Fear in the kitchen
- rosemary
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
"The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude." Julia Child
I was looking through my ideas list this morning and came across 'Scientification in the kitchen' with Ruby Tandoh's name next to it. But I couldn't find where that came from, although I will have another look one day, because it's an interesting thought. Then I saw above that 'Things that scare me in the kitchen', which I now believe might have been part of the same article. Anyway - here we are with the slightly tangential 'Fear in the Kitchen' and Julia Child's famous quote which I suppose is a more cheerful rendition of 'The only thing to fear is fear itself.' And the ever cheerful Julia Child as shown here, certainly had that 'what-the-hell' attitude.
That said there are plenty of things to fear in the kitchen and indeed we should have a healthy fear of them - sharp knives, hot, hot oil, and the mandoline are the ones that crop up most often. So first of all I might go through a few of the things that I fear - some rational, some not.
I'm not particularly afraid of those sharp knives - at least not for myself, although when my children and grandchildren were small, it was indeed a fear. That doesn't stop me cutting myself from time to time of course, but I don't ever remember any bad cuts - just little ones.
Over the years I have learned the most dangerous times to use a knife - and I think top of my list is cutting up peeled tomatoes. They have a tendency to slide around so that you miss the tomato and cut yourself instead. The darn things just won't stay still. So I always am very careful and also just a tiny bit fearful.
Ditto for grating anything on my box grater - particularly when you are getting nearer and nearer to those sharp edges, when what you are grating has almost gone. My knuckles have been slightly grated a few times. If it's cheese, I just eat the last part to avoid the problem.
A mandoline, that everyone goes on about has so far not been a problem because you've got that protective guard. And if you have got to the very last piece, where the guard will not go, and you don't want to try it yourself, then, again I either just throw the last bit away or eat it.
I rarely deep fry these days, but yes that is a real danger. My fear of hot oil now is reduced to recipes for which you have to light some alcohol. Which is very, very rare, and I always stand way back, so it's a bit of a damp squib in every sense of the word when flames do not flare. As for that wok thing that the Asians do I would never even attempt that, besides my wok never seems to move smoothly over the hob. Secretly I reckon they only do it for show anyway, and this was sort of confirmed to me just now as I looked for photos. All except this one were photos taken for the big image libraries for which you have to pay. I think we just leave this one to the professionals in their open kitchens.
I have a completely irrational fear of pressure cookers. Probably because back in the early days of pressure cookers there was the odd explosion - probably through misuse. A bit like an irrational fear of electric cars exploding. I can't quite get rid of that one either. Suffice to say that I have never purchased a pressure cooker.
Burning yourself on a hot pan or a hot oven is an ever-present danger however. Sliding something into or out of the oven and incidentally brushing a bit of flesh against the pot or the shelf or the oven itself is but a moment of inattention away. Yes, I've done that. I have even, very stupidly, forgotten that the handle of a frying pan that I have placed under the oven grill will be hot.
Then there's the fear of dropping things on the floor, which these days is most usually when it's something heavy - like the Christmas turkey. And fortunately there are usually young strong men to do the heavy lifting for me. Julia Child has the answer for this one too:
"Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?"
In fact I remember when I was a primary school teacher, a small group of children and I were taking the cookies we had made to put in the oven and one of the children dropped them on the floor. So we just picked them up and put them back on the tray and into the oven. I reasoned that the cooking would kill any germs they had picked up in their brief stay on the kitchen floor. Besides, we weren't quite as fastidious about germs back then. Mea culpa really. Oh dear.
It's the psychological things, however, that are the real kitchen fears is it not?
Fear of failure is top of the list here of course as Julia Child so aptly said. Failure is something we put on ourselves really, although, of course there are people who will criticise. I'm not talking about professional kitchens here - that's a whole world I really know nothing about. No I'm only talking about the home kitchen, where your worst critics are probably going to be your children who refuse to eat what you might think is absolutely delicious food. Friends and family who are invited around to eat are usually just thankful that somebody else is cooking for them, so are not likely to criticise, so if you feel you've failed it's really only in your head.
I suppose there's always the background fear that you might be feeding something your guests shouldn't eat or really don't like, but generally you would know these things. I personally see such things as a challenge - except when it's your husband and he doesn't like the things you really do - prawns, chilli, coconut ... And maybe in the light of the great mushroom trial that is currently occurring, we should all avoid mushrooms. We don't want to poison someone do we?
I'm also guessing that we also don't want to feed people unhealthy food - loaded with fats and sugar, and carbohydrates, although this doesn't matter so much for the occasional party kind of situation. It matters for the everyday feeding of your family however. Julia Child might have said "If you're afraid of butter, use cream," and we may well smile at that, but it's a terrible attitude for the everyday cook.
But while on ingredients there are also those things that you just can't face - for me - oysters would be top of that list - and from the famous quote from Jonathan Swift
“It was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”
I imagine he felt a bit the same way. It's not a fear exactly but a repugnance - and I'm sure that everyone has a list of such things - like David and his prawns and other shellfish.
I guess into this kind of fear comes the kind of fear you might have on an overseas holiday - that you will end up with some kind of food poisoning, that you won't know what you are eating, or that you are eating something that nobody really should, for ethical, environmental or health reasons.
I guess the psychological thing - for the cook - all comes down to whether you care whether what you are cooking is delicious, nutritious, or tempting. I imagine that we all might to a lesser or greater degree feel that fear. I know that I often disappoint myself, but that's all to do with what unreasonable standards I set myself. I mean I'm never going to cook like a Michelin star chef, and I know that. Others probably only fear that their children won't eat the food on the table.
Now I'm fearing that tonight's dinner - a kind of slow-cooked casserole using leftover lamb roast - is going to burn because I've mistimed it. If it does I'll call it something with the word 'charred' in it.
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