Be a Creative Cook, not a Recipe Robot

Any Robot Can Follow a Recipe

Robots on an assembly line today make most of the processed foods on the market. Think about it:  ingredients are sifted, measured and sorted out, added at different stages, cooked and then packaged, only to be boxed by humans on the other end.

Then, off to the supermarkets they go.  Most of the time, these foods are never touched by human hands.

This isn’t cooking.  This is processing.  I don’t want to teach people how to be a food processor.  I want to teach them how to be a hands-on cook.   I want to teach people to be someone who can smell, taste and season food; someone who can see a bunch of leftover food in the fridge and turn it into a delicious dish.

There’s plenty of science that goes into cooking and baking but that isn’t what I’m talking about either.   There is an art to cooking and it’s very human.   You can follow a recipe,  but don’t be afraid to stray with your spices.   Give yourself the permission to be passionate with your food, to give food your own personality, your own signature.

Cooking is a lot like writing.  There are many ways to spell words, and organize words and thoughts but we can all be creative with those words. The way we pepper them and present them can make all the difference from simply copying something we read and rewriting it to truly writing a masterpiece.

You may be thinking to yourself “I can’t cook like that.  I’m not that creative.  What if I screw it up? What if it tastes terrible?”   But the truth is that if you have senses, you are creative and you can make sensual, amazing foods.    Food is about smell and taste and it’s also about visual appeal and the texture and touch.   If it smells good it usually tastes good and vice versa.   As for the appearance you can almost always make food look good.

Experts say that we start eating with our eyes first, then smell, then taste.  But when you put something in your mouth, you also feel it.   Smooth.  Or crunchy.  Or a little of both.   Good food, when enjoyed properly, should be a delight to the senses, not something out of the box or measured precisely by a machine.

My challenge for you this week is to cook something without a recipe.  Obviously, you’ll need to follow basic guidelines for cooking times and techniques.   You can’t roast beef for 19 hours.  You can’t serve raw pork.   Those are rules you can’t change too much.  But when you cook, use your own spices. Make your own sauce.  Add your own touch.  Get creative and don’t be afraid to screw up.   Get over the fear.

What is the worst thing that can happen?  If It tastes bad, throw it out and order a pizza.  Think about how much you would have learned from your mistake.  Or if it is good, think about how you can improve on it in the future.   Write down what worked and what didn’t.  What would you do differently next time?

As cooks we are often our own worst critics.  My family usually loves everything I make and while they eat it, I always say it could be better — I should have done this I should have tried that.  They think I’m nuts because it all tastes so good.

You won’t know till you try so this week lets try.  No Fear!  Or else you’ll be a robot cook, like this . . .