Cooking is considered to be an art form by many. It is a process that requires both experience and skill. Even cooking common dishes like chicken has nuance: there is only around a thirty second time gap between having a delicious, juicy, tender chicken and over overcooked, dry, tasteless chicken.
Many Aragon students have taken up cooking as a hobby. Senior Maia Bhaumik spends her free time baking and experimenting with new recipes.
“I recently made croquembouche … cake … tarts … macaroni and cheese prosciutto cups,” Bhaumik said.
“I cook for fun … I’m not a very artistic person, so [cooking] is my artistic outlet”
Bhaumik enjoys trying out different recipes with French baking and cooking mainly for her family and friends, and sometimes for special events. For Bhaumik, cooking is more than a simple daily necessity.
“I cook for fun. It’s a stress reliever for me, and I’m not a very artistic person, so [cooking] is my artistic outlet,” she said.
Bhaumik said she began developing her skills in the kitchen when she was in third or fourth grade.
“Trying to make the Choux pastry, [a French pastry dough], for the first time was a mess, but learning from that experience was great. I got to burn pastry in a pan, and then I got to fix it,” she said.
Although food is an integral part of everyone’s lives, it is not uncommon for people, even when they get older, not to know how to cook for themselves. In Bhaumik’s case, her parents exposed her to cooking at a young age, which was how she got started.
“My parents are super avid cooks, and I’ve been lucky enough to try a lot of different food. They kind of taught me how to cook because it’s a family thing,” Bhaumik said.
Initial exposure to home cooking is an important factor in the development of skills in the kitchen. Not everyone has a family that focuses as much on cooking, which is one reason why Aragon offers a Food & Nutrition class for those who want to learn. Senior Willy Tang is currently a student in the Food & Nutrition class.
Tang shares his reason for joining: “I thought it was a great opportunity to learn how to cook and not fail myself when I am in college,” Tang said.
The class is designed for beginners to better their knowledge about nutrition and learn basic cooking skills that will help them fend for themselves later in life.
“I learned about food safety, like sanitation and how to avoid cross contamination, since I never learned it at home. It is one way of helping me live a safer life and not get sick,” Tang said.
Cooking can become complex and difficult at times; there are many different ways to prepare a single ingredient. Take eggs for example: Eggs can be boiled, scrambled, baked, fried, basted and made sunny-side-up. But even those styles have sub-categories, such as hard boiled and soft boiled. In order to successfully execute a dish, an individual needs to know how to prepare each of the respective ingredients in its proper variation and also must be skilled with kitchen tools, such as knives, pans and spatulas.
There are many reasons to learn how to cook, and some feel it is an ability everyone ought to develop.
“It’s not always good to eat out, so you also want to cook your own food. The thing about eating out is that it is not always healthy,” Tang said.
Although cooking may be difficult and requires a variety of knowledge to fully utilize ingredients, Bhaumik finds it is very rewarding.
“I think that everyone should really try to cook, even if you think you’re not a great one,” she said. “You just need to practice and you will get better with time, and just try to learn like three essential recipes for your week, and then you’ll be fine.”
