Who among us can say what a bay leaf tastes like? Not me, although I dutifully throw a leaf or two into a braise whenever the recipe dictates, and to consistently mysterious effect. Kelly Conaboy, formerly of Gawker, writing at the Awl, suggests that this is not due to the bay leaf’s gustatory subtlety being beyond what my Chipotle-seared taste buds can detect (my longstanding assumption) but rather due to a Big Bay Leaf Conspiracy:
Maybe you’ve had this experience: You throw a bay leaf into a broth, and it doesn’t do anything. Then you throw the rest of the bay leaves you bought into the broth, too, because you only bought them for this, and you’ll be damned if you don’t taste a bay leaf, and they don’t do anything, either. What could be the cause of this? I’ll tell you. Bay leaves are bullshit.
What does a bay leaf taste like? Nothing. What does a bay leaf smell like? Nothing. What does a bay leaf look like? A leaf. How does a bay leaf behave? It behaves as a leaf would, if you took a leaf from the tree outside of your apartment building and put it into your soup. People say, “Boil a bay leaf in some water and then taste the water if you want to know what a bay leaf tastes like.”
No.
Damn!
I mean—DAMN!
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