“It was some sort of curry but it needed something,” She of We was telling He of We of her supper a little earlier that evening.  It seemed to be not very memorable, but then, “but then I thought ‘I bet it will be better if I add some parmesan cheese to it’ so I did and it did.  You’re probably not supposed to add parmesan to curry.”  And that started us down the path lined with food rules.

Food should be fun to make, to serve, and to eat.  There shouldn’t be any rules.  But there are rules all over food.  Don’t add cheese to fish.  Serve red wine with red meat.  Add oil to vinegar.  Parmesan and curry don’t go together.  As far as we’re concerned there is only one food rule.  Enjoy what you eat.

Recipes are just rules lined up in numerical order.  Sometimes, recipes are so daunting and the ingredients so obscure that it’s impossible to satisfy We’s Rule of Food: Enjoy What You Eat.  The way we figure, unless you’re a restaurant and you want every crab cake to taste exactly the same or the enchilada on Tuesday to taste just like the enchilada on Saturday you don’t really need a recipe.  A guide, yes.  A formula, no. 

When we look for recipe books we look for the ones with the stories about the food and the cooks.  What was the author/chef thinking, or doing, or remembering when he or she first put those ingredients together.  How many times did the middle child serve as tester before it came out right?  What are the stories behind the food?  How your grandmother taught you to spot the freshest chicken is a much more interesting tale than how much chicken to bone for the lemon chicken salad.  If we like the story, we’ll try the food.  And if we don’t like the food, we’ll at least have read a good story.

Food rules (the noun) have no place in your kitchen.  Food rules (the verb) is what makes a kitchen. 

Food Rules!  We like that.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?