Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Yeah, essentially becoming a (comparatively) cash-rich time-poor society where it makes sense for pretty much everyone but enthusiasts to pay someone else to prepare food for you than to spend the time cooking it yourself.
Cooking tips and wonderful flavour combinations
- Thread starter baboon2004
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viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Ah yes you’re right, just had a search. I’m currently reading Fuscia Dunlop’s memoir (no fanboy) of her time in Chengdu, quite interesting about how she enrolled in cooking school there and got totally immersed in everything…
I always thought we gained our reputation for culinary blasphemy due to WW2 and the effect of rationing. Maybe it goes back further, but I don't think you can discount the effect of this. Ever read any WW2 ration book recipes - they'll make you stone cold shudder.
nochexxx
harco pronting
nail on head
nochexxx
harco pronting
Nochexxx, you grew up in Malaysia, is that right? Where laksa comes from? I had my first attempt at laksa over the weekend, and FUCK ME SILLY it was good (though I say it myself). I sort of cobbled it together from two recipes in this Rick Stein book I've got, and ad-libbed a bit too, so I'm not sure how authentic it was - but RS says there's no such thing as a canonical laksa anyway, just endless local and personal variations. Well whatever, it was lush. I made a spice paste by whizzing garlic, ginger, chilies, coriander leaf, basil, lemongrass, turmeric, some spring onion bulbs, sugar, fish sauce and lime leaves with 1/4 can of coconut milk to make a thick green goo. I poached sea bass and salmon (again, a bit dubious about the authenticity...) in chicken stock, then took the fish out, added the spice paste and the rest of the coconut milk and reduced it for about ten minutes. Then I added the spring onion stalks, the flaked fish, salt, more lemongrass and some lemon juice and cooked for another five minutes, then served it over noodles with extra basil and coriander on top. Aw hell yeah.
(BTW, anyone else here tried to use a Rick Stein recipe book? The one I've got has these gorgeous-looking recipes which look a bit complicated but basically doable, if you've got shops nearby that stock the necessary ingredients. Then you notice that one or two of the ingredients are in italics and say "See page 300" or whatever, and you go to the index and it's some kind of paste or sauce you're meant to have made already and which requires dried shrimps, pickled goji berries, Cambodian trumpweed, whufflegrass seeds and so on, and has to be left for six months in the fridge to mature. Some of these ingredients themselves required further ingredients that you've got to make yourself. Fucking fractal recipes!)
yeah, i grew up in KL, laksa stalls are everywhere. never made it myself, well done for giving it ago. you've inspired me. i'll look into this rick stein recipe.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I think I'm right in saying that in London no-one has ever cooked, ever - or since the 16th century or whatever - cos living space was so tight that no-one (no working class person) had kitchens, so everyone went down the pub and ate, or got a pie on the way home or whelks or whatever, hence that still going on (i.e. grabbing something from the chippy on the way home is an age old tradition). Probably Manchester too post-indust. Cooking's a relatively country or middle/upper class thing.
I think that's in Ackroyd but could be Mayhew, or god knows. Brain bit fuzzy, on painkillers.
I think that's in Ackroyd but could be Mayhew, or god knows. Brain bit fuzzy, on painkillers.
grizzleb
Well-known member
Another interesting thing, malnutrition was rife to the extent (pre and post war) that poor people were actively encouraged to use calorie dense foods and cooking methods, deep-fat frying etc, which of course turn out not to be very healthy at all if you can actually afford to adequately feed yourself.
slowtrain
Well-known member
In Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" they all sit around and bemoan the atrocity of British cooking, so I think it's much earlier than WW2... (I can only distinctly remember the complaint that the British cut all the skins off vegetables)
Oh! I've found it:
(1927):
'“It is a French recipe of my grandmother’s,” [Mrs. Ramsay explains.] Of course it was French. What passes for cookery in England is an abomination… It is putting cabbage in water. It is roasting meat till it is like leather. It is cutting off the delicious skins of vegetables.'
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
I'm sorry you're wrong on this point Luka!
'Authenticity' is a creation of the mind, to impose order on a situation (life) that doesnt' have any such easy order. I'm not talking so much about food as more important things (sacrilege, I know!), but the point holds here too. What conditions make a recipe 'authentic' - if someone can tell me this inc onvincing fashion, I shall concede.
Not that I disagree with all that Slothrop has said, I just uphold this point.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I'd rate Yotam Ottolenghi as a good example of an inauthentic cook - for his recipes at least, I've not actually eaten his cooking. As far as I can tell, he gets deep into the traditions he draws from and works to understand some of their diversity and subtlety and uniqueness and what makes them tick rather than just nabbing a couple of recipes, but having done that he's not afraid to combine edadame beans with mozarella if he thinks it'd go well.
In other words, it's researching in depth how people in wherever make their dishes not because it's important to recreate the authentic native ur-dish (which probably doesn't exist) as accurately as possible, but because there's a great body of useful knowledge to be got at by doing so.
In other words, it's researching in depth how people in wherever make their dishes not because it's important to recreate the authentic native ur-dish (which probably doesn't exist) as accurately as possible, but because there's a great body of useful knowledge to be got at by doing so.
luka
Well-known member
why i value words like authenticity is not that i think they necessarily mean something but that they can be used as sticks to beat people with who deserve beating. reflect on this. in 2011 these words are more vital than ever. too much information spread too thinly has been disasterous. veryone thinks theyre an experet on everything. customers try and tell m about coffee. diners think they know more than chefs, homeowners second guess tradesmen. respect the experts. not to want to go back to they days of the preisthood and mystagogues but just respect fo those who have done the hard yards and leaerned how things work by doing them, over and over again. authenticity is a stick we can beat post-dubstep with, its a stick for beating people and although its not a word i personally use its a concept i value.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
I think what you're talking about is expertise as opposed to er, supposed expertise
Authenticity is different - a concept grafted on to suggest a particular type of expertise, one based upon 'fromness', geographical or otherwise ,whereas the whole history of the world is one of hybridity, of constantly forming and refomring 'traditions'.
Obviously post-dubstep deserves beating, but can't we use quality as a stick?
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't think Slothrop is really disagreeing with me all that much, though - maybe my position is somewhere between his and baboon's, I dunno. Obviously you can't just chuck a random bunch of meat, veg and spices in a pan and call it Mexican, Cambodian, Kashmiri or whatever. If you're trying to cook a specific dish you might as well try and be faithful to the recipe. I mean, I was trying to make a laksa rather than just a generic spicy soup with lemongrass and whatnot, and I think it was quite successful. But the fact it tasted good is ultimately the most important thing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure food that's been made with some attention to authenticity is almost always tastier than food that hasn't, as Slothrop says, because it usually implies proper ingredients and methods rather than corner-cutting. I just don't think it's worth fretting over whether your curry or whatever is a precise facsimile of what some villager thousands of miles away is having for dinner.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
You'll have a million different recipes for any one dish in a million different homes though, quite apart from anything else. Which is basically what your'e saying really, that's there's an incredible diversity. And that diversity is in itself illustrative of a type of hybridity,a nd it will change and trasnform over time, just as italian cooking gained the tomato after the New World was 'found', and India the chili!
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I wish there was a better word meaning experience, expertise, specialisation. Cos I basically agree with Luka's point, but 'authenticity' isn't what it's about.
Baboon, yeah, I agree on both points, there are loads of things that start out as crap inauthentic imitations and then turn into major things in their own right. Although there are also loads of microwaved 'thai green curries' that don't.
Baboon, yeah, I agree on both points, there are loads of things that start out as crap inauthentic imitations and then turn into major things in their own right. Although there are also loads of microwaved 'thai green curries' that don't.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
OK, so obviously you know more than your customers do about how to make a proper cappuccino, for example, but they presumably have a better idea than you do exactly how they like their coffee, and if the way they like doesn't conform to some canonical coffee variety, what's so terrible about that?
OTOH if you just get people telling you how to make a cappuccino, I can see how that would be pretty irritating.