At some point in the fall of the year, squirrels gather food into caches. Two reasons, I suppose. That first wintery wind tells them the time has come. And the food literally drops from trees.
The last years of middle age bring the same juxtaposition of abundance and scarcity: wisdom comes easier but time grows short.
This posting launches the discussion of food. Subjects that in the past seemed separate to me suddenly connect. At different times I have explored making sourdough bread, cooking with whole grains and legumes, slow cooking in covered pots, production gardening, and so-called “Three Sisters” gardening. The latter names a native American practice of growing corn, beans, and squash or pumpkins together.
A common thread runs through these activities, a quest. It involves continuous learning but only sporadic improvement. By “improvement” I mean skill to reliably attain a higher quality in the result of craft.
Matthew Crawford’s wonderful book, “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the
Meaning of Work,” refers to this as “personal knowledge.” It is much easier to know “that” than it is to know “how.” More people claim to know good wine than can produce one.
I begin to see my goal has always been to move across that unmeasurable distance that separates a store of knowledge about food from knowing how to produce it well. The former is the stuff of words, and what a chatty knowledge it is! The latter is the quiet application of focused effort.
Crawford describes an expert mechanic in the act of judging how much grinding the valves of an engine might need–or be able to bear. “He is relying on a tacit integration of sensual knowledge, unconsciously referring what he sees to patterns built up in his mind through long experience.”
Peter Reinhart, in his important book on artisanal baking, “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”, explains the benefit of weighing ingredients and gives recipes based on what he calls the “baker’s percentage” for flour and water. Anyone who has tried making bread has suffered a loaf that would not rise, or fell flat, because it was too dry or wet.
He writes, “Home bakers tend to avoid thinking mathematically, but I can assure you that possession of this knowledge will strengthen your ability to control the outcome of your baking.” This idea is fine as far as it goes. However, belongs in the “know that” or “know about” category. You can read the book, study the formulas, and then talk baker’s math with the best of them.
It might even improve your next loaf, as he suggests. But to bake really good bread almost every time takes craft, which is the knowledge that comes by experience. Reinhart writes, “…my goal is to make you a spirit-of-the-law, not a letter-of-the-law, baker. This comes about as you develop a feel for your dough, adjusting as you knead until it feels just right (and you will know when it feels right!).”
What I recognize now from re-reading these and other books about food—growing it, preserving it, cooking it, enjoying it—is that only the food itself can teach the most important things you need to know. One starts with what the books know, then learns by a combination of frustration and mistakes, paying attention, and consciously adjusting.
One arrives, eventually, to the condition that Crawford describes as “efficient and self-respecting”. The evidence of ability can be placed on the table for all to judge, answering the question of knowledge with a bow and an invitation, “Taste it for yourself.”
The sourdough whole wheat bread I made today turned out pleasingly well. It had good loft and flavor. Reinhart’s teaching helped me get there, but he is right about this: the feel of the dough for a specific loaf really does tell you what you need to do. Realizing it put me into a reflective mood.
I close this posting with an update on hominy, a.k.a. posole, a product of cooking dry corn in an alkaline solution. Much writing exists to describe the making of this food. But everything I could find, even the recipes, is of the chatty kind, “about”, not “how.” Even the famous “Foxfire” books relate the folklore better than the know-how.
Briefly, the process starts with dry, “field” corn. The first step involves “working the hulls off” by hand in water to which a small amount of an alkaline agent has been added. Wood ashes or lye are common ingredients mentioned in the literature.
My problem was that the reading matter could not tell me how much “working” was needed. It took experience to figure that out. In the process I switched my alkali to slaked lime (sold in grocery stores as pickling lime, for making pickles.) I got it almost right. But for the past couple of years I have been frustrated with the appearance and flavor of my product.
Last weekend we purchased some ears of decorative “Indian” corn. The kernels are round and smooth on top, in contrast to the flattened dimple typical on the standard #2 yellow dent corn I had been using. This meant the decorative ears were “flint”-type corn, which has a different starch profile. Flint corn was also what the native Americans taught the European settlers to eat.
I made hominy with the Indian flint corn today. All my life people told me that kind was not for eating. But the corn told me otherwise. The “hulls” came off beautifully, and it cooked up with the sweet, nutty flavor described in all those tales of yore. What the corn told me, that none of the chatty “know-abouts” on the internet told me, was to use the right kind of corn. Now, we know.
At some point in the fall of the year, squirrels gather food into caches. Two reasons, I suppose. That first wintery wind tells them the time has come. And the food literally drops from trees.
The last years of middle age bring the same juxtaposition of abundance and scarcity: wisdom comes easier but time grows short. A person invests a long time to study something; it begins to make sense when there is less time left.
This posting launches a discussion of food and what it teaches a cook. At different times I have explored making sourdough bread, cooking with whole grains and legumes, slow cooking in covered pots, production gardening, and so-called “Three Sisters” gardening. The latter names a native American practice of growing corn, beans, and squash or pumpkins together.
A common thread runs through these activities, a quest. It involves continuous learning but only sporadic improvement. By “improvement” I mean skill to reliably attain a higher quality in the result of craft.
Matthew Crawford’s wonderful book, “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Work,” refers to this as “personal knowledge.” It is much easier to know “that” than it is to know “how.” Knowledge “about” may enable a person to appreciate especially good wine; it takes a certain mastery to produce one.
I begin to see my goal has always been to move across that unmeasurable distance that separates a store of knowledge about food from knowing how to produce it well. The former is the stuff of words, and what a chatty knowledge it is! The latter is the quiet application of focused effort.
Crawford describes an expert mechanic in the act of judging how much grinding the valves of an engine might need–or be able to bear. “He is relying on a tacit integration of sensual knowledge, unconsciously referring what he sees to patterns built up in his mind through long experience.”
Peter Reinhart, in his important book on artisan baking, “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”, emphasizes the benefit of weighing ingredients and gives recipes based on what he calls the “baker’s percentage” for flour and water. Any would-be baker has suffered a loaf that would not rise because too dry, or fell flat because too wet.
He writes, “Home bakers tend to avoid thinking mathematically, but I can assure you that possession of this knowledge will strengthen your ability to control the outcome of your baking.”
The idea is fine as far as it goes. However, it belongs in the “know that” or “know about” category. You can read the book, study the formulas, and have enough to talk baker’s math with the best of them. It may even engender a certain arrogance of knowledge that has not yet let you down.
Knowing “that” weights matter might even improve your next loaf, as he suggests. But to bake really good bread almost every time takes craft, the knowledge that comes by experience. Reinhart writes, “…my goal is to make you a spirit-of-the-law, not a letter-of-the-law, baker. This comes about as you develop a feel for your dough, adjusting as you knead until it feels just right (and you will know when it feels right!).”
What I recognize now from re-reading these and other books about food—growing it, preserving it, cooking it, enjoying it—is that only the food itself can teach important things you need to know. One starts with what the books know, then learns by a combination of frustration and mistakes, paying attention, and consciously adjusting.
One arrives, eventually, to the condition that Crawford describes as “efficient and self-respecting craftsmanship”. Interestingly, this sort of knowledge tends to know its limits. Its product speaks for itself, “Taste, and judge.”
I bought Reinhart’s new book, “Whole Grain Breads.” It confirms a practice I borrowed from reading the timetable in a bread machine’s user manual. Allowing dough to rest and soak a while during the initial mixing stage greatly increases the strength it needs to rise well. The sourdough whole wheat bread I made today (without the machine) formed the nice, tall dome I have long wanted to achieve. Reinhart’s teaching helped me get there, but he is right about this: the feel of the dough for a specific loaf really does tell you what you need to do. I feel grateful for that.
I close this posting with an update on hominy, a.k.a. posole, a product of cooking dry corn in an alkaline solution. The Internet abounds with articles “about” the making of this food. But everything I could find, even the recipes, is of the chatty kind. Even the famous “Foxfire” books relate the folklore better than the know-how.
Briefly, the process starts with dry, “field” corn. The first step involves “working the hulls off” by hand in water to which a small amount of an alkaline agent has been added. Wood ashes or lye are common ingredients mentioned in the literature, but they lack aesthetic appeal. I had another problem, too. The reading matter that I could find did not tell me how much “working” was needed. It took experience to figure that out. In the process I switched my alkali to slaked lime (sold in grocery stores as pickling lime, for making pickles.) I had got it almost right. But for the past couple of years the appearance and flavor of my product did not fully please me.
Last weekend we purchased some colorful ears of decorative “Indian” corn. The kernels are round and smooth on top, in contrast to the flattened dimple typical on the standard #2 yellow dent corn I had been using. This meant the decorative ears were “flint”-type corn, which has a different starch profile. All my life people told me that kind was not for eating. But the corn told me otherwise.
Flint corn was what the native Americans taught the European settlers to eat. I made hominy with the Indian flint corn today. The “hulls” came off beautifully. It cooked up with the sweet, nutty flavor described in all those charming tales of yore. So, duh, Dave, ingredients matter. Every cook needs to learn that. Food makes itself better by such lessons, and its preparer, humbler.
