Question Of The Day #18

A bit late in the morning, but today's QOTD takes us back in time a bit: What was it that got you into cooking in the first place? Was a stand-and-stir show? A close relative that always had the secret sauce working and let you in the kitchen? Inquiring cooks want to know.

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Rob_12037

Urban Peasant after school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Urban_Peasant and later on the Inn Chef http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inn_Chef probably started my interest in food. Didn't really start cooking much until my mid 20s. Not sure what started that other than being out of school and able to afford appliances and gear.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Eric Ripert is of the opinion that you can't really be a great cook without being exposed to great cooking at a young age. That depresses me to no end, because all of the cooks in my family were pretty terrible.

I remember when I was young (like 7, 8 years old) I would stage my own cooking show. I would get my mise en place (without knowing that's what it was called) together for making a kick ass iceberg lettuce salad with lunch meat and cheese, and I'd describe (to no one in particular) how to put it together. Then I had the Dark Years of college where my cookery consisted almost entirely of boneless skinless chicken breasts marinated in Italian salad dressing. (And of course the iceberg lettuce salads.)

It wasn't until my late 20s that I began cooking for real. I found myself on the wrong side of the contraction in the music industry and went through an extended period of not having a full time job. Food Network was just becoming a thing, and that's when I discovered Molto Mario. Watching that show expanded my kitchen repertoire and opened up the world of possibilities that exists when you are no longer cooking for sustenance and instead cook also for the enjoyment of eating the results and proceeds of your labors. It also taught me the grandeur of properly cooked pasta. It was very much my gateway drug, and I still record the reruns of this show.

Todd_Shewman_38102

Always enjoyed playing with food b/c of my parents (I recall eating out about 5 times before the age of 15) and after eating at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, I bought one of his books and made his simple tomato and garlic angel hair pasta.......then, about 4 years ago, I arranged a birthday surprise to NYC and the restaurant Daniel. It was for a birthday, but I left wondering how all that food was made....and so good. So I bought a couple of his books........and then a year later I went to Per se. Just before we went, I received The French Laundry Cookbook that we thought would be a great coffee table book.......that never made it to the coffee table. Between, the stories, the passion that resonated, immediately after Per Se, I started gathering information as much as I could. The gym cardio sessions ended up being a tablet/book read session on how to cook, and then after watching Thomas Keller remark about Heston Blumenthal........well, let's just say, I'm still asking "why". So, not sure if there was "one" but rather more like a snowball that was made playfully at the top of a hill......then someone tipped it down the hill.....

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Always enjoyed food in the family, we about 14 years ago made the decision to never ever eat packaged, processed or ready-made stuff. Mainly because it tastes like shit.

Then I decided that I needed to learn how to cook, bought Pepins Techniques and the Professional Chef, cooked pretty much everything in the CIA bible and started posting food online.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Keller's rabbit story in TFL was a watershed for me. I do not have a similar experience to recount, but the clarity of purpose and earnestness of his words make for perhaps the most compelling food writing I've ever encountered.

FrankM_3301

A combination of grandma (who cooked because she enjoyed it, as opposed to mom who cooked because she had to) and early tv cooking shows...Julia Child, Grahm Kerr (really?), that old Cajun dude...the frugal gourmet...Ming Tsai....

grant

For me, it was the idea of building. I grew up in a family of builders( boats, houses, arts, textiles etc) I always loved the idea of taking parts and combining them into something really new. Baking is still amazing to me in this way. The basic ingredients in all baked goods are the same. Water, flour, gas makers, fat, heat.

With different combinations, of when to mix, what order things are added, how much heat and even how long they are mixed or heated can all make thousands of products that we all think of quit differently. They are the result of pure ingenuity that you get to eat! To me, that is what is captivating about food.

Also, I always loved the idea that no matter where I went in the world people would speak language of food, so there is a connection with all people.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Justin Wilson!!! I gar-on-tee!! Loved him.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

The broad appeal of food is paramount. It's the easiest way to make new friends ever. I just started a new job about a month ago, and the way I've been making the rounds is just to go to the breakroom at lunch and ask people what they got from the day's food truck, or what they brought from home. Math and cooking are truly the universal languages of mankind.... unfortunately, I can only speak one of them.

Kyle_Swanbeck_13795

For me I think that my passion came from helping my mom put together meals for the family. And more importantly being that extra hand in the kitchen for the big holiday meals. My Grandpa has a special family recipe for spaghetti sauce that he created over the years and seeing someone that I looked up to like him in the kitchen was always a big inspiration to me as well.
I was only able to see the cooking shows on PBS since we never had any type of cable growing up so I was never influenced by those type of shows.

I credit all of my cooking prowess and passion to my Mom and my Grandpa.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Terrible awful college cafeteria food. I grew up in a very food first house but never appreciated what I had until I moved to America for college and learned the likes of ranch dressing and horribly prepared southern foods. It drove me to figure out how to feed myself the comforts I missed but I also am a scientist at heart so I was always curious about the why of things.

I never really thought too deeply about food until I was probably 20 years old but looking back on it I remember we used to always have those early days cooking shows on like Martin yan and emeril lagasse. My grandmother was an amazing Chinese and Vietnamese cook whom I seemed to have learned a lot from even without actively trying to participate in the process. Since she didn't speak English or drive I used to accompany her to Chinatown twice a month to go shopping and she would teach me how to pick out fruits and vegetables. She was a butcher by trade so she would always be jumping behind the counter making sure the butcher was cutting her meat properly. The ladies who owned the bbq meat store would have special cuts set aside for her when we'd come and they'd be sliced perfectly to her liking. It was also a great way for me to practice my Chinese.

FrankM_3301

Right! He used to measure a teaspoon of salt in his palm...then prove it by putting it in a teaspoon....or something to that effect.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Yeah, my grandfather (pappy) was the closest thing my family had to a good cook. He was my father figure growing up, so his influence has to be acknowledged as well.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

That's a wonderful story. I'm jealous.

coryhansen78

Similar story here re: Molto Mario when I began learning how to cook. Also original Japanese Iron Chef-- gateway drugs indeed!

Matthew_Snyder_68770

FUKUI-SAN

Girl I was dating at the time got me into Iron Chef. First episode I saw, I think it was IC Sakai spiked a live conger eel to the board and butchered it. I was like, okay...... not your usual cooking show.

Plus, it used the music from 'Backdraft' as its theme. How can you not like a cooking show with a Hans Zimmer score????

michaelnatkin

I started doing a little cooking with my mom; she taught me to make meatloaf and a few other basics. I got interested and baked a few loaves of bread; I can still remember the taste of some herb bread with dried "Italian" herbs - and the addictive pleasure of (over)kneading dough.

My mom had breast cancer from the time I was about 8, but it became much more serious when I was a junior in high school. She got too sick to cook, and she was trying a macrobiotic diet to see if it would help with the disease (unfortunately, no - she passed in the middle of my senior year). I took over most of the cooking for the family, through a combination of cookbooks, making it up as I went along, and learning from my girlfriend at the time, who was an avid cook. Because macrobiotic is mostly vegetarian, and the girlfriend was 100% vegetarian, I gave it a try and immediately realized it was going to be a permanent thing for me.

I started reading everything I could; I'd spend the afternoons reading stacks of back issues of Gourmet and Bon Appetit, studying Julia's 11-page baguette recipe, and getting my hands on Moosewood and The Vegetarian Epicure and the Tassajara Breadbook and James Beard and MFK Fisher and ... By the time I got to college, I was cooking every day even if it meant using the crappy dorm kitchen, and sophomore year I lived in a group house that gave me a captive audience for experimentation. But I guess I go on too far... I was totally and completely hooked by then.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Sympathies about your mom. My mom is a survivor... sadly, my grandmother was not.

HammeredChef_DEFINITELY_does_NOT_work_at_22134

by the way, if i remember correctly, he had a Phd.

Dave_Coulter_59562

Growing up in a family of four boys, quantity was enough of an issue, let alone concepts like "flavour". My parents, bless them, were both terrible cooks who had a hard time producing enough food to feed us, let alone making it taste delicious. When I moved out of home at 18, I could cook an omelette & not much else.

Shortly after moving out I was very fortunate to meet a chef in his 30s named Martin, who had taken over the kitchen at a local conference centre while escaping bankruptcy. Maybe because I'm the youngest in my family & was used to being ordered around, or because Martin was a natural mentor, we clicked. Pretty soon I was volunteering on weekends to help him in the kitchen.

He taught me basic knife skills in the best possible way: "Here's a knife, here's how you use it, & here's 20kg of carrots. Come see me when you're done." More importantly though, he introduced me to more foods and flavours in 8 months of Saturdays than I'd tried in the previous 18 years. I've loved food & the making of it ever since.

DiggingDogFarm_65362

I've cooked (and baked) regularly since i was a very young teen. My mom owned restaurants and was always very busy and not at home when we got home from school....so we fended for ourselves. I grew up in a very rural area (in Pennsylvania) surrounded by family so it's not like we were totally abandoned....but we just did our own thing....knowing that my grandparents and others were close-by if we needed anything.

I actually used to consider myself much more of a baker than a cook...I love baking...but I don't bake much anymore because i need to minimize carbohydrates as much as possible.

DiggingDogFarm_65362

Very sorry to here about your mom. I got an awful sinking feeling when I read your post because I know about the stress and the hope and the pain and the fear. I had cancer 28 years ago and know the pain of losing loved ones to cancer.

SteveM_20803

My reason doesn't hold a candle to any written so far. It started when I around 7, licking off the beaters when my mom would make cookies. I eventually got to help make cookies and found it was much easier to eat the dough than wait for the beaters. Eventually, I would just make cookies (chocolate chip Tollhouse) on my own, albeit my yield was significantly lower than the recipe called for.

After a Bugs Bunny cartoon which featured Welsh Rabbit, I got out a cookbook to see what it really was. Living in the dairy state, we always had plenty of cheese around so with my mom's help we made Welsh Rarebit. After that, once a week I would dig through the fridge to see what was a left over or on hand or turning into a science experiment and attempt to make a dish out of it. Had a number of successes and a lot more fails, but it was fun. I do remember getting in a ton of trouble thinking I could short cut grilled cheese sandwichs making by putting them in the toaster. That was the first time of the many times I have set off the smoke alarm. However, I was hooked and my parents enjoyed the break in the kitchen - so my banishment didn't last too long. Since then cooking has become my creative outlet.

ren_74229

I was mostly a latchkey kid with both parents at work...so I had to make myself stuff to eat. Sure, there was a lot of brick ramen, but I'd also microwave string cheese until it burned (delicious!) , or make rice/ketchup pancakes and then microwave it until the edges burned and the pancake was crisp. Less oddly, I'd make fries from whole potatoes or burgers or Ling Ling potstickers from Costco, and for dessert would press wonder bread flat (Take that Wylie!), squeeze some magic shell, roll it up and stick it in the freezer. I think Ferran would've approved.

My first exposure to fancy cooking was the Great Chef's series, I probably watched more of that than loony toons. My parents both cooked, but I ate their food rather than trying to learn how to make it. In High School, one of my friends' moms was super into food and really encouraged my cooking. She ended up giving me a 3" binder of hand-written recipes that she had collected over many years. In college, I hated dining hall food...so me and my friends would often cook for each other. I went to the campus bookstore and that's where I found Labensky and Hause. Combine that with my VHS set of Pepin's cooking techniques, and that was my classical foundation.

It would be a few years later before I really started to learn how to cook....

Ryan_Jones_36451

Cooking and creating is romantic. It requires self-sufficiency, an open mind and aesthetic appreciation.

While I've always been interesting in cooking and my mom began encouraging my sister and I to help her cook when we were young (so as to not be intimidated by the kitchen), my real interest in cooking developed a few years back when I was struggling to find full-time employment and sought an escape that at the same time reassured me that my inability to find a job in a rough economy was not due to an incompetence in failure on my part.

I sought the kitchen as a place of refuge and a place that could challenge my mind that would be rewarded upon completion.

Jonathan_105240

I left home very young, I was 17 years old and I had told my father that I wanted to spend some time in the States before getting to college, I had just finished senior year in school. Then I got to Boston, I rent a room on a family house. Very nice people, but awful cooking. I remember one night when Mr. Peter (pater family and head cook of the house) asked me to help him to butcher a lamb (everyone else available was disgusted to do so). Since I grew up in a country (Venezuela) where you get used to buy your poultry pointing your finger to the animal still alive... it was not disgusting at all for me.

After I finished cutting the piece as he asked "where did you learn your knife skills?"... Say what?! I have knife skills? That's what I thought then. I started to get interested in learning to cook there, maybe to help Peter get better too! We made some very awful Mac&Cheese for a while.

Years later in college, living in Europe I had to feed myself, no roommates to help me. So I bought my first cook book; it was call something like "Cooking in 20 minutes laps" or something similar. I can't remember the author. It is somewhere in a box in my storage room in Vigo (Spain). I cooked a lot of different dishes during those years... at some point I got pretty descent and I conquered my actual girl friend with my cooking skills. We've been 9 years together, so I guess I have a hand for the stove!

The before and after in my interest in cooking was after I came across Modernist Cuisine (read it twice) and Chefsteps... about a year now. I'm very excited to see at what level I get in the next years.

Nick_14981

Mostly because I got tired people screwing up or ruining good food, I'd rather be in control and have it done right, I'll take the time and effort to not mess things up.

riiupw_1250042

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