knowing what you're cooking

[mongo_jones]

somewhat ambiguous topic title. allow me to explain what i am asking:

the celebrated italian-american chef mario batali has said that in order to be able to become a good italian chef he needed to go live in italy for a few years. he ate and learned from italian chefs and cooks and got a good sense of what things were supposed to taste like etc. on which to then build his own version of italian cuisine in new york (with local ingredients).

this is an issue not just for big chefs but also for amateur cooks like many of us who often cook dishes from other culinary locations out of cookbooks. if you don't know what the dish tastes like in the place it is from can you really cook it? in the indian context this isn't just a matter of american chefs or foodies cooking indian dishes in the u.s--i personally am currently engaged in going through the penguin kerala cookbook and while some of the things i've made are things i've eaten (albeit largely in restaurants outside kerala) many others are not. at one level, of course, the only question that matters is whether i like what i make or not; but i still wonder sometimes if i've really come close to what the original dish is supposed to taste like. especially since some of the cooking techniques are somewhat alien to this bengali: raw chopped onions and raw fish placed in a pan with water and cooked over low heat, a spice paste added later etc. etc.

to what degree can theoretical knowledge and research take the place of actual experiential knowledge of tastes and aromas? to raise the stakes even higher: should chefs or food-writers be allowed to bill themselves as "experts" on cuisines other than their own if they have not spent x amount of time eating a wide variety of it every day? (of course when i say "allowed" i'm not envisioning a net dropping on offenders, though i can think of a couple of people for whom that might be a good thing.) can you hold forth on "chicken curry", say, if you haven't eaten 10 different chicken curries prepared in 10 different indian homes (the number is arbitrary, of course)?

(of course, this does not apply to fusion cooking or to, say, indian-american cuisine, as and when it appears.)

i don't really have answers to these questions--hoping to spark a debate.

[andiesenji]

I have traveled in various parts of Mexico and they have regional recipes that are not usually seen in other regions and the way certain foods are prepared can vary considerably from one part of the country to another.

Carnitas is a good example. I know cooks who have tried to duplicate it by roasting pork but what they don't realize is that in Mexico the pork is roasted in liquid, not dry-roasted.

The taste and texture of the meat is totally different and many recipes do not mention the method of roasting.

[Modern Day Hermit]

I think it certainly can't hurt to travel and taste the food, however, what is the 'right' version? My MIL might make a dish that tastes totally different from my friend's mother. They are both delicious, just different.

By Mario Batali's theory, I shouldn't be able to cook Indian food at all. I have everything going against me, lol. I am a Midwestern/Southern white girl who has never traveled to India and I have certainly never trained under an Indian chef.

I personally think people take what is 'right' too seriously. Naturally, I don't think adding curry powder to a dish and calling it Indian is anywhere near right. IMO, as long as a basic set of technique is used and the ingredients are such that originated in the country in question then you are cooking food from that region, to a certain degree. I think it is just a very grey area - there are things that are not right by any stretch of the imagination but 'right' itself is a very blurry line, IMO.

[Anna N]

I think it is a real conundrum. I want to experience food from other cultures but my chance of visiting other lands is not great. I suspect that one can never quite duplicate what is served in a particular country because one can only obtain ingredients that approximate what is grown there. I don't hesitate to cook Indian, Thai, Chinese etc., as I understand them from recipes but I would NEVER invite an Indian friend to my home to eat Indian food (goes for all other cultures, too!). I would not even consider serving Danish food to my Danish relatives and I might add, they had an awful time here trying to cook a Danish meal for us! We can get potatoes but not Danish potatoes, pork but not Danish pork, etc. And it makes a huge difference.

Edited for typos!

Edited May 3, 2004 by Anna N (log)

[mongo_jones]

maybe the key is not whether we cook foods we aren't familiar with before we cook them but how we talk about them when we do. of the malayali dishes i've been trying to cook of late there's only one or two that i would feel comfortable feeding to people and saying this is a dish from the state of kerala--this because i have eaten these dishes as cooked by malayalis and know that they are reasonable approximations of the "originals". some of the others, while they taste good to me, i have no way of knowing at present whether they actually even taste like they're supposed to! leave alone matters of texture etc. if i were to present these experiments as malayali food i'd be attempting to represent something i have no actual knowledge of.

this isn't just something for cooks to think about. in some ways it is more a matter for food-writers. most food-writers i've read in the states who write about indian food are american and very few of them have an in depth knowledge or understanding of most indian foods--this doesn't seem to prevent them from making all kinds of authoritative, magisterial statements about indian food. an example: there's a guy who writes for the local alternative weekly here in the boulder/denver area, named jason sheehan. he's funny and a good writer but knows very little about indian food other than what he's eaten in restaurants here. now there's nothing wrong with this--there's no way he can know more than he knows but for some reason he's not content with operating within the limits of his knowledge (as all of us should do). here's an extract from a review of a local restaurant:

"...has gained a very loyal following with its Mughlai Indian cuisine, a gentler and beautifully complex culinary counterpart to the wholesome simplicity of Haryanvi and the richness of Bengali seafood."

eh?

[Episure]

A stimulating topic, Doctor Jones.

I shall respond to this after getting my thoughts together.

[jschyun]

"...has gained a very loyal following with its Mughlai Indian cuisine, a gentler and beautifully complex culinary counterpart to the wholesome simplicity of Haryanvi and the richness of Bengali seafood."

eh?

Personally, I see it as being very much like learning a new language. You can read from the book, do all the exercises, even do practice conversations in class and with the teacher. But it's still difficult to be fluent unless you actually start speaking with some native speakers. And it really helps to be in a country where that language is spoken, so you can be immersed in the language, the people, etc.

That is not to say that cooking in a cuisine style, without having tried authentic examples, won't produce interesting results. But then you don't know what you're making, really. Batali is right. A recipe can only get you so far.

As for that article, I have to admit, I prefer straight, simple food articles where the author tells about his experiences and nothing more. If the person is actually knowledgeable about what the hell he is talking about, all the better. But yeah, padding your articles with secondhand bullshit is not a good way to go.