I am a cook and my opinion of the above is both but it is more Art than Science. The Science part came in because time changes and made it into a Science. They started having courses for it but in actual good cooks cannot be taught. They have to follow the process of apprenticeship to 2nd wok (or chef) before they are experience enough to plan the menu.

The really Arty part of cooking is " No two person can cook the same flavour " even if you give them the same ingredients and time. Likewise, if you were to ask me, "how much of this or that to put in", I cannot really answer because commercial cooks never measure! It's a matter of feel. You can only estimate when you measure the quantity. No ingredients are the same . Even the soya sauce you bought this week and next week are different so measuring is just a guideline. In some cases even the different sequence of adding ingredients produces different flavour. In the case of margarine, if you cook with it and not overcook it, it's fine and might taste nice but if you put too much heat for too long it's toxic. Plastics are manufactured in the same way.

Actually the quality of food has declined through the decades, but because people adapts a new bar( lowering the bar in actual). Have you ever heard of good places to eat and suddenly the quality dropped. That's because the main chef left or died. No matter how close you are to the chef, he will never impart al his knowledge unless it is a family restaurant. Ask your parents, is Kam Lun Tai or Yoke Woo Hing the same as last time. A simple example is 'Xing Zhao Mei' or Singapore Fried Beehoon. The art is lost because in actual you can never get the type of beehoon that older generations used. Those beehoon are handmade and hence tougher. They have to be blanched first before cooking. Ingredients changes through generations.

The newer generations tends to simplify things and definately taste and flavour changes and to the newer generations it may be good but to the older generations they are bad. They have the newer 'fusion food' which sets a new bar and the only judge to the quality is our tongues.

To sum it up, 'COOKING IS AN ART' because just like art,once the artist is dead, you will never again get to taste the same flavour again even if a new chef follow his cookings step by step.

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Added on November 17, 2009, 5:20 pmI am a cook and my opinion of the above is both but it is more Art than Science. The Science part came in because time changes and made it into a Science. They started having courses for it but in actual good cooks cannot be taught. They have to follow the process of apprenticeship to 2nd wok (or chef) before they are experience enough to plan the menu. More importantly like artist they have to be creative! Cooks in franchise restaurants are more like line production operators. They have no avenue to display their creativity but just to follow the procedures from the head branch.

The really Arty part of cooking is " No two person can cook the same flavour " even if you give them the same ingredients and time. Likewise, if you were to ask me, "how much of this or that to put in", I cannot really answer because commercial cooks never measure! It's a matter of feel. You can only estimate when you measure the quantity. No ingredients are the same . Even the soya sauce you bought this week and next week are different so measuring is just a guideline. In some cases even the different sequence of adding ingredients produces different flavour. In the case of margarine, if you cook with it and not overcook it, it's fine and might taste nice but if you put too much heat for too long it's toxic. Plastics are manufactured in the same way.

Actually the quality of food has declined through the decades, but because people adapts a new bar( lowering the bar in actual). Have you ever heard of good places to eat and suddenly the quality dropped. That's because the main chef left or died. No matter how close you are to the chef, he will never impart al his knowledge unless it is a family restaurant. Ask your parents, is Kam Lun Tai or Yoke Woo Hing the same as last time. A simple example is 'Xing Zhao Mei' or Singapore Fried Beehoon. The art is lost because in actual you can never get the type of beehoon that older generations used. Those beehoon are handmade and hence tougher. They have to be blanched first before cooking. Ingredients changes through generations.

The newer generations tends to simplify things and definately taste and flavour changes and to the newer generations it may be good but to the older generations they are bad. They have the newer 'fusion food' which sets a new bar and the only judge to the quality is our tongues.

To sum it up, 'COOKING IS AN ART' because just like art,once the artist is dead, you will never again get to taste the same flavour again even if a new chef follow his cookings step by step.

This post has been edited by etigge: Nov 17 2009, 05:20 PM