New York Times: "I Was a Cookbook Ghost Writer"

"I was a Cookbook Ghost Writer" is is a wee bit of a dark, but it is certainly a good read. Julia Moskin recounts her career as a ghost writer for cookbooks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/dining/i-was-a-cookbook-ghostwriter.html

I find this article interesting because I have noticed an exorbitant amount of new cookbooks on shelves these days. I know food is "in" right now-- if a necessity of life can ever be a trend. The article touches upon how "chefs", such as Rachel Ray, have published thousands of recipes. But at what cost? I have been wondering how these busybodies have had time to produce these books and perfect so many recipes.

 It turns out that very few chefs write or test their own recipes. Someone else is hired to do it and receives minimal credit for doing majority of the work! On top of that, many of these recipes lack the attention to detail, accurate measurements, or specific directions that classic cookbooks have, such as Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food or Irma Rombauer's Marion Romauer Becker's, and Ethan Becker's The Joy of Cooking. Just yesterday my former teacher Greg and I were discussing how unreliable recipes in various cookbooks can be. We noted how often they require adjustments in ratios and flavor. He even noted that in one well- reviewed cookbook, a recipe did not include basic ingredients like salt! Reliable and well-tested recipes are depreciating in value.

I think this loss of value is an utter shame and a greater reflection of the general population's dying relationship with food. In an odd combination of new behaviors such as a demand for immediate gratification, a constant flow of new products, and less value placed on quality, our instructive tools for cooking are becoming a mimesis of many American's relationship to food. Our cookbooks are becoming equally poor in quality and detached from their original sources just as much as our food quality has decreased and our removal of knowledge about a food item's origin or production process has increased.

Am I getting too worked up over this? All I know is that after working for a food magazine and trying to test chefs recipes as well as my own, I can tell you that it is a ton of work. It is hard and requires multiple testing.  In fact, there are books on how to test recipes and how to write cookbooks! It is an art for the patient and obsessive.  I remember testing this roasted purple cauliflower recipe over and over again this summer in 90 degree weather in my third story apartment with a poorly insulated oven and without AC. Then, I had to call up all my friends and family and ask to test the recipe and their ovens and using their baking trays! Do you know how much cauliflower a person can eat in one week? (Not that much). Hopefully Moskin's article enlightens the public that ghost writing is not just a weird -lack of credit- process only happening in the world of super celebrities. Let's give the ghosts some more credit!

Purple cauliflower from Rhode Island Nurseries--noms

Why the Tomato

Many people have asked, “Why the tomato?” I chose the tomato because has multiple taste-purposes, experienced its fair share of abuse from the food industry and it is used by most cultures in food. When I was growing up, I remember that nobody knew if tomatoes were a fruit or a vegetable. They have seeds and grow on vines like fruits, but we eat them in dishes that are thought of as side veggies, not side fruits. When I think of a tomato based curry or tomato sauce, I think of those as vegetable dishes. When I was younger, I personally never found tomatoes to be a treat like other fruits, they were as much of a chore as salad or broccoli. Tomatoes are one of the most inconsistent items of produce around. They can be sweet and delicious or mealy and inedible. Tomatoes are one of the few items of produce that have never been clearly categorized.

Tomatoes have also been affected and manipulated by the food industry. The reason why tomatoes can be in the grocery store year round is because most tomatoes are genetically modified organisms (GMOs). At my high school, The Urban School of San Francisco, our science teacher had us read about tomatoes in our genetics class. In the article “Rich Tomato, Poor Tomato” by Michael Idov, I learned about the process that most heirloom tomatoes undergo in order to appear beautiful yet tasteless in the supermarket (New York Times Magazine. September 17, 2006). Tomatoes have undergone so much experimentation, that in order to appear normal in the produce aisle, they are picked before ripe, bathed in a chlorinated bath, stay in a “ripening room”, and then sprayed with ethylene. They are sprayed with ethylene to “turn tomatoes the desired sunset shade” (New York Times Magazine). The tomatoes’ identity crisis is exacerbated by the food industry’s aim towards homogeny and accessibility. GMOs have turned the growing of tomatoes into an unnatural process. This over-processing of produce has led for tomatoes to be accessible year round and sit in a grocery store for over a week without undergoing any changes to the taste or texture of the tomato (New York Times Magazine). Tomatoes are a key example of the changes that have occurred in farming over the past century hence another reason why the tomato is part of the title of this blog.

Another reason why I chose the tomato, is that tomatoes are consumed by most cultures. Tomatoes are used in many Italian, Middle Eastern, American, French, African, Indian, etc. recipes. I have yet to find a recipe book that does not call for the use of tomatoes in at least one recipe. Due to their ambiguity, they can be used in any dish. Some cultures use tomatoes for their acidity and tang, while others use them for their smooth texture and sweet taste. Some people grow tomatoes in their backyard and can eat them in their most simple form, off the vine, but the same household probably also has ketchup in their refrigerator. I used to think I hated tomatoes until I realized that I probably consume them in some form at least daily. Think about it.

The tomato has played an oddly prominent role in the food world. It is consumed by many and frequently; however, the sacrifices made in quality for accessibility should not be ignored. Tomatoes are a treasured fruit that have been both botched up by the food industry and preserved by the home gardener. I chose the tomato to be in the title of my blog because it is one of the better and subtler examples of how the food industry has altered some of the most popular foods.