A Little Something on the Side

June 2005

A Little Something on the Side

By Kimberly J. DeckerContributing Editor

It's tempting to read every food trend as a barometer of larger social shifts. And even if such analyses say more about a food journalist's search for a story than about a cultural rewrite of the nation's collective shopping list, the current state of the starchy side presents a genuine study in what can happen to an institution when a society changes the way it eats -- and how a strategic slant on seasoning can save it from extinction.

Shrugging off sides The starchy side dish -- those potatoes, noodles and pilafs that, with a main-course meat and obligatory veggie, form one-third of the dinner-plate triumvirate -- has taken its lumps of late. Its most-strident assailants have been the Atkins Diet and its low-carb brethren that, by condemning starches of all sorts, streamlined dinner-plate décor to a piece of protein dressed with a little greenery.

But such diets were temporary fugues from which consumers largely recovered, wiser, if not much slimmer. More ominous for the starchy side's future are lifestyle habits that promise to transcend trends and become permanent cultural conditions.

Exhibit A: the time crunch. Carving out precious minutes to cook a main course is a rare luxury these days, never mind chiseling off yet more to serve it with the appropriate side. Handy side-dish "solutions" help, but where dunking a bag of instant rice in boiling water was once so convenient as to put homemakers to shame, just turning on the stove nowadays is one task too many. Besides, why make dinner in stages when meal kits, skillet suppers, easy-bake casseroles, "bowls" and hand-held options consolidate prep into a few simple steps and coordinate ingredients in a single container?

Then there's globalization, which threatens to do to the meat-and-potatoes meal what it did to our textile industry. As diners school themselves in the ways of the Thai table, the Moroccan tagine and the proper manner in which to serve the seven moles of Oaxaca, the notion of breaking down a meal into a hierarchy of main-plus-side begins to feel as foreign as these cuisines once did themselves.

In contrast to the Continental template that shaped the typical American menu, today's trendiest foodways hew to an egalitarian, one-pot arrangement that treats the starch -- be it rice, noodles, couscous or quinoa -- not as an adjunct set off to the side, but as the anchor from which to hang supporting meats, vegetables and seasonings.

Self-fulfilling sluggishness Never discount the consumer's capacity for boredom. Mintel International Group, Chicago, quantified that indifference in a 2003 report, "Side Dishes." The study painted a picture of a largely stagnant market, noting constant-dollar sales slips during the 1998 to 2003 period of 9% and 3%, respectively, for pasta-and-sauce and rice mixes. Meanwhile, it found sales of baked beans remaining flat and only potato-based sides ticking up a modest 4%.

But who could fault shoppers for shrugging off starchy sides when so much of what they see on shelves amounts to the same butter-and-herb noodles, potato gratins and taco-flavored rice mixes that their moms dished out?

"When I look at products introduced within the last year, it still tends to focus around core, familiar flavor profiles and ingredients," says Otis Curtis, director of marketing, Chr. Hansen, Inc., Mahwah, NJ. "I see a lot of emphasis with respect to introductions around garlic, for example, or perhaps another cheese variety." Mintel's Global New Products Database backs him up: Among the starchy-side debuts it tracked over the past 12 months, the most-common flavor identifiers listed are ... well, mostly common, with "cheese," "chicken," "butter" and "onion" beating out a predictable theme.

But, insist the manufacturers, we're just reading the writing on the wall. Consumers have turned their attention away from discrete sides toward all-in-one meals, so why shouldn't we direct our R&D efforts similarly? Because, such a shift, especially when it comes at the expense of innovating starchy sides, risks turning the category's slow fade into a self-fulfilling prophecy. To wit, have manufacturers lost interest in starchy sides because consumers aren't buying them, or are consumers not buying them because manufacturers have lost interest?

CPR to the rescue Maybe all the starchy side needs for a new lease on life is a little CPR: creative product reinvigoration. We're not talking about the product-development equivalent of a triple bypass; after all, the sides that still sell can thank their comfort-food image for their continued staying power. "Macaroni-and-cheese isn't going anywhere," notes Anthony Strong, senior research chef, Mastertaste, Inc., Teterboro, NJ. Even as familiar a framework as that offers product developers room to renovate. The trick to resuscitating starchy sides -- indeed, to revitalizing any moribund brand -- is to finesse new features in without stripping what made the "brand" in the first place.

Granted, it's easier said than done. Americans deserve applause for opening their palates to flavors broader in scope and deeper in intensity than were acceptable not long ago. "Comparing food now to where it was 20 years back, it's phenomenal," says Jason Gronlund, executive corporate chef, McIlhenny Company/Tabasco® Brand Products, Avery Island, LA. "People today want big flavors. When they get it, it's bold -- not necessarily bold meaning hot, but bold meaning that if it's a Thai-style coconut fried rice, that coconut is right there. That lemon grass is dead-on. You've got cilantro. You've got basil. It's amplified. It's all there."

Nevertheless, we're a notoriously hidebound lot. "I think you still have a lot of meat-and-potatoes folks out there who still want plain butter on their mashed potatoes," notes Kelly Corcoran, corporate chef, French's Flavor Ingredients, Montvale, NJ. Until they feel comfortable with the lay of the land, they're loath to gamble their mealtime enjoyment on an alien culinary terrain.

Manufacturers know how they feel. Despite their eagerness to explore untapped cuisines and seasonings, few companies would rate the launch of chimichurri-spiked mashed potatoes a high priority just yet. "I think that's still emerging," says Eileen Simons, director of applications and creative flavor development, Chr. Hansen. "We're getting a lot of requests right now for, 'Let's be adventuresome. Let's think outside what we currently have within our product line.' But we've done that on and off for years with a number of select customers. And I think everybody's always a little reluctant, even though we talk a good story, to make that jump to the chimichurri."

In the meantime, it doesn't hurt to test the waters. For example, if Americans still say "cheese" -- and they do, to the annual tune of 30 lb. per capita -- why not help them say it in a different accent?

"Moving beyond Cheddar," points out Tom Rieman senior business marketing manager, cheese powders, Kraft Food Ingredients, Memphis, TN, "offers significant opportunities" for updating starchy-side profiles. "And I am not just talking about marketers' idea of three-, four- or five-cheese blends that look good on a label but really don't differentiate the side. I am speaking of featuring alternative popular mainstream cheese as the base profile. Cheeses such as Parmesan or Romano are currently underused in prepared foods outside of traditional Italian applications and are the logical extension that can be expected to emerge." He also touts blue cheese as a mover on restaurant menus that "works well alone in many sides." Pair it with hot spices, he adds, and the appeal grows.

Turning up the heat Speaking of hot spices, that suggests another strategy for stripping the side of its "starchy" reputation: Spice 'em up. All that talk about Americans' love affair with pungency isn't just hot air. USDA import data from 1983 to 2003 show that consumption of black pepper, red pepper, white pepper and ginger increased 80%, 233%, 116%, and 256%, respectively, making it hard to argue that the nation will revert to its milquetoasty taste buds of yore.

But you wouldn't know that from scanning the pallid profiles on side-dish shelves. The scarcity of conspicuously spicy sides is a missed opportunity, too, considering that starches with neutral flavors of their own, such as white rice, pasta and white-fleshed potatoes, are ideal for delivering heat with varying levels and personalities, such as the smoky heat of chipotles, or "the richness and reddish, velvety color" of guajillos, Corcoran says. Interest in these varietal chiles represents the next frontier in Americans' adventure with heat, and savvy chefs are already on the trail. "You're seeing a lot of people talk about not just chiles, but signature chiles," she says, "the guajillos, the anchos, the habaneros." But, she cautions, heat polarizes.

Gronlund agrees that heat can go too far, noting that a measured dose of spice will awaken a palate, but that too much sends the tongue into emergency shutdown. "You get to a certain heat level and you've passed the barrier of anything being flavorful," he says. The idea, therefore, isn't just to throw flames but to deploy heat wisely, manipulating a chile or hot sauce so that it "can weave itself into a product," he explains. "It doesn't take a lot of skill to dump a 5-oz. bottle of Tabasco in something. What takes skill is weaving it through the other flavors and making it that background note."

All in the balance That's how Paul Prudhomme, chef and owner, Magic Seasoning Blends, Inc., Harahan, LA, creates what he calls "well-constructed heat." It's a sensory effect whose assembly few practitioners have mastered more ably than he, and while the public may associate Prudhomme with Cajun "cayenne bombs" and lip-blistering blackened dishes, he'll be the first to tell you that throwing the proverbial flames was never his mission. "I've never liked to do that," he says. "I may enjoy a hot dish that'll blow me away because I've been eating that all my life, and it's one of the pleasures of eating pepper. But in general, what I like to do is accent a dish with heat -- brighten its flavors, make the dish shed all its own flavors in your mouth, and just make it taste better."

Shawn McBride, the company's president and C.E.O., echoes this approach. "Paul knows how to place flavors on different parts of your tongue and your taste buds to deliver something far back versus something that should be upfront," he says.

Case in point: A spicy tingle should emerge "right at the end as a back note," Prudhomme explains. "It gives you a hit of heat and clears your mouth so you can enjoy the next bite. Because as soon as you put pepper in your mouth, your taste buds start charging -- they start running. It clears you for the next bite." Thus, he says, the secret to well-constructed heat is balance. "If you don't balance it, it's going to hide the flavors instead of turn them loose."

Balance is what McBride counsels product developers to study more closely when seasoning sides. "If they can't read those fine nuances," he notes, "then they get a product that, in the end, is either sharp or bitter or muddled."

The way Gronlund sees it, "When we talk about flavor and heat, the two have to be combined," he says. "You can't just make something spicy and assume it's going to taste good. We have to identify the flavor profiles the consumer is looking for. Consumers want other herbs to back it. They want some basil and some thyme; instead of just chopped garlic, they want roasted or sweated garlic. They want all the other flavors that are going to combine with the heat to give it many levels."

The side becomes the center If formulators don't keep the big picture in perspective, an unintended competition between the side dish and its main-course accompaniment can develop. "We follow the premise that the main dish is what you're paying for, and the side dish is the complement," says Prudhomme. "So you don't want the side to dominate the main course." It's not called a side dish for nothing.

As product developers enliven their pasta and potatoes with ever-more-outré seasonings, they inevitably walk the line between attracting attention to the side and sapping it from the plate's center. Though today's dining public is keen on wilder flavors, "they're not going to risk taking away from the main course," McBride says. Nor will they appreciate a side with seasoning that clashes with the tone of the main course.

As Gronlund puts it, "You're not going to create a cinnamon-curry rice pilaf to go with chicken Parmesan." The solution is to cede control to context and common sense, serving the rice with something that proves culturally appropriate, like a West Indian shrimp-and-pineapple kebab or tandoori lamb chops.

That's easy for a restaurant chef or home cook to do; they get to choose which side goes with which center. But unless a manufacturer designs a side as part of a complete dinner, it has little say in how or with what a consumer will serve it. In the end, maybe that's why the flavor profiles of so many starchy sides seem to regress to a pedestrian mean: Discreet notes of butter, lemon and chicken might not get as much buzz as wasabi or romesco, but at least their universality leaves a wider selection of prospective partners.

Strong rejects the idea that the starchy side must play second fiddle to the main course; he sees no reason why a side's seasoning can't set the mood for the whole menu. "If you can flip things so that the side dish becomes the basis for the meal," he notes, "it will help the consumer decide on the rest of the menu itself. So if the consumer can go down the side-dish aisle deciding what that menu is going to be and letting the side dish complete that menu, all they really have to do then is choose the protein." He proposes this new way of thinking about sides as a handy strategy for "evolving" the category into the entrée, perhaps giving it a hand in competing with the meal kit. "When the consumer sees a paella mix as a side dish, if they know that they can then just add the chicken," he says, "that helps them decide the menu for the evening."

The whole grain and nothing but The catch to making Strong's strategy work is psychological: How can we retrain consumers to approach the plate's center from the side, as it were? How do we draw them into the side-dish aisle before they hit the meat case? "The problem," he concedes, "is that's not usually the first aisle we go down."

USDA may have given us a leg up with its updated 2005 dietary guidelines, which encourage the consumption of the equivalent of 3 oz. or more of whole-grain products per day. Is it too much to hope that maybe -- just maybe -- this wise directive will lure consumers deep into the side-dish aisle in search of bulgur pilaf, buckwheat penne and risotto made from spelt?

James Ormsby, executive chef, Jack Falstaff, San Francisco, bets it will, "They say that last year was the year of no carbs, and this year is the year of whole grains." So bullish is he that from the restaurant's first service, its menu has substituted whole grains for refined at every opportunity, desserts and baked goods included. "As far as our sides go, I'm one of the only white-tablecloth restaurants I know of in the city that serves brown rice," he says. However, he recently sneaked a little white flour into his house-made pastas "just for textural purposes. I use it in combination with whole grains."

Ormsby and his ilk are the trendsetters whose promotion of whole grains will help make them as much a part the American pantry as white rice and noodles, predicts Mike Orlando, chairman of Sunnyland Mills, Fresno, CA, and the Whole Grains Council, Boston. "They are the pioneers," he says.

It'll take pioneers to design appealing seasoning profiles and convenient products to sell Americans on a group of grains that many still don't quite "get." Some of them take longer to cook, too. As Ormsby says, "if you're used to eating white rice with butter, brown rice is going to taste a lot different. These grains have flavor. They're not neutral starches."

Brown rice has an "earthiness" to it, says Ormsby. Because whole grains pack the fiber, bran and germ that refined options don't, "they're going to have more bulk and more substance," he adds -- all of which demand a different seasoning approach.

When Jack Falstaff first opened, Ormsby recalls, "I was doing a really simple steamed brown rice. It was actually a germinated brown rice that they germinate to pump up the nutritional value. And it's very expensive, so I was just doing it plain to showcase its own flavor." When the side didn't move as quickly as he expected, he says, "I found that by sautéing it with shiitake mushrooms, ginger, sesame oil and a Chinese rice wine, the sales went up dramatically."

Orlando has witnessed similar opinion shifts whenever consumers try skillfully seasoned whole grains. "What we've found is that when these things are spiced right, you don't notice that it's a whole grain," he says.

Chefs like Ormsby, who appreciate whole grains' inherently muscular character, highlight that earthiness and nuttiness as a matter of course. "If I'm doing pastas that are made with whole grains," he says, "I usually try to match the flavors to pair with that. So when we were doing our farro spaghetti last month, we were doing that with wild mushrooms and artichokes and things that can play-up the earthy flavors. We're doing the farro pasta now with a little more white flour in it, so I can go a little lighter now that we're using spring vegetables. I don't want to kill the flavor of the vegetables."

Texture is also a factor. "A lot of the issues about whole grains are about mouthfeel," Orlando adds. "They generally have more chew than white rice. They add crunchiness and texture, along with their flavor. So there is more character to them, and intuitively, I think the larger whole-kernel or larger-particle grains might be expected to carry a bolder seasoning profile."

Paula Wolfert, a San Francisco- based cookbook author and authority on Middle Eastern cuisine who serves on the Whole Grain Council's Culinary Advisory Committee, agrees. She prefers to let a grain's texture guide her to its appropriate preparation. "The different sizes of grains bring about different dishes," she says.

For example, when Wolfert made a bulgur salad called kisir, she chose coarse bulgur -- "a very thick grind with a very rich mouthfeel," she says, "almost like big chunks" -- and steamed it "very slowly in a mess of onions, red peppers and tomatoes." A dressing of pomegranate molasses, garlic and "just loads of herbs," she says, "one part mint to two parts coriander to three parts parsley, and lots of cumin and hot red pepper" provided the crowning touch. After letting the mix mingle for three hours, she says, "all the flavors came together. It's something that you can't even put your finger on, what makes it so wonderful."

As a textural contrast, Wolfert offers the example of grano, a product made from lightly polished durum-wheat kernels that she says "has a totally different mouthfeel. So I do it with canned tuna fish and capers, and it's just a fabulous dish. It's totally different from pasta and yet it's so wonderful in the mouth. It's got a different feel, a different texture. It makes food interesting."

One person's interesting, however, is another's intimidating -- especially in a mainstream marketplace. "I think the best way to get people to try new ingredients, such as some of the more unusual grains becoming popular, is to make use of transition ingredients," says Kevan Vetter, manager, culinary flavor applications, McCormick & Company, Inc., Hunt Valley, MD. "In other words, pair the slightly exotic grain with a bit of the familiar. Overall, grains such as quinoa and spelt accept flavors very well, and the earthy, nutty character inherent in some pairs well with many flavor profiles. One general suggestion is to keep the dish fairly simple. If there is too much going on from an ingredient or flavor standpoint, it scares people away."

Processing asides Will interest in whole grains fizzle as quickly as the buzz about Atkins? (The diet, coincidentally, gave consumers a tacit springboard to whole grains by giving complex carbs and fiber the green light.)

"It's a little early to tell," says Don McCaskill, vice president, research, Riceland Foods, Inc., Stuttgart, AK. "On the positive side, most of the predictions I've seen indicate that the impact of the new dietary guidelines will be slower and longer lasting -- not a temporary fad. The long-term impact will depend on the level of consumer education regarding whole grains provided by government and industry, and on industry's success in developing creative and convenient new whole-grain products."

McCaskill might as well have been forecasting the prospects for any starchy side: Creativity and convenience drive consumers' choices and, therefore, manufacturers' attempts to fulfill them. The convenience comes from frozen, dry-mix and, increasingly, shelf-stable delivery methods that let consumers whip a side in and out of the microwave in minutes, and the creativity comes from the seasoning. But as product developers know, seasoning a product with the goal of convenience stretches their skills well beyond the spice shelf itself.

"Typically, what people think of as a seasoning blend is just a combination of spices," says Simons. "But it's certainly gotten far more advanced or complex than that. A better way to describe a seasoning, I think, would be as more of a complete delivery system that may provide, whether the application is savory or sweet, the salt and/or the sugar. You might also provide starches, certainly the visuals, the flavor." In fact, she says, a seasoning system for a starchy side could provide everything except the side.

Ingredient suppliers have taken much of the guesswork out of determining which ingredients -- culinary, functional or otherwise -- constitute a comprehensive seasoning system. "It's based on performance," Simons says, "on what you actually want the seasoning to accomplish. So say, for instance, that you were doing a rice-based side dish, and you wanted something that was very basic" -- perhaps a pilaf that cooks up in 20 minutes on the stove with a few colorful particulates and a reasonable amount of fat, sodium and so on. "We know what to do to structure the seasoning and balance it with the amount of rice and the amount of water and the cook time to give you a typical dry-textured pilaf product," she continues. "But then somebody may come in and say, 'You know what? We've got a different type of rice or grain we're using. Turn this into a saucier concept for us.' So, then we have to go from an applications standpoint and rebalance our ingredients for reconstitution, and also put some ingredients in the seasoning that are going to help during cooking or resting the product after it cooks to develop more of that saucy, starchy consistency." Say, modified starches and hydrocolloids, for instance.

Frozen sides "take on different functional challenges, as well," Simons continues, "because you've got the dynamics of freeze/thaw and then reconstitution, whether it's designed to be cooked in the oven, on the stovetop or in the microwave."

Rhonda McRae, technical sales, French's, says that seasoning a frozen side with a prepared sauce offers formulators a one-stop solution to some of those freeze/thaw issues. "Seasoning sauces could have added ingredients to soak up some of the purge that comes from vegetable thawing so that the consumer doesn't see a watery mess upon meal preparation," she says. As usual, the nature of those functional ingredients will depend on the outcome wanted. One schema she advocates is "a combination of fibers, cross-linked or substituted starches, or gums to thicken the product when cooked and give it stability and prevent weeping when frozen."

McRae says that a substituted tapioca starch will deliver a characteristic creamy texture in a frozen risotto or pasta Alfredo without contributing the graininess that sometimes comes with vegetable fibers. The fibers are useful for soaking-up extraneous fat that separates from a sauce, but because they "don't really dissolve," she says, "they just soak-up water and fat like little sponges and, therefore, can have a grainy texture." This might go unnoticed in a chunky pomodoro salsa served with penne. But, in an angel-hair dish with a buttery-smooth glaze or a creamy peanut dressing for a heat-and-eat Asian noodle side, the sauce's Spartan texture gives the graininess nowhere to hide. In either case, a lipophilic starch will mop-up any oil spills without leaving grit.

Cindy Bernskoetter, technical services, French's, suggests another functional benefit of seasoning a frozen side with a sauce: Frozen roasted potatoes dusted with a dry-rub seasoning can shed a lot of that seasoning during transport and storage. To help it attach it to its substrate securely, use a sauce as an adhesive. "I would recommend taking the potatoes through a sauce dip first to seal in moisture and prevent them from drying out," she explains, "and then I'd apply the dry rub. Ingredients in the sauce can help the spices adhere, and starches or gums added to the dry mix can also help spices adhere to the potatoes."

With so much to consider in a frozen application, it's not surprising that most side-dish manufacturers go the boxed route. Indeed, the hotbed of side-dish innovation is in the dry-goods aisle.

Lest a product developer think that a boxed side is an easy out -- just toss some grains, dried herbs and a little bit of maltodextrin into a box and call it a day -- it pays to remember why the boxed side isn't foolproof, either. For one, they're pretty limited in the seasoning ingredients they can contain: no purées, no wet sauces, no fresh aromatics or fresh cheeses. "Frozen foods offer more options for visual appeal and innovative presentation since dehydrated, shelf-stable ingredients are not required," notes Rieman.

Freeze-drying technologies, particularly vacuum freeze-drying, "will hold more of the fresher material in a particulate," suggests Mark Bento, technical director, savory flavors, Mastertaste. Another option that brings fresh appeal to the side-dish aisle is boxed kits that include canned ingredients, such as vegetables, as well as mixes in shelf-stable packaging.

However, sacrificing fresh-ingredient appeal is unavoidable when working with dried. "These products really start to degrade," says Simons. "Like dried peas, for example. They don't have that nice, bright-green color. They start to look brown and gray and faded."

Other problems surround dried herbs and spices. McCaskill cautions that, particularly in dry sides "based on precooked, instant or quick-cooking rice, coarsely chopped herbs and spices may not receive sufficient cook time for adequate flavor release."

Bill Rauh, manager, seasoning product development, McCormick, adds that weather, time, harvesting practices and poor storage conditions can all jeopardize the quality of an herb or vegetable seasoning, highlighting the need for "strict quality-control procedures to ensure that each lot matches a gold standard and meets internal specifications for various chemical and physical characteristics," he says.

Despite their dehydrated state, dried herbs and vegetables aren't free from water-activity (aw) concerns. The dilemma isn't so much one of performance or safety, but of perception. Particulates, such as dried tomatoes, fruits, mushrooms, and herbs, aren't always dried down to the point where their aw won't interfere with the free flow of the boxed mix's contents. "You'll have premature caking in the product," Simons notes. "Companies who are manufacturing these products don't want to have issues with the consumer opening a package and finding a lump of seasoning and vegetables in a product. They want to see something that's free-flowing because free-flowing means that the product is fresh."

For these reasons and others, ingredient suppliers recommend supplementing dried-herb and vegetable seasonings with flavors, extracts and other ingredients that magnify the product's flavor profile and enhance its functional value. "I don't see seasoning as an all-or-nothing proposition," Rieman says. "I view flavors as a complement to spices and herbs. The use of a roast flavor with peppers in a pilaf, for example, will add a cooked-flavor element that complements the pepper and delivers a more-complex profile."

Visual and textural characteristics come into play. "There are instances where visible pieces of an herb or spice are a detriment to the finished product -- for instance, when you want the flavor of black pepper, but not the visual of the natural spice," says Rauh. "Our spice alternatives are made from the extracts of natural spices and herbs and, therefore, maintain the sensory properties of the spice or herb -- without the seasonal variation inherent in the natural form."

Encapsulation also works as a release mechanism for flavors that shouldn't emerge until the consumer spoons the side onto the plate. Simons says: "Garlic certainly can be rather intense at times, and you don't want it permeating the package. You don't want the flavor releasing in the package too early and fading. You want it to remain stable and then, upon cooking or hydration or reaching a certain temperature, that's when the flavor releases and you get your aroma. So, a lot of time, encapsulation deals with maintaining a low aroma on a product until the point of release that you want."

It's a lot for product developers to think about. Thankfully, they don't have to negotiate the choices solo. "The fastest resolution to any flavor and product challenge is always going to be working together with ingredient suppliers in the lab -- or at least having some collaboration early in the development rather than at the end," Curtis says. "Whenever you think of flavoring and seasoning as a final touch, you're going to have problems that could've been dealt with earlier if there had been a collaboration."

In other words, when formulating a side, it's best to put the seasoning at the center of attention.

Kimberly J. Decker, a California-based technical writer, has a B.S. in Consumer Food Science with a minor in English from the University of California, Davis. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she enjoys eating and writing about food. You can reach her at [email protected] .

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