Wikipedia and other sources refer to alchemy as the transmutation of matter - traditionally alchemists used to try to turn base metals into gold.
Alchemy is the art of turning something into something else – from several things we create something new and delicious. When I’m cooking I feel truly alive – I’m making some food, sustenance for myself or my family and I feel I’m tapping into something that is a basic human drive.
I look at a few ingredients, sometimes leftovers, and decide what I’m going to turn them into.
I’m completely in awe of people like Heston Blumenthal of molecular gastronomy fame – I’ve never used something like liquid nitrogen to transform a dish (although I do do a mean Crème Brulee with my blowtorch!) as I do quite well with the tools I already have to hand and as an avid consumer of cooking magazines like Delicious and Gourmet Traveller and shows like Masterchef, I’m constantly bombarded by new ideas and techniques. Still, it’s not often I don’t tweak a recipe to either suit personal taste or make do with a different ingredient for one that’s not available or in short supply. So there’s always something new and different to create. I take inspiration from great chefs like Otam Ottolenghi, great home cooks like Maggie Beer and my own forays into markets for fresh ingredients.
It’s shocking to me that people don’t cook – that that is something that they outsource, like cleaning or pesky IT problems. Or that they would sign up for a whole bunch of prepared meals and freeze them, pop them in the microwave and be content. I keep seeing an advertisement that declares that people would rather spend time with their kids than cook. But you can spend time with your kids and cook too! That concept would be completely foreign to me – I think teaching kids to cook is an important life skill for them to learn. Feeding friends and family and searching for different combinations of different foods is a sometimes astonishing and interesting pastime. Well, for me it’s more than a pastime – I couldn’t ever imagine not cooking and baking and sharing recipes. All my kids know how to cook (and they’re good cooks) and now I’m teaching my grandchildren. They absolutely love it and are keen to be in the kitchen and help me create. It’s a proven fact that kids will more likely eat something that they’ve made themselves.
Last week, my grandchildren Thomas and Gabriella played Masterchef for me – they created some interesting dishes – strawberries, custard, savoury Dippit biscuits, basil and Minions lollies. Needless to say, I gave them both Immunity pins!
The other day, my granddaughter and I made some cupcakes. I popped them in my daughter’s oven and we accidentally burned them. I went to throw them out and Hope said “Oh, don’t do that, I’ll eat burnt cupcakes.” Hilarious! She’s only three and was involved in every step of the process.
She’s enjoying one here!
Years ago, I met a woman at a party and she said as she looked with disdain at a delicious canape “I can’t wait till we’re all taking a pill instead of eating”. I felt sorry for her, because surely the pleasure of eating engages our senses - sight, smell, touch and taste and surely if we were meant to pop a pill, we wouldn’t be blessed with our extremely sophisticated internal method of processing food. It’s fascinating to see how our body works at turning food into fuel and to marvel at the way we first create saliva when we see something delicious to eating it and digesting it and it providing us with energy. In the time it takes to wait for a take away (not to mention the cost) you can whip up a tasty meal in just ten minutes.
I think often we are scared of making a mistake and having the whole dish go to pot, literally. Everyone’s probably got a story about the dinner party gone wrong And if the accepted wisdom that you have to spend 10,000 hours perfecting a skill is true, then you’ve got to do a fair bit of cooking before you become an expert. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn shortcuts, easy ways to do things and enjoy the process. I love helping people cook, and I get great satisfaction out of the beautiful things created by my students. The fantastic smell of baking was just heaven this afternoon as my kitchen was filled with the aroma of a butter cake from a French recipe that I got out of Feast magazine. Cooking and baking and therefore creating makes me happy.
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