Do you taste as you cook?

[tommy]

I feel obligated to add that I NEVER eat from, or taste, foods that I am preparing for others in such a manner that would "spread germs."

c'mon jaymes!! not even a little pinkie finger in the sauce every now and again.?!~?

[Suvir Saran]

Suvir, just a small question:  Do you conduct accurate measurements when cooking?  I noticed when I go to dinner as a guest, and Im allowed in the kitchen, that many people are taking out their measuring spoons and cups.  I find no need for this.  I add a palmful of this, a capful of that, a pinch of this or that spice or a soup spoon of something else.  Do you find yourself cooking this way or do you use accurate measurements?

For my cookbook, I have had to learn how to be precise and accurate.

In my cooking classes, I have had some students challenge me and measure out my pinch and fist and palm of something... and you will be surprised to know, most times, my pinch, fist or palm has measured out to be almost identical to what the recipe would call for.

I think we do learn to have a gift for measuring and tasting if we deny ourselves the dependence or avail of measuring utensils.

I never meausre unless I am baking. But I am trying very hard for the last year to measure.

[ShawtyCat]

I never meausre unless I am baking. But I am trying very hard for the last year to measure.

I have measuring cups and spoons for baking. My grandmother still uses an enamel mug for scooping flour. So when she says 3 cups of flour...she usually means that enamel cup. I thought about sending her a real measuring cup but know that I'll just go to visit and find it buried in a drawer somewhere.

[Suvir Saran]

I never meausre unless I am baking. But I am trying very hard for the last year to measure.

I have measuring cups and spoons for baking. My grandmother still uses an enamel mug for scooping flour. So when she says 3 cups of flour...she usually means that enamel cup. I thought about sending her a real measuring cup but know that I'll just go to visit and find it buried in a drawer somewhere.

I took Pandiji measuring cups and spoons, but they are collecting dust.

[Episure]

Marcella Hazan says that she can tell if a dish has enough salt just by smelling it.

Polly, I have been saying that to friends for over 10 years and no one believes me.

Now I have proof for my theory. I never taste for salt.

I simply pour and pour, sniff and stir, and I can tell when to stop.

I have a friend who does that. He can enter a kitchen, sniff the pots and tell me about the salt. I didn't believe him the first few times, now I do. I must tell him there are a few more like him.

I taste as I go along but this is because most of the time I am pushing the envelope to make changes. I'll often try to make variations on a theme, some dont work and some do which are then committed to - " It's perfect don't even breathe near it". These versions then don't require tasting.

[BBhasin]

I usually taste at the end to check for salt. Unless its a fav dish like rogan josh when half the lamb/goat is gone in tasting during the bhuna/bhunoo stage.

Episure reminded me of my catering college days in Delhi. This Kitchen Assistant in our Bulk cooking class would prepare a pot of rice to feed 100 people and would know when its done by placing his EAR near the side of the big pot and from the aroma permeating from beneath the lid. We were kids, just starting to learn and found it facinating.

Suvir mentions not tasting in his family at al,l as the food was presented to the Gods first.

In the Sikh religion there is a langar ( meal served to the devotees ) after a Kirtan ( prayer meeting) and the meal cooked is NEVER tasted prior to being presented to the Guru. It can be sometimes very nerve racking when one is cooking for 100 -200 people. The food however, almost invariably, turns out good and there is enough for all, which is another worry I have when doing this as there is no head count, just an approximate number, as one has no way of knowing how many people will feel pious that sunday morning and turn up for the Kirtan and the subsiquent langar.

Edited October 1, 2003 by BBhasin (log)

[Vikram]

One considerably less pleasant aspect to this not tasting custom is that the food that the person cooking the food wasn't allowed to eat that sort of food.

This was mostly when the cooking was being done by a widowed woman who in many orthodox Hindu communities was not allowed to eat a whole bunch of stuff. One truly unpleasant hypothesis from some sociologists is that this, in combination with the many compulsory religious fasts, was meant to reduce the widow to a state of near starvation, the better to hasten her death.

Chitrita Banerji's excellent book 'The Hour of the Goddess: Memories of Women, Food & Ritual in Bengal' has a moving chapter on this called "What Bengali Widows Cannot Eat". There's also a good chapter earlier where she writes of her rebelliousness as a girl in contending with the same custom Suvir describes of not eating food before it was offered to the Gods.

She remembers arguing with her grandmother about this. They would taste food before offering it to their guests to make sure it was good, she says, so why not do it before offering it to God? Her grandmother sidesteps this with a story about Krishna as a child leading the other children of the cowherds. When these children would find some particularly good food they would eat a bit and if it was good, offer it to Krishna their leader.

The unspoken inference was that some liberties were permissible for the bucolic youths in a mythical past, but not for the rest of us. Something in me could not accept this without verification. On a blistering summer afternoon when everyone at home was taking a nap, I stole into the thakurghar. Cupped in my hands were several plump, juicy lichees, my absolute favourite among fruits. Carefully, I knelt in front of the altar, peeled the biggest lichee, its juice squirting out joyfully as the translucent white flesh was released from the rough, bumpy, pink skin. Leaning forward I took one sweet, fragrant bite of pulp and juice before holding out the rest of the fruit to Krishna as he dallied with his Radha on the throne. My chest constricted with fear and curiosity. Would I be struck dead for this flagrant transgression? Or would he accept me as a playmate, like the ones he had grown up with?

Finding that I was still alive despite my impudence, I opened my eyes and looked at the image of Krishna. Was there a responsive flicker in the beautiful elongated eyes carved in that gleaming black face? I no longer remember. But I do have this memory of bringing my hand back to my face and slowly, deliberately, finishing the rest of th fruit with an extraordinarily intense satisfaction. There were no doubts in my mind about the divine sanction of that fruit morsel. Could there be a truer experience of love?

Like Banerji, I'm afraid I don't have much patience with this ritual aspect of not tasting. I've had spats with the boyfriend because he comes from the sort of traditional north Indian household that Suvir describes and was horrified when he first saw me tasting as I cooked. Personally I feel how people cook is up to them, of course, but I'd avoid glamourising not tasting as some wonderful Indian tradition,

Vikram

[tryska]

i go by smell until the dish is just about complete, and then i taste to ensure adequate salting.

one thing taught to me by my mother is never put your mouth directly to the cooking spoon - always put it in your hand first.

[BBhasin]

whats wrong with you tryska, you listen to your mother??

[tryska]

haha - well it took me roughly 20 years to figure out she might be right most of the time.

[mongo_jones]

i never measure while cooking (except of course for baking) and rarely taste--i too can tell salt by smell. the only times i taste dishes before serving are when i know my hand slipped while pouring something in and i need to figure out how to compensate. my wife used to think that i was just being insecure when i would ask how things taste when we sat down to eat--now she knows most of the time it is because i haven't tasted it at all myself yet. but there's nothing religious about this for me--i've just been cooking my standard repertoire so long now i don't need to taste or measure.

like hardcore indian cooks i still use a prestige pressure cooker to cook goat, rajma etc. one of the most remarkable skills i recently realized i've developed over time without being conscious of it is to be able to tell by the smell of the steam when something is done.

of course, like bhasin, there are times when i "taste"--not because i need to but because i am greedy.

[tryska]

hey! i can smell when something is done with my prestige cooker too! i love that thing. (gift from mom of course - along with a reversible drill)

[BBhasin]

Something stange that I have noted in numerous Indian restaurant kitchens, the chef, specially when cooking in bulk, will ask an assistant or another person to taste. I can understand if he is asking for a seccond opinion but no, he is not tasting himself just basing everything on someone else's opinion. I wonder if any of you restaurant guys out there have noticed this too.

[BBhasin]

hey!  i can smell when something is done with my prestige cooker too!  i love that thing.  (gift from mom of course - along with a reversible drill)

I can never understand the pressure cooker lingo of so many whistles. but you are so right, you do get an idea of the different stages of doneness every time the pressure cooker releases some steam.

[jw46]

always tastes while I cook, tries to restrain my self and use clean spoon to take the taste, but sometimes a clean fingertip..(Self Control is not one of my virtues)

My Grandmother ( German) used to dip her finger in sauces frequently...and if Grandma could do it, so can I...I guess it must be a cultural thingie.

[tryska]

hey!  i can smell when something is done with my prestige cooker too!  i love that thing.  (gift from mom of course - along with a reversible drill)

I can never understand the pressure cooker lingo of so many whistles. but you are so right, you do get an idea of the different stages of doneness every time the pressure cooker releases some steam.

me either - i just set it on for 30 minutes, and when the timer rings i turn the heat off.

[Suvir Saran]

My Grandmother ( German) used to dip her finger in sauces frequently...and if Grandma could do it, so can I...I guess it must be a cultural thingie.

And my sister does the same. To her dipping of the finger in foods as she cooks them is MOST essential.

[Episure]

I am very sure that tasting in stages detracts from the final impact. I mean that if I were to taste a dish in various stages of cooking it, the final 'perceived' taste would not be the same as when confined to tasting only once at the table.

Another empirical anomaly is that I lose my appetite when I cook.

[jw46]

I am very sure that tasting in stages detracts from the final impact. I mean that if I were to taste a dish in various stages of cooking it, the final  'perceived' taste  would not be the same as when confined to tasting only once at the table.

One of the principals of cooking is "layers of flavor"...

All the ingredients are not dumped in at the beginning...The ability to correct each contribution to the recipe as it is added is essential to me...

Perhaps my sniffer is not as talented as some, and I am sure it never will...that's what 40 years of smoking will getya

But that is just me...If you can do without, cool