Thanks for distilling how I feel about cooking. It’s an ancient art made better by good science and engineering.
How does it not? It’s just a boring activity.
I sincerely asked, and I assume you are similarly sincere in asking.
For me, it’s an absolutely quotidian task, every aspect of which I approach mindfully and joyfully. Using a good knife, decent pans, a halfway decent grill/range/oven… the joy of using good tools skillfully cannot be overstated. I mean… where else in our days do we get to play with knives around people and they love the results? :D Woodworking, I guess, but you can’t eat those results.
I love everything about cooking:
- sourcing good local and seasonal ingredients
- prepping the ingredients properly and with the least waste
- layering flavor profiles
- creating a full sensory experience for myself and my circle
- understanding the underlying physics and chemistry at every step
- creating even a simple dish that appeals to all senses
- did I mention playing with knives?
- then getting to feed, nourish, and sate people with my craft… The experience of cooking takes the necessary and workaday task of sustaining ourselves and elevates it to an alchemical and spiritual level.
From a holistic, connected-to-the-land, tree-hugging hippie context, cooking takes the alchemy from Shit Wizards (AKA farmers) and transmutates those inputs into magical energy. Food nourishes the body; good cooking nourishes the soul. Gathering tribe around a meal that I made is even more fulfilling than the literal billions of people who, directly or indirectly, use the software I built.
From a biological context, knowing the provenance of my food is the culinary equivalent of using open source software. From an ethical living context, knowing that my food providers are using fair labor practices, compassionate animal welfare, and good land stewardship enables me to make food that I eat and share in good conscience. Also, garbage in, garbage out on every level. This is stuff you’re putting in your body. The body that carries around your brain, both of which ya kinda need to do other things you enjoy. Food is medicine, and so many ills I see, physical and otherwise, stem from poor food sourcing and prep.
From an efficiency, conservation, and creativity context:
- turning “waste” material into an amazing stock
- turning leftovers into an entirely new dish that utterly slaps
- that on-the-knife-edge, tuned-up feeling of bringing a meal together… it rivals playing live to a sold-out crowd
- doing more with the least amount of everything… give me a good knife, good cutting board, good produce stand, a saute pan, and a shitty butane burner, and I will crank out a meal for you that will get YOU laid :D
- the mind-body connection of skillfully wielding my tools in pursuit of an explicit and relatively immediate goal; it might take me years to build software, but it takes just an evening to make something that feeds my tribe
In the grand scheme of human experience, there are few things that everyone can do that fire on all sensory cylinders while delivering the spiritual high of creativity manifested. Cooking is something everyone can do.
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
remon@ani.social 1 day ago
Right, but I don’t really know how to explain why you don’t like something. It doesn’t doesn’t appeal to me. It’s not fun. I don’t care about playing with knives (I hated woodworking in school, btw).
Yeah, that aspect is somewhat interesting, I would definitely consider reading a book about it. Trying to learn by own practical experience in this day and age seems like a bit late to the party, though.
In the end, cooking is just an ends to a means of eating.
So tired of hearing this dumb fuck argument. Ordering food =/= fastfood. The amount of people that seem to think their little bit of homecooking can compete with professional chef’s is laughable.
JayleneSlide@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Totally fair and thank you for the elaboration.
I’ll counter this point with: I think we’re in a golden age of home cooking. YouTube alone is a gold mine for technique development and refinement. That won’t do anything for your lack of interest though.
Well that’s good, because I’m not talking about fast food; I don’t eat fast food. Ever. My point was about knowing what you’re putting into your body, knowing how it was sourced and prepped. Dining out is at least three layers of abstraction from that knowledge. I’ve spent a lot of time working in restaurants, including high end ones. Apart from zero-compromise, prix-fixe, tasting menu establishments, recipes are always built to a price point. More restaurants than not use Sysco, First Street, or other nasty industrial sourcing. Most restaurants source their meats directly or indirectly from IBP/Tyson because they cornered the market on meat at scale*. And that’s before factoring in time-saving shortcuts, like not washing produce and using Sysco bases. For just one example on the sourcing risks, at high end restaurant where I worked the pantry cooks had to wear gloves to receive and sort the produce because the pesticides and container treatment gave them rashes.
*IBP used to be a reliable, quality source despite being CAFO meats, and what I used in my own charcuterie business. After the acquisition by Tyson, shit went downhill almost overnight. I closed up operations because sourcing at that scale was no longer possible for me.
A chef is a cost engineer and inventory manager. But I get your point: Sturgeon’s Law absolutely applies to most people’s kitchen results.
remon@ani.social 1 day ago
I see what you mean. I’m in Europe where restaurants and food are generally better regulated. Switzerland specifically has very strict laws for labelling the origin of meat, for example. A lot of the non-chain restaurant will source their ingredients locally. I don’t think the quality is much different than buying the expensive ingredients from the super market.
I guess the best option (health-wise) is only buying fresh produce from the farmers market and such, but that requires a whole other level of effort in the shopping department (and I don’t enjoy shopping either).
JayleneSlide@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ah, gotcha! That right there is an enormous game-changer, and I’m agree with everything you say here. The US food chain is straight-up toxic. You may know this already: the US allows food treatments that are outright banned in most other countries. My travels in Europe were a revelation; I can eat things over there that invariably sicken me here, most notably bread and raw eggs. I would probably dine out more too if I lived in Europe. :D
uienia@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It definitely can. I think your dumb fuck argument is tiresome because you seem to be unable to imagine that people can have opinions that differ from your own. You seem to have the need to have even the most basic concepts explained to you. even though lots of people have already done so numerous times in this thread alone.
ReiRose@lemmy.world 1 day ago
For the science of cooking book and website . Its an interesting subject
Ledivin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Oh, honey. That “healthy” restaurant you order from isn’t actually healthy. They are poisoning you with fat, salt, and sugar, and that’s what you think food is supposed to taste like. All you’re eating is dopamine, nothing actually good for your body.