The Alchemy of Cooking

The smell of Chicken soup on a Sunday afternoon takes me back in time. A person’s nose has about 400 different types of olfactory receptors, and six million in total. Each person has olfactory fingerprint related to their immune system, and partner selection. Smell is linked to memory, emotions and interactions with other people associated with fear, happiness and erotica.

Memories are also held in taste buds. Taste results when odor molecules travel to the back of the nose, where they dissolve into mucus and bind to olfactory receptor cells then directly to the brain. This stimulus triggers thoughts, memories and behaviors.

I follow my nose as the bone stock, properly seasoned with a mirepoix made of onion, a carrot and stalk of celery, plus celery leaves, simmers. With egg yolk beaten, I am ready to temper the broth, so it will bind and thicken. I then squeeze in lemon to recreate the familiar memories of taste in avgolemono, a nutritious staple I had known in my youth. Chicken soup helps my soul feel better.

Coming from what would now be considered a lower income family of seven, I have been blessed with the feeling there was enough food, and love to go around. The table could always accommodate a stray cousin, or a friend or two, who would join us during a meal. Mom was most comfortable cooking for six or more.

My mother, a self-taught cook, honed her skills at age 18, when her mother died . She planted her vegetable garden and used locally sourced manure before going organic was a thing. When my dad was laid off from the local brewery, she used her ability to cook and her business sense to survive. Neighbors would line up on the back veranda on Saturday mornings to get pies, bread, muffins or cakes hot from the oven.

Mom and my dad eventually converted the front porch and living room into a restaurant, thanks to the financial backing of her father. Mom’s home cooked meals soon drew a following in the newly developing university town. Mom never used 'products.' She could cook. She knew the way to a heart is often through the stomach.

Mom lived to care for others. She was not greedy for profit. She would raise her index finger and wag it as she pinched her middle finger to her thumb while calculating exactly what was needed to please the palate, and still create a reasonable profit. Her goal was to attract customers for a meal at a reasonable price, and that she did. She did not entertain the more recent models that encourage high prices, less staff and work. She would calculate the number of portions in a roast then divide this into the cost of the roast and multiply the result by three to determine the price of a platter. Last I heard, before COVID, the multiplication factor was seven.

Sadly, my dad was killed in a car accident a little over a year after the restaurant opened. Mom spoke to my two brothers and me about helping her keep the business. My one brother said he preferred to work at the local garage, but my other brother and I assumed our roles. It was a matter of supporting the family. The thought of accepting a dole out was out of the question. That was for people who could not manage. Mom explained that if we worked together we would manage.

The restaurant flourished. I was introduced to recipes without the use of a measuring utensil or scale. Mom had a good eye and keen ability to measure by eyeballing. The gift of eyeballing measurements has been passed to my daughters. Give us a left over and we know the exact container to use to store it. You don’t learn the valuable skill of understanding Conal volume in school. I eventually was able to translate my mother's recipes, measuring fats, starch and sugar by the handfuls, in the palm, or with a pinch or a speck, into cups and grams.

The restaurant expanded. Mom taught me to work the batter or dough so that it created the wanted feel, be it velvety to touch and roll, or stiff enough to be folded, soft enough form a ball when steaming non-Newtonian matter was placed in cold water, or heated in a rolling boil to create a solid or jell.

Watching mom design a recipe was always amusing. She would compare cookbooks, Betty Crocker, Five Roses, Chatelaine, weekly newspaper recipes, and Woman’s world that suggested how to modify recipes to help a person lose 10 pounds in a week. I remember talking with Mom about an article that reported Butter and Olive Oils were deemed bad. She scrunched up her nose, pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes and said, “ So you think that scientists know more than the last hundreds of centuries.” Lo and behold, the claims to eat margarines were misconstrued and natural foods have once again gained the respect that they are due.

Mom always worked things out as if she knew where she was going. Mom taught me how intentions can lead to creating a recipe that can become a dreamed after reality. She admitted her skills were built on her own secret gleanings of experiences of success and failures mixed with persistence.

Mom had an ingrained knowledge of how science is repeatable, even with inconsistent variables. She was a master of substitutions. Corn syrup, honey, brown or white, beet, cane sugar and monk sugar or glycerine all have their own properties. Adding cream of tartar, can separate supersaturated sucrose into glucose or fructose, and yield crystals that are fine enough in diameter, to penetrate taste buds, as does fine chocolate. Cream, yogurt, and milk can be used interchangeably, but the taste results are different.

Mom was particular about her preferred flours and fats. For spanakopita half butter, half vegetable oil was required to be spread between the purchased filo sheets. Shortbreads were only acceptable with butter, sugar cookies used Crisco. Mom used corn starch for a gravy roux, potato starch for donuts, tapioca starch for rhubarb custard. For pastry, a pound Crisco to five cups Five Roses were essential and easily modified to create a unique Umami, with a teaspoon of salt, plus or minus a quarter cup of sugar, a beaten egg for a richer colour or vinegar added to cold water for flakier pastry or baking powder to make a fluffier crust. Her crackling crust showcased fruit, or a quiche and her audience agreed that what she baked, ‘tasted like more’.

We lived above the restaurant for six years then we moved to suburbia just before I entered university. Mom bought an avocado-coloured refrigerator before anyone knew what an avocado was. I still remember when she first bought the leathery green fruit into the house. I watched as she peeled and scooped it like an egg, then cut it and discovered the pit which she later planted. She cubed the avocado, added salt, a sprinkle of garlic powder, oil and lemon and we savoured the taste. Especially considering the price. Later, we tried it with sugar and lemon. It was extraordinary, like ice cream.

The world markets were just beginning to open. I remember how excited mom was when she could order a case of Navel oranges all the way from Florida for Christmas. We also got individually wrapped mandarin oranges, all the way from China. Later, when clementines, genetically selected seedless mandarins came onto the scene, it seemed the modern world held no bounds.

Celebrations were not as often a time for new experiences, as a time in which one could request a favorite dish. Mom had the skill to use what was available to satisfy not only energy requirements but to create a taste sensation that can bring meaning into any day. On a special day of celebration, the dish she prepared was the focus. Cream puffs for Cousin David, pork/beef fennel sausages for Michael, spanakopita for Marie, meringues for Louise. The list was extensive.

My favorite was Banana cake with brown sugar icing. Mix 2.5 cups flour, 1.5 cups sugar, 1.5 teaspoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon of salt into 1/2 cup shortening, 1/2 cup mashed banana, 2/3 cup yogurt, 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla. Blend well then add pecans or walnuts if desired before pouring in a 9-inch dish and baking at 350F for 60 minutes (when toothpick comes out dry). Wait till it cools and then cover with Brown Sugar Icing made from 1/2 cup melted butter and 1 cup brown sugar that is boiled for 2 minutes and cooled then add 1/4 cup milk and finally 1¾ c sifted icing sugar. If it crusts while waiting add a titch more melted butter or milk and stir. The real skill in making the icing is to properly get the water content in the butter: sugar ratio correctly balanced so the icing is smooth and does not harden and crack. The cake and icing still sends my sugar addiction into a frenzy.

In the olden days, the student would learn by copying the master. I was my mom’s apprentice for many years. Mom taught me a lot about cooking and in doing so, she taught me about how to express caring and love. I now have joined the ranks of those authorized to pass on a few points of wisdom.

I dare say that cooking is a form of expressing love for a person by presenting a personal rendition of what brings joy in life. A good cook and a good lover know how to maximize the integrity of natural ingredients. Many people follow a recipe without sensibility. Finding the alchemical mastery to recreate a recipe requires a connection. No two people are identical, nor are plants, or raw materials. A recipe often needs to be tweaked.

To integrate the parts into a whole, be it a meat, pastry, a loaf, sphere, emulsion, jelly, or solution, special skills of transformation may be required. These include being able to knead, temper, braise, sauté, roast, raise, marinate, flip, fold, smash, and baste.

Some people do not like cooking yet do enjoy love. The correlation is not perfect. Always be gracious in recognizing what others do to express their intention of love. Offer and accept accolades for efforts, compare recipes and share alchemical skills. Most importantly, create a close, bespoke attachment that makes another feel good.

On days when you do not feel like cooking, stop and be grateful that you are not a victim to only eating premade products. Try some notable recipes presented in Vocal. Perhaps some of them might help you discover the alchemical philosopher’s stone, that holds the Elixir of life and can restore an immortal expression of love.