Water - a quote

"Shapes cooked in water in order to make something to eat." Rachel Roddy

Rachel Roddy is, of course, talking about pasta, but what she says applies to so much more than pasta, particularly if you take the word 'shapes' to refer to just about anything you might eat.

It's nearing the end of the day - a day in which I have been somewhat uninspired. So I turned to a list of quotes that I keep that might inspire something someday. And now that I have started I see that this is a massive subject, so perhaps I shall make it a brief introduction to one of those intermittent series - loosely linked posts - that I turn to in times of desperation like this.

'Shapes' is of course particularly relevant when talking about pasta - in fact I think the quote comes from her introduction to her book An A-Z of Pasta, which looks at just a few of the hundreds, and growing, list of pasta shapes that exist. It's a simple equation - boiling water + pasta whether dried or fresh. Cook for a while and not only does the pasta transform into something new this can also be transformed in thousands of different ways. And in the process the water is transformed as well, and becomes a vital component of dishes such as pasta carbonara.

Water is vital to life. We will die faster from lack of water than from lack of food. However, you cannot cook with water unless you have something to put the water into. A truth which is so obvious that I had never really thought about it. So it's a much more recent way of cooking than, for example, roasting. You need a vessel which will withstand heat. Well actually there seems to be some disagreement as to when cooking things in water first happened, with dates as far apart as 2 million years ago, 20,000 years ago and 10,000 years ago.

The 2 million years theory is suppositional, based on remains of food, that look as if was 'cooked' in water - they speculate that containers made from hide or bark would have been suspended over flames - it seems ""The container will not burn so long as it remains filled with liquid." Later hot rocks were placed in containers of bark or skin filled with water. 20,000 years ago is when the first pottery shards appear and so one can assume that some of these would be able to withstand the heat of a fire sufficient to cook something within. Maybe shells would have withstood at least some heat as well. I assume the 10,000 years ago applies to more concrete evidence. But I am somewhat out of my depth here, so will leave it there.

Whenever it was that cooking in water began it meant this "greatly increased the digestibility and nutritional worth of foods." And the variety too. Indeed:

"The invention of cooking, anthropologists have argued, helped make humans human." Sarah Zhang/The Atlantic

I imagine the first way of cooking was to simply throw things into a pot of water, and then heat them up - as in the classic but very simple boiled beef and carrots as shown here. As time went by we learnt how to flavour the water with vegetables, herbs, spices, and to thicken it with flour, breadcrumbs and eggs. Sometimes the water was plentiful and discarded, but pretty soon they would have realised that the water itself had been transformed in the cooking process and was either eaten - as in soup, reduced for a sauce, or kept as a stock for another meal.

Over time as well we began to use other liquids to cook our food in, and we tend to think that these are more flavoursome than water - that they add to the taste. But we should remember that "water doesn't temper flavor—it carries it." (David Tamarkin/Epicurious). If you want the pure taste of the vegetable, fish or meat to shine through then water is your answer.

Boiling things is not the only way that water is vital to the cooking process however. If you are making pastry you will probably use at least a little water to bind things together at some point. Not always of course, but frequently. If the sauce in your braised or baked dish is becoming too thick then add a little water. Water is in fact often a component of various roasted dishes - Greek roasted potatoes spring to mind.

And then there's steam - beloved of the health food practitioners - and the Chinese.

And speaking of health food there is now a growing number of people who think that we should be poaching and steaming much more than we do because of the AGEs that come from other methods. What are AGEs?

"Advanced glycation end products are a group of compounds created when proteins or lipids are exposed to sugars. People encounter them regularly in the western diet, where they are typically generated during the cooking process via the Maillard reaction, or when food is blasted over high heat. (Think: the crust on a good steak.) A lot of ultra-processed foods, like cheese puffs and breakfast cereals, are also cooked this way.

Once in the body, AGEs do one of two things. They can crosslink with a protein, which causes plaque buildup in the body – this can clog arteries and reduce healthy blood flow. Or they create inflammation through receptor binding. It’s why researchers consider AGEs a powerful biomarker for oxidative stress, which causes cell and tissue damage, and inflammation." Chris Gayomali/The Guardian

Oh dear. I confess I do not poach things enough, mostly because I tend to think the result is boring - mostly because it looks bland. But whenever I have - poached -chicken with tarragon for example, the result is delicious. Or something like Ixta Belfrage's Fish Poached in Charred Tomato Broth, which does not look or taste at all boring.

But time is running out and I need to cook the dinner. So perhaps there's a series there. Cooking with water.

And let's not forget the vital role of the washing up.

YEARS GONE BY

November 2

2023 - Fried pizza - leftovers 4

2022 - Another sad farewell

2021 - Matcha

2020 - On the brink

2019 - Barley - too big a subject, so just pearl barley (for now)

2018 - Nothing

2017 - The back story of T2

2016 - Tins (or cans)