CHEFS SECRETS: Slow Food & Home Cooking

What is Fast Food?

To understand what slow food really is, we need to understand what it is the antidote to: fast food. Typically, the term fast food refers to quickly prepared food with low quality ingredients and preparation that is served in disposable packaging at franchised restaurant chains, independent outlets and kiosks. It is often over-priced, low in nutritional value, and eaten "on the run".

It is frequently manufactured in an industrial environment, pre-packed, and then shipped to retailers where it can be reheated or cooked quickly. While some fast food is healthy, such as sushi, quick fried or grilled fresh meat and vegetables, baked potatoes, salads, fresh sandwiches, most is not. Common fast foods such as burgers, french fries, fish and chips, pizza and kebabs are often highly processed and contain large amounts of additives, are high in calories, trans fats, sugars and salts, and come in relatively small portions.

What is Slow Food?

Slow food is a system of values that is designed to combat the detrimental effects of fast food. Its whole ethos centres on the idea of "living an unhurried life, beginning at the table." The Slow Food Movement was formed in Italy in 1986 and has grown to around 83,000 members in 122 countries.

Among the key values it promotes and encourages are the extensive use of regional and local produce, traditional farming and cooking methods, and sharing the enjoyment of carefully and slowly prepared and cooked foods in the company of others all of which nurtures a healthy mind and body.

However, its remit also extends to the preservation of regional and cultural foods and ingredients such as plants, seeds, and domestic animals through programmes such as taste education, and offers support to those who wish to source and promote traditional, local high quality food that is more nourishing and tastier than fast food.

Health Benefits

By eating and adopting the social attitude of slow food, both bodily and mental health can be improved much more so than a fast food diet. Fast food providers, especially in the US, urge consumers to buy "Supersize" which has contributed to the problem of obesity, which increases the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, blood diseases joint problems.

Fast food is often eaten fast, which is often anti-social and bad for digestion. With slow food, a meal is made into a special event. During preparation of the food, people take time to relax and share a conversation, which extends well after the meal is finished. Because slow food is made from the freshest, local ingredients and produce (often organic, hence free from manmade chemicals), diners have peace of mind knowing where their food came from and that it provides high nutritional value.

Many people are surprised to learn that slower eating aids weight loss. The conditioned behaviour of eating until we are full is a complex process that depends on how many times we chew, how long we eat for and the amount of food we eat. If we chew and eat more slowly and spend more time at the table, most people find that it takes less food to feel full.

Lifestyle Benefits

In addition, eating is made more enjoyable because of the sharing. Mealtimes have traditionally been a time when people can come together and not just share a meal, but bond. This makes for closer relationships with friends and family members that are happier because of the sharing.

Eating more slowly enables us to taste more. Fast food is designed to be eaten quickly, which is why it has concentrated flavours. However, the taste doesn't last long and is ultimately unsatisfying. Slow food on the other hand, is made with the best ingredients and produce which is packed full of natural flavours. When we eat slowly in relaxing surroundings, we experience more flavours, textures and aromas, and will gain new appreciation of our food.

Harry Young works for Toltech Internet Solutions and writes on behalf of An Lochan Country Inn. For award-winning, homemade, slow food cooked with fresh, local ingredients and produce such as Highland beef, wild boar, and heather and wild flower smoked salmon, visit 4 star An Lochan Country Inn, near Gleneagles, Scotland.

>>  Burn Your Recipes: 5 Cooking Method Secrets to Improve your Cooking Tonight   by Chef Todd Mohr

Have you ever wondered why chefs are able to cook great meals without using recipes, even inventing their own recipes on the fly? Do you think these cooking secrets are reserved just for the professionals? Well, maybe they have been, but you are about to learn some of these very secrets - ones that will really get you cooking!

Cooking is a journey. When you understand this, you realize the pressure is off. You are on a journey and your goal is to learn, grow and improve. Of course, along the way, you'd also like to prepare some great meals so let's start here with 5 Secrets in cooking by method that will get you started today.

Recipes don't really work.
Why?

• Food products are not uniform. They are different sizes, textures, degrees of ripeness and firmness.
• Kitchens (and cooks) do not all have the same equipment. Different pans use heat differently.
• It is impossible to give exact instructions. "Medium" heat can vary as can "medium" onion.

Maybe "burning" your recipes is a bit extreme. It's great to use recipes for ideas and as guidelines , but cook with your own observations and knowledge. This is what cooking with confidence is all about. This is what helps the professionals make it look easy.

Keep some junk in your trunk.

There are many items you can keep in your pantry to give yourself an everyday cooking "head-start". This is a key for cooking by method because you need readily available ingredients to cook. First, the goal is to have a good variety of some staples: rice, beans, spices, vinegars, oils, grains, pastas, tomato products, sauces, canned meat and fish, and a freezer full of protein standards (meats, chicken and fish). Then, when your pantry is stocked, you simply choose a protein, a flavoring, a cooking method, a side dish - cook - and dinner is done! It really is that simple when you understand cooking methods.

Stay on the cutting edge.

When you learn some basic knife skills your time spent in the kitchen is safer, more efficient and definitely more fun! Your dishes will be more consistently prepared, more evenly cooked and the finished results will have the advantage of consistent texture and great eye-appeal. In addition, being able to quickly prep lots of ingredients in advance, what the French call mise en place, enables you to get in and out of the kitchen fast. Whether you are cooking meat or making a salad, knowing how to use that knife - and which knife to use - is an important starting point.

Turn up the Heat (or not?).

A skilled cook anticipates the end result of their cooking procedure. How do they do this? They understand that differences in how heat is applied in cooking will dictate that end result. As food cooks, it rises through temperatures where changes take place. What those changes are depends on the type of food (meat, vegetable, fat, sugar, starch), the temperature and the method of heat being applied. Controlling heat and moisture is the key to a quality finished product that meets expectations.

Call Your Mother.

There are five "mother sauces" in cooking from which all sauce recipes are derived. What this means for your home cooking is that you can create a limitless array of sauces when you master the big five. Simply take the basic sauce and add your own creativity with herbs, spices, cheese, vegetables - whatever's in the pantry. Bechamel is the basic French white sauce made by stirring milk into roux. Veloute is a stock-based white sauce made by adding chicken (or other) stock to roux. Espagnole or brown sauce is a stock-based sauce. Vinaigrette is an oil-and-vinegar based sauce which is manually emulsified prior to serving. Finally, hollandaise sauce is made from egg yolks, butter and lemon juice to emulsify.

So go forth, empowered now to incorporate these 5 tips into your routine and start cooking by method today. Just by understanding these "secrets" you are well on your way to better, easier everyday cooking. Whether or not you burn your recipes is up to you.

>> Budget Cooking is Easy and Delicious - with these Tricks   by Chef Todd Mohr

>> The Real Secrets for Cooking Perfect Steak that Chefs won't tell You.   by Chef Todd Mohr