I have obviously been a little sidetracked lately! It has been far too long since my last blog post. My love of food and cooking and cooking as ethically as possible is still alive and kicking though. In an attempt to learn the ins and outs of food innovation that keeps the integrity of food and consumers in mind, I have signed up for an online cooking class called "The Science of Cooking" through Harvard University. Truth be told, it takes me a long time to do the homework. I am a lot of things....but a math whiz is not one of them! And, this is basically a chemistry/physics class that uses cooking as the lab experiments. The labs are all going well. The equation assignments meant to prove why certain cooking techniques work in scientific terms are not going so well. I am, however, learning a lot and math makes more sense when applied to something that fascinates me. Maybe after all of this I will finally have a rudimentary knowledge of applied mathematics. I suppose only time will tell.
I have learned a lot of very interesting historical facts on cooking after only one video lecture. Perhaps the most interesting to me is the varied history of scientists who studied cooking and advocated for techniques based on highly misunderstood information where nutrition is concerned. The most interesting example of this is that Justus von Liebig believed that the juices in meats carried a majority of the nutrition. Because of this he wrote that meat should be seared in order to seal in all of the juices. Further exploration, of course, shows that this is not true. However, many recipes still call for the searing of meats and fish. I guess traditions are sometimes hard to break. Learning this made me consider my own cooking and how I like to make the cinnamon rolls that my great-great grandmother and great grandmother Elizabeth used to make. Not that a cinnamon roll really has any nutritional value-but I do like honoring tradition. I wonder if I honor tradition too much when trying to come up with new spins on old recipes. Do I need to change some of my techniques?
One thing I know for sure is that the way we think about food changed a great deal in the 20th century. Factory and mass produced food became the focus. We stopped worrying about the integrity of what we were consuming. Convenience and low cost became the deciding factors on what we ingest each day. Innovation is wonderful and it helps us move forward. However, we somehow forgot to keep integrity in the equation. I think it is time we break the modern traditions of food purchases and preparation and get back to a place where we cook and eat with more integrity. I would like to leave you with these "Ten Commandments" of cooking written and published by Gault and Millau in 1972 in The New nouvelle cuisine-
1. Thou shall not overcook
2. Thou shall use fresh, quality products
3. Thou shall lighten thy menu
4. Thou shall not be systematically modernistic
5. Thou shall seek out what new techniques can bring you
6. Thou shall eliminate brown and white sauces
7. Thou shall not ignore dietetics
8. Thou shall not cheat on thy presentation
9. Thou shall be inventive
10. Thou shall not be prejudiced
(Numbers 2 and 7 are my personal favorites)
Any may I say-epic fail every fast food restaurant. EPIC FAIL.
