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With forty years experience cooking and some formal training, I'm much more comfortable experimenting with procedures and the technical aspects of a recipe, tha

With forty years experience cooking and some formal training, I'm much more comfortable experimenting with procedures and the technical aspects of a recipe, than with creative flavor combinations. To be honest, I don't believe that creative flavor combinations often work, even in a $100 restaurant. It's the height of arrogance for an individual cook to believe that they possess genius exceeding the crowd-sourced collective imaginations of an entire people. And actually believing one "needs" to do something different, to make one's mark? It's hard to be a good cook, but it takes the barest modicum of emotional control and self-awareness to avoid falling into this trap. Just don't. As in mathematical or scientific research, one is actually most creative and original when one is channeling with clarity what everyone else meant to say, wanted to say but didn't know it. In cooking, the hardest thing to do is to express a classical recipe using modern methods and ingredient sourcing, better than an entire people had managed before with conventional methods. Either this is too hard for elite restaurant chefs, so they instead play with their food, or there's no market, because one has to be on the same level to taste the difference? I don't believe that; perfecting the thoughts of others is the ultimate challenge. Baking is easy. I have a spreadsheet going back fifty versions for sourdough bread ground from whole grains. It's a careful search algorithm in a high dimensional space, not cooking. Corn tortillas from scratch, via nixtamalizing and grinding landrace Oaxacan corns from masienda.com, is an ultimate baking graduation exercise. There's much conflicting information out there, but no reference recipe that guarantees success at home. Within a month one is at the research frontier for home cooks in a modern setting. One needs to be comfortable with research, not with following direction. And the results can be as truly spectacular as anything one can produce in a home kitchen.

bbatha 7y ago
There’s plenty of room for flavor experimentation that crowd sourced wisdom hasn’t explored. For one there are simply too many combinations of ingredients, and preparation to make the assumption that everything has been tried. Secondly, with cheap air travel, refrigeration, and a more fully integrated global economy it’s possible get regional ingredients everywhere that were totally unheard of decades ago. Also cultural palates change: in the US fancy food was French and Italian until the late 90s. Period. Now days it’s not uncommon to see Asian dishes elevated to new levels. David Chang, et al have been enormously successful in melding Western flavors into Asian dishes. The US, at least knows very little about Latin American food (outside of a some well known Mexican imports, eg tacos), and African food is almost completely unheard of. Mark my words we’ll all be enjoying flavor combinations no one dreamed of in the coming decades.
GordonS 7y ago
> Baking is easy Hmm, not for everyone! I'm a competent cook (self taught, cooking for 20 years or so), and at home cooking western dishes, as well as thise from around the world (Chinese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, all sorts), yet baking is the one thing I seem to find difficult. Firstly, it seems you have to get your measurements right - there isn't much room for experimentation with quantities, just follow the recipe. Aside from that, my mixture/dough always seems too wet, too sticky, too dry, too whatever it shouldn't be! And I don't seem to have the knack for how to fix it, or an intuition to know when it's "right". Same deal when it makes it to the oven; things often end up over or under baked, because I just don't have the knack of knowing when it's done.
- hansthehorse 7y ago
  Weigh your ingredients. Get a scale that is accurate to the gram and if your recipe calls for cups and such find a conversion chart. I only follow recipes that give amounts in grams and milliliters. I'm American and baking is the only time I use the metric system. 90% of baking is technique and that only comes from practice so taking notes can help a lot while learning.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    I do, and don't really have a problem with weighing things; my point was simply that I feel like I can't experiment. But you're probably right about needing practice - I tend to feel like I've failed when it goes wrong, and don't try again for ages. I'm British, so always use grams/millilitres when cooking - TBH, I wouldn't even know what "a cup of flour" was!
- RmDen 7y ago
  Cooking is art, baking is science. If you get the measurements wrong, your end product will be 'wrong' Cooking gives you ways to fix your mistakes.. (add water, cook it more, add spices etc etc)
  - phonypc 7y ago
    >Cooking is art, baking is science. Not to single you out for an oft repeated phrase, but I've never like this set of comparisons. Baking surely requires you to precisely follow recipes in a way cooking usually doesn't, but merely following instructions precisely isn't science. Really, there is an art of and a science of both cooking and baking. Understanding some of the science of baking is actually what enables one to productively modify and create recipes.
grenoire 7y ago
Funnily enough, the article starts off with 'baking is an ancient science,' but doesn't really appreciate being scientific about the process.
jacksnipe 7y ago
Please share your corn tortilla technique + recipe!
- Syzygies 7y ago
  I'll give a skeletal answer that will only make sense if one has read what's out there. These are just my choices where choices matter, leaving out the canonical: Measure cal by weight as a proportion of total weight of corn and water (for comparison Paul Bertolli estimates the water weight of meats in "Cooking by Hand" for his brine formulas). I like 0.5% cal and 4x water to corn. This is on the light end (standardized by total weight, recipes vary 0.3% to 1.6% cal) which brings out corn flavor. Simmer at least an hour, or more, till kernels are nearly al dente, not chalky. For less effort use a slow cooker, and start the clock hours later when it reaches 80 C. Leave overnight before rinsing well. The corn will have nearly doubled in weight. This is nixtamal. As recommended in “Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico” by Bricia Lopez, grind 4:15 water:nixtamal for 40 minutes in a 1.5 liter Premier Small Wonder Table Top Wet Grinder. Indian cooks, chocolatiers on a budget like this wet grinder. She recommends 450g corn. More will push off the lid, which one can fix by drilling a 1" deep hole with a 2 1/4" Forstner bit in a 5" or so square block of hardwood, to rest just over the lid as a lid stop. Then one can use more corn, which needs less tending. This is a problem like designing the paper feed in a copier, a career I'm grateful I don't have. If the masa is too wet, work in a bit of masa harina. Test by kneading by hand; it should be just shy of sticky, but not sticky. I bake harder than some say (I like brown specks and the resulting flavor) on a Baking Steel. I plan to experiment with an actual comal, which might breathe better as my masa is on the edge of too wet, like an artisanal bread dough. It puffs nicely. If one happens to have a VitaMix or VitaPrep commercial blender, one can get a reasonable approximation of this by blending corn with too much water, then thickening with masa harina. Masienda.com sells a masa harina from their white corn. Be aware that grind fineness is just one axis, and a VitaPrep can actually overdo this. One ends up 2:1 nixtamal:harina by dry weight, 2/3rds of the way there, with an inferior texture but much of the great flavor of different landrace corns. One will then decide a wet grinder is worth it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
slothtrop 7y ago
> It's the height of arrogance for an individual cook to believe that they possess genius exceeding the crowd-sourced collective imaginations of an entire people. Well there is no mythological singular way to cook a cultural dish. Notwithstanding many regional differences, the myriad of recipes out there tend to vary in some way even if it's minimal. e.g. curry, chili
fyp 7y ago
"A careful search algorithm in a high dimensional space" sounds exactly like what these guys did with chocolate chip cookies: https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies.html https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best...
SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
> fifty versions for sourdough bread ground from whole grains. It's a careful search algorithm in a high dimensional space, not cooking. I know the process, a bit. The way I see it is: first you _follow the recipe_ , until you think you understand it and are getting reasonably good results. Then tweak it and take notes of the resulting improvements or setbacks. Repeat for life. As you say, it's iterative and multi-dimensional.
umvi 7y ago
> It's the height of arrogance for an individual cook to believe that they possess genius exceeding the crowd-sourced collective imaginations of an entire people. It's not just cooks and chefs, but all artists. What's the number 1 reason hollywood/publishers/author's guild are vehemently against users modifying their movies/books to better suit their tastes? "It destroys the artistic intent of the creator. The artist intended it for it to be consumed in a specific way, and by [removing the mushrooms/censoring the swear words/making all the characters zombies/etc.], you've created something the artist did not intend for you to consume" And my response is: well, obviously! It is the height of arrogance to get offended when someone modifies your (dish/movie/book) to be more to their liking as it implies your original creation was perfect and could not be improved upon!
erikpukinskis 7y ago
One exception: vegan food! Most vegan recipes are trash, and in most cases we are only a decade or two into the global development of that recipe. You really can “fuck around” and find new major advancements in vegan cuisine. Many problems (pizza) are totally unsolved.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
  Try Indian vegetarian dishes.
bytematic 7y ago
I agree and just want to say that I find your writing style very easy to read
bytematic 7y ago
I agree and just want to say that I find your writing style very easy to read. It's hard to string together those thoughts and words coherently all the way thru, it would take me a second pass to have it flow the way you do

bbatha 7y ago

There’s plenty of room for flavor experimentation that crowd sourced wisdom hasn’t explored. For one there are simply too many combinations of ingredients, and preparation to make the assumption that everything has been tried. Secondly, with cheap air travel, refrigeration, and a more fully integrated global economy it’s possible get regional ingredients everywhere that were totally unheard of decades ago. Also cultural palates change: in the US fancy food was French and Italian until the late 90s. Period. Now days it’s not uncommon to see Asian dishes elevated to new levels. David Chang, et al have been enormously successful in melding Western flavors into Asian dishes. The US, at least knows very little about Latin American food (outside of a some well known Mexican imports, eg tacos), and African food is almost completely unheard of. Mark my words we’ll all be enjoying flavor combinations no one dreamed of in the coming decades.

GordonS 7y ago

> Baking is easy Hmm, not for everyone! I'm a competent cook (self taught, cooking for 20 years or so), and at home cooking western dishes, as well as thise from around the world (Chinese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, all sorts), yet baking is the one thing I seem to find difficult. Firstly, it seems you have to get your measurements right - there isn't much room for experimentation with quantities, just follow the recipe. Aside from that, my mixture/dough always seems too wet, too sticky, too dry, too whatever it shouldn't be! And I don't seem to have the knack for how to fix it, or an intuition to know when it's "right". Same deal when it makes it to the oven; things often end up over or under baked, because I just don't have the knack of knowing when it's done.

hansthehorse 7y ago
Weigh your ingredients. Get a scale that is accurate to the gram and if your recipe calls for cups and such find a conversion chart. I only follow recipes that give amounts in grams and milliliters. I'm American and baking is the only time I use the metric system. 90% of baking is technique and that only comes from practice so taking notes can help a lot while learning.
- GordonS 7y ago
  I do, and don't really have a problem with weighing things; my point was simply that I feel like I can't experiment. But you're probably right about needing practice - I tend to feel like I've failed when it goes wrong, and don't try again for ages. I'm British, so always use grams/millilitres when cooking - TBH, I wouldn't even know what "a cup of flour" was!
RmDen 7y ago
Cooking is art, baking is science. If you get the measurements wrong, your end product will be 'wrong' Cooking gives you ways to fix your mistakes.. (add water, cook it more, add spices etc etc)
- phonypc 7y ago
  >Cooking is art, baking is science. Not to single you out for an oft repeated phrase, but I've never like this set of comparisons. Baking surely requires you to precisely follow recipes in a way cooking usually doesn't, but merely following instructions precisely isn't science. Really, there is an art of and a science of both cooking and baking. Understanding some of the science of baking is actually what enables one to productively modify and create recipes.

grenoire 7y ago

Funnily enough, the article starts off with 'baking is an ancient science,' but doesn't really appreciate being scientific about the process.

jacksnipe 7y ago

Please share your corn tortilla technique + recipe!

Syzygies 7y ago
I'll give a skeletal answer that will only make sense if one has read what's out there. These are just my choices where choices matter, leaving out the canonical: Measure cal by weight as a proportion of total weight of corn and water (for comparison Paul Bertolli estimates the water weight of meats in "Cooking by Hand" for his brine formulas). I like 0.5% cal and 4x water to corn. This is on the light end (standardized by total weight, recipes vary 0.3% to 1.6% cal) which brings out corn flavor. Simmer at least an hour, or more, till kernels are nearly al dente, not chalky. For less effort use a slow cooker, and start the clock hours later when it reaches 80 C. Leave overnight before rinsing well. The corn will have nearly doubled in weight. This is nixtamal. As recommended in “Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico” by Bricia Lopez, grind 4:15 water:nixtamal for 40 minutes in a 1.5 liter Premier Small Wonder Table Top Wet Grinder. Indian cooks, chocolatiers on a budget like this wet grinder. She recommends 450g corn. More will push off the lid, which one can fix by drilling a 1" deep hole with a 2 1/4" Forstner bit in a 5" or so square block of hardwood, to rest just over the lid as a lid stop. Then one can use more corn, which needs less tending. This is a problem like designing the paper feed in a copier, a career I'm grateful I don't have. If the masa is too wet, work in a bit of masa harina. Test by kneading by hand; it should be just shy of sticky, but not sticky. I bake harder than some say (I like brown specks and the resulting flavor) on a Baking Steel. I plan to experiment with an actual comal, which might breathe better as my masa is on the edge of too wet, like an artisanal bread dough. It puffs nicely. If one happens to have a VitaMix or VitaPrep commercial blender, one can get a reasonable approximation of this by blending corn with too much water, then thickening with masa harina. Masienda.com sells a masa harina from their white corn. Be aware that grind fineness is just one axis, and a VitaPrep can actually overdo this. One ends up 2:1 nixtamal:harina by dry weight, 2/3rds of the way there, with an inferior texture but much of the great flavor of different landrace corns. One will then decide a wet grinder is worth it.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

slothtrop 7y ago

> It's the height of arrogance for an individual cook to believe that they possess genius exceeding the crowd-sourced collective imaginations of an entire people. Well there is no mythological singular way to cook a cultural dish. Notwithstanding many regional differences, the myriad of recipes out there tend to vary in some way even if it's minimal. e.g. curry, chili

fyp 7y ago

"A careful search algorithm in a high dimensional space" sounds exactly like what these guys did with chocolate chip cookies: https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies.html https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best...

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago

> fifty versions for sourdough bread ground from whole grains. It's a careful search algorithm in a high dimensional space, not cooking. I know the process, a bit. The way I see it is: first you _follow the recipe_ , until you think you understand it and are getting reasonably good results. Then tweak it and take notes of the resulting improvements or setbacks. Repeat for life. As you say, it's iterative and multi-dimensional.

umvi 7y ago

> It's the height of arrogance for an individual cook to believe that they possess genius exceeding the crowd-sourced collective imaginations of an entire people. It's not just cooks and chefs, but all artists. What's the number 1 reason hollywood/publishers/author's guild are vehemently against users modifying their movies/books to better suit their tastes? "It destroys the artistic intent of the creator. The artist intended it for it to be consumed in a specific way, and by [removing the mushrooms/censoring the swear words/making all the characters zombies/etc.], you've created something the artist did not intend for you to consume" And my response is: well, obviously! It is the height of arrogance to get offended when someone modifies your (dish/movie/book) to be more to their liking as it implies your original creation was perfect and could not be improved upon!

erikpukinskis 7y ago

One exception: vegan food! Most vegan recipes are trash, and in most cases we are only a decade or two into the global development of that recipe. You really can “fuck around” and find new major advancements in vegan cuisine. Many problems (pizza) are totally unsolved.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
Try Indian vegetarian dishes.

bytematic 7y ago

I agree and just want to say that I find your writing style very easy to read

bytematic 7y ago

I agree and just want to say that I find your writing style very easy to read. It's hard to string together those thoughts and words coherently all the way thru, it would take me a second pass to have it flow the way you do