this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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Learning how to cook - not just follow recipes - but really learn about what cooking is and the underlying chemistry, science and art.
Over time I slowly developed my skill/knowledge and I can now improvise all kinds of world foods from whatever ingredients and flavors/spices I have before me.
I take great pleasure in that. It's a joy to serve my food to others too, and watch their eyes widen as though they've never tasted anything so true and delicious. Sometimes it's downright funny because I will just serve unsalted nuts and people will demand that I tell them where I got them, for they are the freshest and most explosively flavorful thing they've had... and I'll say look I just roasted some Costco almonds. 15 min at 340C lol
Although time consuming, it has saved me a lot on food costs and my health has changed profoundly as well - lost over 50kg. Vastly expanded my food horizons as well.
There's something so indescribably rewarding and satisfying being able to take whole ingredients and make something amazing. I think it's a wonderful skill that takes a lifetime to develop.
Your story sounds interesting. I never even thought about learning the underlying science. How do you even find this information?
My approach:
It's sort of a loose process of mine.
I have a curious mind that demands to know how things work, not just be told to do things.
So if I was told in a recipe to fry a piece of meat, I would stop and research what happens when you fry meat and why do you fry meat in the first place?
From that I would learn a few simple concepts like the Maillard reaction or how proteins change shape when they are heated.
From there my curiosity would lead me to a more questions like why do we cook meat until it changes color?
Or I might make a stew, and learn that to thicken up the gravy, you'll add some flour. So then I'll research what is happening inside of gravy when you add flour; why doesn't it seem to thicken until it's heated? That would lead me to learn how carbohydrates transform in different ways under different conditions, or how emulsifications work.
That's really it in a nutshell, just cook daily but always stop to try to figure out what's actually happening in the steps I'm following.
By slowly developing that deeper understanding, it made it so I could eventually just throw the recipes away, because I had learned so much intuitively that I just didn't need them anymore. It also gave me that skill of being able to look at a proposed recipe and just laugh because you know it's not going to work or taste good.