Cooking by Oz-mosis

By Mike Osborne

Like many cooking enthusiasts, I own a bunch of cookbooks, in fact most of my bookshelf space is dominated by volumes relating to food and how to cook it. I've had over 20 years to collect them, ingest the information contained between their respective jackets, and digest, over time and through reflection, the over-riding themes of each one, and I'm still hungry for a lot more. A visiting friend perused the titles on the shelves and asked if I had actually read all of them or if I just liked collecting them. I said yes to both. Then he asked a question that really gave me pause. He wanted to know if I thought that reading lots of cookbooks could actually make a person a better cook. The phrase, cooking by osmosis, immediately registered in my brain.
 
This is not a question that has a simple yes or no answer. It depends on what kind of cookbooks and the way you, the reader, intend to use them. If you gravitate to cookbooks with titles that include words like lite, low-fat, microwave, 30-minutes, diet, or Junior League, you probably won't learn much about cooking. You might gain skill at following recipes, but you won't develop an understanding of why and how foods behave the way they do. If your favorite recipes involve opening lots of canned goods or ripping the tops off bags of frozen pre-cut vegetables, you're not going to increase your culinary IQ by many points no matter how many books of this type you may read.
 
Now, I'm not saying that books like these don't have a place in the average American kitchen--they do. There are a whole lot of folks that need concise guides that'll help them get a semi-palatable meal on the table as quickly as possible. Our American culture tells us that time is of the essence. Time is money. Time is a commodity none of us seem to have enough of. Popular cookbook titles cater to this urgency we've collectively come to accept, and they sell quite well. A glance at the racks in any book store will tell you this is true.
 
But that's not the kind of cookery that interests me. I'm not so much a hardcore recipe guy as I am a technique, method, ratio sort of person. I want to tease out and grasp the subtle differences in available ingredients and learn the oft neglected why as well as how and when. I want to trust my senses and my common sense. I want to be a more active participant in providing body and soul with the sustenance that makes daily life possible. And perhaps most importantly, I want to have the knowledge and skill needed in order to infuse whatever I make with that ephemeral extra ounce of love. I have to draw a distinction between cook and recipe follower. Cook implies a level of mastery of craft. Recipe follower means you take direction well.
 
So, can reading cookbooks help a person reach a goal like that? You bet it can. Before signing up for culinary school, cookbooks not only taught me how to cook, I also learned how to think about food in a totally different way, and I became proficient enough to  make a living  out of cooking for eleven years. Shopping excursions became ingredient quests. My fervor required much more interaction with butchers, bakers, produce managers, fish mongers, wholesalers, farmers, hunters, and artisans. I really worked at doing even the most mundane tasks with pride and attention to detail.
 
You might want to know which books I turn to time after time, and I'll share some with you. For basics Julia Child's two volume tome on french cooking is tops. For the science behind the recipe you can trust Harold McGee's, On Food and Cooking. For inspiration I grab chef/restaurant cookbooks like, The French Laundry, Les Halles, Momofuku, The Highland Grill, Bouchon, and Ad Hoc. For technique you can't beat The Professional Chef, which is the main text at The Culinary Institute of America. Michael Ruhlman's books are all good reads, especially his collaboration with chef Brian Polcyn on Charcuterie. I like Marcella Hazan's take on Italian. Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless shed lots of light on regional Mexican cuisine. All of Alice Waters' Chez Panisse books have influenced my attitudes about food. Food writers I have enjoyed include the likes of M.F.K. Fisher, Irena Chalmers, Jonathon Gold, Michael Pollan, Russ Parsons, and too many others to mention here. The point is, if you want to learn there are many great books and writers that can teach you plenty. Look for the James Beard sticker on book jackets. That's usually a really good clue.
 
Cooking is not about following recipes--strictly speaking. It's more about a journey of discovering connectivity between cultures, our loved ones, ourselves, and the good earth that makes it all possible. My collection of cookbooks has taught me this: I'll never know it all, but I know a lot more than I did, and I want to know more than I do now. I don't think I'll ever have enough cookbooks.
 
What are your cookbook faves and pans?  Inquiring minds want to know. As we say in the bidness, "Chow."
 

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