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LJJohnson · 03-01-2017, 10:43 AM

Pretty far off subject here. I was merely countering your contention that someone (like Rick Bayless) couldn't become an expert in the regional cooking of another country (Mexico) because he wasn't either born in the country or had parents from that country that taught him how to cook. I don't either understand or agree with that contention.

One of the best chefs around (at least in contests) is Masaharu Morimoto. And despite being born and raised in Japan, he excelled in not only Japanese cooking, but any other country's regional cooking that he turned his hand to. He proved conclusively (at least to me) on the original iron chef that being a great chef was superior to being bound to strict rules for Japanese cuisine. He did this by defeating nearly 100% of the Japanese chefs that came to the show, many of them bragging that making a recipe **exactly** like it has been done for hundreds of years was the winning method. So, whether you call it fusion cooking, or just good cooking, superior talent, training and research trumped those who followed 300 year old recipes and methodology blindly.

My mom was known as a good cook, but I didn't learn any cooking from her, no did I like most of what she cooked (other than fried chicken and fried lake pan fish). Nor from any other family member. I do, however, have 50+ years of self-taught (thousands of cooking shows, many many hundreds of books, lots of experimenting) cooking under my belt, in many of the world cuisines.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here. While I do agree that home cooking can be great (I've never tasted fried chicken better than my mom's), I don't agree that you can't do as well or even better with talent, training, and most importantly, the ability to "taste" food by just reading the ingredients. That is why I don't mind even bad cookbooks. I can quickly scan though the ingredients to determine if it's a recipe I want to try, and if so, try it as is, or with minor or major modifications, or just as inspiration for a totally different dish.

And BTW, while I have a couple of Mario's cookbooks, and have cooked some of his recipes, I'm not overly found of Italian cooking from whatever part of Italy. I tend more toward oriental (Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai) for go-to dishes.

03-01-2017, 10:43 AM	#913
LJJohnson Groupie Posts: 156 Karma: 511136 Join Date: May 2013 Location: -- Home is where the RV stops (Texas ~6 months/year) Device: Kindle Fire HDX, Fire HD, Paperwhite,Android & Windpws phones	Pretty far off subject here. I was merely countering your contention that someone (like Rick Bayless) couldn't become an expert in the regional cooking of another country (Mexico) because he wasn't either born in the country or had parents from that country that taught him how to cook. I don't either understand or agree with that contention. One of the best chefs around (at least in contests) is Masaharu Morimoto. And despite being born and raised in Japan, he excelled in not only Japanese cooking, but any other country's regional cooking that he turned his hand to. He proved conclusively (at least to me) on the original iron chef that being a great chef was superior to being bound to strict rules for Japanese cuisine. He did this by defeating nearly 100% of the Japanese chefs that came to the show, many of them bragging that making a recipe exactly like it has been done for hundreds of years was the winning method. So, whether you call it fusion cooking, or just good cooking, superior talent, training and research trumped those who followed 300 year old recipes and methodology blindly. My mom was known as a good cook, but I didn't learn any cooking from her, no did I like most of what she cooked (other than fried chicken and fried lake pan fish). Nor from any other family member. I do, however, have 50+ years of self-taught (thousands of cooking shows, many many hundreds of books, lots of experimenting) cooking under my belt, in many of the world cuisines. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here. While I do agree that home cooking can be great (I've never tasted fried chicken better than my mom's), I don't agree that you can't do as well or even better with talent, training, and most importantly, the ability to "taste" food by just reading the ingredients. That is why I don't mind even bad cookbooks. I can quickly scan though the ingredients to determine if it's a recipe I want to try, and if so, try it as is, or with minor or major modifications, or just as inspiration for a totally different dish. And BTW, while I have a couple of Mario's cookbooks, and have cooked some of his recipes, I'm not overly found of Italian cooking from whatever part of Italy. I tend more toward oriental (Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai) for go-to dishes.