Q: I want to be able to sauté and make omelettes without a ton of oil or fat, and without food welding to the pan. Are nonstick pans really that bad? What are my options here?

It’s pretty much undisputed that those black, shiny nonstick pans really “work”–you can fry an egg without any grease at all, and food glides off of them with unnerving ease. But being able to “fry” without oil is inherently creepy, and defies the essential science of cooking (frying = high heat + grease). That alone seems reason enough to avoid polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, or “Teflon” when it’s made by DuPont). PTFE is essentially a super-duper high-powered lubricant, used on on things like gears and guns. Among many other chemical compounds, nonstick coatings also contain perfluorochemicals (PFCs), which is also used on pizza boxes and all manner of food packaging. (Because PFCs basically mimic fatty acids and lipds, the EPA reports that PFCs can effect cholesterol and triglyceride levels. So not only are those potato chips giving you high cholesterol, the bag might be, too!)

Both PTFE and PFCs were introduced in the convenience-obsessed 1950s, and the FDA (and, of course, DuPont) maintain that nonstick coatings are safe. But even DuPont inadvertently admits their toxicity, by “encouraging” consumers to keep their pet birds out of the kitchen. While the reason isn’t given, it’s because Teflon gas will kill your bird. But go ahead and eat those little flakes that come off in your food, says DuPont, they will just “pass through the body without being absorbed.” What with the dead pet birds and all, I’ll take a pass on Teflon eggs.

Not to belabor the issue, but nonstick pans (even the super expensive ones) also get scratched within a year or two, and stop being nonstick. Plus, they can’t be used at high heat. Fortunately, we managed to cook eggs and other foods for centuries before Teflon, and we can certainly manage now. Granted, you have to succumb to the rules of nature and sauté or fry in a bit of grease, but isn’t it worth it to keep Tweety alive and have a pan that will last for decades?

There are actually quite a few terrific alternatives to nonstick cookware. My choice is enameled cast iron–in particular Descoware, which was Julia Child’s preferred brand. Le Creuset bought out the company’s patents in the late 1970s, and eventually discontinued the “Glissemaille” enamel coating that gives Descoware its stick-resistant (and nonreactive) quality. You can still find Descoware (and enamel-lined Le Creuset) on eBay and at flea markets. It can be on the pricey side, but you know you have Julia Child’s endorsement, and the pans (treated nicely) will last for generations.

If you want to buy new, Le Creuset does make skillets with a coated cast iron interior; I was told by various salespeople that the coating is either glass or ceramic or enamel, but that it’s stick-resistant and nonreactive. However, the noticeably rough texture (and dark color) makes me skeptical on both fronts. You can follow the lead of professional chefs and go with simple, uncoated steel pans, such as those made by De Buyer or Paderno. (All-Clad is also popular, but if you overheat the pan or scrub it too vigorously, your food will stick like cement.) Of course, for almost everything you cook–except eggs and anything with acidic ingredients, like wine, tomatoes or lemon juice–that ancient, trusty, tar-black cast iron skillet is going to give you terrific results every time.

Q: I just moved into a studio, and I need to get a knife. (Of all the kitchen things on which I was, it turns out, totally reliant on my rooommates, that is the only one that I kind of can’t even cook without.) Any recommendations? Say a girl were to want two to three knives, which ones should she get, and what brands? –L.K., Seattle

On the one hand, this is a really easy question to answer. On the other, it’s impossible to answer fully because knife needs and requirements vary and knife shopping is as personal as shopping for jeans: a knife’s gotta fit right, look good, and suit your lifestyle.

The easy part is that every kitchen, no matter what, needs at least three knives: a paring knife, a serrated or bread knife, and a chef’s knife. With these three items in your drawer, you can do pretty much everything. You do not need to invest in a big knife set—as with all sets, they are generally a waste of money and drawer space. Of course, if you plan on making a turducken, you will need a boning knife. If you like to whack things around and split chickens in a single blow, you will need a cleaver. And if you are an Inuit or like to get fancy chopping parsley, you need an ulu. But really, most people just need the three.

There are too many brands out there, with a massive price spread, to attempt to name names; but I will say this: buy the best knives you can afford. They are an investment that will pay off in longevity and pleasure. It is no fun to try and chop a pile of veggies with a skimpy, bendy, dull, uncomfortable knife from Ikea or Target. You will work harder than you need to, possibly cut yourself, and have to purchase several replacements, as they are too flimsy to sharpen, and will break at some point anyway.

You can cheap out on the paring knives if you need to (I like to have two or three around), but you can get a really excellent one that will last a lifetime for around $40. Your serrated knife will serve many functions: cutting bread, tomatoes and other squishy fruits and vegetables, smoked salmon, rare meat … It needs to be sharp to be useful, which means of good enough quality to keep sharp. Bread knives will work, but a serrated utility knife, with at least a 6″ blade, will be more multipurpose.

Paring and utility knives are pretty much standardized, but when it comes to chef’s knives, it’s downright dizzying how many options you will face. Rosewood, plastic, or stainless handle? 8- or 10-inch blade? Contoured or straight? Japanese or Swiss? $6 or $600? And then, in most professional kitchens, you will find chef’s knives the size of your forearm that cost $12 and can take a serious beating…

Fortunately, shopping for your chef’s knife can be simple. Determine your budget—this is the most important of your knife investments, as you will use it the most and, hopefully, keep it the longest—then go out to a few kitchenware shops and start trying them on for size. The knife should feel good in your hand, stable and substantial but not too heavy. The blade should feel long enough to control. The blade should be solid, not flimsy—you will sharpen the thing thousands of times, remember. Only good steel will stand up to that. Perhaps you like the squared-off Santoku style, or a traditional pointy end. Whatever feels good and is good quality, go for it. Once you find the knife you want, check online; you can probably find it cheaper on one the Internet’s zillions of cutlery sites. (My own chef’s knife is a simple Victorionox/Swiss Army 8″. It’s no Masamoto, but it works for me. Unless anyone cares to donate a Masamoto…)

Finally, remember to keep the things sharp! Pick up a low-tech sharpening steel or stone and you’re in business.

Q: I had some leftover apples, so I decided to make applesauce. It turned out OK, but I wonder if you have a recipe for it? And any recommendations on the best apples to use? Also, I wanted to avoid added sugar so I used ginger and nutmeg (because I didn’t have cinnamon). Any other ideas on seasoning?

This is the perfect time of year to make applesauce (or pie, or butter, or cider), as the markets are loaded with apples that aren’t perfect, autumnal, just-picked beauties, but we aren’t yet sick of them as we may be come spring. (For me, when the first berries appear, apples become but a distant memory until September). Also, the wintry months are ideal for all those dishes that naturally go with applesauce: potato pancakes, stuffed pork loin, noodle kugel, goose.

While I’ve certainly made applesauce over the years, I am no expert. So for this Ask Spooning query, I turned to Portland, Oregon, based food writer and expert in the domestic arts, LeAnn Locher. She has particular expertise in the areas of canning and food preservation—check out her podcast, Lelo Homemade, and fabulous custom canning labels on Etsy. She covers her easy overnight slow-cooker method for making applesauce on her blog, which I highly recommend. You can also do it stovetop, of course, but slow cookers don’t require monitoring and you get that nice, long-cooked texture.

Here’s what Lelo had to say about apples: “I love a good mix of them, instead of all one kind. Unless you have a big ol’ tree that’s producing them, work with what the good lord gave you. I’ve used a mix of Elstar and McIntosh, and I love the Pippin.” She recommends having a look at the Kiyokawa Family Orchards website for an apple tutorial—nearly 65 varieties are covered, with descriptions, origins, and availability notes. (If you are anywhere near Parkdale, Oregon, have an in-person tutorial by visiting the orchard.)

As for seasoning, “What’s applesauce without cinnamon? It’s the #1 spice for applesauce in my book. If you could have only one spice in your applesauce, that would be it. But other spices that are tasty in applesauce are allspice, cloves, ginger, and if you’re daring, a dash of cardamom. But a light hand with all of these, because really, it’s the wonderful flavor of in-season fresh apples that you’re wanting to taste, right? I often don’t add sugar, but I will if I continue on to the apple butter stage. I’ve heard of folks sweetening their applesauce with agave nectar or maple syrup, if sugar isn’t your thing.”

Finally, if you want to can your sauce (or give it as gifts!), be sure to have a look at the National Center for Home Food Preservation’s applesauce recipe.

(photo credit: Lelo in Nopo)

Q: I was in Madrid recently and splurged on some memorable Ibérico ham. I was tempted to bring some back to the States, but since you can now buy it here I thought I’d avoid the risk of having it confiscated at customs. Which raised the question—if you can buy it in the U.S. now, why are they still throwing it away at the border? The ham dealer in Madrid told us it was because it’s not actually the same ham. Is that true?

Some day, I am confident that we will look back at this age of forbidden pork products as an American folly. Ibérico ham is truly the apex of cured pork products, and Spaniards have been eating ham made from wild pata negra pigs, cured in caves in the mountain air, literally since prehistoric times. But the USDA doesn’t take millennia of hale and hearty Spanish ham eaters at face value, and insists that imported meat products be processed in USDA approved facilities. (But ammonia-treated pink-slime burgers are totally A-OK. That’s logical.)

Since December 2007, Ibérico ham has been legally imported to the U.S. by a single company, Férmin, which, according to Donald Harris, an owner of Spanish-goods retailer La Tienda, was simply  “willing to go through the time consuming (and very cautious) bureaucratic process” of getting USDA approval. This fall, two more companies will jump into the American market, Cinco Jotas and COVAP.

Even in Spain, Ibérico ham–and especially Ibérico de Bellota, which is made from free-roaming, wild-acorn-fed pata negra pigs–is extraordinarily expensive. When I was in Spain, bellota was roughly 100 Euros per kilo, or $70 per pound. That same jamon in the States, though, can cost twice that. (Hence the $40 ham sandwich.) Still, Hispanophiles and hardcore cold-cut-lovers’ are putting it in their shopping carts. Are they getting what they pay for?

According to Miguel Sanz of the Consorcio del Jamón Serrano, “There are absolutely no differences between the ham exported to the USA and the ham marketed in Spain. The raw material and the method of curing are the same.” However,  only a couple of relatively large companies have been able to afford the investment required to pass USDA muster, which involves making changes to traditional facilities. Says Sanz, “The Ibérico sector consists mostly of small companies that have no financial capacity to face such investment.” Moreover, “the USA market for this kind of product is really very small, which is not a commercial incentive to invest in adapting any company facility … In 2009 Spain exported just 379 tons of dry-cured ham (Serrano and Ibérico).”

Harris, of La Tienda, concurs, and says that American and Spanish Ibérico hams are “identical, and all are bred in Spain.” He argues that factory farming of pata negra pigs doesn’t exist: For one, there are simply not enough of them to fill a factory, and the market is too small to warrant it (only 8% of Spain’s ham production is Ibérico). Plus, pata negra sows produce just a few piglets per litter, and “the animals live for a full two years before slaughter—sacrifice is the Spanish term. In the USA must pigs live only a matter of a few months [before slaughter], not years.”

It is worth noting that serrano ham, which is also completely delicious, has been available in the U.S. longer and costs a mere $40 5o $50 per pound. This is because it is made from ordinary white pigs, and while it is cured in Spain, Harris says the pigs are often “slaughtered in Holland and Denmark (due to the shortage of USDA approved slaughterhouses in Spain).”

Whether you are buying ham in the States or in Europe, it’s about the producer. Says Harris, “certainly there are some boutique ham producers in Spain which are so small that all of their product is sold domestically, and depending upon the producer, they might among the best. We have a delicious one called Encinar de Cabazón–which Pedro carefully produces from his own herd. But we only sell it on our Europe site as he does not have his own slaughtering facility and is too small to go through all the hoops to get USDA approved.”

So in the end we are missing out on some of Spain’s best Ibérico–and Pedro is missing out on an increasingly ravenous American market. But there’s no reason to dismiss the jamon we do have access to. If you can afford it, go for it. Eventually that will lead to wider, and presumably less expensive, Ibérico offerings for the rest of us.

Q: What does a sesame seed grow into? I don’t know–we never give them a chance. What the &!$@ is a sesame?! –Comedian Mitch Hedberg (RIP)

This Ask Spooning began not as a query from a curious reader, but a straight-up hysterical rant about sesame seeds by the dearly departed comedian Mitch Hedberg (**Rated R** for adult language and drug references: Sesame Seeds). Blank buns notwithstanding, it’s a good question: What IS a sesame? Obviously, like the poppy, sunflower, and pumpkin that give us tasty seeds, the sesame is some kind of flowering plant. But we’ve all seen poppies, sunflowers and pumpkins. Have you ever seen a sesame? Would you even know if you did?

I went to an expert who can only be described as a sesame scholar, Dr. Dorothea Bedigian, Research Associate at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. Her forthcoming book, Sesame, is a 384 page tome with a list price of $130, but Dr. Bedigian was willing to share some information about the humble little seed in the name of sesame awareness. “There is a great deal of misinformation about sesame, both in the published literature and naturally, on the internet.” Point taken. Ask Spooning aims to remedy that!

First, an introduction: Sesame (Sesamum indicum) is a tall flowering plant first domesticated in India but now primarily cultivated in dry regions of Asia and Africa. Dr. Bedigian notes that there is only one commercial sesame grower in the U.S., Texas-based Sesaco. Unless you happen to live near a sesame ranch, it’s unlikely that you’ve actually seen a sesame in person. But if you are a Thomas Jefferson buff, you may have: “It is grown at Monticello, because they have attempted to reproduce the cultivations of Jefferson’s time, and he was a huge fan of sesame.” Washington had hemp…Jefferson had sesame.

The name is not, in fact, a contraction of “says-a-me” (as I grew up believing). Rather, it’s derived from the ancient language of Mesopotamia, “where it was called sammassammu; thereafter it went into Armenian as shushma, into Greek as sesamon” and on into Latin and the Romance languages “virtually unchanged.” Indeed, the ancient name demonstrates just how long the sesame has been in use. “We have evidence of sesame seeds from the Indus civilization center of Harappa, dating back to the mid-third millennium BC.” It spread quickly to Mesopotamia, where it was adopted as an oil source for food and lamps.

About 5000 years later, the seeds are as globally ubiquitous as the Golden Arches (thanks to that damn sesame seed bun), but Dr. Bedigian points out that the plant itself is also eaten in parts of Asia. “The Chinese can the leaves. Koreans use the leaves as a wrap, similar to the way grape leaves are used by Armenians and Arabs, for wrapping a mixture of rice, onions, tomato paste and spices.” A much more dignified use for this ancient plant than a Big Mac.

Here’s my favorite sesame recipe, Armenian Tahini Bread via Saveur magazine.

For further reading on the mighty sesame, Dr. Bodigian directs readers here and here.

Q: “I notice that edibles are a huge part of medical marijuana dispensaries. Where does this food come from? Is there a  regulatory system of some kind? The edibles also list dosage–how is that determined and maintained? Finally, I’ve heard of cannabis butter, but how are the other things made, like beverages and candy?” –Anonymous, Los Angeles

A: The process of getting to the bottom of this question lead me to discover that–perhaps unsurprisingly–folks in the marijuana trade are a little bit hard to pin down. And squirrely about revealing anything about themselves or their product. But, two of the companies I reached out to here in Los Angeles–where pot dispensaries outnumber Starbucks–gave me a general idea of the process. I’m lead to believe that their answers were vague because the legal and procedural guidelines of this brave new marijuana world are themselves vague still pretty undefined.

Adam, of Counter Catering, a non-profit collective that produces and distributes edibles to local dispensaries, says spiked foodstuffs are so popular because they are “a much safer alternative to smoking, a practice that many patients cannot physically participate in, whether it be due to illness, age, or personal preference.” Edibles are also particularly helpful to patients on chemotherapy or who suffer from illnesses that cause wasting–essentially starvation due to lack of appetite.

Also per Adam, edibles “are supposed to come from medical marijuana collectives that specialize in the making of medicinal edibles” and “made by licensed food handlers who are also medical marijuana patients.” However, a pastry chef who also produces edibles commercially wasn’t so sure. “As of right now, there are no definitive regulations except that the product must be made in a certified commercial kitchen, specifically for cannabis edibles….The city is currently mending the ordinances.” Both Adm and the pastry chef have medical marijuana prescriptions, which is presumably necessary to obtain the pot that they then transform into food and sell back to the dispensaries. Adam suggests that “patients ask to see a copy of the kitchen license that is related to the edible they are about to acquire. If the dispensary cannot produce a copy of the kitchen license/health certificate, they should consider going elsewhere.”

Baked goods are made from cannabis butter or oil (the buds are cooked in fat until the lipids absorb the TCH, and the plant matter is then strained off before use), while beverages and candy can be made from infused alcohol or glycerin. Alcohol is prohibited in dispensaries, however, so glycerin is generally the go-to medium.

Dosage is a trickier question. Per the pastry chef, “each company doses their product individually. Our products maintain a dose of 1.5g per package. The medication is consistently tested and weighed out before going into the product.” Adam notes that “dosage is different for every patient, much like alcohol affects every person differently.  For example, one brownie made by our collective is considered one very strong dose, or two strong doses. I feel that half of the brownie is one very strong dose, where others feel that the entire brownie might be a mild dose.” And I’ve, um, heard, that one brownie could also put an elephant in a coma…

His final helpful hint: ”Heat sealed, polyurethane bags are one type of packaging that is considered safe for food by the FDA. Patients should be wary of any edible packaged in foil or cling wrap, not only because it is not approved packaging, but also because the shelf life will be very short.”

That, and who knows what could be in that cookie! Aside from, you know, drugs.