Culinary Arts
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Culinary art is defined as the art of cooking. However, this very simple and commonplace definition completely fails to give culinary arts the credit that it justly deserves for its required skills and the intricacies that are involved.
Culinary art or the art of cooking is the process of producing edible foods by applying various degrees of heat. The methods utilized, the tools used, the ingredients added and the many different combinations of some or all of the above results in a vast range of flavors, textures, odors and colors at various degrees of digestibility.
Culinary art or the art of cooking is also the technique of choosing the right ingredients in the correct quantities, in the precise order and combination, with the intent of deriving at a specific end result—the ‘perfect dish.’
There are many factors that affect the end result of the ‘perfect dish’ and pose challenges for even the most experienced and talented culinary artist and they are:
- Inconsistency of ingredients. Seasonal changes, weather variations, conditions of soil, quality of water and much more can and will make the same ingredients different enough to adversely affect the desired end result.
- Ambient conditions. Varying the geographic locations, the altitude, the air pressure and the seasonal weather can and will affect the heating process required for cooking and producing a consistent end results.
- Tools. Changing the materials the cooking tools are made of (i.e., aluminum vs. ceramic) or changing the mechanics of the tools (i.e., conventional pots vs. electric crock pots) can and will cause changes in the cooking process which then may result in fluctuations of various degrees of the end product or the desired dish.
Because cooking of food often causes chemical reactions that alter the flavor, texture, consistency and appearance as well as its nutritional values, culinary artists are scientists of sorts. Therefore, culinary art is also a science.
Culinary art or the art of cooking is indeed a science and putting scientific knowledge into cooking and gastronomy has recently been labeled as molecular gastronomy and has become a secondary branch of learning in food science. Significant contributions to molecular gastronomy have been made by scientists, chefs and various professionals such as chemists, physicists and biochemists as well as well known chefs who have published important works on this and related subjects.
Culinary art displays the wide world diversity that no other form of art can as it reflects the countless dietary, aesthetic, agricultural, socio-economic, cultural, generational and religious considerations across the globe. Claude Lévi-Strauss is a contemporary French anthropologist who developed structuralism as a method of understanding human society and culture and also conceptualized the culinary triangle by dividing cooking into three distinct categories: boiling, roasting and smoking.
According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, boiling is a cultural method of cooking because it uses a container that holds water and is therefore not truly natural. In spite of this, boiling is the most preferred way because it completely retains all the food and its juices. (Liquids such as water, stock or wine are so essential to the art of cooking that the various cooking techniques have been named based on the amounts of liquids used: steaming, simmering, boiling, braising and blanching. In stewing and sauce making, for instance, heating of the liquids used in an uncovered pot promotes quick evaporation of the liquids thus the flavors are concentrated in the remaining ingredients.) In contrast to boiling, roasting is the natural means of cooking because it uses no vessels and is done by directly rendering the food to fire and the food does tend to lose its juices. Smoking is a slow method of roasting and is likewise natural because it too uses no receptacles.
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