Welcome to Process Pieces, a series that explores my writing and cooking processes and the lessons I learn from examining my creative journey as a food writer.
I'd love to hear from you too: The comments are open for you to talk about your own processes as a cook and creator. I hope you enjoy!
For many years of my life, labels have served a utilitarian function, doing the one task their title suggests. Names and dates on jars of home-canned food in my pantry, or cambros of ingredients at a restaurant, simply serve as a marker of identity within space and time: They don't reveal any secrets of the process behind them, the many choices that were made to get this food, as it currently is, into the container in which it exists.
Choices like, for example: What shape and size are we cutting each vegetables? What ingredients go into the pickle brine, and is it hot or cold? Are there spices, and are they cooked into the brine or added after? And the countless other tiny steps and choices, some of which we make subconsciously or habitually, that go into bringing a dish to life.
At one point in my kitchen, I found myself testing a recipe without the usual scraps of paper (usually the back of junk mail envelopes) at hand. I like to write down ratios and revelations as I work, giving myself a real-time record of my process that I then take to my computer and refine into a product that's legible to others.
Using the backs of envelopes isn't really a conscious choice I make, it's just a way to squeeze some use out of a thing I often have in excess and that I usually store on the coffee table right next to the kitchen. I tend to, instead, start testing a recipe then realize I need my paper, my eyes darting around to locate something, anything to write on before my ideas flutter away.
It was in just such a scenario that I found myself one day, making a recipe for chow chow. I'd made it plenty of times, but my ratios on this one were perfect: One of those moments where all the flavors sing. I scrambled around, unsuccessfully, to find a piece of paper, before my eyes fell on the roll of masking tape I use to label my food.
Well, I thought, it's better than nothing.
I hurriedly wrote down my notes about the recipe on masking tape, wrapping it around the jar containing the chow chow, the recipe serving as both identifier and marker of process.
I think I had assumed this would be a one-off, that I would start to neatly compile my notes in a single notebook (ha) or would be more fastidious in my efforts to keep paper nearby. What I found was that using labels to describe process was liberating: By being forced to confine my ideas into these small strips, I had to distill down what mattered to me most about the recipe, and in so doing get to the heart of what I was trying to create more quickly.
Rather than a rote practice, recipe testing became a site of creative joy: By writing out my ideas and putting them on the vessel itself, it created a tangible connection between the food and the writing about the food. The recipe, rather than being a tired summary of a dish prepared, was imbued with the excitement of discovery and the rush of confidence that comes from making a dish you want to make and making it well.