mizchef

posted by admin on Jul 10

Since I got laid off from my full-time job in January, I’ve been in a recipe-testing frenzy. I am so desperate to finish the testing for my second cookbook, I can’t even begin to tell you. I’ve been working on it since 2002 and I’m over it!

Writing a cookbook is not like writing other nonfiction material. To write some other kind of how-to book, you sit at your computer to research and write, or you flip through your library of books to glean information. To write a cookbook, on the other hand, you have to go out and shop for ingredients, then stand on your feet at the stove or counter for a good long time and physically do stuff. Cooking is fun and it’s an artistic expression, but writing a cookbook is work.

1899 English cooking class

The problem for me has been one of time. It’s just really difficult testing and retesting a couple of hundred recipes when you have a full-time job, a partner, a home, cats, a writing career, and a million other things to do. (I don’t know how people have writing careers with all of the above AND kids! I tip my hat to parents who manage to get things done.) Since I’ve been out of work, I’ve been on a roll with the testing. I try to test at least one recipe a day, more if possible. Of course, some days go by with no testing at all. It all depends on what else I have on my plate (no pun intended). But, I’ve gotta tell you, as much as I love cooking, I’m just sick of it. Some days, I just want to pull out a veggie burger or go get pizza and not bother. I do my best to fight those feelings.

Anyway, with all this cooking going on, I realized something. Those recipes that are part of a cuisine very different from the one I grew up with are more difficult to get right, and they are the ones that often have to get retested a number of times. It makes sense, right? Any ingredients that were not part of your upbringing, and cooking methods that were not taught to you in your home, will not feel “natural” to you.

But, to be a well-rounded cook and an accomplished food writer, you must step out of your cuisine comfort zone. You must experiment with unfamiliar ingredients, try your hand and new cooking methods, and introduce yourself to strange utensils and cooking vessels.

Growing up in an Italian household, I am familiar with Western European foods and cooking techniques. As I start moving outside of that circle, I am less and less confident about what I’m cooking. Eastern European cuisines start to veer from Western European cuisines, but are still recognizable. Middle Eastern? Yeah, they’re different, too, but there are still similiarities—especially when you consider that Turkish food has ties to Greek food, which has ties to Italian food, which has ties to Spanish food… But where it really gets interesting for me is when I enter the realm of Asian cuisines, particularly Southeast Asian. Something about it makes me hesitate—I don’t know if it’s the exotic ingredients, the high flame under the wok, or the fear of being disgraced if I don’t do it right. Probably all of the above. But the more I cook Asian dishes, the more I learn and the more comfortable I am with those cuisines.

Photo by Edward S. Curtis, 1903

It also reminds me that as a foodie, I’m very lucky to be living in the time I am. I have the ingredients, equipment, and information at my fingertips to cook just about anything I want. If I can’t get any of those things readily, all I have to do is go online. Let’s not forget the way women (and some men) before us had to cook–on small, wood-burning stoves, in fireplaces, or over campfires. Just imagine how hard it was for them to cook a full meal in those days. In fact, some people today still cook like that.

Mrs. Yandle Cooking on Coal Stove by Alfred Eisenstaedt

So, don’t complain if your cutting board is chipped, if your melon baller is too big, or if your blender doesn’t have a smoothie function. I think we should consider ourselves lucky for what we have today. Furthermore, with so many food options available to us now, why eat only what we know, day after day? The generations before us were limited to what they could grow or what their neighbors grew. We have so much at our disposal, so let’s crawl out of the box and take chances.

Try something new. If you’ve never tried a particular cuisine, go to that restaurant in town that serves it. Then go to any one of the thousands of cooking sites on the Web, download some recipes, and try that particular cuisine yourself. Life is too short to limit yourself, too fleeting to not try everything there is to try.

I hope I’ve encouraged you to try something new and different this week. Let me know if you did. Have a great week!