Recipes, recipes everywhere, nor any bite to eat.
Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but the plight of the modern cook is not unlike that of Coleridge's poor, parched mariner. Between television, cookbooks, magazines and blogs, we are swimming in recipes, but how much are they actually teaching us about the craft of cooking?
Not much, according to Michael Ruhlman. In his latest book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, the Cleveland-based food author advocates a different approach: Understand the fundamental proportions and techniques behind preparations of dishes as different as cookies and crème anglaise, and you can spend time in the kitchen improvising and expanding your culinary repertoire rather than cribbing from recipes.
Not that Mr. Ruhlman hasn't contributed to the flood of recipes himself. His 2005 collaboration with Brian Polcyn, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, fed the current mania for cured meats, and he's written cookbooks with three-star icons like Eric Ripert and Thomas Keller. But among foodies, Mr. Ruhlman has undeniable kitchen bona fides. In the nineties, he enrolled in culinary school before chronicling his training in The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America. In fact, it was there that he stumbled over the inspiration for his latest effort. The Globe and Mail talked to him about his revelation.
What's the difference between a ratio and a recipe?
A ratio is a fixed proportion of ingredients relative to another, and these proportions form the backbone of the culinary arts. A recipe is a specific set of measurements and instructions for combining those measured ingredients. These ratios are starting points.
Isn't there a certain irony in the fact that you've produced books of recipes and you're now saying people rely too heavily on them?
It's a fair question. I even say myself, "I can't stand cookbooks." I think there's too many of them and they take up too much space. This is not to say that we don't need recipes. I have recipes in Ratio, but when we rely solely on recipes we remain sort of chained and in the cave. If you know the ratios, then you certainly understand a recipe much better, how it's working, and how you can bend it to your preferences. Ratios make you smarter. I want more people to cook, and I want more people to feel comfortable with cooking, and when you know the ratios, that can happen.
Everyone loves cookies. Can you talk about your 1-2-3 cookie dough and how cooks can use that as a basis to understand ratios?
A basic cookie dough is easy to remember and easy to put together: three parts flour, two parts fat, and one part sugar. Add vanilla and some lemon zest and it starts to sparkle a little bit and become more interesting and more complex. Coat the top with chopped pistachios or chopped almonds and they take on a different form of pleasure. Change the sugar to brown sugar, which is even a little bit more complex and has the sort of molasses-y note to it. Use a little molasses, instead of sugar, and you have something that goes closer to a ginger cookie. Add more fat and some eggs say to leaven it, and you've got a different style of cookie. Chocolate-chip cookies are traditionally one-to-one-to-one, so you're increasing the amount of fat and sugar, that's what gives us those really rich, cakey cookies. When you start with this baseline cookie, you see that a whole range of cookies are suddenly more reachable and more comprehensible and more doable without even looking at a recipe.
Your book includes sections on stocks, sauces, forcemeats and custards, but ratios are traditionally associated with the art of the baker. How do ratios apply to those preparations?
