The Building Blocks of Culinary Art

Food! What would we do without it? I was pleased, though a bit anxious, when Foodhell asked me to introduce his new cookbook, Imitation and Creativity. After all, what could be more representative of the anxiety of influence than a bunch of "world-class" chefs submitting recipes for dishes they supposedly made up themselves. Yet a chef's stance, his Recipe, his imaginative identity, his whole being, must be unique to him, and remain unique, or he will perish, as a chef, like that banana you forgot to make into banana bread, and now it's too late, if ever even he has managed his re-birth into culinary incarnation.

But when recipe after recipe instructs one to "add a white sauce," or "top with meringue," how can these self-proclaimed artists pretend to be creators of something new and original? I have to ask, "Who created the white sauce?" Now there's the guy I want to meet! It seems these days there's nothing you can make that can't be made. There's no dish you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can try to invent a new sauce! It's easy.

And then, there's every Mary Jane Homemaker trying to imitate these recipes--why don't they make up their own, for chrisake? They have to put a glossary in the back of every cookbook just so she'll know what "stir" means, and that "whip" has nothing to do with sex. And when I see, "a box of Jell-O instant pudding can be substituted here," I must admit, I go wild. This is not art! This is not creativity! It is blasphemy, and theft, and cultureless, meaningless, middle-class American Saltine-ism!!!

Then again, unlike letters from the alphabet, which, when arranged in a certain order, always produce the same word, the building blocks of "culinary art," as it were, are never the same. No apple is like any other. And God knows, that when MJH foolishly and presumptuously sets out to concoct a dish according to said recipe, let's face it, it never turns out like the picture. It's always her own mess.

And then you have the bold, "creative" one, who adds a little catsup to the meat loaf because she knows hubby has a sweet tooth, and that this may not only cause him to skip dessert, helping to rid him of that ugly roll of fat creeping over his belt, but that it may get him into bed a little early for some frolicking around, instead of him staying up watching reruns of the fights, when he already knows who won.

And this random insertion of one idea into the other! Linking everything to everything else, up and down and every which-a-way. This kind of web will never float world-wide. You know who you are! With options like "add to taste." What is that all about? Is it one teaspoon of cumin or two? Make up your mind!

I have to say, with these considerations bubbling up from the bottom