Thursday, February 21, 2008

Chefs don't like to give out recipes

 The other day I was reading Mark Bittman's, aka The Minimalist, wonderful blog. He wrote about kitchen myths that need to be debunked. It made me think about a myth that I've heard for years, along with a hundred explanations of why it is so.
 People say that chefs don't like to give out recipes. I won't say that there aren't ANY chefs who are so insecure that they won't share anything, but I have almost always encountered tremendous generosity and forthrightness with information from other chefs. This goes back to my days as a dishwasher at the Tarragon Tree in Chatham NJ, almost 25 years ago. I was stunned at the detailed instructions that the chefs were willing to divulge, simply because I was curious enough to ask.
 So why does this urban legend persist? Chefs don't cook from recipes! When I give cooking classes, I always start out by saying that I am not going to teach recipes, I'm going to teach technique. When you walk into a restaurant's kitchen, you won't see a bunch of cooks leaning over cookbooks while they measure out 2-1/3 cups of diced onions, and so on. Cooking is about using all 5 senses to learn what goes with what, and in what quantity. I rely on my instincts to decide how much mirepoix will be needed to make a 4 pound batch of black bean soup. If you ask me the ingredients I can tell you, but how many garlic cloves? How much thyme? I don't know exactly, Enough!
 Chefs learn technique through repetition. You might try a recipe and get great results the first time. But I don't think that means that you have mastered it. Make it again, and again, and again. Did it come out the same each time? Probably not. Try to figure out why. If it comes out better each time, you are probably in touch with the nuances of the technique involved. If it is inconsistent, great once, worse the next time, you are still learning the process. When you can turn it out well 3 times in a row, you are starting to get it. That's not a magic number, just a baseline for what to shoot for. Practice, practice, practice.
 If you use good ingredients, your results will always be good. You won't be wasting food, you'll be learning as you go. What good friend or family member won't appreciate an honest home cooked meal? Each time you prepare a meal you will learn something, if you're open to learning. So go ahead, try something new. But don't ask a chef for the recipe and expect it right before your eyes. Why not? Because he/she doesn't know it.

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