Cooking Is NOT Genetic
So I'm always feeling a little bereft when I read about some famous chef, like Jacques Pepin or Anthony Bourdain, who grew up around great food, soaking up all this information when their brains and taste buds were like little sponges, learning from toddlerhood from moms and dads who could cook. I grew up on frozen fish sticks, chicken nuggets and pizza, tuna salad, spaghetti from a box with sauce from a jar, rice and pancake mixes, condensed-soup casseroles, canned peaches over cottage cheese. Mmmm, it makes me nostalgic just thinking about it - but it also makes me a novice about what makes for really good food.
So you can maybe understand how excited I was when the intros to two of my new books both revealed that the authors kind of fell into an interest in food relatively late in life, and both lament for a moment their non-food beginnings before going on to either 1) impart a huge amount of information on how to identify fantastic ingredients or 2) share recipes for homey, delicious, beautiful bistro-type dishes. There's hope for me yet.
Comments
Which books/chefs are you refering to? Some chefs lke Eric Ripert insist that one cannot understand cooking unless they grew up with it, and that someone like yourself could never understand food. This is just dumb.
Posted by: Matt Kantor | February 26, 2004 10:33 AM
Bistro Cooking at Home (Gordon Hamersley) and Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating (Ari Weinzweig). (I hope I'm remembering what I read correctly.) They're not necessarily household names, but . . .
Didn't Julia Child get kind of a late start?
Posted by: Kim | February 26, 2004 11:06 AM
Kim, what's your point? It's because of all that canned spaghetti sauce and fish sticks that you are actually the expert you have become.
Also, I hope you know you have broken your mother's heart. What could possibly be more "comforting" than a 1978 pot pie? :-)
We enjoyed...Margo
Posted by: margo truel | February 26, 2004 04:19 PM
You know, Margo, you're right. And it's all programmed in me now, so tuna-noodle casserole is the ultimate comfort food for me and I can't eat a slice of cantaloupe without salting it first. I get a little thrill of recognition evey time I remember something my mom used to make. Like those peanut butter cookies or lemon bars, or chicken and rice casserole.
I'm not knocking my childhood food (well, maybe I am a little). It just wasn't sophisticated, and revealed more of a need for speed and convenience than a love of cooking (which Mom would be the first to admit she doesn't have).
The nostalgia factor may be one way Eric Ripert has a point (I'd be curious to see exactly what he said). I can't imagine a roast chicken being a simple childhood standard, or how differently I would view food if it were. The foods that are really elemental to me will always be the foods my mother made, even if I cook entirely differently.
Posted by: Kim | February 26, 2004 05:18 PM