Skip to content

Do You Cook by the Book or by the Nose?

Two arguments happen in every kitchen and they are not the same argument. One is about whether a dish has a correct version. The other is about whether you measure. Plenty of people are strict about one and cheerfully loose about the other, which is why four kinds of cook fit on one map.

Twenty-four statements, about four minutes, and a point on a map. Answer for the cooking you actually do at home.

24 questions

Answered 0 of 24

  1. 1 I would rather learn what to look for than what to count.
  2. 2 Guessing at an amount bothers me even when the dish comes out fine.
  3. 3 What matters about a dish is how it tastes now, not where it came from.
  4. 4 Measuring slows me down more than it helps me.
  5. 5 Swapping an ingredient for one I like better is fair game.
  6. 6 Getting a regional dish right matters to me even when nobody eating it would know.
  7. 7 I want quantities in grams rather than in cups and spoons.
  8. 8 Putting two cuisines on one plate works more often than it fails.
  9. 9 I add things until it looks right.
  10. 10 I have put something in a dish that does not belong in it because I preferred it that way.
  11. 11 A dish belongs to whoever is cooking it.
  12. 12 I would happily serve a version of a dish that its home country would not recognize.
  13. 13 Learning a dish means learning how the people it comes from make it.
  14. 14 A thermometer tells me more than my judgment does.
  15. 15 Stated cooking times are a guide rather than an instruction.
  16. 16 I would rather taste and correct than trust the amounts.
  17. 17 Something is lost when a dish gets adapted to local tastes.
  18. 18 Cooking something the way my family made it matters to me.
  19. 19 A dish has a right version, and departing from it makes it something else.
  20. 20 Where there are two ways to make something and one of them is older, I would take the older one.
  21. 21 Precision is what separates a good result from a lucky one.
  22. 22 I trust what I can see and smell over what a timer says.
  23. 23 A dish that came out well by accident is worth less to me than one I can do again.
  24. 24 When I bake, precision matters more to me than it does otherwise.