Just a quick heads up that tomorrow’s video is… experimental… and I’m not sure quite how well it all turned out.
So we were in the USA visiting family, and more or less on a whim we decided we wanted to film a video. See, there’s this cooking-related thought experiment that me and Steph often have, a game that we like to play when we want to get creative in the kitchen:
Imagine a chef or an old grandmother from one culture (say, Italian). They’re at their local market, and they bump into a new ingredient from a totally different culture (let’s say… century egg). How would they end up making use of that ingredient according to their instincts, their cooking system?
It’s an interesting idea to play around with, and this time in the USA we realized that we could actually act out our ol’ thought experiment for real. Because Steph, after all, is Cantonese. And while we’ve cooked in America before, it was usually in between Chinatown runs – Steph’s never tried to use American produce to make stuff strictly according to her cooking system. So we felt like it’d all be a fun idea for a little quick-hit of a video.
We felt like it was important to not really to any actual testing – to just go to the supermarket, see what Steph found interesting, and go from there. Our DSLR and fancy microphone were back in Thailand, but we had Steph’s iPhone and we usually travel with a lav mic just in case. We made three dishes using three vegetables that you don’t find in Guangdong – Dandelion greens, Zucchini, and Brussel Sprouts.
And while all the dishes were reasonably tasty, after cutting the video, to me at least the end result winded up feeling pretty… amateurish. Video and audio were what they were, but the big thing that we probably should have done is actually test the dishes that we wound up making, or at least doing a few practice runs refining them.
I don’t know. Maybe you’ll enjoy the off the cuff nature of it all? It was a fun video to make regardless. And we'll be back with a proper recipe video next week, promise.
But I was also curious, I guess, to see if any of you liked to do the same or a similar thought experiment? When was the last time you used an ingredient from one culture, and used it in a completely different context in a completely different cuisine? (fish sauce doesn’t count)
Chinese Cooking Demystified
Just a quick heads up that tomorrow’s video is… experimental… and I’m not sure quite how well it all turned out.
So we were in the USA visiting family, and more or less on a whim we decided we wanted to film a video. See, there’s this cooking-related thought experiment that me and Steph often have, a game that we like to play when we want to get creative in the kitchen:
Imagine a chef or an old grandmother from one culture (say, Italian). They’re at their local market, and they bump into a new ingredient from a totally different culture (let’s say… century egg). How would they end up making use of that ingredient according to their instincts, their cooking system?
It’s an interesting idea to play around with, and this time in the USA we realized that we could actually act out our ol’ thought experiment for real. Because Steph, after all, is Cantonese. And while we’ve cooked in America before, it was usually in between Chinatown runs – Steph’s never tried to use American produce to make stuff strictly according to her cooking system. So we felt like it’d all be a fun idea for a little quick-hit of a video.
We felt like it was important to not really to any actual testing – to just go to the supermarket, see what Steph found interesting, and go from there. Our DSLR and fancy microphone were back in Thailand, but we had Steph’s iPhone and we usually travel with a lav mic just in case. We made three dishes using three vegetables that you don’t find in Guangdong – Dandelion greens, Zucchini, and Brussel Sprouts.
And while all the dishes were reasonably tasty, after cutting the video, to me at least the end result winded up feeling pretty… amateurish. Video and audio were what they were, but the big thing that we probably should have done is actually test the dishes that we wound up making, or at least doing a few practice runs refining them.
I don’t know. Maybe you’ll enjoy the off the cuff nature of it all? It was a fun video to make regardless. And we'll be back with a proper recipe video next week, promise.
But I was also curious, I guess, to see if any of you liked to do the same or a similar thought experiment? When was the last time you used an ingredient from one culture, and used it in a completely different context in a completely different cuisine? (fish sauce doesn’t count)
3 years ago | [YT] | 1,570