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Shirley
Corriher has been answering the "whys" of cooking
for more than 25 years, counting among those who rely on her
expertise Julia Child, Pillsbury, magazine test kitchens,
celebrity chefs and home cooks alike. Her first book, CookWise:
The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking, won the 1998 James
Beard Award for Food Reference and Techniques and is a standard
for both food professionals and amateurs. As a lecturer, teacher,
industry consultant and television personality, she crosses
the country on a regular basis and is in the process of writing
her second book, BakeWise. But despite an impressive scientific
background, the Atlanta native is known as one of the most
accessible writers on food today, happy to share her expertise(and
lively anecdotes) with just about anyone who asks. Last February,
ICE® asked Ms. Corriher to teach a class for our chef-instructors,
and this interview was conducted afterwards.
You started your career as a research biochemist at the Vanderbilt
Medical School. From there, how did you start cooking?
It was what you might call a trial by fire. I left Vanderbilt,
and my former husband and I started a boys' boarding school
here in Atlanta. We began with about 30 boys, and at first
I did all the cooking myself, in addition to planning and
purchasing. And there was just so much I didn't know.
I would even have trouble scrambling a couple dozen eggs.
This was 1959, before the days of non-stick, and those eggs
would stick so badly I would end up with a little bit of knotty
stuff. Then my German mother-in-law taught me how to scramble
eggs. If you put eggs, which are liquid protein, into the
pan when the pan is cold, that protein goes down into every
nook and cranny in the pan. Then when you heat it you literally
cook the eggs into the pan. But if you heat the pan first,
the eggs cook on the surface of the pan.
Our school grew to 140 boys, and for 11 years I took care
of feeding them all three meals a day. I learned a lot.
How did you begin teaching food science?
After my former husband and I divorced, I left the boys' school.
I had three children and I was starving. I had gone to cooking
classes whenever I could---goodness knows I needed all the
help I could get. Nathalie Dupree ran the Rich's Cooking School
in Atlanta at the time, a large school with 28 stoves, and
I often went there. When something would go wrong in a class,
I'd use my chemistry background to explain what went wrong,
and what should be changed. Eventually Nathalie got into the
habit of calling me with all her problems.
One of those calls from Nathalie came just after I had figured
out there was no way I could get through the summer financially.
She offered to hire me at the cooking school, and for minimum
wage I started setting up the classes, helping students and
cleaning up after the classes. I washed my way through Basic
French Cooking, Intermediate French Cooking and Advanced French---hundreds
of times it seemed.
Pretty soon people all over the southeast were calling me
with their food science questions. A baker in Hilton Head
called Nathalie and said his phone bill to me in one month
was $150, and he wanted to know if I could teach a class about
baking science so he could get all his answers all at once.
And that's how I started teaching my first food science class,
Food Science in Everyday Language.
In On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee writes that "Most
writers on food either ignore the scientific principles…
that underlie cooking, or else disparage the value of such
information on the grounds that art cannot be reduced to the
test tube." Do you agree?
That first course I taught, Food Science in Everyday Language,
was back in the day when the word "science" used
in connection with cooking was the kiss of death. Everybody
was into "creative gourmet." But I see a little
technical information as liberating, something that enhances
creativity. If you know the limiting factors in a recipe,
you're free to go wild with the rest.
What was the evolution of your fist book, CookWise?
I taught sometimes at L'Academie de Cuisine, a chefs' training
center in Bethesda. When I was there, Phyllis Richmond, food
editor and restaurant reviewer for the Washington Post, would
send her writers to my classes. She said it made her job as
an editor so much easier.
Phyllis thought my information was too valuable not to be
in a book, so in 1983 she convinced me to write a proposal
and send it to a big-name editor. I felt like I was a shoo-in,
since Phyllis was one of the hottest people in food at the
time. Well, that editor wrote me back a two-page, single-space
letter cussing me out from A to Z and telling me I was totally
incompetent.
Let me tell you, I decided to have no part of the book thing.
I had become a very popular teacher and I kept a hectic schedule
teaching and speaking all over the country. But 3 or 4 years
later, I met Susan Friedland at an AIWF meeting, and she convinced
me to get an agent and try again. I got an agent, who basically
wrote the proposal for me, and I had a contract in a few days.
Are you planning another book?
I'm a year and half behind on my second book, BakeWise, for
William Morrow. I have learned so much, it's been fascinating.
I'm near the end of the second chapter, which is not as bad
as it sounds because there are only five chapters. So I'm
about half way.
You were recently on a late-night talk show, "Jimmy
Kimmel Live." What was a food scientist doing on such
a show?
Jimmy Kimmel used to be on "The Man Show," and now
he has a late-night show that competes with Letterman and
Leno. They flew me to LA, and told me they wanted me to make
a batter and fry some things. I said "Okay, I can do
that." But when I got to the studio, the producer told
me what I was going to fry: a whole Poptart, chocolate bunnies,
a whole low-fat sub, a bunch of grapes, slices of pizza, Ping-Ping
balls, a football, and finally a wrist watch. And Snoop Doggy-Dogg
was going to be the co-host.
Thank goodness I had my book, CookWise, with me, and let me
tell you, that's a great book. I rushed right to the batter
section, and it said thick batters adhere better; cold batters
adhere better; batters with eggs are stronger. So I made the
thickest, coldest batter ever seen. The producer said things
had to brown instantly, and with my technical knowledge I
knew that if I added corn syrup to the batter things would
brown in a flash.
They had an audience of 800 people, and when they started
filming Snoop and Jimmy and I fried up things fast and furious.
That batter stuck like a dream, even to those slick Ping-Pong
balls and to the football. And it was delicious---Jimmy even
ate the batter off the Ping-Pong ball. I can't tell you how
relieved I was. We were funny and having fun, and it was a
grand time. A little technical knowledge got me through that.
Are
there things you see in restaurant kitchens on a regular basis
that you think food science could correct?
Oh yes, all the time. But the response I get when I point
them out isn't always good! Take rice pudding. I was at a
local cafeteria, and there's the rice pudding, and the rice
is this dense layer on the bottom, and the custard is sitting
on top. And I said to the guy behind the line, "I can
fix that for you." And he said, "Move on, lady."
But I'll tell you, they're using leftover rice (which they
should), but it's been in the refrigerator, and when starch
chills it crystallizes. Then the starch no longer leaches
out, so it's not thickening the custard. If you use leftover
rice to make pudding, sprinkle a little cornstarch over it
and stir it in.
So, I see things all the time, in restaurants and in cookbooks,
that I know aren't right. But you know, it doesn't interfere
with my enjoying food!
Can you give some examples of the type of problems you solve
for corporate clients?
Usually corporate clients come to me with a list of criteria
they want their products to have---crisper, or browner, or
less brown. I solve a lot of problems for cookie bakers who
are trying to get the proper texture. Gluten holds baked goods
together, but cookies have a lot of fat, and all that fat
greases up the flour so that the protein strands can't possibly
grab each other. And then you have all that sugar, and sugar
infers with gluten formation as well. So, if you don't want
a cookie to be too crumbly, you need to start by mixing water
and flour together first, to form the gluten, before adding
the sugar and fat. You can get just about any texture you
want in a cookie---it can be tough enough to stand on, or
so tender it just barely holds together. It's all in how you
control the formation of the gluten.
You
seem to have a great time in front of the camera, establishing
a bond with your audience. Were you a natural, or did it take
study?
I had terrible stage fright at first, but I got over it very
quickly. The first time I was up in front of an audience my
hands were shaking so badly I had to put down the speech I
had written and just talk. And it went well from there, they
kept me an hour asking questions. I've spoken all over the
country to huge audiences. And I think the most important
thing is to remember that you're not really speaking to an
audience, you're just telling a good friend about something
you find fascinating. And then you're just chatting with a
friend.
I do a lot of TV these days. I'm on Alton Brown's "Good
Eats," and on Sara Moulton's show, and I do "Smart
Solutions" for House and Garden and lots of segments
for the "Home Cooking" series.
What do you recommend to students interested in a career in
the field of food science?
Many universities have really fine programs. Rutgers, the
University of Georgia, Clemson and Purdue come to mind on
the east coast, but there are many other great programs around
the country. For young chefs who might not be interested in
a four-year program, there are shorter, introductory programs.
The Institute of Food Technologists in Chicago is a great
resource to find out more about programs (312/782-8424, www.ift.org).
They have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 members.
And there are many on-the-job training opportunities in corporations
and test kitchens for those with cooking experience who would
rather go that route.
What's the best part of being Shirley Corriher?
It's really fun. I get to travel all over, meet fascinating
people, and generally have a grand time. And eat great food!
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