Combinations

Combining ingredients is one of the foundations of cooking and a hallmark of the human diet. It is second in importance only to the technique of using heat to prepare food and is unparalleled in its ability to provide variety and innovation. Animals tend to eat whatever plants or animals they can find in the order that they find them, but humans are unique in gathering together multiple ingredients in order to combine them into a final product that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I will now suggest a hierarchy that illustrates a range of possibilities, from basic to sophisticated:

1. Foraging or Grazing: eating things in the order that you find them in the cupboards or refrigerator. This is the approach taken by animals, teenagers (if they are different), unsupervised children and hangry adults. Any edible item is, of course, a candidate for this approach, whether is it cold or room temperature. Feel free to consider this a fancy, multiple course meal if fruits or vegetables make up one of the selections, e.g. leftover pizza followed by an apple.

2. Assembling: combining 2 or more ingredients together into a single food item, such as when making a salad or a sandwich. This is an excellent technique when there aren’t leftovers readily available because they have all been consumed during a Grazing meal.

3. Actual Cooking: combining 2 or more ingredients, plus 1 or more forms of non-microwave heat. Examples include soups or stews, hot dish, stir fry or a complicated sandwich. (A peanut butter and jelly sandwich counts if you toast the bread first.) Almost any breakfast item is an excellent candidate for this approach, at any time of day.