This was my very first blog post. I’ve been thinking about a cookbook I can write that will make a difference. This seemed like a good place to start.
I’ve just finished reading “Medium Raw” by Anthony Bourdain, the sequel to “Kitchen Confidential”. It’s an excellent read if you love food and think it’s important. There’s a passage I thought worth sharing in its entirety; its his (and now my) view on the basic techniques that everyone should master. If you don’t know how to do these things, or you a bit rusty, I’ve added some good links for each technique. Enjoy the book and enjoy yourself in the kitchen.
“What specific tasks should every young man and woman know how to perform in order to feel complete?
What simple preparations, done well, should be particularly admired, skills seen as setting one apart as an unusually well-rounded, deceptively deep, and interesting individual?
In a shiny, happy, perfect world of the future, what should man, woman, and teenager know how to do?
They should know how to chop an onion. Basic knife skills should be a must. Without that, we are nothing, castaways with a can – but no can-opener. Useless. Everything begins with some baseline with a sharp-bladed object, enough familiarity with such a thing to get the job done without injury. So, basic knife handling, sharpening, and maintenance, along with rudimentary but effective dicing, mincing, and slicing. Nothing too serious. Just enough facility with a knife to be on par with any Sicilian grandmother.
Everyone should be able to make an omelette. Egg cookery is as good a beginning as any, as it’s the first meal of the day, and because the process of learning to make an omelette is, I believe, not just a technique but a builder of character. One learns, necessarily, to be gentle when acquiring omelette skills: a certain measure of sensitivity is needed to discern what’s going on in your pan – and what to do about it.
I have long believed that it is only right and appropriate that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able – if called upon to do so – to make them a proper omelette in the morning. Surely that kind of civility and selflessness would be both good manners and good for the world. Perhaps omelette skills should be learned at the same time you learn to fuck. Perhaps there should be an unspoken agreement that in the event of the loss of virginity, the more experienced of the partners should, afterward, make the other an omelette – passing along the skill at an important and presumably memorable moment.
Everyone should be able to roast a chicken. And they should be able to do it well.
Given the current woeful state of backyard grilling, a priority should be assigned to instructing people on the correct way to grill and rest a steak. We have, as a nation, suffered the tyranny of inept steak cookery for far too long. There’s no reason that generation after generation of families should continue to pass along a tradition of massacring perfectly good meat in their kitchens and backyards.
Cooking vegetables to a desired doneness is easy enough and reasonable to expect of any citizen of voting age.
A standard vinaigrette is something that anyone can and should be able to do.
The ability to shop for fresh produce and have at least some sense of what’s in season, to tell whether or not something is ripe or rotten might be acquired at the same time as one’s driving licence.
How to recognise a fish that’s fresh and how to clean and fillet it would seem a no-brainer as a basic survival skill in an ever more uncertain world.
Steaming a lobster or a crab – or a pot of mussels or clams – is something a fairly bright chimp could do without difficulty, so there’s no reason we all can’t.
Every citizen should know how to throw a piece of meat in the oven with the expectation that they might roast it to somewhere in the neighbourhood of desired doneness – and without a thermometer.
One should be able to roast and mash potatoes. And make rice – both steamed and the only slightly more difficult pilaf method.
The fundamentals of braising would serve all who learn them well – as simply learning how to make beef bourguignon opens the door to countless other preparations.
What to do with bones (namely, make stock) and how to make a few soups – as a means of making efficient use of leftovers – is a lesson in frugality many will very possibly to learn at some point in their lives. It would seem wise to learn earlier rather than later.
Everyone should be encouraged at every turn to develop their own modest yet unique repertoire – to find a few dishes they love and practice at preparing them until they are proud of the result. To either respect in this way their own past – or express through cooking their dreams for the future. Every citizen would thus have their own speciality.
Why can we not do this? There is no reason in the world.
Let us then go forward. With vigour.”
Buy “Medium Raw” by Anthony Bourdain; it’s a great read.
Techniques
Basic knife skills
How to make an omlette
How to grill a steak
How to roast a chicken
How to make a vinaigrette
What’s in season
How to fillet a fish
How to steam a crab
How to roast meat
How to roast potatoes
How to make mash
How to cook rice
How to braise
How to make stock
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