The Why of Cooking (2017)
theatlantic.com
The Why of Cooking (2017)
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Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#2I so want to learn to cook good food, but it is so hard to start alone.
Meanwhile an evening of sushi workshop in london costs 80£ and it is fully booked till August.
Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#3> But recipes, for all their precision and completeness, are poor teachers. They tell you what to do, but they rarely tell you why to do it.
This drives me crazy about recipes e.g. adding vinegar to poaching water is recommended in lots of perfect poached eggs guides but few explain why (makes the whites firm even faster to prevent them from dispersing in the water). It's really 'teach a man to fish' kind of stuff, knowing the why gives more flexibility.
Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#4I so want to learn to cook good food, but it is so hard to start alone. Meanwhile an evening of sushi workshop in london costs 80£ and it is fully booked till August.
I haven't read "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" as recommended in the article, but I swear by:
Julia Child, "the way to cook"
Jeff Potter, "Cooking for geeks"
Kenji lopez-alt's "the food lab"
The author does compare to most of these, so the recommendation seems solid.
Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#5> But recipes, for all their precision and completeness, are poor teachers. They tell you what to do, but they rarely tell you why to do it. This drives me crazy about recipes e.g. adding vinegar to poaching water is recommended in lots of perfect poached eggs guides but few explain why (makes the whites firm even faster to prevent them from dispersing in the water). It's really 'teach a man to fish' kind of stuff, k…
I tried poached eggs with and without vinegar a number of times and could never detect a difference.
Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#6The fact is that not all "why"s are known in cooking yet, and the combination of ingredients is so varied that it's not always easy to go from a myth to a reasonable explanation.
Although, lots of research has greatly improved, and I warmly recommend you to read “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking” (2011).
Then, for techniques, I strongly recommend following a book designed for chefs when they learn. For example, in French, I recommend “La Cuisine de Référence” (2015) by Michel Maincent that teaches you how to select ingredients, cut them, to various traditional techniques and how to correct them if you fail, and why you failed.
Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#7I so want to learn to cook good food, but it is so hard to start alone. Meanwhile an evening of sushi workshop in london costs 80£ and it is fully booked till August.
I haven't read "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" as recommended in the article, but I swear by: Julia Child, "the way to cook" Jeff Potter, "Cooking for geeks" Kenji lopez-alt's "the food lab" The author does compare to most of these, so the recommendation seems solid.
I was underwhelmed by "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat". Good information, great presentation, but not up there with the very best books, IMO.
I like Ruhlman's "Twenty", maybe followed by "Ratio".
"How to Cook without a Book" by Anderson is great, although you probably needwhole rooms in your house for food storage if you took her "what you should have in your pantry" serious.
My most used cookbook is the one my mother gave me and all my relatives when we were living alone for the first time. It's the book she uses at school. It's for special-needs children, so extremely basic and easy, with many, many quirky illustrations.
But it has everything important. Bechamel? Sure. Choux pastry? Yes. But also how to cook potatoes or eggs.
The only infuriating thing in this book is that the index is worse than useless. I know the important recipes' page numbers by heart.
Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#8Very important book when you're interested in the details: McGee, On Food and Cooking.
Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#9> But recipes, for all their precision and completeness, are poor teachers. They tell you what to do, but they rarely tell you why to do it. This drives me crazy about recipes e.g. adding vinegar to poaching water is recommended in lots of perfect poached eggs guides but few explain why (makes the whites firm even faster to prevent them from dispersing in the water). It's really 'teach a man to fish' kind of stuff, k…
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Re: The Why of Cooking (2017)
#10> But recipes, for all their precision and completeness, are poor teachers. They tell you what to do, but they rarely tell you why to do it. This drives me crazy about recipes e.g. adding vinegar to poaching water is recommended in lots of perfect poached eggs guides but few explain why (makes the whites firm even faster to prevent them from dispersing in the water). It's really 'teach a man to fish' kind of stuff, k…
From my experience, the amount of vinegar required to see an actual difference is enough to change the flavor of the eggs. Try creating a vortex in your water and placing the egg inside [1] (although they still use a "drop of vinegar')
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/se...