{"id":3083,"date":"2010-01-18T11:19:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T11:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/?p=3083"},"modified":"2016-03-28T12:44:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T16:44:35","slug":"worst-cooks-in-america-ep3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/worst-cooks-in-america-ep3\/","title":{"rendered":"Worst Cooks in America, Ep3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cooking is About Crying and Salt.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Worst Cooks in America served up its third course last night, finally making it obvious that they have no intention to teach these contestants actual cooking methods. Rather, cooking comes down to crying and how much salt you use.
\n
\nThe focus of this week\u2019s show was to be \u201cFeelin\u2019 the Flavor\u201d<\/strong>, skills in combining flavorings and seasonings to create a profile for your dish. Chef Ann was correct in saying this is one of the most valuable skills in the kitchen. However, in the critique of dishes, all the chefs seem to care about is how much salt is added. Even after Chef Ann admits that her, Chef Beau\u2019s, and everyone else\u2019s tastes are different, \u201ctoo much salt\u201d, or \u201cnot enough salt\u201d was the only measure of flavor.<\/p>\n

For the past two weeks, I\u2019ve given the Food Network, (the MTV of food) the benefit of the doubt<\/strong> that they are actually teaching cooking methods off-camera. They\u2019re not showing the actual instruction to give more time for the reality TV type competition.<\/p>\n

I no longer think that. I believe there is no instruction at all.<\/strong> If they were taught knife skills last week, it wasn\u2019t evident. If they were shown the first step in any cooking instruction \u2013 how to control heat \u2013 they\u2019ve forgotten it already. If they were taught a basic saut\u00e9 method that includes sprinkling water on the pan to see if it\u2019s hot enough to start cooking, they would have had a much easier time with their grilling and side-dish saut\u00e9. If they were taught that you never add hot milk to a hot roux to create b\u00e9chamel, there wouldn\u2019t have been so much wallpaper paste sauces to criticize.
\n\"chef<\/a>
\n
\nLearning to cook like a chef at home involves freeing yourself from recipes<\/strong> by understanding the basic cooking methods behind them. Why did some items have grill-marks, and others didn\u2019t? Water evaporates at 212f. Sugars caramelize at 320f, giving the nice brown color to a protein product. This is why the first step in saut\u00e9 or stove-top grilling is to drip water onto your pan or grill and watch it evaporate. Now, you can QUANTIFY the temperature of the pan. To correctly teach cooking, a basis of \u201cwhys\u201d and \u201chows\u201d should always precede \u201cwhat\u201d.
\n
\nWorst Cooks in America is the \u201csink or swim\u201d<\/strong>, \u201cyou should be born knowing this\u201d, \u201cjust follow the recipe\u201d type of cooking instruction that I despise. It continues the stereotype that cooking is very difficult, very stressful, and only professional chefs can do it. I can tell you from having taught thousands of people all over the world to cook, that it\u2019s easy. You can do it, anyone can do it. You can do it without recipes if you know what to LOOK, SMELL, TASTE for in your pan, not in your written recipe. You don\u2019t need to be a chef, and the only crying you should do in the kitchen is when you\u2019re chopping onions.<\/p>\n

Previous posts about Worst Cooks in America:
\nWorst Cooking Instructors in America<\/a>
\nAre You the Worst Cook in America?<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cooking is About Crying and Salt. Worst Cooks in America served up its third course last night, finally making it obvious that they have no intention to teach these contestants actual cooking methods. Rather, cooking comes down to crying and how much salt you use. The focus of this week\u2019s show was to be \u201cFeelin\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":24062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31,32,47],"tags":[56,57,259],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}