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What about the cooks on shows such as "Top Chef", where they will create something on the spot. These people are already very skilled, experienced and knowledgeable about food before entering these contests, but it will show them running around to get ingredients they need and throwing something together, during the timed competition. They do so naturally and are not following recipes. I think this is an example of what is being addressed here.
They are set ups, they know ahead of time what they will make, or I bet they do and we are not talking about a basic menu item only: we are talking foods that must have a certain consistency or foods that require a certain balance. As I have said, I love to cook, am considered by most a very good cook, if not a blue ribbon level and I still will use recipes. No, not for everything, and yes, usually I tweek them but I still use them.
I haven't read the thread but want to respond to the OP.
Cookbooks sort of held me back from being able to become a good cook. I don't feel I became a good cook until I started cooking without using recipes. That's how I truly learned how things work. It all started with trying to recreate a great restaurant meal I had once. This was long before the internet. I gained confidence to be very creative.
I don't own cookbooks. Well, I do but I couldn't tell you where they are. I think they've been stored in the attic for the past two decades. I look through the magazines and online to get ideas. I started a thread here to get everyone's ideas on how to cook dried beans and then I threw it together using little pieces of advice from all of the posts along with my own spin based on what I had in my kitchen. I often come up with my own ideas out of the blue without looking at recipes or anything.
My experience with recipes haven't been good. The food just doesn't come out to my liking. I achieve much better results on my own. I'm even starting to change baking recipes. I remember being told baking was a science and everything had to be exact. I'm starting to learn I can change those recipes up too. I've gotten to the point that I know what more of this or less of that will produce.
Do real cooks not use cookbooks? I don't think it really matters.
What's important is the end result and enjoying whatever process we each prefer.
They are set ups, they know ahead of time what they will make,
When watching Iron Chef its just too obvious they know what that mystery ingredient is and exactly what they are going to do with it long before the show starts, and i'll bet they use cookbooks as a reference for many of their dishes..
What about the cooks on shows such as "Top Chef", where they will create something on the spot. These people are already very skilled, experienced and knowledgeable about food before entering these contests, but it will show them running around to get ingredients they need and throwing something together, during the timed competition. They do so naturally and are not following recipes. I think this is an example of what is being addressed here.
That doesn't mean they haven't/don't read/use cookbooks. And many times, they're simply cooking dishes they've cooked before.
When you cook, do you often use written recipes from a cookbook, the Internet, or a friend or family member? Would a really good cook never even dream of using someone else's written recipe? Are cooks who can "wing it" better than cooks who either can or won't?
My husband used to love my cooking and he'd tell my MIL what a great cook I was. My MIL would look down her nose and say, "Anyone can be a good cook if they use a cookbook, just like anybody can paint a good picture with a paint-by-numbers kit. When her words got back to me, I felt a little crushed. My own mother was not only a horrible cook, she wouldn't even let me into the kitchen to watch when she prepared delicacies such as peas flambe, blackened pork chops, and macaroni mush. My Mom's meals were to be endured rather than be enjoyed.
When I first got married, I decided that I would break with my family tradition of burnt suppers or else we would subsist on nothing but raw veggies and fruit. The second option was out because hubby wanted to eat "real" food, so I bought myself a copy of The Joy of Cooking and some measuring spoons. I followed that book's recipes not just to the letter, but even crossed all the T's and dotted the I's! This worked! I was soon turning out meals that my husband ate wih relish, polishing off his plate and then finishing off anything that might have been left over. I didn't care if my cooking was "paint by the numbers." It worked. I had broken the curse of the blackened pork chop!
That was all a long time ago. I am now divorced and my MIL passed away some years back. I have an entire collection of cookbooks that I feel comfortable using to make the trickiest recipes. I also no longer need a printed recipe as a crutch when preparing the basics for a meal. But this morning I was thinking that I should look up a recipe for pork chops on the Internet, and danged if my MIL's words didn't come back to haunt me. If I were REALLY an accomplished cook, people would be reading my recipes instead of the other way around.
Thoughts?
'Real cooks don't use cookbooks!' Did you get that from Marie on 'Everybody Loves Raymond'? Because that's what she said.
Someone posted this link in the recipe forum, and I thought I'd share it here as an example of a recipe in the 1800s:
Quote:
Boil the maccaroni in milk; put in the stewpan butter, cheese, and seasoning; when melted, pour into the maccaroni, putting breadcrums over, which brown before the fire all together.
When watching Iron Chef its just too obvious they know what that mystery ingredient is and exactly what they are going to do with it long before the show starts, and i'll bet they use cookbooks as a reference for many of their dishes..
I totally agree, you can't tell me, regardless of who it is, these chef's know how to use everything and know what all that stuff is. I mean, some of the secret ingredients most of us can't pronounce or have never heard or how about this: the basket contains : chocolate, baby artichokes, oatmeal and elephant ears. Now make a wonderful dessert using all of them...
I totally agree, you can't tell me, regardless of who it is, these chef's know how to use everything and know what all that stuff is. I mean, some of the secret ingredients most of us can't pronounce or have never heard or how about this: the basket contains : chocolate, baby artichokes, oatmeal and elephant ears. Now make a wonderful dessert using all of them...
This sounds more like Chopped, rather than Iron Chef.
In Chopped, there's a basket filled with mystery ingredients and that's where there's a challenge to compose an appetizer, main course, and then dessert. In Iron Chef, there's the Chairman's secret ingredient. This is almost always one type of ingredient (eg. prisciutto, sea bass, duck eggs, etc) and they have to compose several dishes while using that one ingredient as the star.
Sorry to derail the thread...but I just wanted to clarify.
I don't know about "Iron Chef", but after watching "Top Chef" for years, I do know they are creating something on the spot, from what they have learned. They are familiar with what will work together, what temperatures, measurements, etc. to use.
Now, I don't mean with baking, yet, they appear to know what to do with that, too, which I would not off the top of my head, because you need particular measurements, as far as I know to created baked goods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nmnita
They are set ups, they know ahead of time what they will make, or I bet they do and we are not talking about a basic menu item only: we are talking foods that must have a certain consistency or foods that require a certain balance. As I have said, I love to cook, am considered by most a very good cook, if not a blue ribbon level and I still will use recipes. No, not for everything, and yes, usually I tweek them but I still use them.
I don't think so. On "Top Chef", which is the only cooking competition I have watched over the years, they have a very "quick challenge" in the beginning for instance, where they are told to grab from a limited set of ingredients allowed to make "something edible" and they all do come up with a variety of ideas. As I've mentioned, it is different for baking that does require measurements.
But the bottom line is, I think there shouldn't really be an argument about this. Many experienced cooks would probably tell you that using cookbooks is a good guideline and there is nothing wrong with that, yet I think that many cooks are really just intuitive about how and what to do.
When in a popular restaurant recently that has a huge menu and seated near the kitchen (not the best place to be with all the traffic, but that is where we ended up), it appeared there were many cooks back there from what I could tell, and I don't think they are reading from a book to prepare everything and everyone has their positions, no doubt. These are experienced cooks who know how long vegetables, meat, pasta, etc. are to be cooked and how desserts are to arrive attractively upon a plate, besides.
Well, of course they have used their previous knowledge of something... it did not come from nowhere. They are experienced.. they have gone to school for this and sometimes, many things ARE from memory, I'm sure. I'm always stunned at the knowledge of ingredients and cooking procedures they will know to use, off the top of their heads.
I really only have two cookbooks. The text book I used in culinary school and The Balkan Cookbook
Cooking is basic formulas you expound on. If there's ethnic cuisine or a new trend that I haven't heard of I'll obviously need a recipe. Sometimes I'll buy a cookbook related to presentation, fruit and vegetable cutting art, etc.
Iron Chef is basically the "black box test" that students take on their final exam in culinary school. For TV they probably do set it up, but the chefs involved should be very familiar with how to do such a thing by now.
(I'm not a chef anymore btw. I quit when I hit 30, I thought I was too old for it. Lol...)
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