THE TRIANGLE
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the air-axis, halfway between the grilled and the smoked. We may
proceed in similar fashion if the culinary system in question makes a
distinction between cooking with water and cooking with steam: the
latter, where the water is at a distance from the food, will be located half–
way between the boiled and the smoked.
A more complex transformation will be necessary to introduce the
category of the fried.
A
tetrahedron will replace the recipe triangle, mak–
ing it possible to raise a third axis, that of oil, in addition to those of
air and water. The grilled will remain at the apex, but in the middle
of the edge joining smoked and fried one can place roasted-in-the-oven
(with the addition of fat), which is opposed to roasted-on-the-spit (with–
out this addition). Similarly, on the edge running from fried to boiled
will be braising (in a base of water and fat) , opposed to steaming (with–
out fat, and at a distance from the water) as well as roasted-in-the-oven
(with a base of fat but no water). The plan can be still further devel–
oped,
if
necessary, by addition of the opposition between animal and
vegetable foodstuffs (if they entail differentiating methods of cooking),
and by the distinction of vegetable foods into cereals and legumes, since
unlike the former (which one can simply grill) , the latter cannot be
cooked without water or fat, or both (unless one were to let the cereals
ferment, which requires water but excludes fire during the process of
transformation). Finally, seasonings will take their place in the system
according to the combinations permitted or excluded with a given type
of
food.
Mter elaborating our diagram so as to integrate all the characteristics
of a given culinary system (and no doubt there are other factors of a
diachronic rather than a synchronic nature : those concerning the order,
the presentation and the gestures of the meal), it will be necessary to
seek the most economical manner of orienting it as a grille, so that it
can be superposed on other contrasts of a sociological, economic, esthetic
or religious nature: men and women, family and society, village and
bush, economy and prodigality, nobility and commonalty, sacred and
profane, etc. Thus we can hope to discover for each specific case how
the cooking of a society is a language in which it unconsciously translates
its structure-or else resigns itself, still unconsciously, to revealing its con–
tradictions.
(Translated from the French by Peter Brooks)
