No. That is NOT how you cook them!

[neadods]

Ever since I discovered that American iTunes has BBC 4 podcasts, I've been doing more or less the audio equivalent of stripping down and rolling around naked in them, luxuriating in the wide variety and the options.

Until a certain episode of "Cook the Perfect..."

The first problem is the same one all of them have; it's an audio description of a visual experience. Not too bad when you can look up a photo online, but when cooking it's necessary to know what the speaker means by "a little flour."

The episode that undid me was Cook the Perfect American Pancakes. Now, I didn't know until Gally of last year that there was a difference in pancakes between the US & the UK. "Fake Keith" described British pancakes as thin and flat, while the ultimate accolades for pancakes in these parts is "fluffy and buttery."

The speaker in "Cook the Perfect..." dealt with this by using what sounded suspiciously like the British recipe, only separating the eggs and whipping the whites to get the loft, and... no. Just no. Yeah, it will rise and it should taste more or less OK, but that is most emphatically not a proper American pancake, much less a perfect one! We, depending on the recipe and the region, use baking powder, baking soda, or even ginger ale to get that loft and you know the right time to flip it because the bubbles stop rising to the surface you're looking at. Egg whites don't bubble.

The icon is me having a bit of a lie down to get over the shock.


(Look, it was either rant over pancakes or guns and/or the Presidential race. Either way, I feel better for a bit of strop.)

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I can see where it would have a nice loft and the taste should be right because the basics - flour, egg, milk - are all there.

Now I have to look at my Joy of Cooking. I have two of them - the latest which was also supposed to be the greatest, but also one dating from the 40s because that's what my Mother got as a wedding present and therefore that's what I grew up eating. Agreed: that's the quintessential American cookbook.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

I have to gently disagree as long as Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/Crockers-Picture-Cookbook-Crocker-Editors/dp/0028627717/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344748951&sr=1-1&keywords=betty+crocker+cookbook+1950+edition) is in print. That's the book my mom learned to cook from as a bride, since her mom was never much good at it. I, alas, take after my grandmother.

The big plus of this book is the photo tutorials, which are actually somewhat useful. The pics in Joy of Cooking (the 70s edition, anyway) always seemed more decoration than information.

Edited for HTML WTF.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That is a good one - I learned a lot from it when I was a kid. (My mother taught cooking like some folks teach swimming: "Here's the cookbook and there's the kitchen, kid. Good luck.")

Better Homes and Gardens is a good one too; I know the whole Komen/pink thing is beyond contentious these days, but before it was an issue I bought the pink plaid and I've never gone wrong with it.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Ah. I was taught cooking by someone standing over me & periodically yelling, "That's not how you do that!" Hence my interest in the photo tutorials. And my near-total lack of interest in cooking now.