How do you teach an adult to cook?

[Jenise]

The other night at dinner, a friend of ours, let's call him Gary, who is 54, mentioned that he and his wife would love to learn to cook. Now they bravely throw dinner parties all the time, so cooking per se happens at their home, but what he meant was learning enough to have basic skills and not end up in trouble. He was specifically referring to a small dinner party a few weeks before where his main course was to be fresh home made pasta tossed with a salmon sauce. Another couple wherein the guy is of Italian descent who grew up making pasta with his grandmother had been dubbed 'sous chef'. I was merely a guest.

The pasta dough had been made earlier and individually wrapped in balls, each of which was going to make a sheet that would be rolled out in a manual Atlas while guests stood around drinking bubbly like in one of those yuppie Gallo commercials. Well, the dough was too cold and they couldn't quite get it started, plus Gary didn't get that the process of running it through the machine was going to knead his dough for him and make it more pliable. So Gary decided to rinse the dough with water and rework it to make it soft enough to go through the machine which was clamped, by the way, to a narrow strip of counter barely wider than it was right next to the stove where a pot of boiling water awaited. IOW, a fresh source of heated moisture adjacent, making everything worse, and all four husbands were gathered around the pasta machine--one held the machine which wasn't clamped firmly enough, one turned the crank, one fed the dough ball and one caught the pasta sheet. The wetter dough certainly did process more easily at first, but the resultant strands were so tacky and stretchy that they immediately glued themselves into wads and two of the wives were sent to another counter to laboriously attempt to untangle the wads, isolate the strands, and cut each into approximately 10 inch noodles--which they laid on cookie sheets, about ten noodles each because if they so much as touched, they fused. There weren't enough cookie sheets in the house, probaly not even on their whole street, to hold all the noodles they were going to produce.

I had to wait quite awhile for the opportunity to help without upstaging anyone, showing the ladies how to use dry semolina flour to dessicate the finished pasta such that it could be stored on one tray as well as prevent the 3rd and 4th dough balls from getting the water treatment and showing the guys how to warm the pasta with their hands so that Gary could crank out the pasta he meant to have. And this is what Gary meant by 'learning how to cook'--he needs to acquire some basic knowledge of technique, the do's and don'ts that are rarely in the recipes so that he doesn't end up down the creek like this again without a clue of how to get himself out.

So he said he was thinking of taking some cooking classes. You know, the kind where you sign up to spend one evening with Mary Ellen Whozits who will show you how to make three dishes which you eat at the end of the night. And those aren't bad, but they're more about social entertainment than knowledge-building and doing one or two of those a year won't teach you what you need to learn in time if you're 54 years old.

What kind of advice would you give to someone like Gary?

...What kind of advice would you give to someone like Gary?

I don't know about Gary, but I've never made pasta and am thinking about buying a pasta machine. In fact, I was browsing the internet earlier today to see what was available. Any recommendations?

The pasta dough had been made earlier and individually wrapped in balls, each of which was going to make a sheet that would be rolled out in a manual Atlas while guests stood around drinking bubbly like in one of those yuppie Gallo commercials. Well, the dough was too cold and they couldn't quite get it started, plus Gary didn't get that the process of running it through the machine was going to knead his dough for him and make it more pliable. So Gary decided to rinse the dough with water and rework it to make it soft enough to go through the machine which was clamped, by the way, to a narrow strip of counter barely wider than it was right next to the stove where a pot of boiling water awaited. IOW, a fresh source of heated moisture adjacent, making everything worse, and all four husbands were gathered around the pasta machine--one held the machine which wasn't clamped firmly enough, one turned the crank, one fed the dough ball and one caught the pasta sheet. The wetter dough certainly did process more easily at first, but the resultant strands were so tacky and stretchy that they immediately glued themselves into wads and two of the wives were sent to another counter to laboriously attempt to untangle the wads, isolate the strands, and cut each into approximately 10 inch noodles--which they laid on cookie sheets, about ten noodles each. There weren't enough cookie sheets in the house, probaly not even on their whole street, to hold all the noodles they were going to produce.

What kind of advice would you give to someone like Gary?

OMG, what a horrific sounding evening! You cracked me up with the Gallo commercial analogy. So easy to picture it all. Did you ever get to eat, or did you just resort to major wine drinking?
Geez, advice? Why don't you go into business? Have him shadow you for a month. That experience would be worth a bundle.

I'd say it depends on ambitions. Reminds me of a golf coach that said to a friend, that unless you want to practice twice a week, then use the swing you have and work with it. If you're more passionate about it, then the swing could be remodelled from scratch.

- If he enjoys (and I mean looks forward to) trying out something new once or twice every week, then there's some canvas to play with and a few key skills could be adapted to various meals.

- If it's about impressing on rare occasions, then I think it's about developing a short but adaptable range of no-fail dishes, hopefully based on tweaking stuff he can already do to improve taste and presentation.

Personally I'm a real maverick when it comes to cooking, have no training (except cookery classes aged 14 at school) and no family history of cooking skills (indeed quite the opposite). I do enjoy it though (an enjoyment revived following 2.5 years living out of hotels through work). I'd be difficult to teach, as I've learnt by trial and error, continuing to do so to this day. I wonder whether I'm too "feral" in the kitchen to learn If he's in the same boat then I'd say work on key basics (Pasta making for dummies would be good) and then let him experiment with sauces etc.

regards

Ian

[Jenise]

OMG, what a horrific sounding evening! You cracked me up with the Gallo commercial analogy. So easy to picture it all. Did you ever get to eat, or did you just resort to major wine drinking? ...Have him shadow you for a month....

Oh we had fun and the meal worked out fine eventually, it was just really difficult to find that right time to start helping without making anyone look bad. Oh, and the only other person in the room that night who also wasn't given a task to do is every bit my equal in the kitchen--I wasn't the only one standing there helpless. Too, I should make it clear that I love Gary and his wife for not being intimidated about cooking for better cooks--I love them a lot for the good friends that they are, and the fact that they so love entertaining at home is just a big plus.

But you're right--for the novice, getting in the kitchen every chance you get with any cook whose better than you are is a great learning experience. Pour some wine and it's a great social occasion too.

Well, since I've been cooking for over 50 years and would not have known what to do in that situation you described, I would say it is a matter of good old experience. He could take classes specific to what he wants to learn, since it sounds like he has cooking knowledge already. Even a pasta cooking class may not have touched on what he learned that night from you, Jenise. I take classes now and then for fun, and I have to say I learn more from talking to the participants during breaks than I do at the classes. I have the basics for the way I like to cook, already. I think he just needs more experience. He could take a cookbook that has several recipes that are above his comfort level and start from there but I think experience, and hanging with you, will be the best teacher.

Don't know how anybody else feels after reading it, but thought your description was hilarious! Too bad there wasn't a video of the event.
Agreed that the occasional lesson isn't gonna make him a cook, perhaps the best advice he could get is to hire a personal chef the next time, but don't suppose that suggestion realistically, could be made.

What kind of advice would you give to someone like Gary?

I never know when to jump into threads like this ,so I usually stay out.

In my 22- year teaching career he would have been a pleasure to have as a student - compared to what I dealt with on nearly a daily basis. I put the count around 12,000 students that I personally taught.

I taught adults in my professional classes during the day - ranging in age from 17 - 79. I taught every kind of professional in my evening classes - heavy on doctors, lawyers and teachers.

For six years I taught inmates with convictions ranging from simple possession to aggravated murder.

It's definitely the singer and not the song here. That's why I wrote the book.

I'm incapable of absorbing an education, so it's a good thing I didn't take your class.

Ian hit it on the head, IMO.

...What kind of advice would you give to someone like Gary?

I don't know about Gary, but I've never made pasta and am thinking about buying a pasta machine. In fact, I was browsing the internet earlier today to see what was available. Any recommendations?

I, and the couple of other people I know who make fresh pasta, use the Atlas. It's good and reliable, though the clamping system could use some work. It also would be nice to have a wider machine -- I have the standard version where the rollers are 150mm wide. I'd like to have the 180mm version; I could do pappardelle and ravioli and such with fewer sheets.

Thanks Lee. I think I'll start another thread on this topic, rather than start a thread drift.

I'm incapable of absorbing an education, so it's a good thing I didn't take your class.

Ian hit it on the head, IMO.

Huh, a self-educated scientist. Interesting concept in this day and age. Won't work in the professional kitchen. Too many black holes in a serendipitous culinary education. Hell, I was teaching in the professional kitchen long before I became a "teacher".

One exception: I think those who possess a high enough IQ will "get it" eventually - with a little steering.

I would suggest that you recommend that they work through the foundation sections of books by cooks like Madeleine Kamman, Jacques Pepin and Julia Child. This would give them a good base of the building blocks of cooking. Then branch out into recipes that use these basics, followed by variations that combine more than one technique.
Also, have them learn how to prepare the essential ingredients, such as good veal and poultry stock, mushroom duxelles, ham lardons, tomatoes concassees, etc..
Then, practice, practice, practice.
Don't be afraid of failure. My kids, all over 40 now, still remind me of my first loaf of bread, which had the consistency of a curling stone, but I am still making bread every week, hopefully with better results.

[Jenise]

Don't know how anybody else feels after reading it, but thought your description was hilarious!

Though it was not my intent to make fun of my friend, it WAS pretty funny--at least the part where there were four guys running a hand-crank pasta machine and the pasta dough was winning.

[Jenise]

I'd like to have the 180mm version; I could do pappardelle and ravioli and such with fewer sheets.

I've salivated over the larger one, too. I should put my garage-sale expert friend onto the case, should have a new one in no time!

[Jenise]

Well, since I've been cooking for over 50 years and would not have known what to do in that situation you described, I would say it is a matter of good old experience.

Karen, I'm confident that your 50 years of experience would have, I am completely positive, prevented you from wetting down the dough in the first place which would have mitigated 100% of the problems that came later. But you're right: there's no substitute for experience.

[Jenise]

I would suggest that you recommend that they work through the foundation sections of books by cooks like Madeleine Kamman, Jacques Pepin and Julia Child. This would give them a good base of the building blocks of cooking. Then branch out into recipes that use these basics, followed by variations that combine more than one technique.
Also, have them learn how to prepare the essential ingredients, such as good veal and poultry stock, mushroom duxelles, ham lardons, tomatoes concassees, etc..
Then, practice, practice, practice.
Don't be afraid of failure. My kids, all over 40 now, still remind me of my first loaf of bread, which had the consistency of a curling stone, but I am still making bread every week, hopefully with better results.

I'm not familiar with what Jacques Pepin has in print, but Julia Childs book "The Way To Cook" is, I know, a fairly good cross between tutorial and recipe book with pictures that show her beautifully gnarled old hands (they remind me of my grandmother's) working through everything from the five master sauces to puff pastry. Moreover, it would have a number of the dishes Gary's suddenly enamored with as a result of having fallen in love with a little French bistro in White Rock that serves classics like Duck L'Orange and Cassoulet--I should get him a copy of that for Christmas!

Jacques Pepin's "Complete techniques" has a copyright date of 2001, so should be available used. A search on abesbooks.com should find copies.
This is a paperback reprint of the complete "La Technique" and "La Methode", which, I think, came out in the 1970's.
Madeleine Kamman's best instructional book "The new making of a cook" came out in 1997. This is a little more advanced than either Child or Pepin's books, but is an excellent take on modern French cooking. The section on building sauces is worth the cost by itself. Definitely one to buy used as it is a 1200+ page hardcover, with an original cost of $40.

A great comedy scene. How DID you manage to rescue the wet dough ??
People who love to cook often can't fathom how clueless non cooks can be-even very simple prep steps can be totally foreign. It would be hard to know how far back in the process one needs to start teaching - even the selection of ingredients might need to be taught.

This is what I would tell Gary. It's the same advice I've given to young people who are just starting out and "don't know how to cook."
Pick your own three favorite meals (dinner, that is). Then perfect them. It's my firm belief that if you love spaghetti bolonese, for instance, you should practice making the sauce until it's excellent, and in doing that, you have mastered several important techniques--chopping, sauteeing, adding fresh herbs, simmering, reducing the sauce, then serving. And please do use dried spaghetti and learn how to cook it al dente. Let's say your second favorite dish is roast chicken with vegetables. Again, there's a range of techniques to be employed--drying and seasoning the poultry, possibly brining it, setting oven temperature, choosing the right vegetables that don't turn into mush in the oven, finding the exact timing for a moist and browned chicken. And let's say your third favorite dinner dish is a Mexican chile verde. So now you learn how to roast a pork shoulder till it's tender, then remove the fat from it, cut it into chunks, then prep the peppers and make a green sauce, use an immersion blender, adjust seasonings. Three hearty satisfying dishes can be the basis of many a successful dinner party and the foundation of real cooking knowledge. I would tell Gary to NEVER make homemade pasta while guests are standing around. What was he thinking? Oh yes, the WineSpectator photo shoot.

Make the adult eat what they cook. They will learn very quickly-good and bad.

I've been thinking some more about this subject, particularly as last night we went to a dinner party where a dear friend destroyed a very expensive prime rib roast simply because she does not know the first thing about how to roast a roast. She told me several days ahead of the dinner that she had rubbed the roast with a mash of garlic and fresh herbs and sea salt, and I told her this was a great idea.

Here's what happened. We arrived and I saw that she had roasted the 4-rib prime rib ( I happen to know it was purchased from a VERY expensive and reliable purveyor of organically raised beef, so the source was impeccable) and it was sitting on the counter, very hot, with a meat thermometer in it. The thermometer read 100 degrees. I thought, OK, that's good, knowing that the temperature was probably rising and the roast would be perfectly done in 20 minutes or so, and then would rest nicely. Next we had a margarita and some appetizers. About an hour went by. Then we were seated and the prime rib was served. It should have been rare or medium rare, but I think what happened was she thought the meat was too red and so nuked it. She didn't actually tell us that, but What arrived on the plate was a gray, tough, utterly unchewable mess. Ouch! What had been a splendid cut of beef was ruined, and all the guests tried valiantly to make it look like we actually ate it. The man on my left used a very clever technique of carefully and laboriously (we all had steak knives) cutting it into little cubes and thus making it look like he was getting ready to eat it. He didn't eat it, nor did I. Mine just sat on the plate, a gray slab. Today I talked to her and she was in despair over the roast, and thought the meat market was to blame. I didn't have the heart to tell her my real opinion. What would you have done?

People who love to cook often can't fathom how clueless non cooks can be-even very simple prep steps can be totally foreign. It would be hard to know how far back in the process one needs to start teaching - even the selection of ingredients might need to be taught.

Isn't that the truth, Christina! I think the hardest part for the person who cooks is to stand by and just watch without saying, "You know, it's much easier (or works better) if you...." I can just imagine Jenise, you watching this fiasco and with your innate helpful nature having to struggle to hold back when you could see the whole thing going down the tubes. When you finally got to step in, I'll bet everyone was in awe.

Sad to say, it reminds me a tiny bit of the first dinner party we threw while Len and I were still a relatively new item. I had lovingly and painstakingly made Bolognese sauce for lasagne. I put the noodles into the boiling water and I can't remember what happened after that but for whatever reason I didn't stir them. Well, they just glued themselves together. I was just one big panic attack, a wreck with people coming over, no grocery store nearby (he lived kind of in the boonies) and probably still in my shorts and running shoes. Lucky for me, our relationship was new enough--he was still "courting" me somewhat--that he showed actual patience and said, "Don't worry, it'll be fine. You go get ready and I'll pull them all apart." He did, some of them were really ripped and ugly, but no one was the wiser when it was all put together. I now buy Barilla no-boil noodles and think they are wonderful.

Ines, that is just a shame about the Prime Rib. A crime. Was she following a recipe or referring to something that made her take it out at 100? I would have thought it needed to be taken out at 115 at the lowest, no?

Speaking of Prime Rib, I make a standing rib roast every Christmas. Usually, I use my Mom's recipe that calls for cooking it a very high temp for a half hour or something and then turning the oven off and leaving the door shut (I'd have to look it up for the exact steps). Last year, we decided that doesn't produce that meltingly tender prime rib we are used to getting in restaurants. Someone here commented (Chef or John T, I think) that restaurants usually do the opposite. Very, very low tempurature for a longer time. This year I'm going to try that.

Speaking of Prime Rib, I make a standing rib roast every Christmas. Usually, I use my Mom's recipe that calls for cooking it a very high temp for a half hour or something and then turning the oven off and leaving the door shut (I'd have to look it up for the exact steps).

Jody made us a grade prime Prime Rib for Thanksgiving this year and that is exactly the method she used. I thought she was crazy when she told me how she was going to cook it but it turned out fabulous. We would do it again that way and weather permitting would throw it on the grill for a minute at the end.