Flour plus water equals bread

Nicholas Clee has contributed an interesting post on The Guardian‘s Word of Mouth blog, about recipes and the danger of viewing them as guarantors of success. I’m sure we’ve all endured culinary disasters despite following this-or-that recipe to the letter. In the throes of disappointment it’s easy to blame the author, and sometimes that’s justified. Very often, though, it isn’t a particular recipe that’s to blame. Rather, it is the value people have come to invest in recipes. We tend to think of recipes like mathematical formulae that will always deliver a rigidly predictable result. However, so many variables are involved in even the most basic culinary operations that it is impossible to gauge the outcome reliably. Anarchy reigns in the kitchen, and that’s never more true than when making bread. The reality is that recipes are always approximations to which the cook must bring their own experience, imagination and luck.

Incidentally, Julian Barnes’ entertaining polemic The Pedant in the Kitchen treats this subject very thoroughly and irreverently, and should be required reading for anyone remotely interested in cooking.