A much-needed total departure from current events
Like most everyone in America who is actually paying attention right now, I am exhausted, enraged, and deeply in need of a change of scenery. So I’m going to write about something that has absolutely nothing to do with politics, religion, race, or socioeconomics: how I learned to be a good enough cook that I often surprise myself.
Lest I be accused of passing off any of this wisdom as my own, let me be clear that most of what I know about cooking that actually matters, I learned from Alton Brown. All credit to him for being a devotee of science, sensibility and hardware stores. If I weren’t lazy, I’d include affiliate links to some of his books, but I can’t be bothered. Suffice to say that considerable real-world kitchen success tells me the man knows what he’s talking about.
My definition of a good cook is someone who understands enough about how food works that they can read a recipe and call bullshit. A recipe is not an incantation or a prescription, and it is most assuredly NOT a guarantee of success. The more you read, and try, different recipes, the more you come to notice patterns and commonalities in the techniques and ingredient choices, to where eventually you can say “OK, if I want outcome X, odds are I’ll get pretty close if I do Y and Z.” And I have done a lot of that. Between that experiential learning, and repeated readings and viewings of the wisdom of the aforementioned Mr. Brown, I’ve come away with three fundamental tenets of effective cooking.
(1) Salt is not just a flavoring. How much, what kind, and when in the process you apply salt makes a difference not just to the flavor, but also to the chemistry and physics of the cooking process. You will get a different result if you salt your steak before you put it on the grill vs. after. You will get a different result if you leave the salt out of your bread. If you forget the salt in step 1, you will likely get a different result if you try to add it in step 5. Things that are Not Salt (like salt-free spice blends or seasonings) are NOT valid substitutes for the chemical and physical effects of sodium chloride. Unless you are avoiding the stuff for medical reasons, you’re going to get considerably better results from your cooking if you use some salt.
