Sun Dried Sicilian Tomatoes

Sun drying is the oldest food technology still in use today. (I believe it predates fire, but hey, I could be wrong.) It’s not too common these days, since cheap electricity allows us to dry things much more quickly than the sun does. But sun drying can produce some incredibly flavorful foods including some of our favorites like sun dried tomatoes, couscous, peppers, and salt. And it can do so in an incredibly environmentally friendly way.

The first sun dried foods were a product of necessity.

Removing moisture helps to preserve food, and also made it lighter to carry, two reasons why the nomadic Berber peoples of North Africa started sun drying foods thousands of years ago. By processing wheat into sun-dried couscous they were better able to have a ready food supply, even if they had a year or two of bad crops. The fact that slow sun drying can also produce a lot more flavor must have been a bonus; the sun dried couscous made by the Mahjoub family in Tunisia is toasty, wheaty, and way more flavorful than any other couscous I’ve tried. The sun dried garlic spread that the Mahjoubs make is likewise deeply flavorful. The time it takes for the garlic to dry in the sun concentrates its flavor, enhancing its natural sweetness—the same sort of effect you get from roasting a head of garlic in the oven.

That intensity of flavor is a common theme amongst sun dried foods. Marash pepper from Turkey is a prime example. After being harvested in August, shiny red peppers are laid on white muslin sheets to dry in the sun for a week. The type of pepper used is prized because its thin flesh can dry fairly quickly; thicker peppers end up with a tougher texture. After drying, the stems, seeds, and white interior flesh of the peppers are removed, which reduces the heat level but maintains the flavor. The result is a burgundy pepper flake with a deep, roasted chile flavor that lasts and lasts without ever getting too hot.

This ancient technology is up-to-the-minute environmentally friendly.

The counterintuitive thing about sun dried foods is that, even when they’re shipped to us from the other side of the world, they can be more environmentally friendly than local foods that rely on more energy-intensive methods to create. Take salt, for example. To make salt here in Michigan we have to mine it with heavy machinery (that’s how the Kosher brand salt you see at grocery stores is made—it’s mined just north of Ann Arbor). To make it in foggy coastal places like Wales you have to boil it out of the sea water, which takes a tremendous amount of fossil fuel. But on the sunny Southern coast of Portugal or along France’s Brittany coast, salt can be harvested from shallow pools of sea water that evaporate in the sun. The salt is raked by hand and the only machine you’ll spot is a conveyor that piles it high for storage until it’s shipped to us.

Traditional cooking, the popular cooking of countries passed down through time, is the cooking of the poor because, let’s face it, there have been a lot more poor people than rich people in history. Traditional cooks figured out how to squeeze the last bit of flavor from the ham bone, to find flavor in foods they might have otherwise thrown away. Turns out this isn’t just good policy for thriftiness or the environment. It’s super tasty as well.

Parm bones

When you get to the end of a hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, don’t throw out the rind. Put it in a plastic bag and keep it in the freezer. Next time you’re making a slow-cooked pasta or rice dish, or a stew, add the “parm bone” to it. Like adding bones to bubbling broth it’ll disperse its flavor into the dish, melting slowly away. You can do this with any cheese whose rind isn’t waxed or coated.

Meat rinds

The same idea as parm bones, but add a rind—or chunk—of bacon, guanciale or prosciutto to cooking water for pasta or rice. It’ll add a lot of flavor to the dish. You can also eat the softened rind after the dish is ready. When the boiling is done you can dress the meat with olive oil, a bit of cheese and eat it as an appetizer.

Cooking water

Add a bit of pasta water to your pasta sauce and the starch that seeped out of it into the water will thicken up the sauce and add some flavor. Or with water that’s cooked some carrots or rehydrated mushrooms or somehow seen the benefit of touching tasty food — think about adding it to whatever else you’re cooking to pass its flavor along.

Jarred remains

Before you throw out the briney remains of a jar of food, take a taste. The vinegar and oil from a jar of sun dried tomatoes can make an amazing marinade. The olive oil in a tin of anchovies can add depth to a salad dressing, or the start of your next sauté.

Chicken bones and carrot peels

One of the best ways to add flavor to your cooking is to substitute broth for water. It’s super easy to make at home, too. Don’t buy ingredients for it. Just save your broth-worthy vegetable scraps like carrots, onion, celery and herb stems in a bag in the freezer. One day, when you eat some chicken, throw the bones in a pot with those scraps, some bay leaves and peppercorns, and cover it with water. Let it simmer for a few hours, strain it, then pour into ice cube trays. When you need your next dose of flavor, crack out a cube and melt it into a dish.