17 August 2008

Memorable Quote

"On the act of cooking: I despise recipes that promise results without work, or success without technique. I have eaten too many short-cut piecrusts to trust anyone who tells women that pastry made with oil is just as good as the 'hard' kind. Mere facility, of course, is no more a guarantee of good taste in cooking than it is in music; but without it, nothing good is possible at all. Technique must be acquired, and, with technique, a love of the very processes of cooking. No artist can work simply for results; he must also like the work of getting them. Not that there isn't a lot of drudgery in any art - and more in cooking than in most - but that if a man has never been pleasantly surprised at the way custard sets or flour thickens, there is not much hope of making a cook of him. Pastry and confectionery will remain forever beyond him, and he will probably never even be able to get gravy to come out the same twice. Interest in results never conquers boredom with process."

~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection

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