Gourmet BS

November 19, 2007 in Moron, Society
Tags: Chef, Cooking, Dining, Food, Restaurants

Harold McGee, who first bonded rigorous science to popular cookery in his 1984 book, “On Food and Cooking,” was doing a run-through for Thanksgiving dinner. His culinary investigations did not end with the book’s publication. He has spent the last 10 years working on a revision, just published by Scribner. Illustrating some of his new findings in his kitchen here, sliced apples for pie were dehydrating in a bowl, green beans were boiling in two pots of water (one salted, one not, to learn the difference), and a fat turkey sat on the counter with ice packs resting on its breasts.

There is nothing like mixing mediocre science and cooking jargon. This is a pretentious crock. Somehow a nerd pontificating on cheffing is worthy of a NY Times article, why? You can see Alton Brown doing the same nonsense on the Food Network any night of the week. The idea is to make foodies feel smart and validated, to raise cookery from the level of the working-class guys who do it best to being some kind of high intellectual/artistic pursuit. It is not. It’s also about people who can’t cook trying to find a way to make money from the restaurant industry. Some things do not need to be scrutinized, and people like this should be ignored.