Introductory Cooking Principles
Cooking is an ancient practice, a modern art, and a common utility all in one. It is our
source of food, a cultural touchstone, a social catalyst, and a fun hobby. Cooking is, on
the surface, a simple and basic task: the preparation of food for consumption with the
goal of properly fueling our body. And yet, we know it to be so much more than that. In
her book, Salt Fat Acid Heat- Mastering The Elements of Good Cooking, Samin Nostrat
emphasizes the simple, fundamental elements of assembling a dish and a meal. These
building blocks are assembled or administered in different ways with different
ingredients to achieve the incredible breadth and variety of culinary experiences
happening across the globe. The practice and improvement of these basic culinary skills
is essential to becoming both an effect home cook or a serious professional chef. The
simplicity of these four basic elements: salt, fat, acid, and heat, is more than sufficient to
become a great cook, and yet, many find serious benefits in looking deeper into the
science of the preparation of food.
There is no better example of this than J. Kenji López-Alt and his book The Food Lab.
Thick as a textbook, The Food Lab is more reminiscent of a course material in the study
of culinary science than a generic cookbook. It makes sense though, upon further
examination, to take a scientific approach to cooking, for that element of heat
considered by Nostrat is in fact the complex treating of polymers, proteins, and lipids to
transform their diverse compositions into the many final elements of food we enjoy on a
plate.
Bibliography
Nosrat, S., McNaughton, W., & Pollan, M. (2019). Salt, fat, acid, heat: Mastering The
Elements of Good Cooking. Simon & Schuster Audio.
López-Alt, J. K. (2015). The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc.