The lost art of creative cooking
Each of us come from different backgrounds of cuisine. For me, it’s traditional Chinese food. Not your Chinatown cooking, mind you, but steamed vegetables served with oyster sauce, minced fish in egg pockets, and so on. Good Chinese home cooking that you really can’t get anywhere else.
Fortunately, I also grew up with a grandmother whose idea of traditional cooking deviates pretty much everyday. Sometimes, things taste amazing. Like the time when she basted chicken with Coca Cola. And the mararoni with shitake mushrooms, beansprouts, and cooked in chicken broth. At other times, her creativity knew no bounds: guacamole made with strawberries and sugar, lemon chicken that tastes somewhat like chewing on plastic, deviled eggs that tasted downright evil. But hey, she tried. And when it didn’t work, she would substitute ingredients until it tastes good.
There are people who follow recipes to the letter, and there are those who are willing to experiment to see what might work better than the "right" stuff. I grew up with the best of the latter, and I feel the better for it.
So next time you pick up that recipe book, go right ahead: add tabasco sauce in soy sauce. Mix wasabi into your salad dressing. Make cream of tuna soup. Hey, one day you might get to write your recipe book.
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
hi sally! i’m from the philippines, i’ve read your column:the the lost art of creative cooking.i can relate with ur thoughts on it because i myself tried on to experiment my cooking like if i saw a dish served even without knowing how it’s done, i always dared to make one like it was even if the outcome is far different from the one i desired to cooked. i sometimes believed much about myself that i can do it but in the end it was not what i thought it to become. well i just laugh at it and still have the appetite to eat it. sometimes when in a restaurant, i would ask someone that i assume knew how to cook or has experience with cooking, if how is a particular dish is done, how much budget will it cost me and when i have the time, there i am in my mother’s kitchen trying to recall what i’ve learned to the best of my knowledge in cooking, even if i messed up with my cooking again. still, would have the pride of having it done and served it to my family even if they were unpleased with the taste but then in the end i learned something out of my mistakes and always have the heart to listen to ideas my parents or
friends well tell me. i like to talk with some cooks and want to have ideas with their experiences. i do read or try to follow a recipe book but when i am confused
with the procedures i always end up following my intuitions and would get lucky by making the kind of dish i wanted to make. it’s all basically having the taste for food and cooking especially enjoying what you do. bon apetit!!!