It's the way I make it.

As I was making a batch of salted hazelnut cookies the other day, I was thinking about a story I read quite some time ago.  A food writer was talking to a French baker about a particular cookie that he had been making since he was young.  He happened to have come from a coastal area of France and grew up eating a lot of things that were heavy on briny flavors and sea salt.  And that included the cookie under discussion.  In looking at the ingredient list, the food writer commented that the cookie seemed to have a high level of sea salt and would come out of the oven exceptionally salty, perhaps too much so for the average person to enjoy.  The French baker shrugged his shoulders and said (and I'm paraphrasing here since I don't remember the exact quote), "Perhaps.  But that's the way I make them."

I love that attitude.  Do we make our food for ourselves or for others?  Do we change the way we have made certain foods all our lives or do we just keep doing it the way we always have?  A case can be made either way, but in the end it's really about how we want to cook, the flavors we like in our foods that we make.  If I make something that I really enjoy, something with a flavor and a texture that to me is perfect, I can't expect everyone to enjoy it the same.  We all have different tastes.  We all have different childhood food experiences that mold our eating habits as adults.  We all have different appreciations for subtle flavors of every kind.  Yet our tastes and appreciations can evolve quite easily if we are open to trying something new or just a little bit different.

I like to hear someone explain the foods they make, explain the flavors, explain what might be a little different than would normally be expected (for instance, an extra salty cookie), and what they enjoy about different aspects of their foods.  I think when people hear those things they are able to approach a food, old or new, with a more open mind.  So one can take something as ubiquitous as a chocolate chip cookie and explain what is different, what is unusual, what might be unexpected, and those who try this cookie can do so with a more open and accepting mindset.  Maybe, just maybe, instead of saying, "That's not the way it's supposed to be," they say instead, "Now that's really interesting. I think I like it.  Can I have another, please?"