Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

It’s an All Tangent Tuesday on Cooking Issues, and Dave, Joe, Jack, and Quinn cover a lot of ground. Jack reports back from Belgium with Ghent mustard, genever, Belgian fries, Maison Dandoy waffles, and more.From there, Dave makes the case for liverwurst and mustard on rye, fresh sauerkraut, and giving genever its own identity instead of treating it like gin. A caller sparks a deep dive into the peculiar hierarchy of New York City supermarkets—from Fine Fare and C-Town to Key Food, Gristedes, Food Emporium, and the particular skill of knowing exactly which store has exactly what you need.Plus: the math behind scaling cranberry cordial and adapting the technique to other juices, Quinn’s latest clam experiment, fresh versus dried panko, $60 Austrian rye bread, Thanksgiving gravy strategy, Vancouver Island fish sauce, and more thoughts on Dave’s dream outdoor cooking setup. It’s tangents all the way down.

Dave Arnold is joined by cookbook author Andrea Nguyen and Momofuku culinary director Dennis Ngo for a deep dive into fish sauce. They break down how fish sauce is made, what nitrogen ratings actually tell you, Thai versus Vietnamese styles, when to cook with fish sauce versus add it at the finish, and whether the expensive stuff is worth saving for the table.Then it’s time to taste. The crew works through a lineup including MegaChef Blue and Brown, Thin, Dear Mom and Son, Red Boat, Maine Garum, colatura, Yondu, Squid Brand’s premium fish sauce, Tiparos, and more—comparing sweetness, salt, funk, umami, aging, and the applications where each one works best.Plus: Andrea on making and understanding tofu, Dave’s love of canned-meat flavors, Jack’s return from Belgium, LiveWire cocktails, Ming Dynasty spicy chicken, and the declaration of an unofficial International Fish Sauce Day.

Dave gets into Ashmead’s Kernel apples, acidity, and why terroir makes fruit data unreliable before laying out plans for his ultimate outdoor cooking setup: tandoor, Roman-style hearth, masonry oven, commercial deep fryer, wok burner, and a whole lot of propane. Plus: the return of paper-bag cooking, dairy-free mashed potatoes, what to do with a country ham bone, male vs. female rabbit, getting pu-erh tea flavor into baked goods, browning breakfast sausage, low-temperature pasteurization, blood bread, cucumber cocktails, and the pursuit of better home seltzer.

Author Brian Hoefling joins Dave and the crew to explore Dryads: Spirits of the Trees, his deep dive into distilled spirits made from tree sap and other tree-derived sugars. They get into Sri Lankan arrack, Filipino lambanog, maple spirits, wild fermentation, palm sugar, garum, Roman cooking, and the surprising range of things humans have figured out how to ferment and distill.Along the way, Nastassia reports from the road on bus-made pickled eggs, pot roast, and a newly delivered Searzall Pro; Dave recaps eating and drinking his way through Houston; Quinn experiments with sesame focaccia; and the group considers the theoretical possibilities of chicken-poop vodka. Plus: maple syrup grades, why fresh sap and cooked sugar produce radically different spirits, ancient methods of concentrating maple sap, and Dave’s ongoing war against bad culinary terminology.

It’s an All-Tangent Tuesday as Dave and the crew debate the unwritten rules of restaurants: bringing your own crushed red pepper, sneaking food into movie theaters, why some places refuse perfectly reasonable off-menu requests, and whether chimichurri disqualifies steak frites from being steak frites.Then things get technical with grilled lobster, birthday steaks, blood cocktails, yeast percentages, and a deep dive into getting the perfect glossy mahogany crust on homemade pretzels. Plus, Dave lays out his dream outdoor kitchen—from a tandoor and raised hearth to a bread oven, deep fryer, and an outdoor Searzall setup—and previews an upcoming exploration of tree-sap spirits and fish sauce.

Dave Arnold is joined by Nastassia and Jack for an old-school Cooking Issues episode covering the etiquette of dining alone, phone calls at restaurants, and what guests should—or absolutely should not—bring to a dinner party. The crew gets into garlic fermented in honey and food-safety concerns, the right way to cool and store leftovers, fresh versus dried yeast, and Dave’s plans for an elaborate Peruvian-style rotisserie. Plus: cocktail texture, LA’s chaotic hillside architecture, Majordomo, upcoming travels to Houston and Paris, and the only universally acceptable answer to “What can I bring?”: wine.