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at Fri, 10 Sep 2004 07:46:22 GMT in
>,
(Roy Basan) wrote :
>"Fred" > wrote in message
>...
>
>> What one really needed was some ratios, experience and common sense.
>>
>> I got to thinking about it relative to bread making which many people
>> view as mysterious and difficult. When you analyze it, bread making
>> could be the simplest and most obvious thing to make without a recipe
>> or formula. ...
>
>Hmnn ..... Instinctive baking eh?
....
>In baking you have to go beyond that and see things not only from the
>macroscopic point of view but also in 'microscopic' perspective.
>In my observation (from experience) many of the best cooks are lousy
>bakers and conversely...It is just they have different thinking
>pattern.
>It is not just about formula but they understand also the mechanisms
>how thngs work.
I have to agree with Roy on this one, especially based on my own
experience. Most people who try my stuff think I am an excellent baker. But
I'm not a great chef. My dad, by contrast, was a great chef but not a good
baker. The pattern applies likewise to my friends.
But more than that, Roy's description of the difference in approach is
spot-on. I like to understand, in detail, the chemical and mechanical
transformations, and when I'm baking, I tend to keep those squarely in
mind. Part of the fun of baking for me is, indeed, discovering the
relationships and "laws", if you like, that govern the process and being
able to predict and control them.
Meanwhile, my dad, and every good cook that I know, seems to do everything
entirely by intuition. He was the best rice cook I ever knew. I begged him
to show me how, my own efforts invariably being bad. However, what he
demonstrated was an entirely intuitive, seat-of-the-pants methodology. "You
put enough water to cover the rice... boil until most of the water is gone,
then put a paper towel over it..." etc. etc. Of course those kinds of
instructions were of little use to me. COVER?! the rice? What does this
mean? To what depth? In what size pot? For how much rice? And so it went.
Meanwhile I've often given baking recipes to friends. They've "tried" them,
and they came out badly. Then they ask me why. I then discover that they'll
have made some modification : "Oh, I didn't have whole milk so I used 2%."
"I folded the eggs in instead of stirring". "My oven always runs hot so I
reduced the temperature by 25 degrees". And so on. It usually takes a while
to convince them that even modifications that to their mind seem trivial
can have an enormous impact on the final result.
A great chef and great baker is a rare thing indeed.
--
Alex Rast
(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)
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