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‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

theatlantic.com

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Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#111

Post by somberi »

billfruit wrote: post #97
somberi wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indian here, who loves to cook. I do not know the book the GP mentions about, but the best cookbooks happen to be in languages of the region of India, where the food is consumed. If you can find the English translations of these, that is your best bet. The other option is to buy regionally produced (often no photos, poor print) english books. You need to roll with the ingredients being called as-is, and need to repur…

Thangam Phillip is not like the typical food-porn Indian cookbook, it is a two volume encyclopediatic book which she wrote in the early years of independent India, originally to assist the nascent hospitality Industry.

Thank you. Did not know about her.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#112

Post by swish_bob »

methodover wrote: post #25

Does anyone know of a cookbook that provides complete meals? The ones I’ve had recommended all assume you kinda know what you want to make. But I want someone else to tell me what to make, and I’ll just put it all together.

I'm quite fond of Gordon Ramsay's "Sunday Lunch". It's essentially a series of 3 course meals. One of the nice things is that it's laid out with instructions that assume you're doing the entire meal, so it has a section on what to do the day before, 4 hours before serving, 1 hour before, etc. It helps quite a lot if you haven't a lot of experience managing the timings of several dishes to arrive at the same time. Something I used to struggle with when I first started cooking.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#115

Post by mrpopo »

papa_bear wrote: post #27
methodover wrote: post #25

Does anyone know of a cookbook that provides complete meals? The ones I’ve had recommended all assume you kinda know what you want to make. But I want someone else to tell me what to make, and I’ll just put it all together.

It's not really a cookbook, but check out my website https://www.EatThisMuch.com/ You can set it to just one meal if you want (and something like 600 calories) and keep regenerating it until it looks like something you'll like. I started it because I'm terrible at thinking about what I want to eat :)

I don't really like this. When I am cooking, I am not watching my calorie intake and sodium/cholesterol levels. I want to enjoy cooking with fresh, local, seasonal ingredients. No choice anywhere in the options to choose the region, the season, or base ingredients. This is just encouraging a supermarket-shopper lifestyle that needs to disappear ASAP (imported agriculture/greenhouse produce growing is amongst the worst climate offenders).

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#116

Post by amelius »

Nition wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #15

I've read the book and watched the series. Both are fine. The series is in a weird place in between Mind of a Chef (which, in most of its seasons, is a significantly better show) and a more conventional FoodTV cooking show. I think they're trying to do too much in each episode, and also that the travel-show part of each episode works better than the cooking demos do. The book is better than the show. I have friends t…

In New Zealand that "one cooking book" is the Edmonds Cookery Book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_Cookery_Book Tells you all the essentials of how to cook meat and veges and make basic sauces and all that, plus has a whole lot of relatively simple recipes that use common ingredients.

Do all the "cooking bibles" assume a specific cuisine?

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#117

Post by Itaxpica »

amelius wrote: post #116
Nition wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In New Zealand that "one cooking book" is the Edmonds Cookery Book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_Cookery_Book Tells you all the essentials of how to cook meat and veges and make basic sauces and all that, plus has a whole lot of relatively simple recipes that use common ingredients.

Do all the "cooking bibles" assume a specific cuisine?

Depends on the book. For example, Joy of Cooking is pretty standard American and Italian/French-by-way-of-America fare (unsurprisingly, since it was first published in the US in 1931), while How To Cook Everything has a much wider remit.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#118

Post by twic »

jboynyc wrote: post #35
shaklee3 wrote: post #23

Has anyone seen the documentary with the same name? It comes up on Netflix for me every time I load it. I'm pretty overwhelmed by the number of food documentaries out there, so this one didn't stand out for any reason.

I've been wanting to watch it since seeing it described as "a Marxist fantasy" in this essay: https://www.eater.com/2018/10/19/17995884/salt-fat-acid-heat...

FWIW a Marxist acquaintance denounced that review as anarcho-primitivist.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#119

Post by funkythings »

> Nosrat’s work to diversify the kinds of faces quite literally seen as culinary experts is directly connected to her view of food

Can there be anything on the internet WITHOUT injecting social justice talking points into it? What the fuck does the quality of food have to do with my skin color?

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#120

Post by pentae »

tptacek wrote: post #15

I've read the book and watched the series. Both are fine. The series is in a weird place in between Mind of a Chef (which, in most of its seasons, is a significantly better show) and a more conventional FoodTV cooking show. I think they're trying to do too much in each episode, and also that the travel-show part of each episode works better than the cooking demos do. The book is better than the show. I have friends t…

Sorry to go off topic, but you should know that I read this in Patrick Batemans voice. I'd probably consider that a compliment.
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