TDG: Desperate Measures: Cooking to Learn . . .

[Fat Guy]

. . . and Learning to Cook.

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[Jinmyo]

Nice article, mamster.

But it wasn't very funny.

[Schielke]

The sensitive side of mamster

[mamster]

Jinmyo, are there saying there is something wrong with my Tartlets of Humor?

[Jinmyo]

No, with the recipe you used for them, dear heart.

[KNorthrup]

Enjoyed the article, as always, but have to confess I'm even more taken with the illustration and trying to identify as many as possible.

[mamster]

Ooh, I was hoping someone would say that.

[JAZ]

Great job, even if you did scoop one of my ideas for a future article. Maybe I should be relieved that now I don't have to write it.

At the store, it always amazes me how many people come in looking for the one cookbook that will make them a good cook. I'm never sure whether to set them straight or take advantage of their naivete.

[alacarte]

thanks for the interesting read -- it raises as many questions as it answers (which I believe is a positive thing).

--How much of cooking is intuition, and how much is learned? How much is art and how much is science?

--Frankly, the answer depends on the person doing the learning/cooking. Different proportions to every person. And as you illustrated with your driving example, also different proportions to each activity.

[Fat Guy]

I think the argument made in Mamster's piece is really part of a larger indictment of recipes. The national obsession with recipes is a huge impediment to people learning how to think about cooking.

[mamster]

Well, I'm not willing to go as far as Klc and other in indicting recipes. I think recipes are a perfectly good way to learn to cook as long as you have reasonable expectations about what they can and can't do for you. If you can't start generalizing techniques after working with recipes for a while, you're probably the kind of person who would have had trouble understanding the techniques in the first place.

As for nature vs nuture, who cares? Anybody can learn to cook reasonably well. I usually compare this to learning to play folk songs on the acoustic guitar or juggle three balls. Nobody can do these things on the first try, but everybody can do them with practice. Still, people seem surprised when learning to cook gives them trouble.

[insalata_pazza]

The national obsession with recipes is a huge impediment to people learning how to think about cooking.

After 15 years of (sporadic) cooking, I feel like I am still totally dependent on recipes. So how do I get away from this?

For me the answer has beeen to cook more often and to pay attention when I cook. To use my senses and judge things for myself, rather than wondering if I've done it "right." (I'm still working on this part.) I still rely on cookbooks for inspiration and guidance, but I try to put my spin on the recipe and am slowly building up a repertoire of my favorites, which I cook regularly and sometimes (gasp!) without even looking at the written instructions.

But my question is, how can a book help beginners gain confidence, without making them co-dependent (as mamster noted)? Maybe this dependence comes from the gap in our collective kitchens. Many of us didn't grow up cooking at someone's elbow, so we don't have an ingrained knowledge acquired over years of observation and helpful guidance. This may also explain the recent popularity of memoirs with recipes (Reichl, Hesser, et al).

If you learned to cook from a book, as I did, it's hard to break that dependence. So how do you get people thinking about cooking? More and more, I'm beginning to feel that you can't get it from a book.

A book might be a good start, but it can't replace an experienced cook showing you, correcting you, etc. And it certainly can't replace the social and critical feedback you get from sharing that meal with others.

[britcook]

I think the argument made in Mamster's piece is really part of a larger indictment of recipes. The national obsession with recipes is a huge impediment to people learning how to think about cooking.

To know how to cook you first have to know how to eat. Your palate needs to be able to work out what is pleasing, and what is not, once you are at that point you can move forward because you have a framework in which you can operate. A book/website/magazine full of recipes will do you no good unless you can cook in the first place, if you understand what it is you are trying to achieve and realise when you have got there (even, sometimes, if it is not the place you expected to be) then you're on the way to real cooking. There are one or two cookbooks from which you can take valuable lessons - Julia Child in the US and Delia Smith in the UK are notable examples - but mostly it is about working out what pleases yor palate and then comparing that to the views of others. And then practice - getting it wrong is not failure if you learn from the mistakes- until you know what it is you want to achieve and, more importantly, how to produce it.

Edited June 7, 2003 by britcook (log)

[Fat Guy]

In addition to the ability to taste, there are issues of basic technique and comprehension of fundamental ingredients that recipes totally skip over -- how to add salt to a dish, how to cook with butter (and what type of butter to use for a given application), etc. -- without an understanding of which one simply cannot cook well. Conversely, those who master these fundamentals of cooking can usually take any recipe and not only prepare it well, but improve it the first time out.

I've actually been trying to get a book published on exactly this subject, and it has been consistently rejected.

[fifi]

I'm not sure whether to blame recipes or not. If I put myself in the shoes of a novice cook and all I have is a recipe of ingredients and not any explanation of details of technique and why, I am set up to fail. Case in point... I just posted on the fried chicken thread. There are a lot of details in there that make all the difference between success and failure. For example: the size of the chicken pieces, letting the chill come off before frying, the method for flouring, adding to the hot shortening piece by piece and watching the temperature, depth of the shortening, not crowding the pan, etc. All of these details would not be obvious to a novice and they would have to learn by trial and error. Too much error and they would probably give up on frying chicken and go get some KFC. Cook's Illustrated makes a good stab at explaining things but a lot of recipes seem to assume basic skills and knowledge. The pupil also has to be willing to really notice what is going on and ask a gazillion questions.

And no one knows it all. I am always learning so I appreciate the details. My most recent epiphany was the temperature stall when smoking meat. And where did I get that? Here of course.

[Anna N]

So which of you is going to write (and publish) Before You Open that Recipe Book Things Your Mother Forgot to Show You?

I have come a long way both in my cooking skills, in my assessment (and understanding of the publishing side of cook books) and in my philosophy since I started the thread that Mamster so kindly mentions. But then I can also drive a standard - I just can't tell you how to do it!

Hours and hours spent in the kitchen trying out recipes (hundreds not dozens), more hours spent with books on the science of cooking, books on ethnic foods, books of essays on food and dining, and hours of watching some pretty awful FoodTV and most importantly, many hours spent on egullet with the likes of Mamster and Steve Klc and Jinmyo and Torakris and dozens of others, have finally succeeded in making me a reasonably competent and confident cook. (At least those who eat what I cook seem to think so.)

But I still think there ought to be an easier way!

Anna N

[Katherine]

I dunno.

There ARE a lot of recipes out there that are defective, or where the writer has not told you something that only he or she could have known, something that you needed to know to produce the desired result. I run into this all the time, in books and on the web. I'm an excellent cook, and often I can tell there's something missing, but there's no way to guess what it might be.

There are lots of people who have such a talent for selecting recipes like these that their successes are too infrequent and unpredictable for them to learn from.

It's also true that there are a lot of people who are hell-bent on not following clear instructions in a recipe. and then blame the recipe for their failures. As in, "I didn't want to have to wash out the blender, so I smashed it up with a fork, and I didn't feel like buying butter and sour cream, so I substituted margarine and cool whip. Your recipe doesn't work."

I think the reliance on recipes in this country is just a reflection of the fact that

• Recipes in this country are generally written in such detail that you really could make them without previously having tried the food, unlike in many foreign countries, where you're supposed to know what the final product ought to be like.
  
• People nowadays are not trained to cook by someone who has a feel for cooking, but need to train themselves, and end up having to do it from a book of recipes.
  

[JAZ]

In addition to the ability to taste, there are issues of basic technique and comprehension of fundamental ingredients that recipes totally skip over -- how to add salt to a dish, how to cook with butter (and what type of butter to use for a given application), etc. -- without an understanding of which one simply cannot cook well. Conversely, those who master these fundamentals of cooking can usually take any recipe and not only prepare it well, but improve it the first time out.

I've actually been trying to get a book published on exactly this subject, and it has been consistently rejected.

Hey, I'm trying to get a book published on the taste side of the equation. If we both succeed, there will be no need for any other books. Ever.

[Fat Guy]

Hey, I'm trying to get a book published on the taste side of the equation. If we both succeed, there will be no need for any other books. Ever.

More likely, we will both die penniless and insane, while several thousand useless cookbooks continue to be published every year.

[Pan]

In addition to the ability to taste, there are issues of basic technique and comprehension of fundamental ingredients that recipes totally skip over -- how to add salt to a dish, how to cook with butter (and what type of butter to use for a given application), etc. -- without an understanding of which one simply cannot cook well. Conversely, those who master these fundamentals of cooking can usually take any recipe and not only prepare it well, but improve it the first time out.

I've actually been trying to get a book published on exactly this subject, and it has been consistently rejected.

Why do you think it's been rejected, Steven? Have they told you why?

[Fat Guy]

Why do you think it's been rejected, Steven? Have they told you why?

"Nobody wants to read that."

[fifi]

Steven, it sounds like your book is just what is needed. Perhaps we should all get together, pool our torches and dogs, and storm the publishers demanding that they publish Steven's book... IMMEDIATELY! The survival of civilization is at stake!!!

[Fat Guy]

Mamster is taking care of it.

[mamster]

I would make a good agent. "That sounds like a great idea!" I would say, and then I would forget about it while eating a bag of Fritos.

Fat Guy - The right kind of butter to use is Rich Creamery Butter.

Something I was going to put in the article and forgot is that I'd like to write a book called What's Wrong With This Cookbook?. Every recipe would have at least one egregious error to encourage cooks to think for themselves. For example, the strawberry shortcake recipe would call for three pounds of ground beef, and the reader would have to figure out that authentic strawberry shortcake only has one pound of beef.

Katherine - The "something missing" is three pounds of ground beef.

The crux of my argument, if there is a crux, is that no matter how detailed a recipe is, it cannot possibly include everything you need to know to make the finished product. Part of the recipe is inside your head. And yet, especially if it's a well-written recipe, it looks like it does. That's the definition of specious. For some reason, I find this line of reasoning very interesting. I enjoy things that are complex. If cooking were really as easy as Cooking for Dummies would have you believe, cooking would be boring as hell.

[snowangel]

Growing up in Thailand, we had a cook. I did not learn to cook until after college, and I was on my own.

By trial and error, and following recipes to the letter, and then learning how to branch out on my own, I am now quite a good cook (provided I can come up with ideas, which is where the cookbooks come in).

Diana, on the other hand, is learning first hand. One of the things we have done to have "special" time together is cook. She likes to cook, and I know she has learned a lot by assisting me. She has learned how to take recipes and modify, how to look at a handful of ingredients and come up with a meal. The wealth of information on eGullet has been invaluable -- and I thank each and every one of you for the information and inspiration.

Diana has also learned the joy of reading a cookbook, especially when it comes to techniques. When she is out on her own, she will start out on much firmer footing that I did. Peter, now 7, is starting to get into the act. I firmly believe that everyone should be able to cook, sew on a button, type, change the oil in one's vehicle.