A week or so ago, I found Jacques Pepin's autobiography The Apprentice prominently displayed on a pedestal in the local library. I thought it odd that our library should have chosen this, of all books, to be front and center, given the cuisine in these parts runs more to menudo and hog fries than tripes à la mode de Caen.
So I grabbed it, expecting a ho-hum read, but hoping for inspiration. The truth is, I wasn't a Pepin fan. In fact, I was unclear exactly who he is, except that he had some association with Julia Child and might have been on television.
Well, it's not Dostoevsky or Cullers, but it is well worth a read. Pepin is sublimely (and yes, I did use that word) practical and down to earth. You won't be getting stern lectures from him about your failure to adhere to the latest culinary fashions or your lack of ascetism or austerity. Quite the contrary.
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Real vs. Ideal
One of the most important things my students have taught me is the difference between a home cook and a professional. It's a distinction many chefs fail to make, which accounts for the large number of beautiful cookbooks that are impossible to use.
- Jacques Pepin, The Apprentice
Truer words were never spoken. I can't count the times I've been faced with some haughty tome jampacked with recipes, most of which called for 40 ingredients and 20 steps, yet instinct told me I'd get better results with 5 ingredients and 5 steps, and not be exhausted at the end of it. Let's not even get into the vast wasteland of memory littered with time and money spent, only to end up with something that just isn't very good.
Almost as bad is Google. Now don't get me wrong - I love Google; I study paneer on Google, examine my buffalo cooking processes, instigate wild goose chases for exotic ingredients, meditate on homemade cheeses and yogurts.
But the internets are awash in recipes, many lifted directly from cookbooks or 10 times removed from the website they first appeared on, yet presented with no context, much less a nod to the originator.
The problem is that, just as with history and criminal profiles, context is crucial to the understanding of a recipe and a dish. I have limited time and money, after all, and don't have an extra 2-4-20 hours or $20-$40-$100 to shop and prep for a shrimp creole recipe from someone who's never even tasted the stuff. No, I want to know the recipe I'm using is from someone who really knows what a shrimp creole looks and tastes like. And yes, it makes a difference if that spinach ravioli recipe is from a fellow celiac or some yahoo at About.com who's been recruited by Ballantine Books to add cachet a la gluten free to the fall line-up.
And then there's the poorly kept secret that chefs (especially famous ones) commonly omit or substitute ingredients or obsfucate the process, for any number of reasons: an inability to translate into bookish terms (a problem I have), a desire to keep their secrets to themselves, maybe even a fiendish determination to polish their smarty-pants creds. Even the most beloved of chefs are guilty of this:
Beautiful book, great recipes...except for one: the pizza dough recipe is nothing like what they use at the Chez Panisse Cafe. After several frustrating attempts to try and duplicate the pizzas that I have eaten so many times, I called the restaurant, and they admitted that the recipe in the book was not the real McCoy. Without it, what's the point? .
Better to learn the basics and develop your own instincts than assume they're the real chefs when that recipe flops - because the likelihood is, it's not you. It's the recipe.
And we wonder why so many people are intimidated by the kitchen. But who wouldn't be? If you've only got an extra 20 minutes a day and you're handed recipe after recipe that reads like a short novel or never quite works out, who could blame you for going for take-out every night?
The simple fact is, if I suddenly inherit feeding duties for 5 step-children or 2 crotchety 80-something parents, Escoffier or the latest fashion in eating or an earnest lecture on veganism from someone who wouldn't know a stretchmark from a roadmap will do me no good. But the person who has successfully fed that kind of mob every day for 1-5-20 years will be worth his or her weight in gold, Lipton's Onion Soup Mix or not.
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Carts Before Horses
But there is something to be said for carefully learning techniques and absorbing long-established culinary traditions. If nothing else, it gives a young cook perspective that can help avoid some of the mistakes common in kitches run by chefs who rely on gone-wild notions of "creativity" instead of common sense.
- Jacques Pepin, The Apprentice
I'm past the point where the newest thing impresses me. No, what impresses me is what someone learned at the knee of their grandmother, that recipe that took ten disastrous tries to figure out, your grandfather's kielbasa techniques, and especially single mothers making $1500 a month and paying $300 a week for childcare who still somehow manage to feed their children at all.
And I don't know how to boil an egg and soy turns into an indigestible blob in my stomach and I could easily live on unshelled peanuts and overripe black plums for the rest of my days.
But I did used to make an oxtail stew and an onion-walnut bread that would blow your mind. And I grew up in a home where wild fish and game were plentiful, and Betty Crocker was splattered with more red-eye gravy than Cream of Mushroom Soup. And I can remember the first time I tasted Caldo Siete Mares at that Cuban restaurant or green chile at that dump in the Sangre de Cristos or Indian food at that outrageously expensive 10th floor restaurant with pink linen tablecloths or dal from that place the size of a closet or barbeque at that dump with no indoor plumbing in the middle of nowhere outside Muskogee, Oklahoma.
And all of these things allow me to say Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks are worth their weight in gold and that recipe for Caldo Verde in that obscure book with the brown cover is really good and the problem with the pot roast is you used the wrong onion.
But no amount of Googling or creative jabbering can erase the fact that I don't know how to boil an egg and I never had to feed 6 people day in and day out for 20 years and if you're looking for a simple egg salad or Nicoise, or some way to keep that hungry mob of yours at bay night after night without going crazy yourself, I am not your woman.
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Beginner's Luck
Imagination, the "mistress of error" in the words of Pascal, can be truly dangerous in a kitchen if the cook has little knowledge of technique and poor taste buds. Adding more ingredients [...] does not produce a coherent dish. As I get older, I tend to take away from the plate rather than add to it.
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Yet when nouvelle cuisine is properly understood and controlled by a thorough knowledge of basic techniques and, more than anything else, by a healthy dose of good common sense, its standards still apply: use the freshest ingredients possible, seek variety in the kitchen, and insist on lightness in sauces.
- Jacques Pepin, The Apprentice
My first realization of the importance of context and common sense and basics and simplicity came while I was making desserts for a living. One day, in an ancient cookbook that fell to pieces long ago, I found the recipe for Alice B. Toklas' A Tender Tart, which I'd never tasted or even seen. But, I did know about Toklas because, as a fledgling 17 year old bohemian, I'd studied every aspect of Gertrude Stein's life and even participated in makeshift salons hosted by acquaintances more ambitious than me.
So the idea of serving up Toklas' most famous creation was too much to resist, even though I had no idea how it should taste or even look.
A Tender Tart
1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon butter, 1 cup and 2 tablespoons flour, 1 egg yolk, blend with knives or pastry blender, add only enough water to hold together, knead lightly, put aside in refrigerator. Stir 2 eggs plus one cup and 2 tablespoons sugar for 20 minutes. Do not beat. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 cup finely chopped hazelnuts. Roll out a little more than half the dough, place in deep pie plate with detachable bottom, fill with egg-sugar-nut mixture. Roll out remaining dough and cover tart, press the edges together so the bottom and top crusts adhere. Bake for 1/2 hour in 350 oven. Exquisite.
Well, the tart was a screaming success and helped solidify my budding reputation as a creative genius in a town burdened by fashionistas where I was once confronted by "You're not from here" (and when I inquired why such a question, I was told "You're nice" - a sad commentary on a sad town).
But there was one problem: it was a fraud. I knew my fans were more impressed that it was an Alice B. Toklas tart than by the tart itself, a tart I wasn't even sure was anything like the original.
You see, in large part, my experience as a dessert cook was Beginner's Luck in action in a place ravenous not for substance, but for trendy. Beginner's Luck, in case you don't know, is that 19 year old without a lick of study who POOF spits out a brilliant short story or song ... only to never be able to do it again. And if the victim of Beginner's Luck doesn't have the sense to buckle down and learn the basics and do the hard work, they will become that most feared of creatures, The One Trick Pony.
Because all the creativity in the world cannot make up for a tin ear in the musician, or dull tastebuds in the cook.
But armed with just a bit of knowledge and the drone of day to day practice, anyone can turn out a good meal - although they still might not be able to belt out a tune. And everyone can learn to do it not once, not twice, but night after night after night. Even for a hungry mob.
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Authenticity
Authenticity is a technical term in existentialist philosophy. In this philosophy, the conscious self is seen as coming to terms with being in a material world and with encountering external forces, pressures and influences which are very different from, and other than, itself. Authenticity is the degree to which one is true to one's own personality, spirit, or character, despite these pressures. Existentialists see this process in different ways.
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Many, however, have pointed out that just because one lives unusually, one is not necessarily in an authentic state of being.
The Tart Incident was also my first taste of the importance of authenticity. It was then I began to understand that it was okay that grapes in chicken salad bother me so much. For me, a simpler version made with a bit of lemon sprinkled over the cooked chicken, then some good mayo and black pepper and pimento was preferable. And served on a sandwich with avocado? To die for. The grapes, meanwhile, are dessert, especially if they're the ones I grow.
But that's just me.
And that's the point. Just as we all have slightly differing nutritional needs and bodily quirks, we also have differing experiences in life and reactions to tastes and associations with foods and likes and dislikes.
And there's where authenticity (which is, I know, a "dead horse beaten to a bloody pulp" concept, but there you are), there's where it comes in, at least for me.
Because, you see, just as I genuinely enjoy reading student papers and just as I smile to beat the band when I happen on one that's not only uniquely that student's, but as close to brilliant as I've ever seen and just as I cringe and get a massive headache when one jumps out that's obviously cut and pasted from some source on the Googlenets ...
... so I like going to a friend's for lunch and being served what they really eat, especially if it's a grilled cheese sandwich made with Velveeta and 50 cent a loaf white bread even though I can't eat wheat and am deeply suspicious of Velveeta. And so I would be even happier if they served me a chicken enchilada made with chicken they raised themselves and tasting like no enchilada I've ever had before because it's a recipe they made up over years of feeding a mob night after night after night meaning it's so good, I just had to have seconds.
And so I would be disturbed if they turned out a 6 course haute cuisine luncheon - unless they were my friends P&D or R&L or AAF who really do eat that way, or one of my nieces or nephews playing in the kitchen til they find their groove.
And so I would be the most disturbed if they served me what a magazine or newspaper article or local fashinista told them they should instead of what they really wanted to.
And yet, because I know the circumstances so many of my friends and acquaintances come from, I would never lecture them about going to the trouble of a 6 course meal or daring to serve a grilled cheese sandwich made from cheap bread and cheese. I would instead be grateful like they are that they have anything to eat at all, and offer a silent prayer to the Thunderbeings that, one day, we might all have our own watermelon patch and laying chickens.
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Finis, With Added Nominal Conclusions
The causes for beginner's luck are unknown. It is speculated, however, that beginner's luck arises from a disconnect between the player and the pressure of the game. A novice player is inexperienced and consequently is not expected to do well. This means that there is no pressure on the player to excel; this lack of pressure allows the player to concentrate more than a pressured veteran player. This goes against the Rosenthal effect which states that students who are expected to perform better usually perform better.
Beginner's luck is thought to end once a player gets involved with a game. Once the "innocent" psychological mindset is replaced by one that is concerned with the naunces of the game, concentration goes out the window and skill level decreases.
Well, I fully intended to neatly wrap this up but unfortunately a neighbor came by and asked if I was sick because no one had seen me for so long because I've been so swamped --- and as usually happens when this particular neighbor drops by to see whether I'm still alive, I got sick immediately after their visit, complete with boiling high temperature when it was already boiling hot out and bright red cheeks from my boiling high temperature and whatnot. And unfortunately I'm already booked to the max and was already running about 5 steps behind.
So I didn't get the chance to finish this the way I wanted to, with a satisfying conclusion and all that.
However, I will say this:
Were you to have shown up at my house this week, I would've probably lobbed a boiled potato and a tall glass of ice cold vodka at you because I'm under the spell of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, thanks to pico.
And there's a good chance, had you shown up yesterday or the day before, I would have simply lobbed a glass of vodka at you, no potato, and the vodka may very well have been lukewarm.
If you show up a few days from now, I will hand you a large plate, a syringe from the feed store, an ice pick and a straw, and point you to both the watermelon patch and the vodka, so you could pick your own melon, then inoculate it with vodka yourself because I simply won't have time to feed you. You're on your own.
Although there's the possibility I might be unburdened enough of tests (of which I'll be giving all week next week) that I might serve you my impromptu guacamole, given the avocados of late have been really nice:
Impromptu Guacamole
I small avocado
A big handful of cilantro
1-2 freshly picked Big Beef tomatoes
1-2 Key Limes
Freshly ground black pepper
A dash of Bragg Liquid Amino (which can be replaced by a touch of salt or a low sodium soy sauce)
- Snip cilantro into tiny pieces;
- While holding over the plate on which guacamole will be served, score tomatoes and cut into tiny pieces;
- Moosh avocado in with the cilantro and tomato;
- Squeeze lime over;
- Grind pepper over;
- Add a dash of Bragg (or whatever);
- Enjoy.
And were it cooler out, or if you were my friend S who has never had Indian food and has been asking me to make it for her, I would probably serve you my own personal bastardization of Madhur Jaffrey and the cuisine of India.
But were it tonight, I would hand you a bowl of wild rice and Vidalias and garlic and fresh thyme and tiny blue potatoes and a few scarlet runner beans from the garden, all cooked earlier today on the back porch in the solar cooker with a nice piece of buffalo which needs another day in the solar cooker to be at its tenderest, meaning tomorrow I'll put it back out on the back porch in the solar cooker with some more garlic and fresh thyme and maybe a few more tiny blue potatoes but no more wild rice as that's all gone but probably some more scarlet runner beans. And I'd fix you a nice big glass of iced blackberry tea or, if I can find it, some Campari on ice.
And then, I'd ask you to join me in front of the floor fans because it's over 100 degrees out and we'd watch Episode 1 of Season 2 of Rome which just arrived in the mail today from Netflix and maybe after that, if a nice breeze came up, we'd spend dusk on the porch watching the fireflies and those little madmen the hummingbirds and listening to the treefrogs.
And about 8-9 p.m., we'd tiptoe out to the watermelon patch and find a nice melon and cut into it while it's still warm from the sun, and I'd put out a big bowl of unshelled, unsalted peanuts, and maybe it would be cool enough by then to open the window so we could watch Episode 2 of Season 2 of Rome while sitting in front of the fans and then we'd probably watch Episode 1 again, just to be sure we didn't miss anything.
And that would be our dinner on a hot summer night, the last free one of the year for me.
I'd do the same even if it were Jacques Pepin knocking at my door. I hope he'd be satisfied, although given his training and talent, I have my doubts. But I do know he'd be satisfied that I fed him what I really do eat, and it was simple and pretty basic and very practical, given everything.