Mediterranean Delights

It isn't often that your senses are assaulted by an all-too-familiar feast that simply leaves you reeling.  That was what I experienced the other day when I was cracking open jars of  items in the midst of development--or so I thought.  We twisted open one jar, heard the 'pop' signaling all was safe, plunged our spoons into the opening and let our taste buds go to work.

This was a chunky concoction of roasted cauliflower, tahini, olive oil, herbs and spices.  The al dente texture made for a truly unique culinary experience for the flavor was recognizable as a cross between homemade hummus and baba ghanouj.  Crunchy hummus--what a novel idea.  

The creation of this item came about due to an overabundance of cauliflower.  What do we do with it?  The growers wanted to move it, the price was right, the factory was near humming in anticipation of roasting so many of the white heads, but what is the final product?  Well, when in Turkey, eat as the Turks do--roast it, add olive oil, some herbs and spices and a little tahini to round out the edges.  Voila!  A new item is born.  The adage 'necessity is the mother of invention' rings true yet again.

Once the jars are filled and the pH tested, the product is ready to come to me again for more taste testing.  It passes with flying colors, having developed more of a savory top note.  

We delve into the other jars of samples and are not nearly as elated as we were with the first product.  This first product, this roasted caulflower-tahini thing, what do we call it?  It needs a name; a simple name--none of this flowery, descriptive crap that doesn't mean much.  Cauliflower + tahini = Caulini.

How do you go about marketing something that no one has ever heard of, let alone tasted?  Ah, therein lies the rub, my friends.

This is where sheer luck and a little wit come into play.  You make up a name, somewhat descriptive, but, in reality, a veritable sniglet describing the very things you are tasting, and then tout it about as if everyone and their brother knows what it is.  Pity the poor schmuck who has the audacity to ask the question, "Caulini?  Huh?  What is that?!"

"Gee whiz, you've never heard of Caulini?  What are you, some armchair traveler?  Some poor sap who learns by watching food shows on tv, but has never really experienced the thrill of ordering something crazy off the menu of some new joint that everyone has been raving about?"  Who wants to be ridiculed?  Better to shut your pie hole and breathe in this new word.  Caulini.  

A food so simple, so pure, so tempting.  You'll want to spread it in a pita stuffed with turkey and lettuce, put a huge dollop of it on your antipasti platter, savor it with chick peas and olives with a fresh fig or two on the side, and if you really are daring you'll eat it on its own with a nice glass of vino verde or pinot grigio.  Dig in, there's always more where this came from.