HOW DETAILED SHOULD A RECIPE BE?

[Human Bean]

Your market basket items are ground beef, hamburger buns, ketchup and iceberg lettuce.  GO!

Hmm, that's a tough one. How about if you crumbled the bread (perhaps drying it a bit in a warm oven first), add it and ketchup to the ground beef (vintage 1995 not necessary, but it would that that extra something). Bake it, et voila, meatloaf. Serve iceberg lettuce on the side.

[Anna N]

Okay, Jinmyo, since you twisted my arm:

Your market basket items are ground beef, hamburger buns, ketchup and iceberg lettuce.  GO!

Seriously, we could have a thread to hash out details, but I don't want to steal Anna's thunder on this great idea.  Let's see what she thinks and go from there.

Also, I'm a bum.

Please, please feel free to steal my idea!

I relinquish all patents, royalties, liabilities, tortes, tarts, and whatever other chattels might possibly accrue to me as a result of my insomnia.

To whomsoever feels up to the task- please, please take it.

Signed and dated this 27th day of December in the County of Halton ( just a minute - do I live in Peel or Halton Counties) never mind, one of the above.

Take up my challenge with the chow

To you from failing hands I throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who dine

We shall not sleep, though truffles grow

In distant fields.

With deepest respect and even deeper apologies to John McCrae (Canadian war poet) both for cribbing and for the lousy rhyme!

[Anna N]

I've been thinking and thinking about the apparent distance between those who advocate ditching recipes and those who advocate better recipes and those who stay in the middle of the road. And I asked myself - why, after thirty years of making Danish red cabbage do I still consult the recipe? It has only six ingredients - and one of those is water! But I don't follow the recipe - over the years I've learned to modify it, to tweak it to our tasted, to taste as it cooks so it reaches what we consider the ideal of sweetness/sourness/crispness/tenderness. But I still consult the recipe - every time!

Bear with me for a minute.

I once worked for a lady who had a prodigious memory. She could tell you the exact outfit that Sally wore to work on the day she started 12 years ago! She could pinpoint the date the IBM Selectric went down never to be resuscitated even though it happened months or years before. But she couldn't seem to process any new information fed to her. It was then I decided that I would use my head to process information and file cabinets to store it!

So, I'm not so far away as it first seemed from those who don't advocate the use of recipes. But I need that damned security of it being there even for something I have done hundreds of times. And for a new dish - it's just imperative - but if it works, if I get a tasty meal from it, then it becomes a point of reference and not something to be slavishly adhered to.

I've positively got to give up this thinking - it's giving me a headache and besides - I need my afternoon nappie before my guests arrive.

But for what it's worth, the division may be between those who can retain information and those who have difficulty doing so. And no, I'm not implying that those who want to ditch the recipe are incapable of processing information! The lady I describe was one of a kind.

[Jinmyo]

Your market basket items are ground beef, hamburger buns, ketchup and iceberg lettuce.  GO!

Hmm, that's a tough one. How about if you crumbled the bread (perhaps drying it a bit in a warm oven first), add it and ketchup to the ground beef (vintage 1995 not necessary, but it would that that extra something). Bake it, et voila, meatloaf. Serve iceberg lettuce on the side.

Saute the ground beef. Mix in a bit of mustard. Chop the hamburger buns and toast the croutons. Toss the beef and croutons together. The ketchup is the original "ketsiap" fermented fish sauce so sprinkle liberally. Serve in iceberg lettuce cups.

[mamster]

Anna, I don't think the divide is so deep: whether we're talking about intuitive cooks or recipe cooks, we're talking about cooks. If you really want to see a battle royale, try cooks vs. non-cooks. (Not really--the cooks can cook and the non-cooks can do dishes.)

Jinmyo, that was scary.

[snowangel]

This reminds me of my daughter Diana, and anothe friend (Dianne). Dianne is a wonderful cookbook cook. As long as she has a specific recipe in front of her, she can work wonders. Her cookbook meals are works of art -- both in taste and visual. But, she doesn't seem to be able to translate that to "non cookbook" cooking. She has told me many times about the ingredients that go to waste because she just doesn't know what to do when she doesn't have enough of this or that for a specific recipe.

In contract, Diana loves to read cookbooks, and will occasionally cook from them, but seems to absorb every little bit of technique and how to treat ingredients. She can look in the fridge at an odd assortment of things, and magically come up with a great meal. For example, the other night, she had a hankering for potato leek soup. We had not enough of any one kind of potato, not quite enough leeks, but she did espy some shallots, and some fresh tarragon. While this was not the potato leek soup out of a standard cookbook, it was outstanding. She has learned what characteristics ingredients have, which is so helpful for combining, and has a great sense of "taste as you go" knowing that some flavors will become more concentrated or stronger, and some won't.

So, how detailed to get? How successul can market bags be? Depends on level of skill -- and not just technique. I believe that my daughter's talents are innate. She seems to be able to "taste" what she reads.

[mamster]

I don't envision the market basket thing being any sort of competition--it would be great if people wanted to help each other out via PM. Let me give the idea some thought (and by all means keep the suggestions coming), and let's give it a try next month. I love winter cooking above all others anyway.

[Nick]

Saute the ground beef. Mix in a bit of mustard. Chop the hamburger buns and toast the croutons. Toss the beef and croutons together. The ketchup is the original "ketsiap" fermented fish sauce so sprinkle liberally. Serve in iceberg lettuce cups.

Isn't MacDonald's trying to go "upscale"? I think you're on to something Jin. I sure as hell couldn't have come up with that. Turning the buns into croutons was a stroke of genius.

[Marlene]

This reminds me of my daughter Diana, and anothe friend (Dianne).  Dianne is a wonderful cookbook cook.  As long as she has a specific recipe in front of her, she can work wonders.  Her  cookbook meals are works of art -- both in taste and visual.  But, she doesn't seem to be able to translate that to "non cookbook" cooking.  She has told me many times about the ingredients that go to waste because she just doesn't know what to do when she doesn't have enough of this or that for a specific recipe.

In contract, Diana loves to read cookbooks, and will occasionally cook from them, but seems to absorb every little bit of technique and how to treat ingredients.  She can look in the fridge at an odd assortment of things, and magically come up with a great meal.  For example, the other night, she had a hankering for potato leek soup.  We had not enough of any one kind of potato, not quite enough leeks, but she did espy some shallots,  and some fresh tarragon.  While this was not the potato leek soup out of a standard cookbook, it was outstanding.  She has learned what characteristics ingredients have, which is so helpful for combining, and has a great sense of "taste as you go" knowing that some flavors will become more concentrated or stronger, and some won't.

So, how detailed to get?  How successul can market bags be?  Depends on level of skill -- and not just technique.  I believe that my daughter's talents are innate.  She seems to be able to "taste" what she reads.

I guess I'd have to define myself as a "cookbook" cook. I can do extrodinary things with a recipe, but can't make one up to save my life! I may "tweak" the odd recipe, but I have to have one to follow. Which is why I like having clearly defined recipes!

[Jinmyo]

The wonderful thing about cooking is that, because it deals with what is most essential for us all, we have done it as long as we have been at all and so have inherited a vast treasury of knowledge. And yet every time we cook it is fresh.

Whether we follow recipes or leave new ones behind where we have been (like the best chefs I know), the craft of cooking fashions all of our lives.

[Marlene]

The wonderful thing about cooking is that, because it deals with what is most essential for us all, we have done it as long as we have been at all and so have inherited a vast treasury of knowledge. And yet every time we cook it is fresh.

Whether we follow recipes or leave new ones behind where we have been (like the best chefs I know), the craft of cooking fashions all of our lives.

So very well said. Thank you.

[Nick]

I guess I'd have to define myself as a "cookbook" cook.   I can do extrodinary things with a recipe, but can't make one up to save my life!   I may "tweak" the odd recipe, but I have to have one to follow.  Which is why I like having clearly defined recipes!

This sounds like a classical violinist I was asked to play with at a friend's house. She could only play by reading the score (music) and I could not. She was a very good violinist and I was well regarded for my guitar playing. The evening was a hopeless failure.

People who only cook by recipes can turn out some very fine food - my mother was one. On the other hand, I tend to wing it - with results that range from delightful to somewhat this side of disasterous.

Probably those who cook by the book and those who don't should be careful when making a meal together.

[Marlene]

I guess I'd have to define myself as a "cookbook" cook.   I can do extrodinary things with a recipe, but can't make one up to save my life!   I may "tweak" the odd recipe, but I have to have one to follow.  Which is why I like having clearly defined recipes!

This sounds like a classical violinist I was asked to play with at a friend's house. She could only play by reading the score (music) and I could not. She was a very good violinist and I was well regarded for my guitar playing. The evening was a hopeless failure.

People who only cook by recipes can turn out some very fine food - my mother was one. On the other hand, I tend to wing it - with results that range from delightful to somewhat this side of disasterous.

Probably those who cook by the book and those who don't should be careful when making a meal together.

Right and wrong. I cook by the book, and my husband throws things together without ever using a recipe. While we may irritate each other by our methods, we love to be in the kitchen together, making food for each other. It works out.

[Suvir Saran]

I guess I'd have to define myself as a "cookbook" cook.  I can do extrodinary things with a recipe, but can't make one up to save my life!  I may "tweak" the odd recipe, but I have to have one to follow.  Which is why I like having clearly defined recipes!

By the positions favored by some, I may be the best chef around. I hardly follow recipes ever. And certainly I leave behind recipes wherever I cook.

But I would be a SHAME, nothing more than that, and nothing less, if the recipes I left behind failed others. That would kill me.

The only reason to have a recipe-book is to have recipes that work. Let us not forget what a recipes purpose is. Why would we need recipe testers, editors and test kitchens if recipes played as little a role in the larger world of cooking as some want us to believe. That cook books are written with poor recipes does not mean it is a trend that needs credit or acceptance. That cook book recipes are not friendly to a novice chef does not mean it is written for an audience that knows better. In face an audience that knows better, often times will enjoy a well written recipe. They will enjoy it for its clarity and precise manner. Not all recipe books that have poor recipes need to be labeled as books written by a master chef. Not all master chefs have written books with poor recipes.

We are not talking about those cheat sheets that chefs use in kitchens. Those are great and have their essential place. Why bother wasting time, money, natural resources and great advertising dollars if after all that money spent, we are getting something that claims to be more (wants to be called or is called a recipe) than those kitchen sheets that guide a trained chef, but hardly does anything to train the untrained chef.

I am all for diversity, maybe that is why I can see the purpose behind a recipe. If I were not diverse or accepting of diversity, I would find no need to waste time documenting what I do with little if any difficulty. Diversity is never equal to mediocrity.

But since I am being paid to write a cook book, I feel obliged to live up to what that entails. My recipes shared in my cooking classes are like those preferred by people on my opposite side in this thread. Those recipes are spare and basic and almost deliberately incomplete (not omitting ingredients but some measurements). But those recipes come as a package that also includes time with me. Those people that get those recipes from me, also have the advantage of taking notes after watching me prepare those recipes or preparing them with me as their guide.

My life would have been much easier had I followed some of the posts on this thread. I could have written a great cookbook (Great for my editor and agent believe in me. Great for those that know me swear by the taste of my food. Great for my mother thinks my food is tastier than hers. Great for my friends keep coming back to my kitchen for more meals) with less than great effort. But I tested my recipes (not just to write ingredient lists and sentences that made sense, but to actually test my recipes and see if I could find some sensible way of sharing what comes very naturally to me, but may not be so spontaneous for another) in the hopes that those cooking from my recipe book can cook at least what I consider the very bare minimum of what I would expect to eat. And those that know as much as I about food I share recipes for, can take my recipes into a world that is greater than what I could have realized even if I shared every detail (which I have tried to in my book) that I could think of.

But recipe books do not get written to share the brilliance of a chef or cook. They are written with the purpose of documenting the art of cooking certain dishes. They certainly have the voice and style of the person behind them. And if that person has no respect for their food, maybe they really do not care how people prepare foods with their name associated with it. But if one really enjoys their own cooking, has great respect for what they do, I can hardly imagine any such person not ensuring that their name will never be equated with a dish that is mediocre or bad. And to ensure that this does not happen, most any chef would be happy going the extra bit and taking a few more minutes in writing recipes.

But as has been pointed out by Steve Plotnicki and some others on the thread on cookbooks, unfortunately, some chefs and cookbook writers and publishers too, hardly care anymore about what has their name.

I was of the opinion in that thread that not all chefs, cook book writers and recipe writers are that callous. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe I would have been best off saving the monies I spent in ensuring the accountability of my recipes. I would have been smarter to not worry about their accuracy and functionality, and instead, I should have used that time and money to enjoy other stuff.

I may be a fool, but I hope home chefs around the world, even if only a couple in each city or state or country, can someday hold my cook book in their hand and thank me for sharing with them a recipe that anticipated what their questions could be. And also, I hope the professional chef that holds my cookbook in their hand can enjoy it for what I share in terms of content and not get lost in those few extra words that make my recipe more complete for a novice, but really are not supposed to be words that should make them under-estimate my worth as a writer.

I would not be a cookbook writer if I were not writing my recipes for cookbook cooks.

The other option I have is to remain a professional chef and cookery teacher. I could enjoy writing recipes that only those that cook with me and those that cook professionally or know my food can work with. It would save me a lot of time and effort.

Recipe writing is a challenge for every chef or cook book writer. If it were easy, all cookbooks would be well written. But it is tedious and precise and has a purpose.

Some are naturals at writing recipes that work. Others like me (chefs that cook from inspiration alone and not cookbooks or recipes) need professional assistance and then can find a new meaning in the purpose behind cookbooks and recipe writing.

[Anna N]

While remaining adamant that recipes are necessary and should be as well-written (and tested) as possible, I have to say that this thread has changed my cooking style already.

Last night I made a mussel feast not knowing an hour before dinner if there would be two, five or even as many as nine sitting down to eat.

Though I started off with a recipe, by serving time the author would never have recognized it!

Nor could I now document it or repeat it! Let's just say I added cream where none was called for, chervil though it wasn't in the recipe, etc. etc. Not a mussel was left even though it ended up with just five of us at the table.

A week ago I would not have dared to do this - nor would I have enjoyed the cooking experience nearly so much.

Of course, this brings up the question - so what was the point of writing the recipe? If Suvir spends so much time and energy and money writing recipes so that we can replicate his dish, and we then choose to futz around with it (play around) are his efforts wasted?

No, I don't think so. I think Suvir would be happy that a delicious meal came from it and would not be in the least annoyed that his time and effort seemed wasted. I think he's got enough generosity of spirit to know that if he can persuade us to take the leap (via his hard work) and we sprout wings in the process, his recipe has served its purpose.

So, more than any cookbook, this thread has encouraged me to spread my wings. For that, egulleteers should be mighty proud.

[Jinmyo]

Congratulations, Anna.

[Sandra Levine]

I knew you could do it, Anna.

[Suvir Saran]

Congratulations, Anna.

Congratulations! I follow Jinmyo and Sandra, but with just as much appreciation.

Edited December 28, 2002 by Suvir Saran (log)

[Suvir Saran]

Of course, this brings up the question - so what was the point of writing the recipe?  If Suvir spends so much time and energy and money writing recipes so that we can replicate his dish, and we then choose to futz around with it (play around) are his efforts wasted?

No, I don't think so.  I think Suvir would be happy that a delicious meal came from it and would not be in the least annoyed that his time and effort seemed wasted.  I think he's got enough generosity of spirit to know that if he can persuade us to take the leap (via his hard work) and we sprout wings in the process, his recipe has served its purpose.

So, more than any cookbook, this thread has encouraged me to spread my wings.  For that, egulleteers should be mighty proud.

Anna you have taken the thread to its most logical next step.

A cookbook (a well written one even more so) would be a failure if it cannot lead its reader to cooking Nirvana (freedom, liberation). If all a book can do is to have a reader depend on it, it shows the book had no heart or soul, no generosity of spirit and not infectious personality.

When I teach cooking, I have found some souls come into my class not to learn cooking, but to simply feed their need for wont and desire to be gathered around others. I quickly understand these are the students I need to focus on even more than the others. I need to find a way of sharing with them the freedom that they have in them, but have not found for it is trapped somewhere inside the big palace of fear that they live in.

What I do Anna in my classes (and I have tried in my book as well) is to begin with very short recipes, but I add through my presence what my recipes share in words. My words throughout the class are geared to give confidence to those learning to never fear trying something new, even though it seems risky. I always share the importance of not fearing the unknown and above all failure. I encourage my students to use my cheat sheets (what unfortunately lazy writers and careless editors make into recipe books) as a beginning, but to use what they saw me doing as I gave a new life and form to the recipe in the cheat sheet, and make that a routine as they cook without me. Some find that freedom after one class, some find it only after 5. But I take pride in knowing most all my students have become chefs as good as me in my genre of cooking. And many others have become chefs that make me eyes full of tears as I see that little pearls of culinary wisdom that I had assimilated through my years of cooking, were able to give confidence to those that for reasons other than just bad recipe writing, had lost faith in themselves. A good recipe, a cooking class that goes beyond just a demonstration done by a professional, and gift of love from another can all shatter the glass house palace where fear resides and maims us from finding liberation.

A good recipe is most important so that anyone who cooks with it (Why should a writer think their book is not the first one someone is using. I assume that each recipe of mine has the potential to be the first one someone has ever cooked with. I do not even think that it may be first Indian one. I give my reader the benefit of the doubt.) can find in it all they need to learn in their first attempt at cooking. It should leave them with a desire to come back into a kitchen (or to read a cook book). It should leave them knowing cooking is more than demos by chefs and recipes from food writers, it is about their own relationship to food. If a recipe can share that, it succeeds. Otherwise it can have great ego and great bones, but no soul and substance. It is like those palaces, places of worship, and humans that have great ego and mammoth potential written all over, but little if any real sense of place and self.

Anna, I thank you again for a great thread. And I am glad you found liberation and with it cream and other wonderful ingredients that the recipe did not have. You have in essence found a new beginning, or at least a new calling and comfort. Cooking.

[Anna N]

I was surfing the web looking at various food sites and I would like to paraphrase from one or two of them:

In Thailand few have watches or clocks or kitchen timers - the food is cooked when it is cooked.

Charcoal braziers do not come with thermostats.

Measuring is done by pinches, handfuls, etc.

This suggests that recipes are pretty useless for such cooking.

But, and this is where we westerners differ so much, in much of Thailand cooking is a communal activity often done outdoors, not relegated to a special room called a kitchen where the "cook" is isolated and performs tasks never seen by others. One would surely learn to cook by osmosis in such a situation.

Not so very different from a half century ago in the west, when homes were much smaller, family life much more intimate.

I'm not sure where I am going with this but try to stay with me for a bit.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we "need" recipes now because the opportunity to learn to cook by osmosis has all but disappeared. So much food is take-out or convenience and it takes a special effort now to involve children in the whole kitchen experience.

The information I gleaned about the lack of all those things that I think are essential (how can I live without a timer, an oven thermometer, two or three sets of measuring cups/spoons, etc?) makes me want to move away from a dependence on scientific precision and towards more intuitive ways of cooking.

But I just made Laab (thai salad). I have never eaten it before I was hooked by the Laab thread on egullet. Without a recipe, how could I even imagine the dish? I had never heard of it til I joined the egullet community. How could I possibly intuit the ingredients, the quantities, the timing, the temperature?

So, through all this rambling, I guess what I am trying to communicate is that one can become less dependent on recipes for familiar foods, but for foods never before tasted or experienced, the only route is through a good recipe.

(sorry for rambling - I'm multi-tasking with a three-year-old on my knee!)

[Jinmyo]

Anna, another good option is to form relationships with ethnic restaurants, butchers, fish-mongers and so on. And then ask if you can watch and help out for a few hours or a day or so. It's like a mini stagierre. I've learned many things this way.

As you can see from your experience on eGullet, much is learned just through acquaintance, through community. The wider the community and the more deeply one is committed to exploring it, the more that can be learned.

Any line cook can show you things the best recipe book by the best chef cannot.

[Suvir Saran]

Any line cook can show you things the best recipe book by the best chef cannot.

A great pearl of wisdom.

And the reverse is true as well, Anna. No great line chef or not so great line chef or chef, would share with you all the details they have learned over years of experience. They would have little if any time to tell you how they got to a certain point in their cooking experience.

And it is then that you can rely on cookbooks. Even those with bad recipes.

I think the key is to be as rounded as you can be. Learn from the cooks in your community of friends, learn from restaurants chef (through a few hours each week that you could volunteer) and learn from reading books. There will always be cuisines and recipes that you will not find any chefs to learn from, for those you have books..and there will be recipes you can mimic from having watched a chef, and the soul of that you could find after reading a few lines in a good book.

Life is about finding meaning in many ways.. and something special in all things.

Always a silver lining everywhere.

[tsquare]

Life is about finding meaning in many ways.. and something special in all things.

Always a silver lining everywhere.

Thanks for great thoughts to start the year. You are a true inspiration post after post.

[Monica Bhide]

Lovely read Suvir. Nice

[helenas]

"The restaurateur Prue Leith once watched a wretched cookery-school pupil(male, of course) deconstruct the following first line of a recipe:"Sepparate the eggs". For a thoughtful while he pondered the two eggs placed in front of him, before carefully moving one a few inches to his left and the other a few inches to his right. Satisfied, he went on to the second line of instruction" - Julian Barnes "The Land Without Brussels Sprouts"