Summer plans

1. Bulk-brandy run to Germain-Robain in Ukiah, then
2. lunch at John Ash, near Healdsburg, then
3. find the Golden Gate Bridge unclogged with traffic, then
4. find Baker Beach clogged with (unclothed) traffic

The salsa variations
This summer, look beyond the tomato.

By Paul Reidinger

SHOW ME SOMEONE who doesn't like salsa and you'll be showing me someone I've never met. Of course, I'm laying a trap here, because salsa has a broader meaning than the one that springs immediately to mind: a reddish tabletop condiment in Mexican restaurants. The word means sauce, in both Spanish and Italian, and the salsa verde that pervades Italian cuisine – a viscous variation on parsley – bears little resemblance to the Mexican preparation of tomatoes, chiles, onions, cilantro, and garlic we almost always mean when we speak of salsa. But even beyond that, the tale of sauces – salsas – is endless, and everybody likes one kind or another.

Cilantro is, of course, another matter. Its fabled love-hate effect is no myth; there are those of us for whom certain dishes simply cannot succeed without it, and there are those of us who cannot abide its grassy-metallic flavor. My young Italian friend used to wrinkle his nose and furrow his brow at the mere mention of cilantro, at the mere suggestion that I might consider spoiling a perfectly good dish with it. But then, he was Italian, and cilantro does not figure prominently, perhaps not at all, in Italian cooking. I make a version of pasta all'arrabbiata with cilantro pesto (from an old recipe in Marlena Spieler's Hot and Spicy cookbook, my copy of which, sadly, is falling apart like a well-cooked brisket), but while we have loved the dish and eaten it several times a month for the better part of two decades, we have always recognized it as an artful adulteration – really an American preparation. Order pasta all'arrabbiata in Italy and you will be served pasta dressed with a slightly spicy garlic-tomato sauce. You will find no hint of cilantro and likely none of cheese, except what you sprinkle over the top.

I confess to preferring my version of pasta all'arrabbiata, perhaps because, in its combination of tomato, garlic, hot chile, grated jack cheese, and cilantro, it reminds me of Mexican food. And I do like cilantro; cilantro makes the whole dish fly. You might say, really, that cilantro is the indispensable element not merely in jiggered pasta all'arrabbiata but in any good Mexican-style salsa. Of course, you need the other ingredients, too: garlic certainly contributes, as does some kind of chile or chile flakes; salt and lemon juice or some other kind of acid are nice; and tomatoes add color and bulk.

Tomatoes. For many people, even many salsa lovers, salsa translates to palatese basically as spicy tomato sauce. Look in the jars stacked at supermarkets and you will see a wall of gory red, as if some deranged serial killer with a bizarre fetish for packaging and neatness has been at work for some years. Depending on which market you haunt, you might catch a glimpse of green – tomatillo salsa – but not much. At a casual glance, the tomato rules the salsa roost.

This is fine as far as it goes. There is nothing wrong with tomatoes (not, at any rate, with in-season tomatoes, or properly canned tomatoes), certainly nothing wrong with salsa made from tomatoes. But, with time, one does become aware of a certain sameness, and of certain incompatibilities. Tomato-based salsas, whether mild or "picante," tend to be hearty, even brazen: They go fabulously with chips, with guacamole, with nachos; they work in burritos and quesadillas, atop tacos and tostadas. But they can bully more delicate foods.

I will say that one's repertoire over the years has tended to emphasize sturdy foods, Mexican and otherwise, and big Mexican-style salsas have often been welcome – often necessary – additions. A Hungarian mushroom-potato soup (whose recipe also appears in Hot and Spicy) gladly accepts a big blast. A pasta sauced with sausage and goat cheese (Hot and Spicy yet again) loosens up with a good shot of acid- and garlic-rich salsa. These are zippy dishes in which a bit more zip is like tossing another log on an already roaring fire.

The same salsa that enlivens a heavy, earthy soup, though – or a quesadilla, which would otherwise be bland – simply obliterates a filet of grilled halibut. Mild food is not bland food, and one way to tell the difference is to ask whether a strong condiment like traditional salsa enhances or overwhelms a dish.

Still, most fish needs help. Salmon can stand on its own, if seasoned, grilled, and finished with a bit of butter, and maybe swordfish too, but most fish benefits from more elaborate emendation. And herein lies the balancing act, the trick of adding something that's flavorful (and preferably colorful, too) but not bossy.

The answer, for me, is some version of fruit salsa – fruit salsa being essentially regular salsa, with the tomatoes dropped in favor of some other fruit, usually stone fruit. The stone fruits (the ones with pits: peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries, among others) are reliable indices of summer around here; their appearance, generally beginning in May and continuing past Labor Day, pretty nicely corresponds to the season of white linen back east.

The stone fruits have remained stubbornly seasonal, perhaps in part because (unlike oranges, apples, and other fruits we can buy more or less all year) they cannot endure cold storage. They ripen in the summer heat, they are picked (carefully!) and rushed to market, and your window for eating them is usually quite narrow – maybe a week – before they begin to disintegrate into blobs of fuzzy blue-gray mush. That last is the sad part. The happy part is that the stone fruits are an unmistakable part of summer – and that they make good salsas. They replace the sometimes blaring acidity of tomatoes with a pillowy sweetness that mutes the bite of garlic and chiles and onions and cilantro, and they bring to the plate the pastel colors of summer, transforming a piece of dispiritedly white fish into a lovely shard of ivory.

If you have read this far, you will have no doubt divined that my strong preference for fish is to grill it. This can be a delicate procedure, since fish filets grill in a matter of a few minutes, and even thicker steaks in just a few minutes more. You have to pay attention, in other words, you have to stand ready with your spatula, and you must flip firmly and confidently lest the cooked, or half-cooked, flesh break up before your eyes and plummet into the coals. You must have scrubbed and oiled your grate beforehand, and oiled your fish, so as to minimize the risk of catastrophic sticking. But if grilling fish is a bigger pain than grilling rib eyes, it's worth it, because fish immensely benefits from the smoke and the sealingly high heat of the grill.

A bonus is that stone fruit, if not too ripe, grills up beautifully too: cut (and pitted) halves that take a turn over the coals soften and acquire the same smokiness as the fish, and of course, who can resist salsa with just a hint of smokiness, especially if it's being served with slightly smoky fish? Note: if the fruit is really ripe, just eat it; don't risk cutting it in half and trying to grill it, because it will just fall apart and end up in the coals with the overcooked fish.

You can also make pretty decent salsa with corn, though of course, you must first cut the kernels from the cob. This involves a heavy chef's knife and nerves of steel. You might have grilled the cobs lightly beforehand, so the kernels are just a bit caramelized, or you might briefly sauté the kernels in a bit of butter after you've stripped them from the cob. Either way, a bit of heat deepens the flavor and improves the texture. Corn is quite as summery as stone fruit, but for some reason – perhaps purely as a matter of taste – I prefer to use corn salsa with grilled poultry rather than with grilled fish.