Sustained learning

 

One of the most rewarding things about baking and cooking is that learning is a constant process.  Yeah, I know ... one could say the same about anything.  But with certain things, this idea of learning as a constant process seems to be more significant.  With food, that significance is because we are going to immediately eat what we have made.

Sometimes I think of a test change to make in a mixing process, or an ingredient ratio change to test.  When I make those changes, I learn whether or not they work.  Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.  Either way, though, a finished product, a cookie, a brownie, a cake, etc., is the result.  If they work, then consuming that finished product is great.  When they don't, I hate having to toss it out.  I'm one of those people who hates to see food go to waste.  So if I make something that turns out to be less delicious than what I hoped, I feel a sense of guilt if I don't eat it, if I let it go to waste.  Thankfully I have lots of squirrels and birds who visit the yard and are more than happy to consume what I won't.

I remember when I was learning to temper chocolate.  In principle the idea is simple.  In practice, it takes .... well, it takes practice.  The good thing about learning to temper chocolate is that even when I failed, the end result was still always very delicious.   

On the other hand, I remember once spending time creating new recipes for bisques, cream-based soups.  I developed one for a carrot bisque that is on the full menu.  Learning the subtleties of that recipe took a bit of time and experimentation.  And I was very happy with my final result.  However, I also tried to create a celery bisque that same week.  It seemed like a good idea to try.  But I learned something very important that day, and that is that I do not like the aroma that comes from celery boiling in water.  The idea was to cook and soften the celery in the same way as with the carrots.  But the aroma that flowed through the air from the kitchen was not at all to my liking.  As a matter of fact, it was downright awful!  I will try the celery bisque again sometime, but the memory of that aroma has completely derailed any idea of trying another one so far.    

Failures notwithstanding, I love the continual learning that comes from baking and cooking on a regular basis.  Some of what is learned comes simply from accumulated experience.  Some of what is learned comes from trial and error, successes and failures.  It's all good, though, even if some of the final results are put out for the native wildlife.

Have a great winter morning, everyone!