I always get annoyed at the chef-instructor for changing the recipes at the start of class.
The last time this happened, I had carefully copied every step onto a little notecard tucked in my pocket. My station was organized and my tools were out. I was so dang prepared! Then Chef says, “Put those away. We’re going to do something different today.”
And so I quietly put my scale away, pretending to be cool with it. I’m not. I’m a novice, and I need rules.
Indeed, in culinary school we are often taught to do things one way, only to have another teacher show us a different way. “But Chef Frank,” we protest, “Chef Lorrie taught us to stab the lobster through the head first.”
To which Chef Frank calmly replies, “Well, I’m about to show you a different way. Then you can decide which you like.”
This is not because they like to frustrate us. It’s because they have experience, and experience is adaptive.
When we were learning how to braise, we would always ask Chef Mike: how long do we cook it for?
Chef would always tell us: “Cook it until tender o’clock.”
He was trying to wean us off of the numbers. He wanted us to trust our senses, develop our technique.
“You’re a cook, not a cookbook,” he’d say.
Eventually we got the hang of it. We would take the pot out of the oven. Carefully lift the foil cover, dodging the pockets of exhaling steam. Probe the protein with an inquisitive fork. Feel. Judge. Taste. Repeat.
The recipe would say “Transfer to the oven and braise for two hours.” We eventually learned it was more like three.
Have you ever gone on AllRecipes.com and read through the reviews for the most popular recipes? It would often go something like this:
“I loved this recipe!!! I used half the sugar, omitted the nuts, set the oven 50 degrees higher, replaced the orange with several apples, and baked for half as long. My kids inhaled it. Five stars!”
I used to be like, “Who is this insane person who cooked an entirely different dish and gave the original recipe five stars!?”
Now I know what that reviewer is really saying:
“Great outline! I used a different technique based on my own experience and pantry circumstances, but thanks for getting me started down this path!”
That person wasn’t insane at all. They’ve merely passed the threshold of fluency. At that point, a recipe is no longer a commandment. It’s something more exciting — an idea.
Before I landed in culinary school I trained to be an interaction designer, and as a novice designer, I had this fascination with design processes.
I got to show off this fascination at my very first interaction design gig. They assigned me, a mere intern, the task of coming up with a design review process for the company.
After two weeks of laboring over it, I submitted the final result—a swanky-looking diagram with crisp typography, coordinating colors and clean lines.
I was pretty proud of it, and my supervisor even said it was great, but it never got implemented. In hindsight, this was probably because the design managers there were already seasoned cooks. They didn’t need a recipe.
Do we need recipes at all?
It certainly can’t hurt as a beginner. One needs to have a general sense of how much pepper to add. (Being off by an order of magnitude can result in an excessively thrilling dining experience.)
But at a certain point, every single one of us will cross the threshold of fluency in whatever it is that we do—whether that’s cooking, or design, or making big life decisions.
Chef James was fond of saying, “You should eventually be able to cook a dish just by looking at the list of ingredients.” For instance, if a recipe for stew includes 1 onion, medium dice, you’ll know to sweat the onion before reading a single step.
Everything has a pattern to it.
When we can confidently begin to discern the pattern, perhaps that’s the sign we need—a sign that we are about to cross the threshold of fluency.
And that’s when we must decide: do we continue to measure everything and follow the time and temperature guidelines? Or do we swap ground pork for the beef and add a few swipes of orange zest for good measure, so we end up with an entirely different dish?
Or somewhere in the middle: do we scan the ingredient list for ideas about an end result—and then find our own way there?
It can be frightening to toss the recipe in your pocket, but I’m all for embracing the complexity that comes with being good at what you do. You’ve mastered the technique, now learn to trust it.
You’re a cook, not a cookbook.
