Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thought for Food
What is cooking? And what makes a person a "good" cook (in the sense of a home cook, not a professionally trained career chef)?
To expand on my first question, what is the difference between a factory machine assembling pieces of metal to produce a television set and a person putting food into a pot to make a stew? Is cooking the application of heat to raw food products to enable nutrient absorption by human digestives systems? Because that's how the dictionary defines it. If so, what about salads, sandwiches and sushi? Is someone who is making a salad not "cooking"? And if cooking is just the application of heat to raw food, is a person who boils a piece of beef chuck considered a "cook"? It seems like you could define cooking as a mechanical system of applying component parts and heat, but cooking is clearly more than that.
I was thinking about the second question "what makes a person a good cook?" and arrived at the conclusion that there are three main dimensions that define a good cook.
1. First of all is the Mechanics. One must properly understand the physical mechanics of food and apply consistent technique to cooking. This includes the basic fundamentals of heat and time, prioritizing processes for maximum efficiency, speed, time management, prep skills, knife skills, understanding the physical properties of protein, starches, lipids, etc... The best evidence of mastery of Mechanics, in my opinion, is the ability to assemble the final product while all the component ingredients are still hot from it's initial cooking process.
2. Then there is Synthesis. Like any other skill in the world, practice and experience is required to be good at it. With that experience comes the inherent ability to synthesize. Synthesis is the ability to take what were once mere mechanical obedience to canon (i.e. following recipes) and proceeding to create something different. Since it is impossible to have experienced every recipe in the world, the ability to amalgamate your limited personal knowledge of food and recipes to create new taste combinations is critical. Everyone has to work within limitations, and it is the ability to Synthesize and Create within and around those restrictions that makes a good cook.
3. Creativity. Cooking is still an Art. It is the ability to break free of convention and restrictions. Whether it is the restriction of time, money, a bulky recipe book, ingredients, space or energy, a good home cook must be creative. Of course, creativity doesn't only mean the artistic side of cooking, equally important is the creative use of intelligence, especially in the area of logistics. This means planning meals with leftover ingredients, shopping for ingredients that maximizes efficiency and minimizes waste and seeing the infinite varieties of meals possible within the resources at hand. Like a painter with a blank canvas, or a writer with a white page, a good cook will utilize every tool in his kitchen to create an experience of food. Like a chess-master, a good cook will see not just where each ingredient needs to go for this meal, but he or she will look days into the future and see where each piece of the food puzzle will fit.
Notice that taste and making a delicious meal is not a requirement to being a good cook. In my paradigm, it is possible to be a good cook who produces dishes with sub-par flavor. I admire the feat of mastery inherent in being a good cook. Delicious food is a desirable and often automatic outcome of that mastery, but the appreciation of tasty food is a superficial titillation of the taste buds, while the appreciation of a mastered skill satisfies something in me much deeper and profound.
huzzah.
To expand on my first question, what is the difference between a factory machine assembling pieces of metal to produce a television set and a person putting food into a pot to make a stew? Is cooking the application of heat to raw food products to enable nutrient absorption by human digestives systems? Because that's how the dictionary defines it. If so, what about salads, sandwiches and sushi? Is someone who is making a salad not "cooking"? And if cooking is just the application of heat to raw food, is a person who boils a piece of beef chuck considered a "cook"? It seems like you could define cooking as a mechanical system of applying component parts and heat, but cooking is clearly more than that.
I was thinking about the second question "what makes a person a good cook?" and arrived at the conclusion that there are three main dimensions that define a good cook.
1. First of all is the Mechanics. One must properly understand the physical mechanics of food and apply consistent technique to cooking. This includes the basic fundamentals of heat and time, prioritizing processes for maximum efficiency, speed, time management, prep skills, knife skills, understanding the physical properties of protein, starches, lipids, etc... The best evidence of mastery of Mechanics, in my opinion, is the ability to assemble the final product while all the component ingredients are still hot from it's initial cooking process.
2. Then there is Synthesis. Like any other skill in the world, practice and experience is required to be good at it. With that experience comes the inherent ability to synthesize. Synthesis is the ability to take what were once mere mechanical obedience to canon (i.e. following recipes) and proceeding to create something different. Since it is impossible to have experienced every recipe in the world, the ability to amalgamate your limited personal knowledge of food and recipes to create new taste combinations is critical. Everyone has to work within limitations, and it is the ability to Synthesize and Create within and around those restrictions that makes a good cook.
3. Creativity. Cooking is still an Art. It is the ability to break free of convention and restrictions. Whether it is the restriction of time, money, a bulky recipe book, ingredients, space or energy, a good home cook must be creative. Of course, creativity doesn't only mean the artistic side of cooking, equally important is the creative use of intelligence, especially in the area of logistics. This means planning meals with leftover ingredients, shopping for ingredients that maximizes efficiency and minimizes waste and seeing the infinite varieties of meals possible within the resources at hand. Like a painter with a blank canvas, or a writer with a white page, a good cook will utilize every tool in his kitchen to create an experience of food. Like a chess-master, a good cook will see not just where each ingredient needs to go for this meal, but he or she will look days into the future and see where each piece of the food puzzle will fit.
Notice that taste and making a delicious meal is not a requirement to being a good cook. In my paradigm, it is possible to be a good cook who produces dishes with sub-par flavor. I admire the feat of mastery inherent in being a good cook. Delicious food is a desirable and often automatic outcome of that mastery, but the appreciation of tasty food is a superficial titillation of the taste buds, while the appreciation of a mastered skill satisfies something in me much deeper and profound.
huzzah.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Sauteed chicken with mushroom sauce
I know this looks really good. But the question is, does it tastes as good as it looks? The answer is no. No, it doesn't taste as good as it looks...it tastes way better.
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