I get a kick out of the whole 'secret ingredient' aspect of cooking. The Colonial’s secret spices, the bean commercial with that talking dog that holds the secret family recipe and every other weekend cook-out in America has hushed secret ingredients, secret sauces, and the like. It's like some kind of a badge or right of passage into the culinary world. I think its' a bunch of hooey. It seems to me on the one hand you have the lay man, who is just dying to know what the secret ingredient is, will not be able to re-create whatever it was that he ate. On the other hand and for the most part, a good cook or chief should be able to extrapolate what is in the foods that he or she tastes. So why is it so secret? Basically good food starts with good ingredients, but that is just the start.
On occasion I get asked, “What’s in your secret rub?” My answer is that I don't have a secret rub. It's no secret that I use brown sugar, coarse kosher salt, paprika, seasoned salt, garlic salt, ground black pepper, onion salt, and crushed red pepper flakes for most of the meat I cook. (Grill, smoke, or barbeque)
looking into my rub ingredients.
The mystery for most folks is the fact that if you want good meat on Sunday you might have to get started on Wednesday or Thursday. That is the secret ingredient. From what I have observed, most people would find it easier to understand if I said I used juniper berries that I collect on the island of Crete while on my annual spice voyage than me saying it was pre-planning and time.
So my secret seems to be safe.
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