All Ingredients

This thickener has the virtue of remaining stable when frozen. It's often used to make Asian desserts. Don't confuse sweet rice flour with ordinary rice flour. Look for it in Asian markets.

This comes as either red vermouth (rosso) or sweet white vermouth (bianco). It's used to make many cocktails, including Manhattans and Negronis. If you're planning to make martinis, you probably want dry vermouth.

Sweetbreads are the soft and delectable thymus glands of calves and lambs. Though it's hard to get fussy teenagers to eat them, there are enough knowledgeable gourmets clamoring for sweetbreads to keep the price fairly high. Freshness is very important--you should plan on preparing them the day you buy them or else freezing them. Like other organ meats, sweetbreads are high in cholesterol.

This includes: Acesulfame K, Advantame, Aspartame, Saccharin and Sucralose.

This sweet tropical fruit looks a bit like a small cherimoya. It's great for eating of hand or for making shakes. It's available in the fall, but it's hard to find outside of Florida.

Swiss chard is used much like spinach, except that it has an appealing beet-like flavor and a heavier texture, which requires longer cooking. Many cooks simply sauté it in olive oil and serve it as a side dish. Red chard = rhubarb chard = ruby chard, with green leaves and red stalks, is slightly more tender and flavorful than white chard = green chard, with white stalks and green leaves, but the two are interchangeable in most recipes.

This popular cow's milk cheese is an American knock-off of Switzerland's Emmentaler cheese. This difference is that our domestic version usually has smaller eyes (making it easier to slice) and is made from pasteurized milk. Emmentaler has a richer, nuttier flavor.

This wine is called Syrah in Europe and America, and Shiraz in Australia. It's a dry red wine that's especially good with barbecued meats, sausages, strong cheeses, and spicy foods. Don't confuse Syrah with Petite Syrah.

Szechuan pepper salt is a mixture of Szechuan peppercorns and salt ground together to make a fine powder. See the Chinese Salt Recipe posted on RecipeSource.com.

These aren't true peppercorns, but rather dried flower buds. You're most likely to encounter them as part of a mixture, like the Chinese five-spice powder or the Japanese shichimi togarashi. Toast Szechwan peppercorns briefly in a hot pan before using.

This beautiful fish was introduced to Hawaii in 1958, and it multiplied so quickly that it's now crowding out some native species. Buying this fish helps prod fishermen to rid Hawaiian waters of this nuisance. It's a tasty fish, too, though there's concern that some of these fish may carry ciguatera, a toxin that affects certain reef fish.

Varieties include iodized salt, which contains the flavorless additive potassium iodide to prevent goiter (an enlargement of the thyroid gland), and non-iodized salt. Some recipes call for non-iodized salt, since iodine can impart a bitter taste and adversely react with certain foods. For example, iodine darkens pickles and inhibits the bacterial fermentation needed to make sauerkraut. Table salt also contains small amounts of calcium silicate, an anti-caking agent, and dextrose, a stabilizer. The anti-caking agent in both iodized and non-iodized salt doesn't dissolve in water, so if you pickle or can with it, it will turn the liquid cloudy or else settle on the bottom of the jar. The preserved food will taste the same, mind you, but it won't look as appealing. This is more of a problem for pickles, which are immersed in lots of liquid, than for other canned goods. To prevent the cloudiness, use pickling salt, which contains no additives.

Table wines are intended to be served with meals, and they're often classified by color: red, white or rosé.

These are crunchy corn tortillas that have been loosely folded and deep-fried. You just fill them and serve. Look for boxes of them among the Mexican foods in your supermarket, or make them yourself by deep-frying corn tortillas, forming them into a U-shape, then allowing them to harden into a crispy shell.

These long ribbons of pasta are very similar to fettuccine. They go well with a hearty meat sauce.

These are thin flat ribbons of pasta.

Tajín is a Mexican dried spice mix with salt, chilis and dehydrated lime juice. It is often sprinkled on fruit. Tajín is also the name of the company. Tajín is its most popular product.

This creamy Italian cow's milk cheese is one of the better stinky cheeses--not too tame, not too wild. It's great on crackers or bread, but it's also a good melting cheese and works well in casseroles and even on pizza. The rind is edible, but not to everyone's liking.

Tamari is a type of soy sauce made only from soybeans, no wheat. It is less salty and thicker than traditional soy sauce. It is often gluten free.

This fruit is notable more for its ravishing beauty than its flavor. It's about the size of a oblong plum, with a smooth peel that can be purple, red, orange, or yellow, with the yellow variety tending to be a bit sweeter. Slicing it in half reveals black or orange flesh (the darker the peel, the darker the flesh) surrounding a nest of seeds. It's more acidic than sweet, and tastes a bit like a tomato. It's best if it's peeled and cooked before eating.

The pulp from the tamarind pod is used as a souring agent in Latin America, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. To extract the pulp, shell the pods, put them in a saucepan, then add enough water to completely cover the pulp. Simmer for about half an hour, then strain out and discard the seeds. It's a nuisance to do this, so many cooks simply buy the extracted pulp in bricks, jars, cans, powders, or bottles. There's also a sweet tamarind, which looks like the sour variety and is used primarily to make drinks.

See the Tandoori Rub posting on RecipeSource.com

There are several different varieties of tangelos, each a cross between a tangerine and another citrus fruit. The Mineola, a tangerine-grapefruit cross, is especially popular. Look for them in markets from late fall through winter.

This mild green lettuce has ruffled edges, which makes it an interesting salad lettuce

See the recipe for Tapenade posted on About.com.

Tapereba is the yellow fruit of the mombin tree. The fruit is eaten fresh or made into juice.

These are small beads of tapioca that are used to make tapioca pudding. The beads don't dissolve completely, so they end up as small, squishy, gelatinous balls that are suspended in the pudding. Don't confuse this with instant tapioca, which is granulated and often used to thicken fruit pie fillings, or with pearl tapioca, which has much larger balls.

These round pellets are made from cassava roots. Asians use them to make puddings and a beverage called bubble tea. You can also use them to make tapioca pudding, though it's faster and easier to use instant or regular tapioca. The pearls are normally soaked for at least a few hours before they're added to a recipe.

Tapioca is a good choice for thickening pie fillings, since it thickens at a lower temperature than cornstarch, remains stable when frozen, and imparts a glossy sheen. Many pie recipes call for instant tapioca instead of tapioca starch, but instant tapioca doesn't dissolve completely and leaves small gelatinous blobs suspended in the liquid. This isn't a problem in a two-crust pies, but the blobs are more noticeable in single-crust pies. Tapioca starch is finely ground so that it dissolves completely, eliminating the gelatinous blob problem. The starch is also sometimes used to thicken soups, stews, and sauces, but the glossy finish looks a bit unnatural in these kinds of dishes. It works quickly, though, so it's a good choice if you want to correct a sauce just before serving it. Some recipes for baked goods also call for tapioca flour because it imparts a chewier texture.

Look for these noodles in Asian markets.

Greek markets often carry jars of this pink cod roe. It's often used to make taramasalata, which is tarama mixed with a filler (like bread crumbs), oil, and seasonings.

The French use these white tarbais beans for their cassoulets.