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Over the weekend I got recommend this book which calls itself "vegetarian improvisational peasant fusion cuisine for the 22nd century" It's totally free to download but is also available as a physical copy. What's interesting about it is that - and this is why, from a skim reading, I think it's brilliant, it's a cookery book, not a recipe book. It talks about the "pattern" of a recipe - the syntax for a particular dish or class of dishes. For example chapter 4 has a section called 'the pattern "how to curry anything you damn well please"' and has paragraphs like "the key with cooking dry spices is to brown them enough to release their flavors. most spices you buy have traveled magnificent distances and have lost much of their potency along the way. any remaining umph can be released through heat - mix your spices together, sprinkle the mixture over your becoming-curry after the wet spices have been given a chance to brown, and stir constantly. they will threaten to burn and you WILL NOT BACK DOWN. continue to stir until you can smell every element of your spice mixture (even the salt, dammitt) in every corner of the house. only then may you go on. if you stop earlier you will end up with the grainy powdered taste of weakness instead of the full mystical flavors of The Orient." and in general goes into what something should look, feel and smell like when it's done and more importantly - Why. It also has variations on recipes which are, if not completely different, then sufficently different to instil in you the sense that There's More Than One Way To Do It. I have to admit I haven't read the book cover to cover yet nor have I actually cooked anything form it but I'd like (or hope) to think that if I wrote a book on cooking it wouldn't be a million miles from this because form a first glance I agree with everything, even the stuff I don't agree with.
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