Chef Pink Hands

Bret Cahill said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

About ninety-nine percent of restaurant critics, I'd estimate.

--

In the previous number, the cattle rustlers (post-
Hegelian dogma) had trapped Professor Dewey in an
abandoned mine shaft (Jamesian pragmatism) and had
ignited the fuse leading to a keg of dynamite
(neo-Newtonian empiricism).

< S. J. Perelman

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Quoted message said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

Have a go at Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "A philosopher in the Kitchen".
In a few hundred pages there are one, maybe two recipes.

T

Tron said:

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Quoted message said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

Have a go at Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "A philosopher in the Kitchen".
In a few hundred pages there are one, maybe two recipes.

Is he the one that was so obsessed with pot-lids?

--

All the scars and wrinkles on my face from doing stupid things
have given me an appearance of great wisdom.

< Red Green

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Quoted message said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

Bret Cahill

Yes, he is called my husband.
😉

Knit Chic said:

Bret Cahill aka Brucie Candyass said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

Yes, he is called my husband. 😉

But instead of his hands he gets your pink wet... bodda bing! 😉

There's a little somthing for the alt.philo freaks to contemplate...
wouldja lookit all them scrwany runts playing with each other's
pinky-dinks under their widdle togas. hehe

Sheldon

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Quoted message said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

Bret Cahill

I don't know if this is exactly the same, but I know a few people who are
pretty quick to criticize other people's cooking, but who would never bother
to improve on the dishes themselves. They have all sorts of *ideas* on what
should be done, but they don't put them into practice.

Donna

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Quoted message said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

Bret Cahill

Well there is Harold McGee whose encyclopedia contains no recipes but does
contain a vast amount of theory. I have no idea if he actually cooks.

That theory traverses a great deal of science; physics, chemistry, biology
etc that is really useful explaining not only the how of cooking technique
but the why. If you want to get really creative and not waste a great deal
of time and materials on the chance of doing something good you had better
know which rules you can (or cannot) break and what the likely result will
be.

He also provides fascinating historial notes on the origins of foods,
cooking methods and fashions all of which has very little direct value in
actually frying a fish or washing a carrot but if you believe that
understanding the past is one of the keys to making a better future then
such "theory" should not be missed.

"Practical" versus "theoretical" is a dichotomy that is of little value to
cooking in my view, you get the best results by combining the two.

David

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Quoted message said:

"Bret Cahill" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Is there anything like a theoretical gourmet?

Someone who just comes up with theories on cooking but doesn't ever get
his hands wet?

Bret Cahill

Yes, he is called my husband.
😉

=========

<giggle> Now that's funny!

< They have all sorts of *ideas* on what should be done, but they

< don't put them into practice.

THAT'S the issue. Actually a hands on chef probably has pink hands too
unless they got stained by pomegrante juice.

I was just looking at a steam engine web page which sneered at
"professor pink hands" types and I thought the chef equivalent would be
pretty funny.

Isn't food 100% empirical?

I wouldn't know because I have zero theory, zero ideas and can come up
with something only marginally different that works only by accident.

Bret Cahill

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Quoted message said:

< They have all sorts of *ideas* on what should be done, but they

< don't put them into practice.

THAT'S the issue. Actually a hands on chef probably has pink hands too
unless they got stained by pomegrante juice.

I was just looking at a steam engine web page which sneered at
"professor pink hands" types and I thought the chef equivalent would be
pretty funny.

Isn't food 100% empirical?

Funny question. The experience of handling and eating it is certainly
empirical. The a priori lobster is called "appetite".

Any production is 100 % material. Construction of production is 100 %
theoretical.
It took some chemistry to ascertain why we like fried and baked food - brown
crust -: carbon caramelizes and becomes sweet, even if almost imperceptably
so.

Quoted message said:

I wouldn't know because I have zero theory, zero ideas and can come up
with something only marginally different that works only by accident.

That is called stochastic heuristics.

T