varieties, maybe like curry, if you'd like. anywhere from roasting vegetables so not a whole lot olive oil, dukkah, salt in the oven great textures just plain yogurt with dukkah as a dip or as a spread salads are fantastic again so many and popcorn I mean who doesn't like a good dukkah popcorn it's a great popcorn and I've definitely put it on popcorn myself and I like two things you've mentioned you said raw onions with sumac and yogurt with dukkah these are two items that maybe we don't think about on their own with like Western American cooking, but like an onion salad can be just beautiful and it doesn't have to have the astringency.
13:35And then yogurt can be savory. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we consume tremendous amount of yogurt and labneh at home. It's probably one of our, and so easy to use with, you know, either a dukkah or a sumac. And without even turning your stove on or your oven, you can cook. And I think that's part of a big thing that we do at Laboate is teaching people how to cook without cooking. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, I mean, you think of it, It's just like raw ingredients plus spice and there you go, dinner served. White coffee. I'd like to hear a little bit about that because I've never heard of it. But also, you know, beverage plus spice is something we don't necessarily think about right away.
14:10We obviously know chai, South Asian spiced tea. But honestly, outside of that, it's less common. What is white coffee? You write about it beautifully. So white coffee could be two things. So if you go to Yemen, white coffee would be a blend of green coffee beans, unroasted, untoasted. Roasted, I guess, is the term. Traditionally with a little bit of corn in it to bring sweetness and then cardamom and ginger and cinnamon. And then like a French press or steeped or boiled and then drank. You can also see the same up north with just putting either an orange blossom into a water or rose water and just calling it white coffee.
14:49Even though there's no coffee. It's just like an infused water with rose. But you're using like green beans. Hard to find in the States, but you can find it. Really interesting use of coffee. It's a great ingredient. It's hard to grind. And so that's why it's challenging. They're hard as hell, man. Yeah. They're very hard. But, you know, you can even leave them whole and just steep them for longer and it will work. Or if your local coffee roaster doesn't mind taking the risk of grinding them for you. And so it's a spectacular result. Either hot or cold. Very energizing. So white coffee. So I would go to like my local cafe roaster and say, hey, guys, like, do you have like some green in the back and maybe buy a little?
15:28Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah. And then you can grind them on your own or if they're willing to grind them for you. It's fantastic. All right. Let's talk about za 'atar a little bit. What am I not thinking about with za 'atar? I feel like I have thought about it quite a bit, but you've got a whole bunch of ideas there in the book. I think the first and foremost, it's an herb, you know, so the blend is made with an herb named za 'atar. Now you'd find za 'atar that's made with anything from oregano to rosemary and anything in between. Is it za 'atar? It's like saying that hummus by law needs to have tahina.
15:58I think it should. Yeah. We're not going to like be the police of it. But yeah, I agree. Like tahina should be part of hummus. I agree with you. By law. And then I'm the founder of that organization. You are. I'm very adamant about it. You're judge, jury and executioner. Yeah. So za 'atar leaves, which I love using just on their own, you know, instead of oregano or any type of dried herbs. Sumac, you know, definitely a major component. Unholed natural sesame. Yeah, of course. And then from that moment on, you want to go to the more whole version, not ground. Great. There's some Jordanian or Lebanese or Syrian where nothing's ground.
16:39It's pretty much whole except for the sumac. Some of them will be finer. but really that balance of acid from the sumac, earthiness and herbaceous from the za 'atar and then the nuttiness from the sesame. Perfect. Yeah, I've been to this great shop in the Shuk in Akko and definitely they'll ask you how much sumac you want in your za 'atar. And I love that you mentioned that because I think I'm more of a sumac-heavy fan but it's a preference really. Yeah, and then people will tend to like, oh, it's not green enough. I happen to be colorblind. So color is not part of my conversation. Cool. As long as the taste and smell are fantastic, the rest, I don't really care.
17:14But I think, yeah. I have a few more questions about spice, but let's zoom out a bit. Are you going to origin yourself? Are you buying spice at the source? I try as much as I can. Sure. Our industry is challenging like many other ones. Single source product is very limited and it's hard to trace. You can buy Indian coriander that actually grew in Eastern Europe but was processed in India. Thus, the label on the back would say Indian. It's very limited quantity. Seasonality plays a big role. In our industry, again, like many others, there's a lot of adulteration. There's a lot of stamps put, you know, if you pay the right amount of money, you get the stamp put on it.
17:54So I'm very skeptical and hesitant about single source origin. We have a couple of handful of farmers where I visit the farm. We buy from them. Again, very limited quantities. The high volume ingredients like cumin, fennel, coriander, paprika, They come from, I wouldn't say thousands of farms, but easily hundreds of farms. I went to India three years ago. I've seen the reality out there. People are doing an amazing job, but there's just not enough on one farm to supply what we need. Yeah, and it kind of brings into focus the blending aspect. Obviously, we want to be careful and talk about farmers and really make sure we're giving them credit.
18:30But when it comes down to a spice blend, the blender, like yourself, is really making it happen. I think the farmer makes the job for us. So if the product is great, then it's great. I'm no magician. But it happens that one of our blends would be bags from three different farms or three different vendors. My work, like a winemaker, let's put it that way, is to get grapes from different parcels on the plot and finding the right balance. It's never the same, but it's always natural. That's kind of how we approach it. It's never exactly like the last batch. Yeah, and it's like buying coffee, green coffee as well.
19:06And like if you're buying Ethiopian coffee, you're buying it from several small hold farms, like two to three acres each. Yeah. I'm sure it's similar with spice. All right. Back to the list. Okay. Lior, got to know, what is a caper? Just caper berries? Yeah. Like you're getting the jar at the store and like, I'm like, yo, I don't know what that is. So what is that? It's a beautiful plant that grows wild in the Middle East with this beautiful flower. flour and then it's the fruit of it that's harvested kind of fresh. And then a couple of ways of preserving it, either in brine or in salt. Some of them, like the Italian ones, they're very large with this long tail attached to them.
19:49The fancy ones, I call them. I also like the tiny, tiny little ones that are in brine. So just, yeah, either brine or cured in salt. Again, a great way to add salinity without adding salt to a dish. So throwing a few capers into a preparation. I'm a big fan of not reaching out to your salt container or shaker right away. First taste and then you see if you need some more. I like that. So thinking about the natural products and not just reaching for the diamond crystal. I'm, you know, I think that the phrase season to taste with salt and pepper should disappear from rest of the piece. It should say season to taste with heat and salinity.
20:28and maybe you don't even need it because you already have enough ingredients in the recipe when you don't need that. Love that. I mean, I feel it's like a go-to. The default almost means nothing when you say season to taste. It's like, yeah, but like if you said season to taste with sumac, like add sumac and then keep incrementally adding it to season your dish. I think there should be like a little checklist. Is it there's enough heat? Is enough salinity? Is it sour? Is it hot? Is it bitter? And then you can adjust like, you know, like a little bit, like in an audio studio. I love it. The bass treble or whatever it is.
21:03No, it's a great cognate. I love that. And again, like when you think about the pantry section in most cookbooks, and I've written the pantry section in several cookbooks, such a snooze, very boring, very hard to make it interesting. You're making it interesting here. Thank you. I mean, it was fun. I learned a lot, I must say. A lot of what's in the book I didn't know. It was fascinating. That's why I love this book so much because I've learned a lot. And I think it's, again, it's how it's made, where it's made, who makes it that really makes this connectivity with the ingredient. You take a yogurt stone, it's like, oh, my God, there's so much work that went into it.
21:41It's not like just a dry baseball of cheese or something. How do you judge olive oil? So, again, tricky one. As a son of an olive oil maker, my dad makes, He has his own six, seven hundred trees in the north. Northern Israel. Northern Israel. We haven't established that because your accent, you have a French accent too. I do speak fluent French and Hebrew and English all day long. But I am from Israel, from the north, from the Galilee, upper eastern Galilee, as they call it. Up by Syria? Yeah. I mean, Lebanon and Syria. So you pick where you want to go. Yeah, I was just there in March up in the border.
22:17It's such, I mean, spectacular. It's a beautiful place. Yeah, there's snow, which people don't know of. There's mountains, even ski. So I love olive oils with lots of character, you know, very peppery, very herbaceous. I would enjoy even a mild one, but I need some punch in my olive oil. There's amazing olive oils, whether it's Israel, whether it's Spain, it's Italy, U.S. There's a lot more awareness. I think that, you know, even 10, 15 years ago, olive oil was kind of like a novelty item. And now we're seeing a new wave of oils to begin with, not just olive oils. And so I like them with a lot of character.
22:55I think the good ones last for quite some time. People have this tendency of like, oh, one year. If they're done right, they will last two years easily. That's cool to hear. I think there's a little bit of contradictory information out there. Some will say you have to use it right away within three months or you're done. But you're saying it does hold. As long as the acidity level is low and the lower the better. and people don't mention that. I wish one day on packaging, it would say low of, you know, how much acidity there is. I'm currently using my dad's Oreo from 2020. Still spectacular. I just have a lot.
23:29I think the one rule is that you pour olive oil with the elbow up high. You cannot measure olive oil. It's got a flow. You can cook with it. You can sear with it. Also misconception. Obviously, I wouldn't do deep frying in olive oil. No, it's hard to deep fry, but smoke points are higher than you would think. Correct. It doesn't burn as easily as you think. And you should pay good money for whatever olive oil that you're buying. Know the source. The ingredient should be just olive in it, nothing else. Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully. There's a lot, again, of adulteration with mixing oils. Nothing wrong with the blended oil for high-temperature cooking.
24:11And, you know, I've used it in the restaurant. Oh, blends are great. I mean, I think California Avalon Ranch just throw out a brand. And their blends are great for everyday cooking. Yeah. And so I think that's great. But yeah, do pick your grower in the container and don't be shy. Your father has 600 trees. My father grows olives and figs. Yeah. He makes buha, which is a distilled Tunisian beverage from the figs, like an eau de vie. Oh, cool. And then turns his olives into olive oil. It's called moshe oil. Has he had any die-off from the – I was just in Pouli, in southern Pouli, And I was amongst groves and they were half of them were healthy, but then there was so much die off and it was like very sad.
24:51It's he's organic without the stamp. Let's put it that way. So he's fanatic and he cuts the trees in a very special way that there's enough. Luckily, this year was good because it's organic and no treatment. You'd have the bug here and there. And, you know, it's enough that there's a wave of wind or rain right before harvest and you lose a lot of it. He doesn't use anything that's on the ground, and it's all really handpicked. Wow. You know, it takes forever, but the result is in the bottle. Did you help him with harvest? Not this year. Last year I went. You've been and you helped him. It's beautiful.
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25:24I love olive oil from anywhere. When it's good, it's good. Can we talk about the date shake? I just love that you've called out one of my favorite American foods, dishes, whatever, the Palm Springs Indio date shake. I went to Palm Springs, oh gosh, probably 10, 12 years ago. Yeah, more than 10 because my son's 10. So it was prior to that. Pre-kids, it was a little more like. Pre-kids. Were you at Coachella? No, I'm not cool enough, I think, to go to Coachella. Okay, that's fair. I just went on like a little trip there. I loved the area. It was fascinating. Palm Springs and the architecture and the climate.
26:03And then I ended up in this place that made date shakes. I was like, wait, date shake in the middle of all of this? Was it Shields? It's possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I probably have a mug somewhere at home. And I was like, dates are from my part of the world. I was like, no, no, no, no. We have them here. Interestingly enough, kind of a fun fact, the California date industry pretty much saved the whole world. because I believe in the 40s or 50s, there was a big, or maybe even later, dates around the world were dying. Morocco, the Middle East, and if it wasn't for California dates where farmers were able to send plants to replant in all of these regions, the industry would have been in really bad shape.
26:42A life without dates. I cannot imagine living without dates and then, you know, using silan, which is date syrup, date molasses, however you want to call it. I use it in large amounts and they shape me. Total sense. I have to shout out, Zoom makes a really nice salon. I like that product a lot. Absolutely. And you probably sell it as well. Yeah. It's very, it's nice. So yeah, we think about pomegranate molasses mostly, and this leads to my next question, but date syrup is amazing. So the whole notion of dibs, which in Arabic, which is molasses. Yeah. So there's dibs from grapes and from pomegranate and carob, which has not made it yet to the US, but I think it's up and coming.
27:21Carob is a product. It's reserved for the vegan industry. It's like we think of it as like a chocolate alternative here. But just, I mean, we ate carob as kids. Just picking them up and drying them and eating them. It's a great source of fibers and sugars. But the carob molasses, which is really savory and deep, and why use artificial sugar syrups where you can use natural ones? So the notion of dibs just really making molasses out of fruit or anything else. Yeah, it's a beautiful section in the book. And I have to ask you about pomegranate molasses because you have a recipe for the molasses lamb leg.
27:56And I have to just think like, you know, that's a Mike Solomanov kind of joint right there. I feel a friend of both of ours. And I feel like that he made it really popular as a hob in Philadelphia. But you can make your you can do you can put pomegranate on any meat cut. But I think a lamb leg is pretty great. Lamb is great. Beef is great. As the founder of the Juice for Pork Association. ribs would do the trick a pork shoulder that's slowly braised um it's a great source and again just a little drizzle over your yogurt for breakfast i pour some over tahina for breakfast and just eat it with bread uh great source of of you know not only sweetness obviously but also fruit and sour yeah a good a really good pomegranate molasses is just perfect for both sweet and savory cooking.
28:47I love it. Yeah. We often forget about the last recipe that appears in a book. And I had to mention yours, which is salt cod and green olive stew. Appears on page 280. Let's give it the love it deserves. Huge fan of salt cod. Bacalao, whatever you want to call it. I got exposed to it in France. As a child in the kibbutz, they made salt cod, but I have very bad memories from that experience. Where's the cod coming from? Like Northern Europe, probably? It came probably from either Northern Europe or maybe from Spain. But the way it was prepared, thank, you know, God bless these. They're probably all gone at this point.
29:24The people who cooked at my kibbutz. The Mishra, the kibbutz. The Ashkenazi cooks that, you know, were pretty angry people, I think, in that dining room. I moved to France and discovered Brondade. Yeah. And discovered just, you know, salt cod that was roasted or oven baked. I was like, oh, my God, this is such an incredible product. It's shelf-stable. So who doesn't love a good shelf-stable fish? And so I was very excited to find it in the Middle Eastern cuisine. It's kind of a mash-up of a few recipes that we find. I also love cooking with olives. I think people don't use enough olives in cooking.
30:03It's reserved for pizza. It's reserved for charcuterie board. Yeah, little plates before the meal, yeah. Braised olives. I mean, we also have braised olives, too, in the book. That's aside from that fish. I love olives. So putting those together, you can make it with fresh cod. You can make it with any fish. But I think salt cod and then soaking it in water for a few days and then cooking it, it's incredible. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's something that we just don't think about as much as like an American cook because it's just not something we have a big abundance of because we have fresh or fresh frozen cod.
30:35Yeah. And it's available. Oh, yeah. It's about a matter of looking for it. What was food like growing up on the kibbutz? I mean, let me ask you about that. Like you moved to France. Your mind must have been blown. I mean, what were these communal meals like? So I loved the kibbutz. I had an amazing childhood. The food in the dining hall, some parts of it were actually amazing. There was some really fun stuff, but some stuff wasn't that great. The beauty of living in a kibbutz, especially in the north of Israel, after school, I took my bike and with a bunch of friends, We went to the river next to our kibbutz and went fishing for trout, for rainbow trout, start a fire and then cook trout over a wildfire.
31:13I was seven or eight year old. I had a horse. I went horseback riding, stopped at the kibbutz next door and steal a watermelon or two and then bring them back. Go and, you know, before Scandinavian foraging was a thing, we went foraging as kids for berries and fruits. and we knew where the trees were and, you know, what neighbor had the best figs or the best, you know, guavas or apples and, you know, hoping we don't get caught by the neighbor or the neighboring farm. Yeah. I mean, the diversity of products in northern Israel in particular, I mean, like you could be in Bavaria, you could be in Colorado.
31:50I mean, you could be in a lot of different places. Yeah. And the cultures of Druze cuisine, Palestinian, Christian, there's such great ethnicity. So we had the chance to travel quite a bit as kids. My dad was stationed in a few countries, so I lived for a year in Rome. And then we lived in Brussels, where all of a sudden I saw non-kosher food. Can you imagine, you know, coming from back then a pretty kosher country, eating mussels? Is that where the juice for pork, you know, constituency started? I think that's where it started without putting a name on it. But, you know, eating pâtés and eating.
32:22And I was like, why are we deprived from these beautiful, you know, thing? I have a good friend who thinks that that's the source of conflict in the Middle East is the fact that there's not enough pork and not enough alcohol. Well, well, that would be quite the conversation. That's a whole other conversation to be had. But I discovered, I think I really, the notion of cooking and becoming a cook started kind of shaping up in, you know, I was eight, eight, nine, traveling in Europe and then coming back to Israel. Amazing street food. And you could be on one block and eating Eastern European mixed with Moroccan and Iraqi and Bulgarian.
33:00And I think that's what makes current Israeli cuisine. It's kind of a million dollar question. What is Israeli cuisine? I think it's that melting pot of influences and ethnicities with the products that are grown domestically. Yeah. So fascinating childhood. Absolutely. And I'd like to ask you about the cooking school that you're founding in Israel. You've been working on it for like five years. you're about to open next year in 2024. Sounds amazing. How can we just sign up and attend and do classes there? So, Galilee Culinary Institute, GCI for shorts, I partnered with an amazing organization called Jewish National Fund based in New York, but does amazing work in Israel.
33:40They're my business partners. Opening May of 2024, 12 months program in English. Sign up is open, so people could apply at galileeculinaryinstitute.com and send their application. The program is fun. It's 12 months of a lot of experiences from wine making, caviar making, cheese making, charcuterie. Our knife skill class actually starts at the knife maker. We're going to go and see how knives are being made before we're going to even chop one tomato. We have a five acre farm where students will grow most of the produce that's being used. We really want to talk about all the application of culinary, sure, cooking and baking, but also food journalism and writing and photography.
34:22people talk about farm to table I want to talk about the table and how a table is being made and what makes a difference between a round table to a square table that's pretty cool, never heard that one do you need a tablecloth so we really want to push the envelope and have our students really explore everything including by the way legal and finance and to give them tools to succeed in the business as a restaurateur or if you choose to be a food photographer once you graduate I'll be very excited. If you want to start your own podcast, if you want to go and work for a large food manufacturer in their lab as a food scientist, you want to be a food activist.
35:01No answer is a bad answer. Special place. Yeah, very special place. Do you offer financial aid at all? We do. That's great. So case per case, very open. We have a whole team and depending. It's open to students from all over the world. We currently have somebody from Peru, Canada, the U.S., Israel. The more, the merrier. Yeah, I mean, I've read about it online. Now we're talking about it. But it seems like it's a pioneering institute in Israel. And it's going to be bringing together the products that we've just spoken about. And can you imagine going there and learning to cook with pomegranate molasses in country?
35:35There's now caviar. And there's wasabi growing in the Golan Heights. There's a truffle farm. Vanilla growing. I mean, it's mind-blowing. The food tech also in that region and in Israel. It's really, really exceptional. Yeah, the vertical farming I saw in Tel Aviv, just a small fraction of it, but the tech is obviously world-renowned. On This is Taste, we asked guests about their discerning tastes. So, Lior, to close this interview, I want to give you a rapid-fire taste test. Okay. Taste check. I don't know. We're going to call it test. We're going to call it check. Let's start here. What is the best nut?
36:11Pistachio. Great. The most underrated New York City restaurant? Ouch. It's currently closed. Hopefully it'll open. It's called Taboon on 10th and 52nd. Yeah, Taboon. Absolutely. It's closed now. Reopening this September, I believe, or October. The most underrated piece of kitchen equipment? Oh, a vegetable peeler. Okay, so let me ask you that. When should you throw it out? I feel like they're always dull in every kitchen I go to. I've had mine for years. Oh, you probably bought the right one. Most overrated ingredient? Truffle. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, even on fries, which I love. Yeah. Your favorite cookbook of all time?
36:51One, single one. One choice, one book. Oh, that's a tough one. I don't know that I have an answer for that. It's a really hard one. I know. I know, because you're, like, diplomatic, but, like, okay, what is the last one you pulled from, I'll say? I did the pizza dough from Roberta's. Yeah, that's a great book. I love that. What's the best cheese? Oh, Brier Savarin. Oh, and so it has to be French cheese. No. I love a lot of cheese, but that's my happy place. The best fast food? Shawarma. Oh, yeah, totally. So you thought of it like to-go takeaway. Do you have an American fast food favorite?
37:31I guess burgers. Yeah. Any like chain you like? Haven't found it yet. Fair enough. I like that. I've spoken like a true chef. Your favorite country to visit? Aside from Israel, I would imagine. Yeah, we'll say that. That's like going home. Fair enough. Not home, but like another country. France. Yeah. Kind of predicted that one. Okay, your late night diner order.
37:57Probably, I don't know what I would late night diner order. Like 2 a.m. post club. Bacon. A side of bacon. Side of bacon, great. A few sides of bacon. As an aside, were you a fan of Florent back in the day in the 90s? Never been. You never went to Florent back in the meatpacking district? That's, that's, yeah, sadly, that's, you probably were working. Yeah. Your favorite sandwich in the entire world?
38:22In shawarma isn't the sandwich. I would say that is another podcast. Or falafel. We've definitely talked about the falafel is definitely not a sandwich. Interesting. I say falafel isn't there. I'll do a BLT. I know it sounds boring. No, it's not boring. That's a wonderful choice. Okay. Your, your favorite basic spice. I'm talking about McCormick. You're walking into the grocery store in a random town, and, like, you've got your McCormicks there. Olbe. Yes. Why? I love Olbe. I mean, you know, I never heard of Olbe until I moved to the U.S. 22 years ago. And people, like, obsessing about it. And for a while, I was a bit of a snob.
39:00I was like, oh, what's wrong with you people? I've just cooked crab with Olbe the other day. I went to my wife. Like, really? You're going to buy Olbe? I was like, I am buying Olbe. I think that there, I have tremendous respect for the blend, for McCormick. Yeah. I think that, you know, when the occasion is right, that's what you need to do. And on your palate, what's in the blend? Like, because you could probably decode it pretty easily. There's bay leaves in there and there's, you know, a nice amount of salt and garlic and onion. So it's a good mix. Yep, yep. Favorite hard to find spice? Sancho berries from Japan.
39:35Not so, so hard, but very small amounts. What does that do? It's a bit like, I wouldn't say Szechuan, because it also does that numbness, tingliness, but it's so floral and piney and beautiful, like a little bit of it on a raw fish. It's just spectacular. Lior Lev Sarkars, thank you for joining This Is Taste. Thanks for having me.
40:04What's up, Eliza? You know, I just want to talk cookbooks. Yeah, we are going to address something that anyone working in food media really kind of grapples with. We're recording this in kind of like – it's July 20th. We'll just timestamp it. And if you work in our field, you get advances of cookbooks. You get PDFs. You get physical books. We also, of course, work at Crown Publishing and at Penguin Random House, so we're getting physical copies all the time as well. So we're already starting to see the fall season shape up. And I think it was something we've been talking in the office, but like, let's get on mic and talk about some of the books that these are like snap judgments.
40:43These are like our first impressions. I haven't cooked from any of these books, but I think the books that I'm going to mention are just ones that are just like started reading and just really enjoying. Does that sound good to you? Yeah, I love to wildly speculate off vibes. I think it's a great place to start. Yeah. So these are not formal reviews, but these are just kind of like the books that we're kind of like liking right out the gate. And we'll, of course, have probably many of these authors on the show as we progress through the season. What's your first book that kind of caught your attention?
41:12My first book, shocking, is a baking book. It's Yossi Arifi's new book called Snacking Bakes. And she did a book called Snacking Cakes that came out a couple years ago that I really loved. Despite my interest in talking about dessert on the podcast and elsewhere, I'm not a big baker. and that book, Snacking Bakes, when it came out, I think it was during the early pandemic. It was a lot of one bowl, like, no, I don't own a stand mixer. Like, I don't own an electric beater. And it was all things that I felt really comfortable making. And I think it kind of revived this interest in, oh, it's really nice to have something sweet lying around.
41:46So Snacking Bakes, which is the new version, is cookies, not just cake, which was the first one. And I'm just excited for that because I think it's going to enable me to maybe start baking again, especially going into the fall when it's not so insane to turn on the oven. Yeah, I love this book. I got a copy of it last week and I've been paging through it. And I agree, Yossi is a real singular voice and has a really great sense of both photography. She shoots all of her own books. So she's doing both the writing development and photography. Kudos there. And I just think it's a very accessible book.
42:19For sure. What's your first one? My first one is Make It Japanese by Rie McClenney. I wanted to talk about this one, too. You did? Okay. But tell me what you like about it. We're both raving early. I mean, okay, first off, this book— So Rie is a recipe developer on video personality from BuzzFeed, as well as, you know, just on the Internet in general, kind of an Internet voice. this book is giving lots of Japanese soul food energy which was a book I still adore from 10 speed I think it came out in like 2013 and this is such a compliment I hope it comes off as because it is she's covering the Japanese canon but through her own point of view using many products that are found very commonly in America and the package that meaning the trim and the paper quality just feels it's so inviting.
43:19I love this book. Yeah. And I also want to shout out my friend Sinaia Lemoine, which is co writing the book. And I've been talking to Sinaia. She's been going through the recipe like editing and cross testing process. And every recipe she tells me about just sounds so good. So I think like off of that alone, I'm just excited to get to cook from it myself. Yeah. I mean, some of the recipes that really popped were for me, there was a butter corn rice. It was like a fried rice with really simple preparation, but just it looked really inviting. A sumac onigiri. A sumac onigiri. I've never seen that before.
43:52No, I like that idea, though. Really smart. And then there's a whole section of sushi balls, which is like a version of like a rice ball but wrapped. And Rie does prosciutto and basil and like gives us permission to go in that direction. Fuck yeah. I love this. I like that. What's your second book? My second book that I'm really excited about is My Everyday Lagos by Yawande Komalafe, who is a staff writer at The Times, among all of her other food accolades. I just love cooking all of her recipes when I see them online. And I think that this book just seems delicious. Like you, the cover is so beautiful and draws me in.
44:30It's an illustrated cover. It's a portrait of Yawande. And then you open the book and then there's this beautiful photo portrait of her, which I think is just so fun and special. And I think the recipes sound really good. I really like some of these like fried sweet plantains that are coated in like this spice mixture. I love plantains so much. She has like an obayata stew, which is so classic and like not something that I've ever made myself at home. So I just think that it's a book I can really like sit down with and work through. Yeah. The recipe development is like super on point with this book.
45:02And that Uende is somebody I've admired from afar from the times. And I think the way this book is being positioned as like everyday cooking, which I think is so needed. And the execution was just phenomenal. And I love that illustrated cover. It's going to make a lot of preview lists. I'm sure year-end lists. It's a beautiful package. And I just I love the spirit. And those dishes do sound great. Yeah. OK, what's next on your list? We've been kind of like joking in a good way in the office about this book, the diner book, because there's like 50 photos, pages of photos, not 50 photos, 50 pages.
45:35pages of photos to open the book. Matt, I think it's like a hundred photos. Cause I was looking through it yesterday. It's all photos. It's a lot of photos, but it's not all photos. No, it's not. So to back up, Andrew Tarlow's restaurant in Brooklyn called Diner opened in 1998. It was an era of Williamsburg that we often forget. Many have didn't even live in New York at that time. And, and I think this, this restaurant has endured and this is the tribute cookbook and it's being done in a way that I feel very connected to because I love reportage photography. I love photography that brings place to the reader.
46:10Doesn't necessarily show you exactly how to make something, but it just gives you a vibe and a tone. And the fact that this book opens with 100 pages of photos is brave and bold. And the photos are great, though. Like if the photos didn't hold up, they wouldn't have done it. But yes, I love this book. And of course, at the end, there are recipes. There are thoughts about the burger. There's thoughts about the style of restaurant. It's really cool. Yeah, I'm excited for this book too. Diner is one of the first restaurants that I went to when I moved to New York. And I remember having such a singular experience sitting down, not knowing that they were about to write the whole menu on the table in front of me and just losing my mind over that.
46:47And I think it's a style of food that I tend towards cooking a lot at home. So I think it'll be a really like natural fit on my. Yeah, it's also this restaurant that you've seen like lots of food. of movies and you see in lots of like pop culture references to North Brooklyn yeah because it's been around for forever I think the James Murphy documentary is shot there a lot of it and and just one of many instances and like this restaurant is super important to like the history of North Brooklyn it's not just like the pop culture history but like the real restaurant history and it's cool that it gets its own tribute for sure what's your uh what's your third book well speaking of New York City restaurants that I love I'm really excited for simply West African which is Pierre Thiam's book that's coming out.
47:28He does Taranga up in Harlem, which if I'm up in that neighborhood, I'm always trying to go there to get one of their kind of Fonio grain bowls and go eat it in the park. I just think it's so fresh and another style of food that I really gravitate towards. And I don't cook a lot of West African food at home. So I really trust Pierre because he's such an expert in Senegalese food and beyond. So I think it'll just be a fun one. Yeah, I've really admired his cooking for a while. And I think this is just the package alone to me has felt it's really breaking through and going to be an exciting book for the fall.
48:01For sure. Yeah, I love that you called that one out. And it's hard just going through this list. I have so many books in my brain, in my universe. And I think we'll probably come back and do this in a couple more weeks. We'll have another like fall preview, review, vibes conversation. Yeah, I think I'm going to try to be cooking my way through a lot of these this fall. So maybe we can come back and talk about the recipes that we've made that have stood out to us. Oh, yeah. Let's do that. Let's actually do some cooking. Cool. I have a couple more. The first is the book of Sichuan Chili Crisp from Jing Gao, who many know as the founder of Fly by Jing, which is definitely my favorite Chili Crisp brand and a real force in CPG.
48:40But this is Jing's debut cookbook, and it's cool. There are some great recipes in it, and it doesn't necessarily have, like, the Fly by Jing branding in it. It's more about the food of Jing's home, of Sichuan. And I just love that there's a chili paneer in there. There's, of course, Bang Bang Noodles. And, you know, it takes – like Sichuan food, I feel, gets put into like a very small box. And I think this is trying to expand outside of what we know about Sichuan cuisine. And really, I love it. Yeah, I'm excited about that. I think also James Park has a Chili Crisp cookbook coming out. So it's a big banner year for spicy people.
49:17I was going to mention James E. Park. James Park is doing a book with Chronicle called, I think it's called Chili Crisp. I think so. I think it was called, so yeah, Big Fall for Chili Crisp and rightly so. It's certainly been something that we've cooked more with than ever before and I just love it. Yeah, and what I like about James' book is that he has different kinds of Chili Crisp recipes and one of them is a sweet Chili Crisp because he was talking about how he loved the idea of putting Chili Crisp on ice cream, like vanilla ice cream. But, you know, some base recipes have garlic or things that are maybe a little too savory for a dessert application.
49:49So I think endorsing the idea of making a sweet or at least a more neutrally flavored chili crisp that you can put over sweet things really spoke to me as someone that, like, I have tahini in my bag right now just in case I buy watermelon from a bodega later. Yeah, it's a really good call. It's one of our top condiments ingredients. I have one more book. It's not a cookbook. It's more of a memoir nonfiction. and I really, I got an early read of it and I finished it in a weekend. Whoa. Which, you know, I'll crush a book like every once a month. I'll do that weekend read, but it's really hard right now to like crush a book.
50:27Yeah. Do you find that yourself? Are you crushing books? I mean, you're a big reader as well. Yeah, I mean, I like try to go to the beach as often as I possibly can, which I live off the A train. So it's pretty easy for me to do that. So I read a lot in the summer because I'm just like, I'll go by myself if I have like an afternoon off. If I'm ever not responding to you on Slack, that's probably what I'm doing. I love it. I bless you for doing that. Please continue to ignore Slack, especially if the sun is out. This book is called Upstairs Delicatessen. It's by Dwight Garner, who is the longtime book critic at the New York Times.
50:57He was formerly an editor there. I've never met Dwight. I hope Dwight will join me in the studio for a conversation about this book. It is really special. He is doing something that is very difficult. It is a memoir. It is his life, but it's woven and told through the fiction and nonfiction that he's read through his life. So he is basically name dropping a bunch of books that he loves in a way that isn't annoying and pretentious. Wow. And where does the delicatessen come in? Well, I think the upstairs delicatessen is like a it's a reference slash a metaphor. It's like the brain is the upstairs delicatessen.
51:39contestant i guess is like upstairs whoa yeah like whoa like i think that's that was my takeaway i can't remember i'll have a more pointed conversation with dwight but he he brings up through the literature of his life and the writing of his life he brings up a lot of questions like why does dwight love steel cake so much why is the mac and cheese reference in the novelization version of once upon a time in hollywood so perfect what are the 400 cookbooks in his storage locker he's got 400 cookbooks in the storage locker i basically started writing down all the questions i'm going to ask him i'm like previewing them right here did lbj really have a fresca button he really like like this is like stuff that he's like dropping in is the pb and pickle sandwich really the best sandwich of all time whoa okay i'm excited to hear the answers he he he weaves like some of his favorites include nicholson baker david stares cormac mccarthy secret nunez it's it's a real tour de force this this this the process to write this memoir is is is like a really a really curious topic for me um i mean he may have just done like a search of all the reviews he's been writing for the past 30 years and found every food reference and cross-reference them or he's been taking notes in his brain in the upstairs delicatessen for the past 40 years of all the food references in literature and he synthesizes them in a really authentic way i'm really excited about that and And while we're talking about non-cookbook food books coming out this fall, I just want to quickly shout out Land of Milk and Honey by C.
53:10Pam Zhang, which is a novel that I just devoured, loved. And I'm really excited to have her on the podcast and talk about it. The premise in brief is it's the future, but not too far away. A giant proto-dust bowl has wiped out basically all produce. and a young chef decides to go cook for a private research institute because they have access to all of the foods that no one else has access to anymore. So she ascends to the mountaintop to cook for these elite people. But, of course, everything is not as it seems. Not what it seems. Yeah. I can't wait for you to have that conversation and have that on the show.
53:45It's going to be really cool. It's going to be real nerdy, and I'm really excited about it. This fall is really shaping up. I feel such optimism in the halls of Penguin Random House. I'm not bullshitting. It's so cool to see the labor, the three to ten years that many of these authors have put into these books. And really to see them all like land on a desk in a thud is it's not a thud. It's actually like a like sound that makes me it makes my heart sing that sound. We'll do ASMR with it another time. Thanks for sharing your picks. Anytime. time.
From the publisher
Lior Lev Sercarz is the chef, spice blender, and owner of La Boîte, a world-renowned spice company located in New York City. On this episode, we catch up with Lior about his unique path from Israel to some of the most famous restaurant kitchens in New York. We talk about the culinary school he’s founding in Northern Israel and dive into his incredible new book, A Middle Eastern Pantry. For real, this is one of our favorite books of the year, and together we go over many of the spices and condiments that shape this amazing culinary history. Lior is a true original, and we hope you enjoy our conversation.
Also on the show, Aliza and Matt give some very early thoughts on the upcoming fall cookbook season, including exciting new books from Yossy Arefi, Rie McClenny, Yewande Komolafe, Andrew Tarlow, Pierre Thiam, Jing Gao, Dwight Garner, and C Pam Zhang.
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