Click photo to enlarge The simple lentil is being elevated by
chefs to high cuisine in dishes such as this warm lentil salad
with kale and butternut squash.  As culinary fashion continues
to wind inexorably lower on the luxury scale -- from tournedos
to beef cheeks, from foie gras to pork belly -- it was probably
inevitable that we would eventually come to lentils.
Representing the lowest and plainest possible food denominator
since biblical times, when Esau traded his birthright for a bowl
of soup made from them, lentils have always been regarded as a
food you would eat only when you absolutely had to.  Yet look at
a restaurant menu today or visit an upscale grocery and you'll
find lentils that come in a rainbow of colors and bear an atlas
of place names.  You'll find lentils that are reddish pink,
canary yellow and pure ivory. Many chefs swear by the dark green
lentils from Le Puy in France, but at Los Angeles' Mozza, chef
Nancy Silverton won't use anything but the tiny tan
Castelluccios from Italy's Umbri