What are your favorite foods and/or drinks?

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't know how to cook "modern" really either, but I do tend to update a lot of 'traditional' family recipes.  This is seen as either sacreligious or fantastic, depending on who you ask. 

Most famously, I built our holiday mix up from a list of ingredients that mostly do not exist anymore, to something you can at least put together.  That was fine with most, but taking advantage of the MICROWAVE so I could make a batch in 40 minutes instead of 4 hours was blasphemous!!!

But, there's no way a CHEF would call ANYTHING I do "modern". 

Have a whole pile of recipes my grandma was throwing out as they were 'too hard' or 'can't find the ingredients anymore' that I've been putting together and updating.  Mostly holiday stuff.  The few meals that were in there have been quite mixed in the results.  A lot of it was war time stuff that is not the greatest quality of meat available, so doctoring it to no end.  Eyebrow raising hamburger recipe, for instance.  There's kernels to be gleaned from all of it, though. 

2 things that define my cooking.  I was a naughty boy, mom loved to have us stand in the corner on her 'up' days, when we weren't having to stand with the encyclopedia held up on our outstretched arms.  My designated corner had a great big poster that listed virtually all spices and what meats they should be paired with, and what other spices they best coordinate with to make what type of dish.  I have that thing memorized...

And, experimenting with Grandma's recipes. 

Between them, I can usually just toss stuff together and know what's going to taste good.  I'm not afraid to screw it up either.  Recipes are a guideline at best.

You're describing how one learns to cook one's own dishes.  Momma taught me some basics of cooking as a child, and I've been teaching myself ever since.  It pays to pay attention to the physics and chemistry of the cooking process.

[Unorthodox]

I'm becoming better at tasting something somewhere, then being able to recreate it at home.  Recreated a few items in the last year or so. 

Looking forward to giving the pumpkin cookies another go...turned out HORRIBLE last year.  Well, they tasted fantastic, but you needed a spoon...

[Buster's Uncle]

Maybe there's something in there that explains why so many chefs are men...

[Rusty Edge]

Maybe there's something in there that explains why so many chefs are men...

I'm still getting used to your avatar...

I think so. I think many women are inclined to accept their situation. They may suffer in silence, or they may they may complain. The complaining seems to be more about relating and connecting than problem solving. Another approach is to recruit assistance.

A man often tries to overcome his environment. He sees it as a challenge or a struggle to be won. That may mean changing his approach, or modifying what he works with.

So I think men are more inclined to see cooking as art or science, and subject to creative change or incremental perfectionism.

I think women are more inclined to see recipes in terms of rigid rules or sacred family traditions. You can't disrespect great great grandma- never mind that she would have killed for a microwave oven.

[Buster's Uncle]

Could be.  I have an eternal argument with my mother about proper frying - she tries to minimize the grease deployed in advance for obvious reasons, and ain't trying to hear it when I keep pointing out that doing so is contrary to how the basic physics of frying is supposed to work.

[Valka]

Cooking is science - chemistry, physics, biology, botany...

It's experimental. One year in the SCA I was tapped to be the Harvest Feast autocrat (the person who organizes the thing). I decided we WERE going to have chocolate, and we WERE going to have a variety of Old World/New World combinations.

Which brings me to one of the desserts we had: Chocolate-coated grapes. When I first decided on this, I was told it would never work - it wasn't a combination anyone was familiar with, it wasn't "period" and nobody would like it.

Well, we were a New World group, hence chocolate was period. Grapes were always period. Therefore, it's entirely possible that at some point in history, somebody might have chosen to combine them in the same dish.

It took a lot of experimenting, and two kitchens had chocolate from one end to the other. It's a messy process before figuring out just how to do it. Now, I could do it with very little fuss - it just takes time to do enough to make it worth the effort. And the taste/texture, provided everything is right and the grapes are served chilled, is sublime.

[Rusty Edge]

On second thought, I don't do modern food so I wouldn't know where to begin or what is considered modern these days. In Sweden traditional food is very hot and trendy and has been for quite some time...

Well then, I'll have to accept my own challenge .

Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner

Turkey
gravy
stuffing
cranberry sauce
mashed potatoes
sweet potatoes
corn
beans
pumpkin pie

[Geo]

'French' fries need some luv too. 

[Unorthodox]

Don't you mean Freedom Fries? 


Not going to touch the gender discussion...

[Unorthodox]

Which brings me to one of the desserts we had: Chocolate-coated grapes. When I first decided on this, I was told it would never work - it wasn't a combination anyone was familiar with, it wasn't "period" and nobody would like it.

"Combination no one is familiar with"? 


No one ever popped some Rasinets?   

[Valka]

These weren't raisins, they were fresh, chocolate-coated green seedless grapes. That's a very different sort of thing than commercially-produced chocolate-covered raisins. For one thing, the grapes I did were individually made... all 12 dozen of them.

I know that practically everyone's had commercially-made chocolate raisins. But this was the first time - at least in this part of the Knowne World - that anybody served the fresh kind at a feast.

[Unorthodox]

But raisin>grape doesn't seem that much a stretch in my mind.  Raisin = good, stands to reason grape = better.  No, you don't see it (never heard of anyone doing it myself before now) because I don't imagine they keep well at all. 

I don't envy you for dipping all those, though.  I mean strawberries are easy and all comparitively.  I LOATHE dipping things...  One Christmas tradition I'm not even looking to keep alive. 

[Valka]

The reason strawberries don't work well is because they have too much moisture. One thing we discovered right away is that there can't be any water (from being rinsed) AT ALL. And the moist area where the grape was attached to the vine also had to be dry. Otherwise the chocolate won't set properly and after it's all chilled, it can create a syrupy mess.

[Zoid]

In Sweden traditional food is very hot and trendy and has been for quite some time...

Lax? 

More like this http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.restaurangkometen.se%2Flunch%2F&act=url

[Rusty Edge]

So what is "ishavstorsk "?   

Shaved stork?