From the Pantry Bookshelf
It is easy to plan dinner around its largest ingredient: the pasta, the beans, the vegetables that will fill the plate. The quieter ingredients can end up as an afterthought. An onion, a few herbs and something fragrant from the vegetable drawer rarely make the shopping list sound exciting. Yet they are often what gives a simple meal its direction.
A small detail in Frances Mayes's In Toscane turns the spotlight towards that beginning. In her book, published in 2000, Mayes describes receiving odori, a little gift of aromatic vegetables and herbs, with her shopping at a fruit-and-vegetable seller. She describes using this bundle to make trito, a chopped vegetable mixture cooked in olive oil as a base for a meal.
Her account captures a particular place and period. It also offers a useful question for our own kitchens: have we remembered the ingredients that help the rest of dinner taste good?
Give the beginning a place on your list
For a Pantry version of that shopping habit, think of a small group of supporting ingredients alongside the main event. Onion, carrot, celery, parsley and garlic are possible companions, as the illustration suggests. Your selection can follow whatever you are planning to cook and the flavours you enjoy.
Choose them with the meal in mind. For beans, you might want a rounded vegetable sweetness. For a tomato-based supper, you might prefer a clearer garlic note. For something green and light, a fresh herb can help set the direction. The point is to make a choice before the pan is hot, while there is still room to think about the whole meal.
Notice what the aromatics contribute
Mayes's description of a gently cooked base is an invitation to pay attention to a stage that is easy to rush past. Chopped vegetables begin as separate pieces with distinct smells and textures. In the pan, their character changes; the kitchen starts to tell you what dinner might become.
You do not need to turn this into a technical exercise. Notice whether the aroma is mostly sweet, sharp or herbal. Think about whether that suits what you intend to add. If the main ingredients already have a strong personality, a quieter supporting base may be all they need.
That pause can make cooking feel less like assembling a list and more like making a few connected decisions.
Let one shopping choice support several suppers
This way of looking at aromatics is especially useful when you want flexible meals. Rather than choosing three unrelated dinners and shopping for each separately, look for ingredients that can take different roles.
An onion might support a bean dish one evening and a vegetable soup another. Parsley could become a fresh finishing touch where a meal needs one. A carrot can contribute to the beginning of a dish without becoming its main subject. Thinking about those smaller roles gives each ingredient more opportunities to earn its place in your basket.
Keep the final meals different by changing their emphasis: beans and greens, a vegetable-led pasta, or a soup with bread alongside. Shared ingredients can make a shopping list simpler while leaving plenty of room for variety.
Borrow the attention, make the meal your own
The appealing part of this bookshelf discovery is the attention given to something modest. A handful of supporting ingredients receives its own name and a moment in the story. It reminds us to look beyond the centre of the plate.
On your next food shop, choose the main ingredient for a simple supper, then ask what will help it along. A small bundle is a good place to begin.
Bookshelf source: Frances Mayes, with Edward Mayes, In Toscane (Dutch edition, Uitgeverij Prometheus, 2000), “Odori”, p. 188. The shopping and meal-planning suggestions here are Pantry's own.