All Ingredients

This has a sweet flavor, and it's rich in calcium. It's often rehydrated and then added to miso soup or sautéed as a side dish. Dry wakame can also be toasted and crumbled over salads and other dishes. It's very high in calcium.

Walnuts are rich and flavorful, and cooks like to use them in everything from fudge to salads. Markets usually carry English walnuts = royal walnuts = Persian walnuts. Less common are black walnuts, which are much more flavorful but harder to shell. To roast, put shelled walnuts on a baking pan and in bake them in a 325° oven, stirring occasionally, until they're slightly golden, about ten minutes. After you remove the nuts from the oven, rub them vigorously with a towel so as to remove as much of their bitter skins as possible. Fresh walnuts are available year-round, but they're best in the fall. Since they're high in fat and therefore prone to rancidity, it's best to store them in the refrigerator or freezer.

Popular brands iinclude Nocciole, Nocello, and Nocino.

Nut oils are best used in cold dishes; heat destroys their delicate flavor.

Look for this in the Asian foods section of your supermarket.

As they ripen, these cheeses are washed with a liquid. The moisture encourages the growth of bacteria, giving the cheese a strong odor and flavor. Many of these cheeses are soft or semi-soft and have sticky, reddish-orange rinds, which most people consider too pungent to eat. It takes a strong wine like a Burgundy or Pinot Gris to stand up to most of the cheeses in this category. Beer works, too. This category includes Limburger, Muenster, Maroilles, Langres, Epoisses, Tallegio, Abondance, Urgelia, Epoisses, Pont l'Evêque, Mahon, Reblochon, Port Salut, and Livarot.

This black nut bears an unmistakable resemblance to a bull's head. Each one is about two inches across, and has a very hard shell. After you shell water caltrops, you'll need to steam or boil them before you can eat them as they contain harmful toxins in their raw state. Or you can skip eating them altogether, and just use them to make jewelry.

Water chestnuts are delightfully sweet and crisp--if you buy them fresh. Though canned water chestnuts are more easily available, they're not nearly as good. Look for fresh water chestnuts in Asian markets. You need to peel off their brown jackets and simmer them for five minutes before stir-frying. If you must use canned water chestnuts, blanch them first in boiling water for thirty seconds.

Asian cooks often dredge foods in this before frying them, because it gives fried foods a crisp, nutty coating. It can also be used as a thickener. Look for it in Asian markets and health food stores. Don't confuse this with chestnut flour.

These crunchy crackers have little flavor, making them a neutral foundation for spreads and appetizers.

This cooking green is very common in the Philippines. Some varieties have purple stems.

There are about 50 varieties of watermelon on the market. They all taste about the same, but they vary in size, flesh color, and in whether they are seeded or seedless. Picnic melons are largest, while icebox melons are round and compact. Many stores also carry yellow-fleshed, white-fleshed, and seedless melons. The rind should be heavy for its size, and free of bruises, soft spots, or cuts. To check for ripeness, look at the pale side of the melon (where it rested while it was growing)--it should be yellow, not white. If your market sells halved watermelons, inspect the flesh--it should be firm, brightly colored, and free of white streaks. Seeded watermelons should have dark brown or black seeds. To store, wrap watermelon slices loosely in plastic and refrigerate for up to two days. Uncut watermelon can be stored at room temperature (preferably in a cool spot) for up to two weeks.

These are much larger than the black watermelon seeds that we're familiar with. They're usually cracked open and eaten like sunflower seeds. Look for them in Middle Eastern markets.

These are similar to green beans except for the color, which can be yellow or purple. Don't confuse these with lima beans, which are sometimes called wax beans.

Invented by Thomas Edison, this is paper that's coated with paraffin wax to make it resistant to moisture. To use wax paper as a cake pan liner, place the pan on the paper, trace its outline, then cut it out and place it in the pan.

This russet-colored rice is derived from basmati rice.

These are mildly seasoned German veal sausages, very light in color. Germans like to eat them with potato salad during Oktoberfest. Cook before eating.

This is a fairly mild English cheese. It was originally made from sheep's milk but is now made from cow's milk.

This choice German ham is smoked over beechwood and juniper and has a salty, smoky flavor. It's usually cut into very thin slices and eaten raw.

Wheat's got a pleasant, nutty flavor and lots of nutrients, but it's prized most for being rich in gluten, the stuff that makes baked goods rise. Most wheat is ground into flour, but whole or cracked grains are used in pilafs and salads, and wheat flakes are made into hot cereals or granolas.

This somewhat sweet beer is made with wheat malt.

These are wheat kernels that have been stripped only of their inedible outer hulls. They're nutritious, but they take hours to cook. If you don't have the patience to use the whole berries, try the more convenient cracked wheat, bulgur, or wheat flakes.

This is wheat that's been steamed, rolled, and flaked. Wheat flakes are often cooked as a hot cereal, or added raw to granola mixes.

Includes: (from hardest to softest flours) durum wheat flour and semolina flour (typically used for making pastas), whole wheat flour and graham flour (typically mixed with all-purpose or bread flour to make bread or baked goods), bread flour (typically used for making yeast breads), all-purpose flour (can be used for breads and baked goods), pastry flour (typically used for pastries), and cake flour (typically used for cakes). Substitutions: See the all-purpose flour listing.

This is Australia's answer to America's graham cracker.

Whey is the watery part of milk that remains after the formation of curds.

Most cheese is made from curdled milk that has been drained of the watery whey. Not wanting to waste the nutrient-rich whey, our ancestors discovered that they could extract more cheese from it by cooking it until the remaining proteins coagulated. Examples of modern-day whey cheeses include ricotta, Gjetost, Manouri, Mizithra, and Requeson.

Two brands are Whip It and Whipping Cream Aid.

A well-equipped kitchen will have several of these, in different sizes.

Whiskey is distilled from various grains that have been pounded and cooked into a mash and allowed to ferment. The whiskey is then aged in oak barrels until the flavor is mellow and smooth. The most highly esteemed whiskies are single-malt Scotch and straight Bourbon. Lower in the pecking order are rye whiskey, blended Scotch, sour-mash whiskey and the lighter and drier Irish whiskey and Canadian whisky. At the bottom is corn whiskey, also known as moonshine. Straight whiskeys tend to have a more robust flavor than blended whiskeys, which include several whiskeys and, sometimes, neutral spirits. Whiskey should be served at room temperature.

Growers make asparagus white by shielding it from the sun, thus stifling the production of chlorophyll. The result is daintier looking and a bit more tender than green asparagus

White chanterelles are very similar to golden chanterelles, except for their color and relative rarity. Fresh chanterelles are best; dried or canned chanterelles are less flavorful and tend to have a rubbery texture.

Like milk chocolate, this is made of cocoa butter, sugar, milk, and vanilla. The only difference is that white chocolate doesn't have any cocoa solids. Since the FDA won't let American producers label a product "chocolate" unless it has those cocoa solids, domestic white chocolate is known by a hodge-podge of different names. White chocolate scorches easily, so cook it gently. Bars and wafers usually taste better than chips. Avoid white chocolate that's made with vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter--it's cheaper but not nearly as good.