All Ingredients

These tiny Thai eggplants are quite bitter. They're sold in clusters and look like large green peas. You can find them fresh in Thai markets, or buy them pickled in jars.

Most of the peaches that are sold in markets are freestone, and de-fuzzed by the grower. Select peaches that are colorful and free of bruises. After you get them home, let them ripen at room temperature for a day or so until they become softer. They're best and cheapest in the summer.

These aren't really nuts, but legumes that grow underground. They're cheaper than most nuts, and are often eaten out of hand or incorporated into candies, stir-fries, or trail mixes. You can buy them shelled or unshelled, salted or unsalted, raw or roasted. To roast, place shelled peanuts on a cookie sheet in a 350° oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. Since many people are allergic to peanuts, it's important to alert guests if you're serving something that's made with peanuts or peanut products.

High in protein and low in cost, peanut butter is a sandwich staple. It's often teamed with jelly, but honey, bananas, onions, and even pickles work well too. Natural peanut butter is made simply of peanuts, oil, and sometimes salt. It's not very popular with consumers, though, since it needs to be refrigerated after opening, and the oil tends to separate and rise to the top. Most shoppers turn instead to commercial peanut butters, which don't need to be refrigerated and don't separate. Unfortunately, these products are made with hydrogenated oils, which are bad for you. Since many people are allergic to peanuts, it's important to alert guests if you're serving something that's made with peanut butter.

Indian cooks use this to thicken their curries.

It's hard to improve on the flavor of a soft, juicy raw pear, but combine it with blue cheese or prosciutto, and you'll have something truly divine. You can also bake or poach pears, or use them to make tarts. They become soft and fragile when they're ripe, so grocers want you to buy them while they're still hard and then ripen them at home for a few days. Putting them in a paper bag speeds up the process. They're ready to eat when the base yields slightly to pressure from your thumb. For information about different varieties of pears, click here.

Brandy made from Williams pears (like Poire Williams and Williamine) are especially good. Some bottles have an entire pear in the bottle.

This is the most common form of barley, but not the most nutritious. While hulled barley loses only the thick outer hull in the milling process, pearl barley is stripped of the nutritious bran layer as well, leaving just the "pearl" inside. Despite this, it's still fairly nutritious. It takes about an hour to cook.

These tiny onions are sweet and mild. About one inch in diameter, they're often pickled or creamed.

These are more processed than whole grains. This makes them less nutritious but they cook up faster and have a more tender texture.

This North American nut is like a walnut, only sweeter and milder. It's used widely in the South to make pralines, pecan pie, ice cream, and nut breads. They're high in fat, so it's best to store shelled pecans in the refrigerator or freezer to prevent them from turning rancid. To roast, put shelled pecans on a baking pan and in bake them in a 325° oven, stirring occasionally, until they're slightly golden, about ten minutes.

This is a firm and salty Italian sheep's milk cheese that's a close substitute for parmesan. There are three main varieties: Pecorino Romano, which is the best choice for grating onto a pasta dish or salad, Pecorino Toscana = Pecorino Tuscano, which is made in Tuscany, and Pecorino Sardo = fiore sardo, which is produced in Sardinia. Don't confuse Pecorino Romano with other firm Romano cheeses, which usually aren't as well regarded.

In order to make preserves like jams and jellies, you normally cook together fruit, acid, sugar, and pectin, a substance found in certain fruits that gels when heated. Some fruits -- like quinces, gooseberries, tart apples, and sour plums -- contain enough natural pectin that they'll thicken all by themselves into preserves. Others, like cherries and some berries, need an extra boost to firm up. Jam recipes for pectin-deficient fruit normally call for liquid or powdered pectin, which you can find among the baking supplies in most supermarkets. The recipes usually specify what brand of pectin to use, and it's not a good idea to substitute one brand for another, since they have different formulas. Some brands (like Sure Jell and Certo) need acid and sugar to set, some (like Sure Jell for Low Sugar Recipes) need acid and just a little sugar to set, some (like Pomona's Universal Pectin® or Mrs. Wages Lite Home Jell Fruit Pectin®) don't need any sugar to set. Liquid pectin contains sulfite, which can cause an allergic reaction in people with sulfite sensitivites, but powdered pectin does not.

These small, highly prized crabs resemble Dungeness crabs, only they're much smaller. It's hard to find whole crabs, but many seafood shops in New England sell peekytoe crab meat.

This is a Native American version of beef jerky. It consists of small cakes of meat, fat, and fruit that are dried in the sun.

This Italian pasta consists of short tubes cut on the diagonal, the better to scoop sauces inside. It's very versatile, and works well mixed with a sauce, or in a casserole, soup, or pasta salad. Penne rigate has ridges, the better to hold sauces. Penne lisce has smooth walls.

This is a smaller version of penne, a popular Italian pasta shape.

These are juicy and have a mild melon flavor. You can eat the peel if you like.

These come in different colors and potencies. Green peppercorns are packed in brine, vinegar, or salt soon after they're picked. They're mild and soft and can be eaten whole. Black pepper and white pepper are both dried, and sold either ground or as whole peppercorns. Black pepper has a stronger flavor and is far more popular than white; many cooks just use white pepper when they want to avoid having black specks in a light-colored sauce. It's best to buy whole peppercorns and grind them yourself, since ground pepper loses its potency quickly. Pink peppercorns aren't true peppercorns, but they have a very mild, peppery flavor.

This a version of jack cheese with spicy peppers mixed in. It is made from cow's milk.

This is a pork and beef loaf that's liberally seasoned with cracked peppercorns.

This is used to make candy canes, mints, and peppermint patties.

All you need is a drop or two for most recipes. Recipes for hard candies usually call for a flavoring oil rather than an extract, since extracts tend to evaporate when heated.

Like crème de menthe, this is flavored with peppermint.

This spicy sausage is made with beef and pork. It's hard and chewy, and makes a terrific topping for pizza. You don't need to cook it before eating.

These small red peppers are very hot.

This category includes walleye = wall-eyed pike, and Nile perch = Lake Victoria perch.

These are hollow pasta rods that are thicker than spaghetti. They're usually served in casseroles or with hearty meat sauces, or they're broken up and served in minestrone soup.

These marine snails are better known in Europe and Japan than in the United States. They're great in any clam chowder recipe, though they tend to get tough if overcooked. Look for them in Asian markets.

This is a popular brand of pastis, or licorice-flavored liqueur. It tastes like a mouthful of Good 'N Plenty candies.

This is wine that's made from pears. It's usually somewhat sweet, and with a low alcohol content.

This is very similar to a Japanese cucumber.

These are large, round melons. They're excellent when vine-ripened, but mediocre when not. Avoid Persian melons that have green backgrounds below the netting--they were picked too early. Also avoid those with protruding stems, or tears in the rind at the stem end--it's a tell-tale sign that the melon was picked too soon. When ripe melons are picked, the stem falls off easily, leaving a small, clean depression. They peak in the summer months.

There are two varieties: the dark orange, acorn-shaped Hachiya and the light orange, tomato-shaped Fuyu. Many people have sworn off persimmons for life after biting into an underripe, astringent Hachiya. But if you wait until it's ripened to a soft, shriveled mess, you can spoon out its exquisitely sweet and delicate pulp. Fuyus aren't as flavorful, but they're more idiot-proof in that you can eat them while they're still firm and not get your mouth in a pucker.

You can buy small six-packs of this rich fresh cow's milk cheese all over France, but they're hard to find in the U.S. Gervais is a popular brand.

This is a grape variety which produces an excellent red wine that's very dark and often described as "peppery." Don't confuse Petite Syrah with Syrah, another red varietal wine.

This is a brand of bitters that's a bit hard to find outside of New Orleans. It's sweeter than Angostura bitters, and has more of an anise flavor.

These tend to be pricey, but they're more flavorful than chickens. One pheasant can serve two people. Pheasants are lean, so bard them before roasting.

These are fragile, paper-thin sheets of dough that are usually basted with melted butter and then stacked until they're many layers thick. When baked, the combined layers make a rich, flaky, and crumbly crust. Greeks use phyllo dough to make baklava and spanakopita, while phyllophiles elsewhere use it to make pie crusts, strudels, Beef Wellington, egg rolls, and countless other concoctions. Some cooks use cooking spray instead of butter between the layers to trim fat and calories. The dough dries out quickly, so work fast once you've opened the package, and cover any unused dough with plastic wrap topped with a damp towel. Use fresh dough if you can find it; it doesn't tear as easily as the frozen kind. The frozen version is often wedged near the pie shells in the supermarket's frozen food case; let it defrost in the refrigerator for 24 hours before using it. Try Greek or Middle Eastern markets for fresh.

This pliable Italian flatbread is usually stuffed with filling, much as tortillas are in Latin America. The plural is piadine.

This goes especially well with ham.

Picholines are green, torpedo-shaped olives that are brine-cured. Those made in Provence are marinated with coriander and herbes de Provence, while American picholines are soaked in citric acid. They make great martini olives.