Megan McArdle: evaluation

Transcript context

…I would say that if you’re talking about farmhouse cooking, and the cooking actually, particularly at this region, I see a lot of affinities with Italian cooking. For example, one of the principles of the cooking of the Jiangnan region, xian xian he yi, unity of fresh and salted. The use of small amounts of cured pork and intensely flavored ingredients to bring life to vegetables and more gently flavored ingredients. Also, with Italian cooking, you get some very interesting pastas with Chinese as well, so that’s one. I wouldn’t say that Italian cooking is anything like a match for Chinese in the complexity and diversity. Italy’s a tiny country by comparison, but there are some parallels that I see there. I’ve read your books, and yet I find I’m kind of afraid to cook from them. My mom’s a caterer, and I grew up cooking a lot of really good American, and French, and so forth food. When you skip cuisines that far, you feel like you go in, and even though you’re doing everything it says in the recipe, you realize how much little skill is required just to make a recipe come out right. It’s stuff that you don’t even know you’re doing [laughs] because you know how it should be, you know how this thing works. What do people, who are starting out with a completely new cuisine, and for both Chinese and Western cooks going each way, how do you bridge that? Firstly, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I can remember before I went to China, cooking from a Chinese cookbook and already a keen cook in other traditions, but thinking, “I just don’t know the grammar of this cuisine. I’m just following step by step and I don’t know what it means or where it’s going.” I do understand that. Of course, it helps to have tasted some of the food. Try to recreate recipes that you have maybe tasted as a starting point.…

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