The Golden Rule(s)?
“When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.”
– Walter Lippmann, Journalist
The writing of a cooking book is a difficult process, especially one which sets out to frame elementary principles. There are, of course, classics, many of which have gone through numerous iterations and revisions over the years. And, there are the new. Some of them worthwhile, others not. I have just meandered my way through one of the newest, a book which is of the worthwhile category, but with caveats. I hate to even have caveats, as the author is someone with whom I’m connected via various social-networking sites, and whose blog I enjoy reading. Yet, I have them.
The book, Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman, subtitled, “The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking”. Now, let’s start with the book itself – I don’t have a physical copy, I bought an electronic copy from Sony’s eBook Library – so it makes it a little hard to judge the aesthetics. Still, Sony purports that it is a straightforward reproduction – if that’s true, there are some problems with it – for one, the font is an odd one – with strange weighting and shading at various points. And, while that may be a simple matter of the electronic reproduction the one thing, pedantic as it may seem, that truly annoyed me throughout the book, is the lack of fractions. Other than ½ and ¼, the rest are composed of a superscripted numeral above the line, then a slash, and then a subscripted numeral below the line – not only does it make a fraction take up three characters, but it also extends them into the lines above and below. If this is indeed the font chosen for the book, it was a poor choice for a tome that’s filled with fractions – pick a font that includes them (or just use straightforward x/y style, 3 characters, but all on the same line). There are also no page numbers, at least in the electronic edition, making references to “see page XX” a crap-shoot. [Edit: I’ve picked up two other books from Sony’s eBook Library and both have the page numbers removed and the typeface seems odd. So I think it’s something they’re doing to the electronic editions as opposed to the way the books were originally published.]
Now, to the content, which is, of course, far more important. It’s well organized, well thought out, and well written. All great things. I love the introductory parts that lead us deftly into the premise of the book. I particularly like that Ruhlman is careful to iterate and reiterate that the concept of “ratios” as basic cooking formulas (this much flour to this much liquid yields this type of dough) is meant as a guideline and not as an absolute. But after the introductory part, that message gets lost. Certainly there are variations presented on each type of dough, sauce, etc. – though without much in the way of an explanation as to why, and what effect these variations will have – more of, “just try this”. There are several points where the message seems to be contradicted, with assertions that “this will always turn out”, “this is golden”, and the like. Not many, but enough to be noticeable. And then, at the end, he reiterates that really, truly, these are just guidelines.
What’s missing, for me, and it’s probably based on living out of the U.S., is any sort of information that might be usable for someone who is not operating in the ideal kitchen conditions in which he tested out his formulae. There’s no acknowledgement of the differences in amounts of liquids needed at various altitudes above sea level, only one vague reference to “ambient humidity” differences, nor for their being a different absorption rate of different types of flours (something I’ve pointed out in this blog many times, with almost all our wheat here being “soft” wheat rather than “hard”, the quantities of liquids are always different from what I was used to back in New York or Michigan).
As an example, I started with his most basic bread formula. Following his formula exactly produced a dough that had the consistency of a melted marshmallow – something that couldn’t be picked up without oozing through the fingers, that puddled and spread out when set on the countertop, that at best might have been poured into a loaf pan and prayed over. In order to get a texture that was workable, I ended up adding a little more than 8% extra flour – that doesn’t sound like much, but on 4 cups of flour, it’s an extra ⅓ cup, and to someone who bakes regularly, it would be a non-issue to simply adjust, but I think for the average home cook something more was needed – perhaps a description of what the texture should be like (“smooth and elastic” is not communicative for someone new to baking, I know, from teaching classes), with a note that one might need to add more flour, or more liquid, depending, in order to achieve that texture. The bread, for a basic one, turned out rather tasty, though I’m still trying to figure out why one side of it exploded as it baked (see above).
But these are quibbles. Overall, the book is an excellent resource, and if you go into it with the understanding (or pay attention when he announces it) that these are not dogmatic rules, it is an incredibly useful aid in the kitchen.
Buenos Aires – The quote above comes from one of my relatively new favorite little cookbooks. It’s a great, step-by-step guide to making various types of grilled pizzas and, those wonderful fold over pizza sandwiches, the piadinas. It’s well-written, to the point, doesn’t make any outlandish claims to having invented the genre as, well, one in particular has, and best of all, is really nicely illustrated with superb photographs that give you a solid sense of what you can expect. It also covers the gamut from basics to elaborate, from savory to sweet, and from pizza for one to party planning. And maybe the really best thing of all, they make it easy. What more can you ask from a cookbook?
First up was the reading for total pleasure. I’d run across references to the book The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones, in various spots on the internet – I think I even used a quote from the book as part of one of my posts not that long ago. It sounded completely intriguing, and then a couple of food biz friends recommended it highly. I do the same. By turns a romance, a food book (and I’m already tracking down recipes to try out, some of which the author provides on her website), a personal narrative from several perspectives, and even a touch of suspense, the book is well crafted, an enjoyable read – not a completely light, easy reading book, but not overly intellectual either. Initially I thought it was a little… fluffy… when it started out – the narrative part, at times, does have a sort of harlequin romance character to it – but it quickly becomes clear this is intentional and meant to reflect the proponent’s personality more than anything else – sections that are narrated from the point of view of other characters take on an entirely different style, tone and quality of writing – it’s clear that Ms. Mones can write well, and chooses simply to use a lighter style of writing for the first character introduced. I never read her other book for which she is famous – Lost in Translation – I hated the movie, but then, never judge a book by its movie… you know? Highly recommended reading material for anyone who likes food and cooking.
My other book was a bit more on the serious side. Bottomfeeder: How to eat ethically in a world of vanishing seafood by Taras Grescoe, has been sitting on my reading stack for months now. Like other books of the genre – the more prominent recent ones being what seems a slew by Michael Pollan, it’s a grim picture of what we’ve done to our food supply, what’s going to happen if we continue the way we are, and suggestions for what we can do about it. Unlike Pollan, Grescoe tackles the theme with a bit of a sense of humor, and a bit of self-deprecation – in his quest for information, detail, and some of the whys and wherefores, he finds himself, by conscious choice, eating his way through a selection of seafood that he already knows, based on his thesis, he oughtn’t to be. He excuses himself with “this will be the last time I ever…” sort of reasoning, which doesn’t really excuse it, but is the same reasoning that most of us use when confronted with ideas of the sort that we have some responsibility for the planet and our bodies in our choices of what we eat. The old “it’s already been caught, so if I don’t eat it, someone else will or it will go to waste” is a specious argument – lowering demand, in the long run, can only help towards a change in the approach of restaurants’, fishmongers’ and fisheries’ attitudes. One bite at a time. The book does not end on any sort of upbeat or hopeful note – Grescoe seems to have concluded that it’s unlikely change will come in time – one hopes he doesn’t actually believe that, as, if so, the only reason for having written the book would have been self-promotion and greed – and I don’t think that’s the case, I think he just doesn’t sum things up in a way that is as likely to lead towards change as he could have – he’s presented his case, he’s basically stated what he’s going to do about it, and he leaves it up to the individual reader to decide what he or she is going to do. The case statement was powerful, the summation to the jury of his peers could have used more punch. Still, overall it’s well worth a read – not to mention taking some action.
Buenos Aires – Okay, pet peeve in regard to book titles. Yes, book titles. If you have a catchy title, if you, or your editor or publisher, gave it some thought, why do you need a subtitle explaining what your book is all about? Is it really that difficult, with a book called Raw Food Real World for anyone to grasp the subject matter at hand? Does it need 100 Recipes to Get the Glow? Which, by the way, comes across to me at least as less explicative than the title – sure, I get the 100 recipes part, but “get the glow”?
