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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.
I have a ton of cookbooks and I read cookbooks like I read a regular book which is the same way I read a menu in a restaurant.
To me a cookbook is a guideline and you tweak it to your personal taste.
There are several recipes that come to mind immediately that I have changed a few of the ingredients to make it a lighter dish or added a bit of moisture to a cake or a bread.
There is nothing wrong with the way you cook and in my opinion your Mother In Law was just being a snit because.........
"No one can feed my son the way I feed my son"....see what I mean?
If I sit down at your table and clean my plate after having seconds of your delicious concoction, do I care if the recipe came from your head , the internet, or The Joy of Cooking?
There are things that need a recipe and things that don't. As Fontucky said, baking is science --- kitchen chemistry. Try to wing it, and the result is almost guaranteed to be a failure. Soups, stews, casseroles and such can be modified pretty much as you wish.
CR, was your MIL a good cook? What kinds of things did she make? If she baked, she used a recipe, whether it was written down or not.
By the way, my copy of The Joy of Cooking was a wedding gift --- from my MIL!*
*Whose own copy was well worn.
Last edited by suzy_q2010; 01-15-2014 at 12:40 AM..
I dunno, Colorado Rambler, sounds like your old MIL wasn't someone I'd want to cook for. I think she had a mean streak if she would say that kinda thing. I don't think it's really about using cookbooks or not, so much as it is having a MIL with a small soul.
But, on to the cookbook thing. Some folks are a lot more comfortable following a recipe, doesn't matter where the recipe came from, other folks just kinda wing it. I think it's more about the temperament of the cook than anything else, really.
For our wedding, the cookbook was "Two Fat Ladies - Full Throttle". I was just reading it the other day, too! Kinda took a bean soup recipe from three different books and sort of melded it all together and substituted half of it. It was tasty, but can't make that exact soup again since what was done wasn't written down.
For baking I follow recipes (though I sometimes make a few changes that I know won't make it all go wrong)
Cooking meals, most meals I just cook from memory, often a recipe I just made up. If I want to try something new I look up a recipe on the internet and use it as my basis but usually diverge in some way or other.
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