No Recipe is Right

Cooking is a Philosophy: The "No Recipe" Sauce Framework

You do not need to follow rules. This is why we have always said "no recipe is right."

For years we have pondered this concept. In fact, we figure this will be the name of our cookbook if we ever make one. Then a few months back we were listening to Marco Pierre White and Anthony Bourdain, and Marco said it perfectly: "Cooking is a philosophy, not a recipe, unless it is pastry and then it is chemistry!" That is it!

So then, if cooking is a philosophy, it represents the fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, ethics, reason, and the mind.

• • Metaphysics: Explores the nature of being.
• • Epistemology: Explores the nature of knowledge.
• • Ethics: Explores the nature of morality.
• • Logic: Explores the nature of reason.
• • Aesthetics: Explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste.

Thus to cook, one must practice critical thinking, methodology, and reverence. To demonstrate this concept, let us talk about vinegar.

Metaphysically, vinegar exhibits the art of being. It comes into this world through the natural process of fermentation. Man did not invent vinegar, nature did. With the right conditions, fruit is destined to ferment and oxidize from sweet to sour: alchemy. Now, man, with our epistemological thirst for knowledge, has studied this fermentation process. We learned that we can intervene and create the perfect conditions to manipulate nature into a desired outcome. Surely this applies to human life itself.

Ethically, it seems sound to follow the laws of nature. But what about the vinegar that is made synthetically? If it is no longer fit for human consumption, then we have entered a moral grey area. Would it make it okay if it says it is synthetic on the label? If we are aware, then it becomes our choice whether or not to consume. What if we do not know synthetic may be harmful? At what point do we lose morality with the manipulation of the natural process? Maybe when we start editing our own genome? Integration with A.I., transhumanism?!

Vinegar just got us deeply questioning our existence. The logical conclusion is that naturally fermented vinegar is a moral act of creation with nature. And last we have aesthetics: the beauty, the taste, and the art of vinegar. Vinegar comes in many colors, flavors, textures, and scents. It can be made from wood all the way to guava. A red wine vinegar has a deep red color, whereas a natal plum is a beautiful bright pink. A balsamic is thick, where a fruit vinegar is thin. It can be layered with infusions. It truly is a never-ending rabbit hole of possibility. Aesthetic creativity.

🥣 The Vinegar Sauce Philosophy

Stack and extract. Start simple. Understand that the salt, acid, sweet, heat, and fat components are all completely interchangeable:

• • Heat: Can come from a chili, garlic, or a black peppercorn.
• • Acid: Can be an entire pantry of different vinegars, or maybe just a fresh lemon.
• • Salt: Can come from things like soy sauce or a simple sea salt.
• • Sweet: Can be sugar, honey, molasses, or even ketchup.
• • Fat: Can be shredded coconut, nut butter, or just a classic melted butter.

Start with your vinegar base, then add salt, fat, heat, and sweet until you hit the profile that suits your tastebuds. You do not have to use all of them. Maybe you just want sweet and sour, or salty sour. Again, there is no single right way.

🔬 A Sauce Thought Experiment

Imagine I want to make chicken wings tonight and need a dipping sauce. I know I like it spicy, a little sour, and I think the classic wing sauce has butter in it. And ya know what, I really like a honey mustard on the side. This means that I need to choose a chili of some sort, and I have endless possibilities. Habaneros have a lot of flavor and spice, whereas a jalapeno is more mild and bright. I am going to choose habanero. But wait, I do not have any. I only have serrano and Hawaiian chili. I will go with the Hawaiian chili in this case. This will save me a trip to the store, I already have them growing in the garden, and this will totally work for the heat component.

For the sour part, obviously, it is gonna be vinegar. But which vinegar?! Most wing sauces use white distilled or malt, but I do not want to eat white vinegar. It is the synthetic stuff mentioned earlier, and we use it strictly for laundry! So what other options do I have? I want to use my Sour Flower Chocolate Mango Vinegar, but I only have the White Pineapple Banana and an old bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar.

Hmm, well, my White Pineapple Banana is precious to me and the flavor might get lost in the heat, so perhaps I will save that for more subtle applications and go with the apple cider vinegar. So now I have Hawaiian chili and ACV. I mentioned honey mustard, but I do not have the time to soak mustard seeds, and mustard is vinegar-based anyway. Perhaps I will just add honey to my main sauce! Wa-lah! Vinegar plus honey is going to hit that sweet and sour flavor I was seeking out of the honey mustard.

Great, so now I have chili, vinegar, and honey. I recalled the classic wing sauce has the butter, but ya know what, I want to keep it low fat tonight, so I am going to skip the butter. I know for sure I want to eat a treat after dinner and skipping the butter is in my best interest for tonight's meal. Just thinking ahead a bit.

Now that I have my three ingredients, did not have to go to the store, and used logical reasoning, it is time to assemble. But how?! OMG I was not told ratios, what do I do?! It is time to get aesthetic and epistemological. I can use my taste and knowledge of the ingredients to compile a ratio that is custom to me.

Stack and extract. Add the vinegar to a bowl, then the honey. Find the right balance of sweet and sour: more vinegar if you like it sour, more honey if you like it sweet. My first layer is perfectly balanced, but oof, I noticed something. It is missing salt! Okay, easy, I will add salt until it hits the perfect salinity. I remember to consider whether or not the chicken wings are already salted, because over-salting can be detrimental. But not really, because if I add too much salt, then I can just add more vinegar and honey until I get back to the balanced base.