I love reading cookbooks because they don’t always tell the truth. Often they will omit key steps or ingredients and the picture of the culinary marvel in the book may not always match up with the disaster you prepared. For those of you who have blamed yourself, it may have not really been your fault.
There are some genuine reasons for the discrepancies. First, the pictured food product may not even be what it is purported to be! For example, an old photographer’s trick was to use flat Coca Cola to substitute for coffee in a layout. Why? Because, real coffee looks muddy with a matte finish in a photography while Coca Cola has the right glossy shine and deep black color.
However, another reason is that it might not even be the same product. This became apparent when I was asked recentl about WHY my ‘Meringue’ turned out so well. At first, I was going to tell the usual lies about how their Meringue didn’t work out because of the weather, phases of the moon or their marital happiness… but I opted for the ‘truth.’ Not everyone can handle the truth and the revelation that their cookbook had ‘lied’ to them came as a bit of a shock. There was a bit of reaction as they referred to my cornstarch addition as ‘goop’… but jealousy is an awful thing! 😉
So how do we avoid being ‘lied to’ in our cookbooks? Well, there are a couple of easy rules to follow:
1) Add some very old cookbooks to your collection that contain more steps and more ingredients… the pointers will be invaluable. Chef Escoffier , at the turn of the 1900’s, was saddened by the trend towards recipe simplification and ease of preparation which has continued to this day. 30 meals in 30 minutes has it’s place, but not when you want to make something special.
2) Buy ‘nitch’ cookbooks. These are cookbooks that teach you everything about something specific. I just bought a cookbook produced by a Baking Powder company in 1908… invaluable!
3) If a recipe doesn’t work out in your cookbook, set the book aside because the other recipes are probably going to be just as flawed. Albert Einstein once said,”Insanity (is) doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Cookbooks are like people, they have personalities and you have to find those you like.
good hunting!
Roger Freberg