What would you do if I asked you to “temper” eggs? Or “chiffonade” basil? Or “supreme” a grapefruit? At Bon Appétit, we usually avoid culinary jargon like this in our recipes, since their meanings often involve several actions, not just one. Our language has to be accessible to our huge audience of home cooks.
Sometimes culinary terms work their way into the mainstream, with our help. “Macerate” and “blanch,” for example, two extremely useful words we refused to let go of. Our team had similar hopes for the word “allium,” but I am officially calling it quits. That’s why you won’t find the word “allium” in the 10 new spring recipes we just dropped, even though the story itself includes a lot of…alliums.
It’s a funny word. Allium is the name of a group of vegetables including garlic, onions, chives, leeks and others that are botanically related. Because of the myriad ways they influence flavor, in states ranging from raw to cooked (even burnt), they’re culinarily related too. For years my colleagues and I tried to push this narrative, to demonstrate these relationships, particularly in springtime when vegetables with subtle flavors can benefit from the grounding power and versatile impact of alliums.
The word became insider speak that held real caché with food editors. Years ago, pitching a story about onions would get you nowhere, whereas an “allium primer” might buy you a feature in the April issue. But this year, as we worked on our lineup, we had to be honest with ourselves. It hasn’t caught on with home cooks. It just hasn’t! Sort of like “brassica” (a botanical category that includes things like cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts), which can sound equally esoteric to non-professionals. While a chef might use these words casually, it’s just not how normal people speak to each other, or write shopping lists.
Still, the power of alliums is everywhere in our spring recipes. Browned onions flavor spiced chickpeas for the filling in Rebecca Firkser’s showstopping tachin. A whole bunch of chives blends into eggs for Inés Anguiano’s bright green frittata. Garlic chives are the superhero of Hana Asbrink’s shrimp stir-fry. Plump leeks nestle into cheesy shells in this baked pasta, another knockout from Rebecca. The breadth of these ingredients’ potential forms and uses are simply staggering. What could these vegetables all have in common that gives each such a transformative edge in divergent recipes? Well, there’s a name for that actually…
Make the first warm days of the year feel effortlessly delicious with a spring vegetable galette, an herby green frittata, and more.
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