All Ingredients

Fish sauce is typically made from anchovies or other small fish fermented in salt. It is used to flavor many dishes. It is very common in Asian cooking. The romans called it Garum and it was a widely used flavoring in Roman times. Filipino fish sauce that isn't as highly regarded as the Vietnamese or Thai versions, and shottsuru, a Japanese fish sauce. Red Boat, a Vietnamese fish sauce, is thought to be very similar to garum.

The French make good use of this small, creamy bean, often serving it with lamb.

These are grains that are steamed, rolled, and flaked. They can be cooked briefly to make a hot cereal, sprinkled on casseroles, or added to granola mixes, cookies, or soups.

These are common and popular red seedless grapes.

Several manufacturers make flavored pastas, many of which have vibrant colors. Popular flavors include egg (egg pasta, or pasta all'uovo), spinach (green pasta, or pasta verde), tomato, beet (purple pasta, or pasta viola), carrot (red pasta, or pasta rossa), winter squash (orange pasta, or pasta arancione), squid ink (black pasta, or pasta nera), truffle (truffle pasta, or pasta al tartufo), and chile.

These are often used to flavor Italian sodas or coffee. They come in dozens of flavors, but some of the most popular are vanilla, almond, raspberry, Irish cream, and hazelnut. Popular brands include d'Arbo, Monin, and Torani. To make your own: Make a simple syrup with equal parts sugar and water, then add flavored extract to taste. Store in the refrigerator.

These are vinegars that have been flavored, usually with herbs, fruit, garlic, or peppercorns. They're handy if you want to whip up a flavorful salad dressing or sauce in a hurry.

These are highly concentrated essences of a wide variety of flavors, like cinnamon, anise, bitter almonds, and peppermint. They're often used to make hard candies and lip glosses, but they also make excellent substitutes for extracts--just use much less than the recipe calls for. Look for flavoring oils near the spices in large supermarkets or in candy supply stores or pharmacies. You can store them indefinitely in a cool, dark place.

This is a good source of valuable omega-3 fatty acids.

Flours are made from grains or nuts that are finely ground to a powdery consistency. They're used to make breads and other baked goods, but they also serve to thicken stews and sauces and to coat foods about to be fried.

These thin flour wraps from northern Mexico are used to make burritos, chimichangas, fajitas and other Mexican dishes. They're more pliable than corn tortillas, so they're a good choice if you need to roll or fold the tortillas before cooking them. Flour tortillas come in different sizes, including small, thick "fajita tortillas" to large, thin "burrito tortillas."

These liqueurs are flavored with flowers. Examples include crème de violette and crème de rose.

These come from the same plant as Chinese chives. They're usually marketed and cooked before the buds open.

This is a beautiful cabbage used more often as a garnish than as a vegetable.

These fluorescent orange eggs are wonderfully crunchy and flavorful. The Japanese are particularly fond of them.

This is a category of cakes that are made with lots of stiffly beaten egg whites, which makes them light and airy. They tend to be lower in fat than shortened cakes. Examples include angel food cake, sponge cake, and génoise.

A focaccio is an Italian flatbread that resembles a pizza crust without the topping. Many cooks top it with cheese, onions, herbs, eggplant slices, and other ingredients before baking it, but you can also serve it plain.

This pricey French delicacy is simply goose or duck liver that's been lightly cooked. When aged, it becomes very rich and flavorful. Goose livers are tastier and more expensive than duck livers. Some people refuse to eat foie gras because the animals are force-fed to enlarge their livers.

Fonio is a grass similar to millet. It is an important grain in the dry areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

This well-regarded cow's milk cheese is mild but interesting, and it's a good melter.

These are wines that have been fortified with brandy and sometimes flavored with herbs, roots, peels, and spices. The most popular examples are sherry, Madeira, Marsala, port, and vermouth. Fortified wines are often used in cooking, or they're served as apéritifs or dessert wines.

This is the French version of Italy's focaccia.

The French claim to have been making this moist cow's milk blue cheese since the time of the Ancient Romans. It's cheaper and milder than many blue cheeses.

These small, wild strawberries are either white or red, and have a very intense flavor.

This is a clear French fruit brandy that's made with raspberries. Don't confuse this with framboise liqueur, which is sweeter, or with framboise syrup, which is a non-alcoholic raspberry flavoring.

This is a popular brand of hazelnut liqueur.

Tastier and more humanely raised, but tougher and more expensive. Cuts include halves = splits, which are broiler-fryers cut in half; breast halves = breast splits; breast quarters, which include the breast, wing, and back; drumsticks, which are the part of leg below the knee; drummettes, which are the meatiest wing section; and leg quarters, which include the drumstick and thigh. Cut-up chickens are broiler-fryers that are cut up and packaged with two breast halves, two thighs, two drumsticks, and two wings.

This Sardinian specialty is thought to be an ancestor of modern pasta. It consists of small, chewy balls made from coarsely ground semolina. It can be used as a bed for sauces, but it's also terrific in soups.

This is a French sausage made of tripe that has waned in popularity over the years as people have come to afford better cuts of meat. When formed into smaller links, it's called andouillette.

This is the traditional French bread that has a hard, dark brown crust and many large air pockets. The baguette = baguet (bah-GET) is the standard tube-shaped French bread, about two feet long. The bâtarde = batarde (buh-TARD) is a bit larger than a baguette, while the baton (bah-TOH), is a bit smaller, and the ficelle (fee-SELL) is much narrower.

This is a variety of grape that's often made into white jug wine.

These choice lentils were originally grown in the volcanic soils of Puy in France, but now they're also grown in North America and Italy. They're especially good in salads since they remain firm after cooking and have a rich flavor. They cook a bit slower than other lentils.

This expensive French salt comes from sea water that's pooled into basins and then evaporated. Unlike most American sea salts, it's unrefined, so it retains more of the minerals that naturally occur in seawater. There are several varieties. Gray salt = grey salt = sel gris gets its color from the clay lining the basins. La fleur de sel (the flower of the salt) is whiter, but has a similar flavor. That trendy gourmets are willing to shell out $5 for a small packet of French sea salt drives chemists crazy, since almost all of it is just plain salt, sodium chloride, NaCl. Salt aficionados counter that French sea salt has a much softer and fresher flavor than ordinary table salt, and that the difference is worth it. These salts comes either coarsely or finely ground. Since salt is an inorganic mineral, there's no point in grinding large crystals with a salt mill so they'll be "fresh." Salt, unlike pepper and spices, never goes stale. It's best to use these salts after the food is cooked, or their subtleties will be lost.