Recipes - Art, Science or Management

I have learned most of my culinary skills from my mother. I must admit here that, I didn't learn much from her in person.

And yet I have turned out to be a decent enough cook. I bet you are wondering how I pulled that stunt. Hehe... I read her hand written recipe books at length and tried the recipes out; over and over again till I perfected them.

Mummy was not only an avid cook, but never shyed away from asking for a recipe of a new interesting dish she had eaten; from its respective cook.

She would write these recipes down in small diairies or notebooks. Her earliest recipe books are dated July 1978 - I must have been just a year old.

Interestingly, all these recipes always have a foot note. This note describes how the recipe had turned out after she tried them out for the first time. These footnotes have helped me understand or estimate how the given recipe would turn out. Just like her, I make it a point to write down how a particular recipe turned out and what can be done to better it.

The recipe is essentially a science experiment. It has a list and quantity of materials, the apparatus to be used and the procedure to be followed step by step to complete the science experiment.

A desirable addition to this experiment is an observation section. The observation could be a desirable outcome or not as desirable as expected or worse case scenario a complete failure.

The next step would be to identify what went wrong or what was missing. Making the noted change and trying the recipe out yet another time.... To write down the observation again - simply using the management principle - PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act - going back to Plan if need be and repeat the cycle over again, till the perfect recipe is formulated.

To sum it all, i think a recipe is a science experiment which can be perfected with a management principle.

And you thought, cooking was so simple!!