The Art of Cooking

How should we judge a meal? How can we go beyond merely liking or disliking what we eat to make reasonable assessments of what we eat? Do we need clear standards of judgment in the world of cuisine?

Of course we do have some criteria for what counts as a good meal. If the cook has not mastered basic techniques, if the meat tastes like shoe leather or the vegetables are watery and tasteless, then the meal is not successful. If the cook intends that a pie crust be crisp and flakey but it comes out thick and cake-like, then she has not fulfilled her intention and is subject to criticism.

Attention to detail also matters. The way a vegetable is julienned or the brunoise cut so that each morsel is evenly cooked elevates a dish.

But these standards are not sufficient. We wouldn’t judge a musical performance superb based on the fact the guitars are in tune or the singer remembered the lyrics. Execution is important but not sufficient to judge a meal extraordinary.

It’s clear that an artistic impulse animates some cooking today. The dishes served at Alinea, The French Laundry, or Manresa bear little relation to a perfectly braised leg of lamb or bright, warming tom kha gai.

What form of criticism would be appropriate for dishes that aspire to be culinary art? We don’t really have an aesthetic theory in the culinary arts as we have for music, painting, or literature.

We should probably begin to answer these questions by distinguishing craft from art. Is craft just the skillful reproduction of a conventional design? A well-constructed piece of handmade furniture that looks like any other piece of furniture? What if the craftsperson puts her individual stamp on it. Is a lasagna made by importing the Greek habit of adding cinnamon to tomato sauce therefore a work of art?

A good craftsperson must exercise great skill and technique, and we can appreciate that. The appreciation of great skill and technique already takes far beyond the limits of mere feeding. But with skillful craftsmanship, there need be no inspiration behind it, no attempt to search for beauty. Craftsmanship can tolerate the repetition of the same; the search for beauty cannot—beauty requires creation and novelty.

The essential function of cooking is to provide nourishment. But that fact should not obscure the fact that a meal by a great cook can touch us profoundly—it can fascinate, evoke a sense of mystery and wonder, just as great painting and music can.

When cooking detaches itself from over-reliance on tradition, which is too often based on mere repetition, and if the aim of the cook is to fascinate and provoke that sense of wonder, cooking, which alone among the arts stimulates all our senses, cannot be excluded from the arts.