Aug 28th, 2023 Monday Sunny
How did you learn to cook?
In my parents’ generation, unless you are trained in some cooking academy – with the goal of becoming a professional chef – your only source of cooking instruction would be your own parents. That was the case for my mom, who learned the basics of cooking from my grandma. While some grandmas might actually take the pains to “teach” cooking, most of them just do it, and their daughters would watch the processes and imitate the actions. Sometimes they would get praised for doing a good job. I imagine my mom would be very proud if she received any compliment from her family.
As was typical for most of the world, the men were not expected to cook. As a result, they would not hang around their moms when cooking was undergoing, and they never learned – nor was there a need to, since they would get married as soon as they left the umbrella of their parents’ household. It would then be their wives’ job to cook for them.
The time has changed.
Now cookbooks continue to be one of the best-selling non-fiction books. Literally there is a cookbook specializing in ANY topic to suit any diet – as long as there is a need, you bet there will be a cookbook written for it. In the rare case that the demand has emerged so recently that a paperback book is not yet published, you can find plenty of blogs giving detailed recipes, with step-by-step pictures, nutrition analyses and tips. Even if you have no habit of reading, the internet is filled with millions of videos through various platforms, showing you the techniques of making all dishes from a simple salad to an elaborate feast, often with multilingual subtitles. You can even pause the video while following along, or re-watch any part at a slower tempo. Most of these sources can be accessed completely free.
Really, there is no excuse for someone NOT to learn how to cook, especially the uncomplicated dishes like pasta or congee.
Of course, the first time I try to cook a dish, there has to be a little bit of trial and error – maybe the recipe is a bit ambiguous (a-hem, many recipes written for my parents’ generation are like that, with everything marked as “appropriate amount”) so I may interpret it wrong; maybe some overlooked details turn out to have an impact on the outcome; maybe the idea honestly does not work – but who cares? I am cooking for myself (and my husband), and I know the result would be edible, even if not palatable 😛 If it is not completely to my taste, well, then my husband can finish it 😀
Because of a very forgiving husband with a big appetite, I can be adventurous in cooking, to the extent that I would attempt to replicate a seemingly yummy idea from a manga, despite not having a clearly written recipe at hand. I would search online for similar foods and draft a reasonable plan for this cooking project. The rest is in the hand of the cooking artist (both my husband and I share that title ?)
That is how we made these eggplant curry buns. The dough is homemade bread dough, using a sponge dough method. The filling is eggplant curry with our homegrown eggplants. Instead of deep frying the buns, we went with baking, though I am sure deep-frying would produce nicer-looking buns with crunchier outer crust. Still, these buns were tasty and quite satisfying. Even better – we have enough eggplants to make them again!