Re:Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
by frossie on Monday April 13, 2009 @06:47PM
(#560669)
I bow to your judgement since you have actually read the book. I was more reacting to the "Eureka!" tone of the OP (you know, ten long years I have been toiling on this insight etc).
I am certainly intrigued to know how a book about smoking meat changed your life though!
Re:Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
by tptacek on Monday April 13, 2009 @06:53PM
(#560678)
Smoking isn't the half of it. Where before I ate duck, I now eat duck cured for 2 days with cloves, cooked sous-vide in its own rendered fat for 7 hours at 73C, and then stored for 3 weeks. Learning how sausage works, how curing works, and how preserving works is every bit as big of a deal as learning how to make a pan sauce from a fond. Can't recommend that book enough. I'm trying to source a half pig from a local farm; when I do, I'm going to work my way through the book start to finish, blogging it like the Alinea Cookbook blogger did.
Sous-vide, something else you don't want to get me started on; amazed that nobody here has picked that topic up. It's fucking amazing. I can't see how there isn't 11 billion dollars to be made with it somehow.
Now take your bread "kernel" and look at the ratio between the ingredients. Go read a bunch of (reputable) bread recipes. You'll find that most reputable bread recipes will be some variation on that core ratio, just like both Linux and FreeBSD have a VFS layer and a system call table.
I'm halfway through the book (I'm a fan of Ruhlman's; "Charcuterie" sort of changed my life) and while the ability to generate recipes on the fly is a win, I agree with you that it's not revolutionary. But being able to eyeball any other recipe and see what kernel it's built on (or, if it's a crap recipe, if it's built on any sane ratio at all) is a huge win.