I will be featuring this in my next newsletter because I think it’s important for people to refer to this. Cooking is not just an art, people who cook are scientists, mathematicians etc. As poetic cooking can be, there’s a moment of erosion on one’s spirit sometimes cooking and it failing when it comes to testing for the third or fourth even sixth time. Not from just from “failure” but the financial cost of it all is immense.
I used to work in a kitchen. But since I started writing I’ve opted not to develop recipes because I don’t have the emotional nor financial bandwidth for them.
Love this, yes. I recently interviewed a Seattle restauranteur who spent years in Greece tracking down Greek street vendors and collecting their gyro recipes to inform his menu to be true to what was being eaten in Greece — this knowledge from these people had never before been documented, just lived inside their heads. I have such mad respect for him and all folks who do this work — you cannot separate the art from the labor (culture, expertise, etc.) it takes to produce it.
Recipes are so much more than a list of ingredients and a methodology. They are a cultural snapshot and as you said, the result of hours of work. Good recipes can’t be developed without experience and research, and so often this is undervalued. I think this is true of much of the entire food system, where people have expectations that food should cost little, and hence the over reliance on manufactured food that costs less to make than it does to grow something. Thank you for such a thought provoking read.
Means so much, Graison! The labor of bakers is so often hidden in the darkness of the night that not enough people recognize and value how much goes into this craft/art. I want to write about labor and baking in a lot more detail soon.
This is so good!!!
Thank you so much, Alicia!
I will be featuring this in my next newsletter because I think it’s important for people to refer to this. Cooking is not just an art, people who cook are scientists, mathematicians etc. As poetic cooking can be, there’s a moment of erosion on one’s spirit sometimes cooking and it failing when it comes to testing for the third or fourth even sixth time. Not from just from “failure” but the financial cost of it all is immense.
I used to work in a kitchen. But since I started writing I’ve opted not to develop recipes because I don’t have the emotional nor financial bandwidth for them.
Gonna restack this forever and ever.
Hear hear!
Love this, yes. I recently interviewed a Seattle restauranteur who spent years in Greece tracking down Greek street vendors and collecting their gyro recipes to inform his menu to be true to what was being eaten in Greece — this knowledge from these people had never before been documented, just lived inside their heads. I have such mad respect for him and all folks who do this work — you cannot separate the art from the labor (culture, expertise, etc.) it takes to produce it.
Recipes are so much more than a list of ingredients and a methodology. They are a cultural snapshot and as you said, the result of hours of work. Good recipes can’t be developed without experience and research, and so often this is undervalued. I think this is true of much of the entire food system, where people have expectations that food should cost little, and hence the over reliance on manufactured food that costs less to make than it does to grow something. Thank you for such a thought provoking read.
This is perfect!
Means so much, Graison! The labor of bakers is so often hidden in the darkness of the night that not enough people recognize and value how much goes into this craft/art. I want to write about labor and baking in a lot more detail soon.
Looks like we’re all reposting this this morning! LMAO!
Thank you so much, Illyanna! We need to get some matching T-shirts w/ Recipes Are Labor + Culture.