Kitchen Philosophy #1: Too Much of a Good Thing Is a Bad Thing

I adore food. I remember every single good meal i've had in vivid detail and the euphoria i felt with each new culinary experience. Apart from providing mental nourishment, stimulus and energy, food is simply sexy.

All elements of coyness, foreplay, climactic ecstacy and post coital satiety are present during a full-course meal.

My food fetishism has led me a firm belief that the preparation and appreciation of food is a profound, life enriching experience that offers deep insight and perspective into the intricate workings of the human mind.

To illustrate my point, I shall begin a whole series of Kitchen Philosophies, starting with this posting. Hopefully this kitchen-inspired dogma will be enlightening enough to lead the discovery of your inner foodie.

Open your mind for a weltanschauung* born from a world of garlic presses, copper pots and lemon zesters. Or of mortars and pestles, big, black woks and banana leaf wrappers.

Kitchen Philosophy #1: Too Much of a Good Thing Is a Bad Thing (especially in curries)

When i cook, i get really excited. I mean, something physical actually happens to my body - heart beats faster, sweat glands are activated, breathing becomes shorter and more laboured and hands tremble in anticipation.

I revel in the comfort of being surrounded by generous heaps of assorted spices simply intoxicating, raw and bruised garlic within easy reach, nutmegs on a plate ready for grating and cinammon sticks in a transparent, glass jar waiting for my fingers to wrap around their slender, dusky bodies.

As I start the cooking process I feel like a medieval alchemist - mixing, amalgamating, stirring, heating, simmering, re-heating - to produce a perfect combination altruistically suited to the tastebuds of the people i'm going to serve.

My first instinct is normally correct - i add just the right amounts to create a balanced composition - a little more sugar to offset the picante, caution with the spices, only a squeeze of lemon juice for enhanced personality and a handful of herbs right at the end so they don't get tired. It's perfect.

But i can't believe its over. I need more. I am unable to resist the temptation of adding more of my favourite ingredients - more mustard seeds and fenugreek nothing can be more exotic, more ripe, red tomatoes with its seeds spilling all slimey and wet onto your hands as you cut them open and see them melt and spread in the heat, just a little more black, cracked pepper get the pepper grinder out and watch the peppercorns turn into dust accompanied by its signature sound; crack, crack.....

Then alas!It all goes awry - the balance is disturbed.

I need more of the other ingredients to offset an overpowering effect of the excessive element - it threatens to dominate and oppress all the other components which have so humbly contributed to the success of the dish, in their respective quantities.

I only just manage to temper the immoderate item into accepting the essence of the others. The dish is saved. But this not always the case - at times it is beyond redemption - the flavours are overwhelmed, and everything is compromised. I curse my indiscretion.

I recently got some cooking advice from M - just because something is good, doesn't mean it has to be used in large amounts. The key to becoming a really good chef is to know how to achieve a balance, and more importantly, to maintain the balance once you have found it.

So turn off that fire and serve immediately. And turn thy face from the element that lures thou to upset the harmony created in thy wok. Keep it aside - there will always be another recipie. Instant gratification can ruin a good meal.

But what if i choose to like the unbalanced effect - too tangy? too spicy? well l like it that way. And you just have to eat it the way i like it, not the way it is meant to be served. Who created the criterion for perfection and balance anyway? Who died and made them Cuisine Dictators? Why not an excess of something? Why always an equilibruim? I question the standards and i challenge the long held traditional beliefs of how this meal should be prepared.

Are you sure you like it the way its always done? Why not created discord between the coconut cream and the tamarind paste? Anarchy yields creative and unconventional culinary. It makes eating all the more exciting - you never know what youre going to get and how it should taste like. Banish the benchmarks for balance - every dish is new and unexplored. The democratisation of food preparation - everybody is a masterchef. No stifling rules, no cordon bleu, no painstaking trial and error, no wasted ingredients.

But cooking is not just an art - its also a science, M argued. It is organic chemistry concerned with composition and reactions of substances. It deserves precision, consideration and careful decision. Once created it is difficult to undo if it does not result in the desired effect. It is essential to understand the properties of the chosen ingredients and how it works with other substances.

You can live in denial of the need to achieve a balance, said M. You may choose to impose your set of values without understanding the true workings of the elements you are dealing with. You may insist on playing a lead role in the creative process, but the true skill in creation and composition lies in respecting the character and disposition of each component and knowing how to bring them all together to form a harmonious, integrated piece.

So while you may become a good cook, you'll never be a great cook.

* fancy German expression for personal philosophy of human life and the universe. No less.