I chose two recipes for chocolate chip cookies, by two different chefs from The Food Network.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
by Giada de Laurentis (from The Food Network)
(The original recipe calls for hazelnuts and toffee candy, but they are excellent without these ingredients.)
Ingredients
* 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1 (12-ounce) bag semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
• Line 2 heavy large baking sheets with parchment paper. Finely chop the oats in a food processor. Transfer the oats to a medium bowl. Mix in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
• Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars in a large bowl until fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and stir just until blended. Stir in the toffee, hazelnuts, and chocolate chips.
• For each cookie, drop 1 rounded tablespoonful of dough onto sheet, spacing 1-inch apart (do not flatten dough). Bake until the cookies are golden (cookies will flatten slightly), about 15 minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely. (The cookies can be prepared 1 day ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)
The Chewy
by Alton Brown (from The Food Network)
Ingredients
* 2 sticks unsalted butter
* 2 1/4 cups bread flour
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 egg yolk
* 2 tablespoons milk
* 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Hardware
* Ice cream scooper (#20 disher, to be exact)
* Parchment paper
* Baking sheets
* Mixer
Directions
• Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
• Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
• Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.
Giada’s title (originally Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies, before I modified the ingredients) is very straightforward and accurately tells the reader what can be prepared from the recipe. Alton’s title is much more ambiguous and requires the cook to read the full recipe (including the directions) to figure out what it is for. However, it retains the same whimsy of old, even less-descriptive recipes, such as “A Tart to Provoke Courage in Either Man or Woman” mentioned in “Claiming a Piece of the Pie” (Cotter 60).
Both recipes call for similar ingredients. Giada’s recipe calls for oatmeal, baking soda and baking powder. She is specific about the temperature of the butter (“room temperature”), as well as the brown sugar (“packed”). Alton leaves out oatmeal and baking soda, but includes kosher salt and milk.
The format of both recipes are very similar. This may be because both were taken from The Food Network’s website, but they appear to have a similar format as the recipes from my mom’s cookbooks at home. Alton also lists “hardware” and even lists the recommended size of ice cream scooper. (I wasn’t aware that there were different sizes of ice cream scoopers!) Hardware, including a food processor, is incorporated into the directions in Giada’s version. While neither chef frequently uses incomplete sentences, transitions words such as “then” “next” or “after that” are left out completely. This adds clarity to the directions, even if they aren’t written in the smoothest English.
The directions for both recipes include detailed instructions to help amateur cooks prepare the cookies as a professional chef might. Giada advises creating “one rounded tablespoonful” of dough per cookie, and spacing these and inch apart on the baking sheet. She advises baking them until they are golden brown, and even writes that the “cookies will flatten slightly.” Alton suggests using a “heavy-bottom medium saucepan” to melt the butter, and creaming the butter and sugar on “medium speed.” He also recommends chilling the dough before scooping it onto “parchment-lined baking sheets, six cookies per sheet.” Alton also advises baking the cookies until they are “golden brown,” and even instructs the cook to “rotate the baking sheet for even browning.”
Both of these recipes cater to inexperienced cooks. They are the epitome of the modern recipe in that they list specific ingredients and then clear directions with descriptions of the outcome (“golden brown”). I find this very helpful, because like many cooks in the second half of the 19th century, “the details of food preparations [are not] self-apparent” to me (Wexman 348) and I need more than a “set of hints and guidelines” if I am going to prepare food (Wexman 347). In this way, I agree with M.F.K. Fisher’s opinion that “a recipe is supposed to be a formula” with “no little secrets” left out (20). However, I did find it amusing to read Fisher’s citations of old recipes that were highly ambiguous and called for huge quantities of ingredients.
As I mentioned before, I found both of these recipes on The Food Network’s website. Before they were available online, they were probably shown on the chefs’ TV shows (which I do not watch). In “Claiming a Piece of the Pie,” author Colleen Cotter states that recipes “can be viewed as a story, a cultural narrative that can be shared and has been constructed by members of a community” (53). But what kind of community is a cable TV network that has it’s own website? It is definitely not a personal one; no matter how friendly Giada and Alton seem on TV, the average person will never have a conversation while preparing a meal with them. Giada’s and Alton’s neighbors and friends are not the only ones who have access to these recipes; anyone in the world can make these cookies if they have Internet and the right ingredients. By learning to cook from watching TV rather than from parents or friends, some of the hand-written variations and distinctiveness—and thereby the community element—of cooking seem to be lost. Yet at the same time, our horizons are widened and perhaps our confidence in making something we have never heard of is increased. Giada, Alton and other TV chefs make cooking look easy that even reluctant cooks like myself are enticed. Perhaps this signals a change in our definition of community, rather than a loss of community; a definition that includes many, many countries, not only the one in which we live.
That said, I will continue to enjoy perfecting and sharing my own recipe for dolmas, itself a combination of a recipe from a book and a friend’s recipe that she learned from her mother-in-law. And when I grow up, I will probably cook my favorite foods that my mother and my grandmother cooked for me throughout my childhood.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Homework 1
Eating out is usually and exciting and delicious experience for me. I love perusing menus and reading the accompanying sides to try to find the tastiest item for my mood at that time of day. Unlike Frank Bruni, I appreciate it when waiters use the word “enjoy” while I am eating because I usually am enjoying my meal.
The concept of brevity versus complete sentences in menu language in “America's National Dish: The Style of Restaurant Menus” reminded me of my own positive and negative experience with menus. It is difficult when a menu simply says “Shrimp Louis” (found in many seafood restaurants) or “Albóndigas with Spanish Tomato Sauce” (from the menu of the Palo Alto restaurant, Zibibbo). It may be appropriate to use these names, and other non-English words in restaurants that serve international cuisine (such as Zibibbo), but I have often felt embarrassed asking what such words mean, especially when I have several questions about the menu. This embarrassment often leads to discouragement and I rarely end up ordering such items. In these situations, further descriptions would be very helpful. Fortunately, the rest of Zibibbo’s menu was fairly descriptive. One item I found interesting was “’Israeli Cigars’: Crispy Phyllo filled with Potatoes, Caramelized Onion and Chives.” Other entries included “Goat Cheese Ravioli with First of the Season Heirloom Tomato Pomodoro and Basil” and “Grilled Atlantic Salmon with Preserved Lemon Cous Cous and Moroccan Barbeque Sauce.” The specificity of the ingredients add allure to the dishes: not only is it Pomodoro sauce made with heirloom tomatoes, but they are “first of the season,” which implies that they are fresh. Preserved lemons are uncommon in Oregon, where I am from, and could be a satisfying adventure if I wanted to try something new.
The concept of brevity also reminded me of places where words are not the primary source of information on a menu. McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants use no more than large, colorful pictures and a few words on their combo menus. In Japan, fake food is often used to supplement paper menus and is displayed outside the restaurant, or in the window to draw in potential customers. The claim that “squeamishness and disgust are learned” in “Everybody Eats” (114) made me think of meals with my host family in Egypt. I had difficulty explaining to them in a respectful manner why I found the idea of eating pigeon repulsive (because they are dirty pests that forage for crumbs and garbage in city parks), as well as fried brain. Goat meat and rabbit were new as well (my friends keep these animals as pets!) and I didn’t find a whole fried fish the least bit appealing, even though it had already been cleaned. Unfortunately for me, people don’t have pets in Egypt, and pigeons don’t fly around the Cairo; they are kept in pigeon coops on the roof of apartment buildings until they are ready to eat. However, the reverse effect occurs when I try to serve my friends Japanese pickled plums (umeboshii), which are as sour as a Warhead, without the sweet aftertaste. I often display the same bewilderment when my friends shy away as my Egyptian family did. Since I have grown up eating umeboshii so naturally, I can’t imagine my life without them.
Reading menus in other countries is always an interesting activity. Ironically, I was able to read Italian menus while I was in Italy, because I knew Spanish, not Italian. Conversely, I was barely able to read Arabic menus in Egypt because I wasn’t yet proficient enough in Arabic. The English translations of these Egyptian menus were often amusing. French fries were not called French fries, but “F.F.” and beef was simply called “meat,” as it is in Arabic. When I was in Japan, I could fall back on the aforementioned fake food when I couldn’t read the kanji on the menu. I encountered trouble, however, when I mistakenly told the waitress that my brother wanted udon with nothing in it (she assumed that he wanted only an empty bowl), instead of udon with nothing but noodles and broth.
As far as name changes for French fries, French toast, and Danishes goes, I think that the people who instituted these changes forgot that these foods are in no way associated with these countries other than in their name. Zoreh Masoumi pointed out in the Danish article, "I just want the sweet pastries. I have nothing to do with the name." French fries are a distinctly American side dish, and most Americans have little idea of French cuisine to know whether or not French toast is actually served in France. For popular foods like Danishes, French fries and French toast, new names should evolve over time, otherwise they won’t be widely used. For foods like Kiwis, which were relatively unknown at the time, and prunes, which carry the same name as shriveled fingers and toes that have been in water for too long (gross!), a name change is probably a good idea.
The concept of brevity versus complete sentences in menu language in “America's National Dish: The Style of Restaurant Menus” reminded me of my own positive and negative experience with menus. It is difficult when a menu simply says “Shrimp Louis” (found in many seafood restaurants) or “Albóndigas with Spanish Tomato Sauce” (from the menu of the Palo Alto restaurant, Zibibbo). It may be appropriate to use these names, and other non-English words in restaurants that serve international cuisine (such as Zibibbo), but I have often felt embarrassed asking what such words mean, especially when I have several questions about the menu. This embarrassment often leads to discouragement and I rarely end up ordering such items. In these situations, further descriptions would be very helpful. Fortunately, the rest of Zibibbo’s menu was fairly descriptive. One item I found interesting was “’Israeli Cigars’: Crispy Phyllo filled with Potatoes, Caramelized Onion and Chives.” Other entries included “Goat Cheese Ravioli with First of the Season Heirloom Tomato Pomodoro and Basil” and “Grilled Atlantic Salmon with Preserved Lemon Cous Cous and Moroccan Barbeque Sauce.” The specificity of the ingredients add allure to the dishes: not only is it Pomodoro sauce made with heirloom tomatoes, but they are “first of the season,” which implies that they are fresh. Preserved lemons are uncommon in Oregon, where I am from, and could be a satisfying adventure if I wanted to try something new.
The concept of brevity also reminded me of places where words are not the primary source of information on a menu. McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants use no more than large, colorful pictures and a few words on their combo menus. In Japan, fake food is often used to supplement paper menus and is displayed outside the restaurant, or in the window to draw in potential customers. The claim that “squeamishness and disgust are learned” in “Everybody Eats” (114) made me think of meals with my host family in Egypt. I had difficulty explaining to them in a respectful manner why I found the idea of eating pigeon repulsive (because they are dirty pests that forage for crumbs and garbage in city parks), as well as fried brain. Goat meat and rabbit were new as well (my friends keep these animals as pets!) and I didn’t find a whole fried fish the least bit appealing, even though it had already been cleaned. Unfortunately for me, people don’t have pets in Egypt, and pigeons don’t fly around the Cairo; they are kept in pigeon coops on the roof of apartment buildings until they are ready to eat. However, the reverse effect occurs when I try to serve my friends Japanese pickled plums (umeboshii), which are as sour as a Warhead, without the sweet aftertaste. I often display the same bewilderment when my friends shy away as my Egyptian family did. Since I have grown up eating umeboshii so naturally, I can’t imagine my life without them.
Reading menus in other countries is always an interesting activity. Ironically, I was able to read Italian menus while I was in Italy, because I knew Spanish, not Italian. Conversely, I was barely able to read Arabic menus in Egypt because I wasn’t yet proficient enough in Arabic. The English translations of these Egyptian menus were often amusing. French fries were not called French fries, but “F.F.” and beef was simply called “meat,” as it is in Arabic. When I was in Japan, I could fall back on the aforementioned fake food when I couldn’t read the kanji on the menu. I encountered trouble, however, when I mistakenly told the waitress that my brother wanted udon with nothing in it (she assumed that he wanted only an empty bowl), instead of udon with nothing but noodles and broth.
As far as name changes for French fries, French toast, and Danishes goes, I think that the people who instituted these changes forgot that these foods are in no way associated with these countries other than in their name. Zoreh Masoumi pointed out in the Danish article, "I just want the sweet pastries. I have nothing to do with the name." French fries are a distinctly American side dish, and most Americans have little idea of French cuisine to know whether or not French toast is actually served in France. For popular foods like Danishes, French fries and French toast, new names should evolve over time, otherwise they won’t be widely used. For foods like Kiwis, which were relatively unknown at the time, and prunes, which carry the same name as shriveled fingers and toes that have been in water for too long (gross!), a name change is probably a good idea.
Why I Am Taking This Class
I decided to sign up for this class because...
1. I wanted to take an IntroSem because the classes are small and discussion-based.
2. I am very interested in languages, but I have never taken a linguistics class and I wanted to try something new.
3. I like food and I started cooking from time to time with my friends this summer
I have studied Japanese, Spanish and Arabic, and have traveled to Asia, the Middle East, Central America and Europe. I enjoy sampling foreign cuisine in these countries, and at home in the United States. I am also very interested in learning about and experiencing other cultures and I have found food to be an accessible and tasty portal into this understanding.
1. I wanted to take an IntroSem because the classes are small and discussion-based.
2. I am very interested in languages, but I have never taken a linguistics class and I wanted to try something new.
3. I like food and I started cooking from time to time with my friends this summer
I have studied Japanese, Spanish and Arabic, and have traveled to Asia, the Middle East, Central America and Europe. I enjoy sampling foreign cuisine in these countries, and at home in the United States. I am also very interested in learning about and experiencing other cultures and I have found food to be an accessible and tasty portal into this understanding.
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