Advice From A Self-Taught Cook
Jul. 14th, 2004 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusThere are people in this world who grew up around Those Who Can Cook. They absorbed the rules and rights and wrongs of cooking along with all those little lessons like, "don't open the bottom of the box of cereal" and "don't open the pop can right after you dropped it."
Then there is the Rest of Us.
The ones who grew up with keys to the house, whose moms came home from work after we got home from school. Dominos was on the speed-dialer, and we knew what time of year to expect the MacDonald's Monopoly Game. Lean Cuisine stocked the freezer, and the stove was primarily used to boil water for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
Once a year, we'd go to grandmas, or our aunt's, and be surrounded by the mystery of cooking. But, in the urgency of Thanksgiving, we were mostly underfoot or asked to help peel - yikes! - 30 pounds of potatoes. Even if mom knew how (mine didn't but wouldn't admit it) we never learned to cook.
I was determined to learn. Cooks gave me useless advice about fileting (huh?), while leaving out those little things that "everyone just knew" (what do you mean that I shouldn't turn the skillet on High to heat it up for stir fry? Won't that warm it faster?).
So in honour of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hp_femme and those valiant Novice cooks picking up their first spatula, here are Those Things I Learned That No One Bothered To Explain.
The trick to learning to cook is this:
#1 - Get cookbook.
Okay. That's easy. But -- eep! The cookbooks people recommend! Get The Joy of Cooking. It looks thick and intimidating, but it's mostly easy recipes and - get this - explanations of why your stuff came out the way it did. It's a cook's manual, really. And it's rather tongue-in-cheek, like Miss Manners.
#2 - Pick out three recipes you'd like to try.
Not just one recipe. Three. Because one recipe becomes A Project, you find you try to pick out something "cool" and then it's such a hassle you give it up after one attempt. The best foods are usually easy. Thank God. Hint (and here's something the "cooks" never think to mention): if it has ingredients you like, you'll probably like the result. But if it has even one thing in it that you don't like, don't bother. Hey, I had to learn that one the hard way!
#3 - Buy ingredients.
Now this may seem self-explanatory, but it's not. See, the way us normal-non-cooking people shop, we buy enough milk and cereal to get through the week, and a few familiar items. Then, when it comes time to Buy Ingredients To Cook we do a separate run to the store (or several stores) asking people, "is this lemon grass?" But if you pick a few recipes that use the same stuff, then you're buying, say, potatoes, the same way you buy bread. Then those recipes (make them easy!) melt into your life and whenever you shop you buy potatoes along with that box of cereal. The trick is this: to have the ingredients on hand all the time instead of making a special run. And yes, a couple times you'll have to fumigate before you remember to cook enough to use it all.
#4 - Cook.
Now this is the scary part. Those "cooking" people don't realise this, but that room they are so comfortable in looks to us like, oh, a Kung-Fu studio loaded with complex and confusing weapons. And we're wearing those little white pyjamas with the word NOVICE stamped on our foreheads. No doubt, if the squirrels are looking in on us, they will laugh. Or so we think.
For the cooking process you need one of two things, either:
a) An understanding cooking coach who will stand back and let you do stuff (without laughing or looking shocked when you ask what a cheese grater is); or
b) NO WITNESSES.
I usually go for b, frankly.
- Carefully scan your recipe looking for Odd Equipment.
The novice kitchen usually doesn't have a potato peeler or a food processor or what-have-you. In fact the novice kitchen often has only a set of steak knives and paper plates and may even lack a cutting board. Many of things you can work around until you're able to get to IKEA. *g* (The nice thing about The Joy of Cooking, whichwildernessguru - another novice cook - swears by, is that it has diagrams of cooking equipment and assumes you have no idea what a "ricer" is or what it's supposed to do. It also explains cooking terms like blanch and simmer and the whys behind them).
- Any recipe you do for the first time takes three times as long as it will later.
That's one thing the Cooks neglect to mention. So if it's a Project the first time, and it will be, it won't be as bad the next, and by the third or fourth time it becomes like heating up pizza in the microwave.
- Cut everything up first. Then turn on the stove/oven.
Novice cooks are slow at cutting things up, so this is the most common way things Get Burnt. Cookbook directions "turn on the skillet, chop the onions, juggle the tomatoes, and spin fifteen plates all at once" are based on the assumption that you are A Cook.
- The first and second time you make a recipe, cook for yourself. Don't add the extra pressure of guests.
Yes, I mean the second time, too. There is a weird rule of cooking that if you don't mess it up on the first try, then it comes out terrific. This lures you into believing that the second time you do it, it will come out the same. It never does.
Then the last and final secret of cooking that no one ever mentions: repeat, repeat, repeat. There's a bunch of hoopla that cooking requires some special "talent." Bullshit. People cooked for centuries without requiring any special talent. Cooking is all about practice.
Icarus
Then there is the Rest of Us.
The ones who grew up with keys to the house, whose moms came home from work after we got home from school. Dominos was on the speed-dialer, and we knew what time of year to expect the MacDonald's Monopoly Game. Lean Cuisine stocked the freezer, and the stove was primarily used to boil water for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
Once a year, we'd go to grandmas, or our aunt's, and be surrounded by the mystery of cooking. But, in the urgency of Thanksgiving, we were mostly underfoot or asked to help peel - yikes! - 30 pounds of potatoes. Even if mom knew how (mine didn't but wouldn't admit it) we never learned to cook.
I was determined to learn. Cooks gave me useless advice about fileting (huh?), while leaving out those little things that "everyone just knew" (what do you mean that I shouldn't turn the skillet on High to heat it up for stir fry? Won't that warm it faster?).
So in honour of
hp_femme and those valiant Novice cooks picking up their first spatula, here are Those Things I Learned That No One Bothered To Explain.The trick to learning to cook is this:
#1 - Get cookbook.
Okay. That's easy. But -- eep! The cookbooks people recommend! Get The Joy of Cooking. It looks thick and intimidating, but it's mostly easy recipes and - get this - explanations of why your stuff came out the way it did. It's a cook's manual, really. And it's rather tongue-in-cheek, like Miss Manners.
#2 - Pick out three recipes you'd like to try.
Not just one recipe. Three. Because one recipe becomes A Project, you find you try to pick out something "cool" and then it's such a hassle you give it up after one attempt. The best foods are usually easy. Thank God. Hint (and here's something the "cooks" never think to mention): if it has ingredients you like, you'll probably like the result. But if it has even one thing in it that you don't like, don't bother. Hey, I had to learn that one the hard way!
#3 - Buy ingredients.
Now this may seem self-explanatory, but it's not. See, the way us normal-non-cooking people shop, we buy enough milk and cereal to get through the week, and a few familiar items. Then, when it comes time to Buy Ingredients To Cook we do a separate run to the store (or several stores) asking people, "is this lemon grass?" But if you pick a few recipes that use the same stuff, then you're buying, say, potatoes, the same way you buy bread. Then those recipes (make them easy!) melt into your life and whenever you shop you buy potatoes along with that box of cereal. The trick is this: to have the ingredients on hand all the time instead of making a special run. And yes, a couple times you'll have to fumigate before you remember to cook enough to use it all.
#4 - Cook.
Now this is the scary part. Those "cooking" people don't realise this, but that room they are so comfortable in looks to us like, oh, a Kung-Fu studio loaded with complex and confusing weapons. And we're wearing those little white pyjamas with the word NOVICE stamped on our foreheads. No doubt, if the squirrels are looking in on us, they will laugh. Or so we think.
For the cooking process you need one of two things, either:
a) An understanding cooking coach who will stand back and let you do stuff (without laughing or looking shocked when you ask what a cheese grater is); or
b) NO WITNESSES.
I usually go for b, frankly.
- Carefully scan your recipe looking for Odd Equipment.
The novice kitchen usually doesn't have a potato peeler or a food processor or what-have-you. In fact the novice kitchen often has only a set of steak knives and paper plates and may even lack a cutting board. Many of things you can work around until you're able to get to IKEA. *g* (The nice thing about The Joy of Cooking, which
wildernessguru - another novice cook - swears by, is that it has diagrams of cooking equipment and assumes you have no idea what a "ricer" is or what it's supposed to do. It also explains cooking terms like blanch and simmer and the whys behind them).- Any recipe you do for the first time takes three times as long as it will later.
That's one thing the Cooks neglect to mention. So if it's a Project the first time, and it will be, it won't be as bad the next, and by the third or fourth time it becomes like heating up pizza in the microwave.
- Cut everything up first. Then turn on the stove/oven.
Novice cooks are slow at cutting things up, so this is the most common way things Get Burnt. Cookbook directions "turn on the skillet, chop the onions, juggle the tomatoes, and spin fifteen plates all at once" are based on the assumption that you are A Cook.
- The first and second time you make a recipe, cook for yourself. Don't add the extra pressure of guests.
Yes, I mean the second time, too. There is a weird rule of cooking that if you don't mess it up on the first try, then it comes out terrific. This lures you into believing that the second time you do it, it will come out the same. It never does.
Then the last and final secret of cooking that no one ever mentions: repeat, repeat, repeat. There's a bunch of hoopla that cooking requires some special "talent." Bullshit. People cooked for centuries without requiring any special talent. Cooking is all about practice.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2004-07-14 10:21 pm (UTC)I cook by ear. Cookbooks are mostly for inspiration, and I usually end up altering very nearly any recipe I use. However, I am teaching my boys to cook too. Well. The little one mostly cares to bake. He's 8. He makes muffins from a mix, or scones, that sort of thing. The other one's more inclined to do chili or spaghetti, etc. And I don't cook as often as I'd like, not really because the husband is damn picky, and I'm highly anti-social and do not host dinner parties. Ever.
*grumble*
The flip side of all your advice here, is this: the reason cooks don't tell you this shit, is they don't know it (consciously). You know? I mean, it's very difficult for me not to swerve thru the nifty gadget aisle at Fred Meyer and pick up some new toy, which is fair enough because my step-dad is the same. It was all I could do recently not to buy myself a cute little doodad that decides when your eggs are soft-boiled, nearly-hard, or hard-boiled, by being in the water with them. So nifty. I have two vegetable peelers plus one that also has little spiky thingers to use in creating long skinny shreds of carrot. I have a garlic press and a tiny shredder, though usually I hack up garlic by hand. I don't have a bread machine because that defeats the purpose. And so on. So it would actually never occur to me that anyone would need to make sure they have a vegetable peeler because I've always had one. Hell, I think I had one when I lived in the dorms, because I might want to peel a carrot.
Anyway, as I help my kids cook, I do have them follow recipes, and I explain terms and stuff, and I'm always astounded, because I forget, kinda every time, that it's possible to not know what "simmer" or "blanch" means, that in fact not everyone already knows the butter has marks on the sides of the sticks to measure, that actually some folks don't know about butter, starch, milk to make white sauce. Heh. And I get frustrated over and over, even though I shouldn't, when Kid One needs clear and specific direction. Sometimes I want him to add more of something. Throw in some more chili powder. I dunno, until it smeels right. Or I want him to heat that in the microwave. I dunno how long, until it's hot. Or to thin the sauce. I dunno how much milk! Until it's thinner. See?
In any case, we don't mean to be annoying. Hee! Also, I second that Joy of Cooking rec. Bestest cookbook, that and this immense 600-page book of breads my mom has.