Part 6 (2/2)

Igor enjoyed preparing raw food more and more. He created many of his own recipes. His Russian Borodinsky crackers are popular all over the world (also called ”Igor's Crackers” and found under that name in this book). In Iceland Igor demonstrated how to prepare a raw sandwich. He put live garden burgers on crackers and decorated them with green leaves and tomatoes. When people tried his raw sandwiches they were amazed at how delicious they were. One woman exclaimed: ”This sandwich is worth living for!”

In this chapter I share important tips for preparing gourmet dishes through the transitional stage of your raw-food life. I don't think anybody needs my recommendations for their further stages because after several months of living on a raw-food diet, most people feel comfortable preparing their own meals.

Many ingredients in cooked dishes always have the same standard taste. For example, sugar always tastes like sugar, flour like flour, and salt is always salt. In raw-food cuisine, no two lemons are alike. One is bigger and has more juice; the other one has thicker skin and is less sour. Cooked corn, cooked zucchini, cooked peas, and other cooked vegetables taste almost the same and require at least the addition of oil and salt. By comparison, raw corn, zucchini, peas, and other raw vegetables all have their own unique tastes that are impossible to confuse.

For this reason, when preparing a raw dish, following a recipe doesn't guarantee a delicious result. You need to always adjust the final taste. When I prepare a raw dish I use recipes only as ideas or general guidelines. For adjusting the final taste I use the ”method of five tastes.” The rule is to have an element of each flavor in every dish. These five tastes are: sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and bitter. When you learn to balance the five tastes, your food will stimulate different groups of taste buds, thus making the food delicious.

In nature, all fruits and vegetables already have a balanced bouquet of tastes. However, the taste buds in our mouth have been altered from years of eating cooked food filled with condiments. That is why we are unable to sense all of the delicate natural flavors in raw fruits and vegetables while eating cooked food. As our taste buds recover during the transition time to a raw-food diet, we begin enjoying simpler foods.

When you attempt to un-cook a delicious meal, make sure that all five flavors are present in the final bouquet-that not even one is missing. People who have been preparing raw gourmet meals every day for many months can definitely tell if one or two ingredients are missing by just tasting the food once or twice. Others have to taste freshly made meals five times, asking each time very simple questions: ”Is it spicy enough? Is it salty enough? Is it sweet enough? Is it sour enough? Is it bitter enough?” The five tastes don't have to be strong but just enough for a particular dish. For example, the strongest tastes in a garden burger should be sweet, spicy, and salty with only a touch of sour and bitter, but all five have to be present. Otherwise the garden burger will taste bland.

Usually, when you prepare a dish and go through your first round of five-spoon tasting, two or three tastes are missing. Add ingredients for the missing tastes, mix again, and start five-spoon tasting once more. Continue until the five major tastes are balanced into a nice bouquet. I call this process ”adjusting the taste.” In the beginning adjusting can take a long time. Don't be discouraged; your pace will speed up with practice. At the same time your raw food will become unbeatable.

The following is a list of suggested ingredients for the five taste groups. Please be creative, as this is only a fraction of what is available on planet Earth. Many plants possess a variety of tastes but have one or two that are dominant. Also, please apply common sense and don't add vanilla to the soup or garlic to the torte.

For a sour taste add: lemons, cranberries, rhubarb, lemon gra.s.s, sour gra.s.s, sorrel, tomatoes, sauerkraut, nut or seed yogurt, or apple cider vinegar.

For a sweet taste add: dried fruit such as figs, dates, prunes, raisins; fresh fruits such as ripe banana, mango, peach, pear; apple juice, orange juice, raw agave nectar, raw honey, or fresh stevia leaves.

For spicy taste add: garlic or onion shoots, cloves, or bulbs, ginger, mustard greens or seeds, radish, horseradish, cayenne pepper, wasabi, seaweed, and/or herbs-fresh or dry-such as basil, dill, cilantro, rosemary, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and peppermint.

For salty taste add: celery, cilantro, dill, parsley, or sea vegetables such as dulse, kelp, nori, arame, or Celtic sea salt.

For bitter taste add: parsley, celery tops, endive, garlic, onion, dandelion, bay leaf, sage, poultry seasoning, or cayenne pepper.

I believe that skillfully prepared raw-food dishes are comparable to the most sophisticated cooked recipes, and in many cases raw-food dishes taste better. I personally stopped telling people that my food was raw a long time ago, beginning with the wedding that I was invited to cater. The couple to be married didn't ask for a raw wedding and due to my desire to be hired, I didn't push to clarify. However, I was confident that I could satisfy their palates whether they wanted raw or cooked food for their reception. I enjoyed preparing and decorating the three-tier raw wedding cake. I made lots of beautiful finger foods, colorful refreshments, a big salad with a variety of dressings, and nut patties. I remember how my daughter and I spent several hours drawing lines on those patties, making them look like real barbecued burgers.

Then the reception began. There were about fifty guests, and no one noticed anything unusual for about an hour. Then people started having questions and called the chef (me) to the dining hall. When I came out they asked me, ”Is this Russian cuisine? What kind of herbs did you use in everything? Your food is so good, but we've never tasted anything like it!”

I looked at this group of fifty people and suddenly realized that knowing all the food was raw would be a shock to them. They looked at me quizzically. I asked them, ”Would you like to come into the kitchen? I'll show you how I made it.”

My kitchen s.p.a.ce filled with many curious guests, and I prepared two dishes very quickly in front of them: nut meat pate and a candy ball. All the guests were amazed by how speedy, simple, and tasty the results were. Now they forgot all about the bride and the groom and began asking questions. Women were grabbing pens out of their husband's pockets and scribbling on napkins, on each other's shoulders, asking, ”How much lemon did you say?” One chubby-looking man wanted to know, ”Can you teach my wife how to make this food?” Later that week I held a huge cla.s.s that was filled with many guests from this wedding.

Over many years of eating raw food, everyone in my family has learned how to quickly fix delicious meals. Based on our experience, we have developed simple techniques that we successfully teach to thousands of other raw-fooders. Following are five formulas that are incredibly simple, almost primitive. They enable anyone to prepare tasty, quick, easy, and inexpensive raw gourmet meals.

Basic Formula for Delicious Soup.

The base.

Five flavors.

Something to float (for example, grated carrot or other root, chunks of avocado or some vegetable, chopped parsley or other herbs).

The base for the soup is always the same: 1 cup water.

1 stalk celery.

1 tablespoon olive oil.

Mix everything in the blender except the floating chunks; add them afterwards. I use this simple formula for any gourmet soup that I prepare.

Yield: 2 cups of soup.

Basic Formula for Delicious Nut Burgers.

1 cup any nuts 1 cup any vegetables 1 tablespoon oil to make it stick together Five flavors Mix in a food processor.

Note: If you want a heavier burger, put more nuts. For a lighter burger, use more vegetables.

Yield: 2 cups of burger pate.

Basic Formula for Delicious Candy or Cake Dough.

1 cup any nuts 1 cup any dried fruits 1 tablespoon oil to make it stick together Spices (optional) Mix in a food processor. Roll candies or use as crust layers for the cake.

Yield: 2 cups of delicious dough

Formula for Delicious Dressing

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