After I left the dorms, I stumbled upon my love of trying new flavors. The dorms were clearly a bad place to nurture this behavior, so it wasn’t until my food choices were completely under my control that this interest began to flourish. Well, maybe not completely under my control. Budget and my unrefined palette largely restricted me to things like multiple new varieties of canned soup and Pringles flavor experiments. That was until I discovered craft beer. Turning 21 opened the flood gates of a myriad of beer styles and interpretations of those styles. Not only were the options endless, but the pub atmosphere provided me the social stimulation and camaraderie that I had deprived myself of in my youth thanks to the internet. It became my mission to become knowledgeable about the local bar scene and try every beer I could get my hands on.
Don’t worry, this all plays into my love of cooking. For some reason, this much expanded field of exploration also sparked an interest in me to try more and better foods. Bars in West Lafayette have a very limited selection of your standard bar foods and they become tiresome (and expensive) after a short period of time. I began to search out recipes on the internet and flip through cookbooks. Everything was still very basic and I had an Engineer’s attention to detail when it came to following a recipe. Nothing must change, the recipe was tried and true and who was I to question it. The recipe was a blueprint for creating a meal, like assembling a computer or building a model car. Unfortunately, though my cooking via recipes was far better than any box mix you can buy at the store, it was still far inferior to anything you could buy at a restaurant. The variety was nice, but the quality was lacking. I simply dismissed it as my inexperience at cooking and assumed that ability is what made some people chefs and some people cook at home. Things went on autopilot for awhile and I did what I assume most people settle in to: making recipes because it is cheaper than eating out.
Then something happened that settled into my subconscious and set off an internal chain reaction that is still taking place today. I’ve thought about this and I think there are 3 pivotal events in my love of cooking. This is the first. One evening we were hanging out at the apartment and had no leftovers or quick snacks to eat for dinner. My roommate/groomsman Dave went into the kitchen and decided to throw something together with what appeared to me to be random ingredients. I don’t remember what the dish was, but it probably didn’t have a name. I also don’t think Dave knows how important this was to my subconscious. Dave made a meal from scratch. I used to think that meant you made it yourself and not from a box. What Dave did was different, without the aid of a recipe Dave put together a great “restaurant-quality” meal. It was trivial to him, like he was doing it without thinking. For a long time I assumed this was because Dave is Italian, and Italians can do that. I’m not Italian, I can’t even fake the accent, thus this was a skill I did not possess and I did not further explore this amazing feat.
Shortly after this, probably in the same year, someone turned me on to the show Good Eats. It was either Dave as well or my long time e-friend Jackie Chan (no, not the actor). I think it was the latter. The important part is, this show put cooking into terms I could understand. I now know this is called food science and it is at the core of my understanding of gastronomy and is the second pivotal event in my love of cooking. While I did not possess the innate ability to cook, I did possess a very strong scientific and technical background. The key puzzle piece I had been missing all along was the “why.” Sure, I could follow a recipe, but I was following it blindly. Alton Brown taught me that what the recipe was doing made sense, and that I could understand it if I had some knowledge beforehand. Not only that, but each episode provided excellent recipes that demonstrated each of the lessons in food science. Sure, it sounds a little bit like school work but there has to be a reason classes have evolved into the methods they use today. Plus it’s not work if you love what you’re doing. I finally understood the techniques used to select and prepare great tasting food and was equipped with an excellent selection of recipes. I was comfortable with my newly developed skills and settled into a routine once again.
I went for a great deal of time honing the skills I learned by watching Good Eats and expanding my palette by trying new foods and new beers. I found that very quickly I was reversing all of my distastes in food and beer. I no longer disliked most vegetables and began using them liberally. Many years of steak avoidance were quickly reversed by searing my own. Even beers I once thought I could never get into, such as Guinness, had been superseded by much bolder and adventurous takes on the respective styles. I would try almost anything and complained very rarely when it came to food. But I still relied on my recipes.
Then, almost like deja vu, Jess came into my life and exhibited that same Italian sixth sense that Dave had many years back. She threw a few ingredients together and like magic a wonderful gourmet meal was produced. Much like Dave, she thought nothing of it; that’s just how she cooked. Still at the beginning of our wonderful and blossoming relationship, I was eager to discuss this with her. She knew of my desire to be a better cook and that I was quite capable of making successful meals, but didn’t understand where I found complexity in what she was doing. That’s where the third and most significant event in my love of cooking took place. She told me to just try it. I didn’t understand. She said just try making something easy like pasta with a red sauce and she would help me if I needed help. So the next meal we made together and I unloaded a barrage of questions and uncertainties on her. Every one was answered the exact same. “Try adding a little bit and see how it tastes. Add more if you think it needs it.” It was that simple. And while I knew it was that simple, I never really understood it. Everyone adds spices and adjusts recipes to their tastes. I’ve done it myself. But I never made that leap from ingredients to meals. Suddenly the Pandora’s Box of stored up recipes, food science facts and creativity opened. We very quickly went from basic to complex. If there was something I wanted to make that was new to me, I read up on the preparation style and why it worked and then tried it myself. I created my own sauces. I combined my own flavors. Jess reintroduced me to things I had written off as repulsive, such as seafood and dark chocolate. The way I felt back in college sitting in front of 50 tap handles at Chumleys rushed over me. I was sitting at the tip of the gastronomy iceberg, armed with the correct tools and a rough map and I was ready to go. For the first time I really fell in love with cooking.
Time has passed, but I’m still dabbling in this phase of my cooking knowledge. Most recently (this past Tuesday to be exact) I prepared a fruit-brined roasted pork loin stuffed with an apple, cherry and pecan relish and drizzled with a chevre peppercorn sauce. It was a success and best of all, I have no idea how much of anything I used. I didn’t use a recipe for inspiration. It was 100% me. I’ve also been making efforts to advance my food pairing skills. Typically this involves pairing wine with food, but I’m not nearly as excited about wine as I am about beer. I made the decision last year to use my repertoire of beer knowledge and experiences to begin pairing beer and food. Shortly after, I discovered a niche of gastronomy specifically for pairing beer and food and it is quickly gaining in popularity. I have since applied my love of beer to my love of cooking by pairing beer with food, cooking with beer and even brewing beer.
So here we are today. I don’t really have a conclusion to the story since it’s still ongoing. I consider myself extremely lucky to have someone in my life as supporting as Jess, who is always eager to share in the learning process, work with me and teach me new things. I am deeply interested in becoming more knowledgeable about food science, becoming a better cook and a better brewer. I love to discuss these things with anyone and am always interested in hearing others’ experiences. It’s unfortunate that there is so much implied pretension around gourmet cooking, as it really is far too enjoyable to isolate from the general population. Maybe that’s why beer is infinitely more intriguing than wine to me? I have found that no matter how much I learn about cooking, I always have the tendency to make things spicier. Good thing Jess appreciates hot things!
Pork loin from Tuesday night. It tasted better than it looks.
