On the invention of new recipes.
WE COOK TODAY THE WAY PEOPLE COOKED in the Middle Ages, content to mechanically execute fixed recipes—this at a time when space probes are being sent to Mars. We need to ask ourselves how reflection and rationality can be combined to renew creativity in cooking.
Certain types of cooking are pure in the sense that they involve only a single physical phenomenon. The oldest ones are those in which heat is transmitted through conduction. Since ancient times only the materials that transport the heat have changed.
The first type of pure cooking consists of putting food in direct contact with a hot solid: on stones heated by embers, for example, or on a cast iron plate heated by fire, inside a layer of salt that is heated, or in a mold that is heated by fire or placed in an oven (as in the cooking of custards, flans, and so on).
Heat can be transmitted by a hot liquid as well. If this liquid is boiling water, one can use it to boil meats; if it is simmering water (or sauce), one obtains various poached dishes (fricassees, blanquettes, matelotes, fillings for vol-au-vents, and so on).
Cooking can also be done by means of hot air. In the case of roasting, the air is dry and heated to a temperature greater than 100°C (212°F). In the case of drying or smoking, the air is dry and the temperature less than 100°C(212°F). In the case of braising, steaming, and cooking en papillote and en croûte, the air is moist.
TABLE 1. DOUBLE-COOKING ME THODS
Double-cooking methods are numerous; each cell in this table represents one possibility. For example, cell 25 represents cooking first in hot, dry air, then cooking in boiling water.
Classic French cuisine also involves the indirect transmission of heat by means of infrared rays, most notably in the case of rôtissage à l’ancienne (because in true roasting the meat must be placed in front of the heat source, not above it). A laser or, more generally, visible high-energy waves can be used for the same purpose, with similar results. A well-known innovation that allows heat to be transferred directly to foods is microwave cooking.
Finally, acid is used by some peoples as a medium for cooking fish, as in Tahiti and Central and South America (seviche).
Double Cooking Methods
Classical cuisine sometimes superimposes or otherwise combines these pure types. For example, grilled meats sometimes are the result of heating first by radiation and then by means of a dry fluid (typically air, but in principle any other gas). Braising in the traditional style is done first by browning the outside of meats in a hot oven and then simmering them in a liquid.
Are other combinations possible? It may be useful to follow the example of Dimitri Mendeleev, who sought to make sense of the apparent disorder of chemical elements by constructing a table in which elements are presented in the order of their atomic mass in rows and grouped in columns according to the similarity of their chemical properties. In the same spirit one can construct a table whose entries along both rows and columns are pure types of cooking. The numbered cell at the intersection of each row and column designates the type of dish that results from first cooking a food in the manner indicated at the head of the column and then cooking it in the manner associated with the row.
A number of cells in this table identify familiar culinary techniques. For example, cell 20 (acidification followed by simmering in liquid) corresponds to the classic recipe for cooking wild boar. Cell 63 (boiling in water followed by frying in oil) corresponds to certain recipes for French fries. Other squares refer to unknown procedures, however. Additional lines and rows could be incorporated to take account of novel techniques such as cooking under very high pressures.
Expected Inventions
Surely new procedures can be invented. In certain cases the procedure suggested by mechanically applying the methods indicated seems unpromising. For example, why should cooking be done twice in contact with a solid (cell 1)? Nonetheless, the cells lying along the principal diagonal that runs from the upper left corner to the bottom right are not uninteresting; for instance, the two fryings associated with cell 67 correspond to the method of deep-frying potatoes by two immersions in hot oil.
Elsewhere novel procedures must be devised. For example, cell 27 involves frying first and then cooking in boiling water. The frying would produce a dry and hardened surface layer in addition to specific flavors. To be sure, the subsequent cooking in boiling water would destroy the crispiness achieved by this method, but it would also redistribute the aromatic molecules created during the first phase. The overall flavor therefore would be quite different from the one obtained by braising.
This is only one example. Other squares suggest new possibilities and invite inspired chefs to travel the paths they open up for exploration. Once these combinations have been charted, the next task will be to construct tables in more than two dimensions.
