The Arts of Culinary

As it is in the title, our group have discussed and will like to talk about the culinary arts.

Starting with the very definition of the sentence.

Well, from the dictionary "culinary" basically means of or relating to a kitchen or cookery.

Culinary arts is of course if you had guessed from the picture above is the ART of COOKING. A culinarian is the person who performs the culinary arts or also commonly known as a cook or the word I think better suits the professionalism is a chef.

Here is one of the famous figure in the area of culinary arts, Jamie Oliver doing what he does best. Culinary artists are responsible for skillfully preparing meals that is pleasing to the eyes. Other then that a professional chef must also be knowledgeable in the area of diet and nutrition as well as science of food.

Maybe many are familiar with the words nutrition and also diet but what is science of food? Well food science is the study of technical aspects of food, beginning with harvesting or slaughtering and ending with its cooking and consumption.

Okay, from the Wikipedia, it looks as if when your studying food sciences you are more likely to become a scientist in research and development of food. Not likely I think. But other than being able to cook variety of food and dishes, the other important aspects of being a chef is the management skills. This skill is extremely important as it determines the future of one's restaurant. Not only you have to manage your underlings but also manage the arrangements of cuisines which is also consider an art.

Isn't this considered as an art? Look at how the placement of food and the cutlery's
that are well arranged.



here is another example of careful arrangement of the arrays of food.

The art of cooking is not solely for the presentation, of course THE PRESENTATION of the food is important to sell your credentials but the way or better yet the technique to cook in many various way is also part of the art. There are many methods of cooking but I don't think I can list every one but, the examples below are some of the best techniques I think to cook food..

BLACKENING

A cooking technique commonly used in preparing fish. This method was often associated with cajun cuisine but it is in fact a modern invention of chef Paul Prudhomme. The food is dipped in melted butter and dregged in a mixture of herbs and spices and then cooked in a hot cast of iron skillet.The picture on the right is a blakened redfish.

Chef Paul Prudhomme

STEAMING

Steaming is one the other way in cooking food wher you have to boil the water continously, using the steam to carry the heat and thus cooking the food. Such cooking is most often done by placing the food in a steamer. Western cooking usually use this method to cook vegetables but rarely on meat, but personally chinese cuisine or thai cuisine is most ideal using this type of method as they have a variety food cooked by this method and not just solely on vegetables.

Cantonnese cuisine, steamed fish, seasoned with soy sauce, coriander and welsh onion

thai cuisine, steamed seabass in lemon sauce



GRILLING

Grilling is a form of cooking that invoves dry heat from above or below. Direct heat grilling often expose food to temperatures up to 260C. One of the popular methods of grilling in Malaysia is BARBECUE. This type of method is best for large cuts of meat or bone-in poultry. It is even better when the meat is basted or marinade in sauce. One of Malaysia's favourite food; SATAY ,marinated meat on a bamboo skewer grilled over a charcoal fire served with peanut sauce.

To the left, the famous Robert Rainford or also known as King of Grill.

Malaysian Cuisine: Satay being prepared

ROTISSERIE

Here is also one the methods that is very popular in Malaysia. This method is especially used in cooking KEBAB'S. It is a style of roasting where meat is skewered on a spit- a long rod to hold the meat while being cooked in a fireplace
.

A vertical rotisserie cooking kebab


Illustration of spitted fowl being rotated while being basted with a long-handled spoon from The Romance of Alexander, Bruges.

As mention above art in cooking does not only count in the presentation of the meal but also the method or process of the cooking the 'art' started even before the cooking which the ingredients. Getting the right ingredients is important, if one fail to produced the right ingredient, how is it one suppose to produce the right type of meal. It is the same as drawing. How can you draw properly if given a brush instead of a pencil, right? So in conclusion this type of art, culinary arts is not like the most beautiful of all but when one is passionate about something, it really opens one's eye towards the beauty of it.