First and foremost, you have remember that written recipes are at best a guide, not
a science experiment you have to follow precisely, you have to learn to rely on
tasting as you go along and adjusting the seasoning and occasionally the heat
according to the reality in front of you, not what the book or recipe says.
Secondly, after you’ve followed a recipe three or four times, it’s pretty much
yours for life and you’ll never need or use the written recipe again because it’s
in your head.
An interesting corollary to this explains why so many heirloom recipes are major
disappointments – your great-grandmother probably wrote out the recipe when she was
learning it, and never bothered to revise it as she gradually changed weights and
measures, ingredients, and cooking times over the years and decades. Other times,
it’s simply a matter of faulty memory about exact weights and measures because it
is almost always never measured except for baking formulas; or they may have been
distracted or in a hurry when they wrote it down. More often, I think, it’s the
cumulative changes of technology, including how we grow food today, how they are
processed, and the differences in our cooking utensils and process – for example,
less cast iron and carbon steel, more Teflon, stainless steel, and much more
use of refrigeration and freezing.
Thirdly, there is no such thing as a ’secret’ recipe, formula, or process outside
of trade secrets, copyrights, and patents; any good cook with a little effort can
get very close to the original using nothing more scientific or sophisticated that
natural sensory organs. That and a modicum of knowledge and experience from using
those ingredients will get you in the neighborhood.
Not to take anything away from the Colonel Sanders’ success franchising Kentucky
Fried Chicken, but it really has less to do with his famous ’secret recipe of
eleven herbs and spices’ than it does with being written up in Duncan Hines’
Adventures in Good Eating. Hines was a travelling salesman out of Chicago
who had already developed a reputation for finding the best restaurants and dishes
across the country. (In fact, I remember well into the ’60s eating at several
restaurants that still proudly displayed “Recommended by Duncan Hines” at the
entrance and their advertising. That was one thing we always looked for in the
yellow pages when we were travelling on summer vacation.) What really sealed the
deal for Arlen Sanders, though, was adopting new technology in the cooking process
(pressure frying) soon afterward. That meant he could maintain the same high
quality standards with increased volume and drastically shorter cooking times.
Four, never experiment on guests, or at special occasions – particularly the once-in-a-lifetime
occasions. You can try and perfect each dish well in advance. If you don’t have time
to do that, you aren’t ready for ‘prime time’ and should not use your guests as guinea pigs.
If you stumble and fall trying to pull off a stunt at some special occasion, everyone
thing should and will remember it forever and hold it against you. If you do manage a minor
miracle and pull it off, just remember that it was a miracle, not talent or skill, and it could
gone very easily the other way – and next time it might.
Lastly, very few recipes are going to be served alone, so the trick to having
everything ready at the same time without having to waiting is called back timing
It’s a very simple concept: you know how long the various dishes will take, so
you subtract that from the time you want everything ready. The most notable exception
here is roasts always need at least 15 and preferably 20 minutes ‘rest’ out of the oven
before you start carving.
