Finally, I can tell my wife it`s not my fault. It`s a dysfunction. Yesterday, at last, I found there is a name for it.
I am, the authorities have concluded, a ”culinary illiterate.”
A recent article explains that this phrase has gained currency among America`s food experts. There are various theories as to what is behind culinary illiteracy. The most common is that we sufferers fake it so we don`t have to cook.
”I don`t get it,” my wife remarks after I attempt stir-fried chicken and it comes out blue. ”If you can read a recipe, you can cook. What`s the problem?”
That`s the problem: Certain people, including college graduates who once read and understood ”Beowulf,” are indeed incapable of reading common recipes. It`s a form, I suspect, of dyslexia.
I conclude this after trying to read a recipe in one of the country`s most-celebrated cookbooks, Julia Child`s ”The Way to Cook.” I could have demonstrated my inadequacy by choosing a difficult recipe, like chicken livers alla Veneziana. But that would have been cheating. Instead, I pick what has to be one of the simplest things to cook: beef broth.
I turn to Page 14 and begin.
Right away, I get confused. The recipe calls for an oxtail. This can`t be true. Why would anyone want to cut something off that end of an ox-something the ox has dragged through muddy fields its entire life-and make soup out of it?
I move to the other ingredients. They include 4 allspice berries and 6 peppercorns, neither of which I`m familiar with. I also need something called a herb bouquet. What`s that? Fortunately, the recipe tells me to read
”Special note, page 336.” There I find a herb bouquet usually includes thyme, parsley and bay leaf. But, depending on the recipe, it can also include savory, oregano, cloves and juniper berries. I see. Only one-third of the way through the simplest recipe in the book, I am lost. I decide to press on anyway.
The next paragraph instructs me to brown the bones. Unfortunately, browning is a foreign concept, so I jump ahead and am told to deglaze the pan. Another mystery. Then I`m advised to simmer, which I can handle, until I get to the part where I`m told to ”skim off gray scum that will collect on the surface.” Nobody warned me that making soup would involve scum skimming.
The next instruction tells me to strain and degrease, neither of which I know how to do. But fortunately, degreasing directions are on Page 242. There I`m told that one degreases with a degreasing pitcher, which I don`t own, but there is a photo of one showing some kind of liquid with an inch or so of scum to be degreased off the top. I thought we`d already gotten rid of the scum.
Back to the recipe, where I`m shocked to find that doing this correctly involves ”clarifying” the stock, which in turn involves a sieve lined with three thicknesses of washed cheesecloth set in a colander over a bowl. This is a joke, right?
I am also advised to turn my concoction into aspic. I try asking several women what aspic is. ”Like jelly,” says one. ”It jiggles,” says another. How this relates to beef broth I will never understand.
What I do want to know is this: Why didn`t Ms. Child simply tell me to drop a bouillon cube into hot water? Or better yet, go to a store and buy soup from someone who has already dropped the bouillon cube into hot water?
I give up. If this is what I have to go through to make clear soup, how can there be any hope of doing chicken livers alla Veneziana?
I am thinking of organizing a support group for my fellow culinary illiterates. Its goal will be to provide solace to those who are never believed when they insist they can`t read recipes. We will order dinner to go.
