“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” opens
the Charles Dickens’ classic
A Tale of
Two Cities, a novel set at the time of the French Revolution.
It marked a period of great chaos—economic
upheaval, political instability, famine, ignorance, and more.
Lower classes were demanding free stuff and
change.
Members of the upper classes
lost their heads over it.
Save for the guillotine, it sounds a bit familiar. However,
with principled individuals losing
their livelihood for failing to yield to leftist demands for whatever,
you have
an economic guillotine that threatens the financial and emotional
stability of
the foundation of this country. The economic guillotine spreads its
bloody work as people lose jobs over the actions of a spouse or child,
political beliefs, affirmative action, and more. No doubt it will be
coming for more of us in time.
We’ve enjoyed the best of times for the past several
decades—travel, information, experience, education, comfort, and so much
more. And let’s not forget the food—really
good food. Not only have we been far
removed from famine, Americans have been blessed to experience an abundance
(and an overabundance for many) of the best food on the planet. We can find spices and staples from all over
the world at the grocery store, at ethnic markets, and at our fingertips. Anytime we feel like it we can find exotic recipes
and helpful how-to’s on Youtubes, PBS, blogs from around the world. East Indian, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Tex-Mex,
Italian, etc. Good food from just about everywhere. (Except England and Russia. English and Russian restaurants are really
hard to find. For good reason.)
Unfortunately, we will soon be staring down some pretty
formidable challenges like nothing previous generations have ever experienced. The blessing of enjoying sensational dishes
whenever we want will likely turn out to be a curse for many. You see, even if we have recipes (make sure
you’ve got hard copies) and all the ingredients (no small task), we can
fail.
And then our family members may start to fuss. They might comment that previous generations
of American women had their recipes memorized and at their fingertips. They
knew the exact consistency of the dough, the temperature of the oven by feel,
how much water to add, how long to cook, whether to add a pinch of this or a
dash of that. They could do anything.
What our husbands and children forget, though, is that for
previous generations, especially colonials and pioneers, the recipe repertoire
was surprisingly narrow. Bread,
biscuits, pancakes, oatmeal, a couple of soups and stews for dinner. Bread didn’t have much variety—mostly
sourdough and single acting baking powder and baking soda for leavening. Dishes were seasoned with salt and pepper,
and maybe an herb or two from the garden.
There wasn’t much in the way of exotic spices and only very limited
amounts of sugar. That history is worlds
away from our current reality. And yet,
we know what’s coming, and it ain’t pretty.
So we prepare and gather lots of food, herbs and spices, and
recipes. And even if we follow those
recipes perfectly, we can fail.
How’s that, you ask?
It’s mostly in the measurements, but there are other factors that come
into play as well. And unfortunately,
they can make a huge difference in how our dishes turn out. So what are these factors and what can we do
to improve our odds of success when working with unfamiliar recipes? After all, we will likely find ourselves
preparing a lot of unfamiliar foods as we try to duplicate what we used to buy
at the store, or as we try to use unfamiliar ingredients to create satisfying
meals for our families.
A couple of weeks ago I spent a few hours reading The Science of Good Cooking, which was
supported by the folks at Cook’s
Illustrated. For the more
audio-visually inclined population, they’re also the folks behind America’s Test Kitchen on PBS. (Many of the episodes are quite informative, though
the program isn’t something I would ever turn on myself—I prize quiet.
But for some reason, my husband gravitates to it, becomes an expert, and
then tells me how to become a better cook.
I just smile. Or I try to.)
As the title suggests, the book focuses on the science
behind good cooking—with loads of experiments that explain why this method or
that technique works to yield perfect results.
Really good information is sprinkled throughout the book, but what was
truly eye-opening for me were the first several pages. They cover the bare basics of cooking—things
we all need to know (and think we already know), and which we often forget or
dismiss as not being too important.
These “little” things make a difference now when we’re in our own
kitchens doing things the way we’ve always done them. However, they can all become really big
things when we’re facing challenges.
So here are important factors to keep in mind.
History. Previous generations of women became very
skilled in food preparation because that was their duty—to feed their
hard-working husbands and busy children, all without modern conveniences of
grocery stores and refrigeration and electricity. And doing it every single day. At the same time, the range of recipes was
really narrow. They only had a
relatively few recipes to perfect, recipes that relied on local
ingredients. And they had years to learn
how to do it at their mother’s side.
Measuring. America’s Test Kitchen asked their
professionally trained chefs to measure 1 cup of flour. They all used the same measuring cup and the
same method. And yet, the weights of the
flour they measured differed by 13%. If
you spoon the flour into the measuring cup, you might end up with 20-25% less
flour.
However, most people cooking at home aren’t professionally
trained; their measurements might differ significantly. This is why professionals prefer recipes to
list ingredients by weight rather than volume.
But it’s a luxury we may not have.
Unfortunately, it can affect our results.
Then there is the issue of dry versus liquid measures. Did you know there is a difference between
dry measuring cups and those for liquid measuring? And that there is a reason for this
difference? Dry measuring cups have long
handles and flat tops that make it easy to skim excess off the top. Liquids should not be measured in dry cups because
you either don’t fill all the way (to prevent spilling) or you do fill to the
top and then spill some along the way.
Either way, there is too little liquid in the recipe.
Liquid measuring cups have handles and pour spouts. Because you’re not filling the cup all the
way, you don’t spill as you work. However,
these cups are not meant for dry measuring, either. The same chefs from the dry measuring cup
experiment were asked to measure flour in the liquid measuring cups. Their results varied by 26%.
Another set of experiments was performed by asking the test
kitchen cooks to measure water in both dry and liquid measuring cups. Measurements in the liquid cups varied by
only 10%, based on different interpretations of when the 1-cup mark was
reached. But measurements of water in
the dry measuring cups varied significantly more—an astonishing 23%.
Measurements alone can widely impact our results, but there
are still more factors that come into play with recipe success.
Time. Time is the easiest component to measure
accurately. Unfortunately, it is also
the least reliable. That’s why recipes
often say to bake until firm, sauté until tender, etc. Time isn’t a reliable indicator of a recipe’s
doneness. And that’s not only because of
variations in the amount of liquid in the ingredients; it’s also due to the
cooking temperature.
Temperature. Not only does the temperature vary greatly in
ovens and ranges that we can control and adjust so easily now (just imagine
what it will be like when using camp stoves, Dutch ovens and briquettes in a
fire pit, sun ovens, or other alternate cooking methods), but it also is
affected by the weight and diameter of your cookware.
Furthermore, oven temperature isn’t even all that
reliable. Ovens at America’s Test
Kitchen are serviced and calibrated regularly.
I’ve never even heard of people doing that at home. And that’s because we generally don’t. Another experiment the test kitchen performed
was to send a top-rated oven thermometer home with 15 of their cooks. They set their ovens to 350°F and preheated
for 30 minutes. Actual temperatures
ranged from 300°F to 390°F. Only two
ovens actually baked at 350°F. Three
were too hot, and the rest were on the cool side. That’s a huge range, and it could significantly
impact results. Invest just a couple of
dollars for an oven thermometer to make sure your oven is performing well.
Keep in mind, however, that as the heating element in the
oven operates, it doesn’t actually maintain a perfectly consistent
temperature. The temperature will often
range 10-15 degrees to either side of the desired temperature. This is normal, and all ovens do it. So you’ll need to take several readings and
average them to determine whether your oven is operating at its ideal
temperature.
The temperature of the ingredients can also substantially
affect the recipe results. Some people
freeze or refrigerate whole grain flours to prevent them from going
rancid. However, cold flour retards the
rise and will make baked goods dense.
Flour should always be at room temperature when it is used. Of course, frozen foods take longer to cook
than those that are thawed and at room temperature. Butter should be softened for most baking,
but it produces the best crusts when well-chilled.
Humidity. One factor that the test kitchen did not
address was humidity, and yet it also influences the outcome of baked goods,
especially breads. Humidity affects the
water-flour balance. If the air is
humid, less water needs to be added to the bread dough, and the dough rises
much more readily. Those living in dry
environments often choose to raise their dough in the laundry room when the
dryer is running or to add a pan of water to the oven and let bread rise in
there.
So you see, there are several factors that affect our
results when cooking. That’s when
cooking on a normal day, with our normal ingredients, with all the utilities and
appliances working properly. Now imagine
that life is not normal.
Are you using electricity to power appliances or doing
everything by hand? Are you cooking over
a fire or using a sun oven? If cooking
outside, is it cold or windy? If
grinding whole grains, how fine is the flour?
It is so important to recognize that there are a myriad of
elements that influence the outcome of our recipes, and that future conditions
will likely multiply our challenges in feeding our families well.
Being able to mitigate changes will reduce
the challenges we face and improve our recipe outcomes.
Doing so—understanding what the weaknesses
are and preparing to address them—will help us prepare better for the
future.
It will let us prepare now so
that the worst of times facing this country and world won’t be the worst of
times for our families.
04.24.21
