Ruhlman - From Scratch: 10 Meals, 175 Recipes, and Dozens of Techniques You Will Use Over and Over

FOR

Emma Kate Smith

AND HER FATHER,

Walter Smith

A bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich began this book, early in June 2009. Id posted a short essay on my website with a recipe illustrating how easy it is to make salted and dried pork belly. Ten years ago, curing your own pork at home was still a fairly novel idea, even among avid home cooks. After explaining how to make pancetta, I suggested any number of uses, one of which would be to put that pancetta on a BLT.

My blog had a legion of readers who shared my love of opinionated food writing and cooking great food and were quick to respond. The very first comment on this post was by a culinary enthusiast (former line cook and pastry chef by his own blogs account), Gareth Mark, who wrote: Okay, fine. Im already growing tomatoes and lettuce and baking bread. Mayo isnt hard to make. I guess its only right to make my own bacon. Bet itll be a really fine BLT.

I thought, yeah, Ill bet it will be, too.

About twenty-five comments down, I came across someone identified only as Carrie, who wrote this: Oh lord, now Im obsessed with making a BLT from scratch.

Thats when I thought, You know, theyre right. It would be really easy to make a BLT from scratch, but also enormously satisfying. And so I wrote a post on that day asking people to do it, make a BLT from scratch, meaning: (1) Bake your own bread, (2) Grow your own tomatoes and lettuce (it was June, thus a reasonable and easy suggestion), (3) Cure your own bacon, and (4) Make your own mayonnaise. And I said that I would do it, too.

After more than a hundred enthusiastic comments, I made it official. I turned it into a challenge, with categories (traditional, deconstructed, and best photograph). And the entries poured in. The winner, an American sous chef working in Sydney, Australia, went so far as to make his own salt with which to cure the bacon and add to the bread dough (he reported that 25 liters of sea water yielded 1 kilo of salt).

But it was another story that cut me to the quick. A man named Walt Smith, in West Virginia, read my post and told his youngest child, ten-year-old Emma Kate, about it. Lets do it! she said.

When I posted the winners, I concluded with a new category: Most Inspirational BLT (because this post merits a Hollywood ending).

Walt Smith wrote to me by email:

Dear Michael,

Instead [of entering the challenge myself ], we used the contest as a learning opportunity for Emma Kate and a bonding opportunity for us both.

She took this entire process very seriously and was, I thought, very creative in her approach. She added ginger to some of the cured bacon (though she didnt want to use it for the sandwich) and it was also her idea to add the lemon thyme to the mayo.

With the exception of the knife work and heating the smoker, Emma Kate created the entire sandwich without help or input from me. It really is so easy a kid could do it!

Emma Kate typed the message below and chose the pictures that are attached.

Thanks Michael,

Walt Smith

Mr. Ruhlman,

I had fun making my BLT. First, my dad and me planted a garden in the summer. Then the tomatoes and lettuce sprouted. In September I cured the pork belly with some pink salt and put it in the refrigerator for one week. When it was done curing I put it on the smoker. When it was done my dad cut it on the slicer.

I cant eat gluten (wheat, barley, rye), so I had to make Gluten-Free bread. First, I mixed some egg yolks into some rice flour with milk and yeast. Then we let it rise and put it in the oven.

I picked the tomatoes and some lettuce that looked like an oak leaf. My dad and I cooked the bacon then he cut some vegetables while I made mayonnaise in a little red mixer. I put lemon thyme in it, its my favorite herb. I didnt like the mayonnaise but everyone else did.

I made the sandwiches and we had friends over for a dinner party. Everyone said it was the best BLT they ever had.

Thank you for having the contest.

Emma Kate Smith

When I scrolled down to see the photo of that ten-year-old girl smiling in front of her BLT-from-scratch, I felt tears running down my cheeks. And I knew I wasnt alone. In the first comment on this post, Claudia Young wrote, So wonderful made me cry the good cry.

Yes, I had a cry. Why? See for yourself: just google ruhlman blt winners. And I knew very well why: Several powerful emotions coalesced in her smiling face as she presented her sandwich, summing up so many benefits of cooking our own food.

The girl was happy and proudshe felt good, and cooking does this to the cook. It makes you feel strong. It was a chance to connect with her father, and he with herthey did this together. Father and daughter had come together over food and then, of course, the whole family and friends got in on it. Everyone said it was the best BLT they ever had. A simple sandwich had brought everyone together, and that ultimately is what I love about the power of food.

I write this during a hard time in our nation, a time when so many of us feel divided. Food, more than anythingmore than anythingbrings us together. Everywhere around the globe, it does this. Its part of our humanity.

As Ive written before and will never tire of arguing, preparing food and sharing it with our families and those we love was the mechanism for advancing Homo sapiens past other early upright species to make us the most successful species the planet has ever known. Cooking made us human, and I believe that cooking can keep us human. And that, ultimately, is what that ten-year-old girl brought home to me so simply and touchingly. And its also, ultimately, why Im writing this book.

I want people to cook their own food for the people they love. I want people to feel comfortable in the kitchen and know that they can accomplish anything they wish, because, as that girls father said, its so easy a kid could do it. Whether you are the kind of cook who loves to take an entire day to make a meal, or you simply want to get a little better so that weeknight meals are simpler, less stressful, and still delicious, I want this book to be accessible to you.

The concept is simple:
By exploring several familiar, staple meals,
we can learn just about everything
we need to know in order to cook, well, anything.

The BLT is a lesson in making bread, curing bacon, and making an emulsified sauce (here, mayonnaise). The lessons of lasagna, or steak frites, or paella, or cassoulet, or a simple omelet are abundanta whole range of sauces, custards, rice and bean dishes, easy sausage making, making your own pasta or working with dried pasta, braises, roasts, sauts...and the bistro staple profiterole leads to a fleet of dessert techniques.