To follow up from a previous post, on why you should check out the UCB library. I decided to do a post (proving that I’m not a hypocrite) about one of the books I’ve borrowed from the library.
My love for books has not diminished as I’ve grown older. As an infant I would be trailed off to bookshops and libraries with my bookworm mother and started reading large books at a young age. By the end of primary school I’d already read To Kill a Mockingbird, Shakespearean plays and a plethora of other novels.
So, libraries are an environment I was very accustomed to after many years of basically living in them! But, I had never once even been to my university library which is strange because where else am I supposed to find the best resources for my course?
So this post is really about a book I’ve taken out of the library and something that occurred to me while studying it.
The Cook’s Bible of Ingredients by Margaret Brooker is a sort of encyclopedia styled book of ingredients including short snappy information about flavors, origins and uses.
This book is a great investment for any chef. It’s got every aspect of food covered!
Furthermore, I haven’t covered or explained why my post is entitled Infinity Food. For me I have never seen such a collection of a wide variety and variation of ingredients before. This book far from contains every ingredient in the human world, but if we were to just take the ingredients this book is giving us, it is still completely impossible to ever make every combination of ingredients. Like a unique maths problem the number of dishes that can be invented is infinite, not alone just due to the raw ingredients used but also the cooking and preparation methods that can change the state of many ingredients.
So is innovation dead in cooking? Is there no more room for celebrity chefs? Everything’s been done? Rubbish! That’s physically impossible, mathematically, scientifically. There is never going to be a time in the future of humanity where with food everything has been done, there are too many flavours, too many textures and too many personal interpretations of every single ingredient.
Finally the two points I’d like you to take from my post is firstly, visit the library. And second, innovation is a never ending journey, the definition itself is all about making the unexpected happen and there will never be a time when someone doesn’t do something new.
Happy reading and innovating!