The Lost Art of Cooking
Mar. 9th, 2011 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cmdr_zoom(in which a science officer explains her strange hobby.)
"The thing about replicated food is that it's always exactly the same. The original pattern may have been prepared by a master chef, and chosen by a panel of experts... but every copy is identical, right down to the molecule. And even the perfect dish can lose a little of its flavor when you've eaten it a hundred times.
Cooking, even with a recipe to follow, is unpredictable. Maybe another few grains of salt will fall from the shaker, or you'll stir something forty-eight times instead of fifty, or decide to use fresh paprika. Maybe your oven's running a little hot that day. Maybe one of your guests can't eat iron-blooded meat and you have to substitute and improvise. Maybe a lettuce leaf will fall this way instead of that. It's controlled chaos, an equation full of variables... a reminder that for all we try to understand and define and tame the universe around us, there's still that element of uncertainty.
It's also delicious. And if sometimes it's a little less delicious, a little overdone or too spicy, that's what you get for taking chances."
(those of you who personally know me, and how little I am into cooking RL, will appreciate how much of this is roleplaying. ;)
"The thing about replicated food is that it's always exactly the same. The original pattern may have been prepared by a master chef, and chosen by a panel of experts... but every copy is identical, right down to the molecule. And even the perfect dish can lose a little of its flavor when you've eaten it a hundred times.
Cooking, even with a recipe to follow, is unpredictable. Maybe another few grains of salt will fall from the shaker, or you'll stir something forty-eight times instead of fifty, or decide to use fresh paprika. Maybe your oven's running a little hot that day. Maybe one of your guests can't eat iron-blooded meat and you have to substitute and improvise. Maybe a lettuce leaf will fall this way instead of that. It's controlled chaos, an equation full of variables... a reminder that for all we try to understand and define and tame the universe around us, there's still that element of uncertainty.
It's also delicious. And if sometimes it's a little less delicious, a little overdone or too spicy, that's what you get for taking chances."
(those of you who personally know me, and how little I am into cooking RL, will appreciate how much of this is roleplaying. ;)