Response to “The Secret Ingredients”

In “The Secret Ingredients”, Fisher tells that the old lady she worked with, Bertie Bastalizzo, a retired cook who possessed magical power over cooking the greatest pickled zucchini. Fisher’s honest and insightful writing contains humanity and humbleness in his piece. The comparison of Bertie was like a cookery witch is interesting. That reminds me of my grandmother’s special and magical power of making the best Korean kimchi pancake. No kimchi pancake has been so far better than my grandmother’s. Every Thanksgiving Day and New Year Day, our family is busy with cooking kimchi pancakes that can feed many people at once if a mix of ingredients is ready to be used. Although it’s easy to make, no one can imitate the perfect crispy end part of her kimchi pancake. Her pancake is loaded with fresh ground beefs, shreds of spinach and welsh onions, and tons of kimchi (Maybe there might be another ingredient that makes her pancake special). She gave the same recipe to everyone who asked for it; however, no one could produce same taste, smell, and crunchy texture of her kimchi pancake. The most special thing about her pancake is that her pancake has stronger kimchi flavor than other pancakes although the amount of kimchi that is used is same.

Back to “The Secret Ingredients”, Fisher says that “They [cookery witches] manage to keep to themselves whatever it is that makes their creations subtly and definitely better than any attempts to approximate them. They are even willing to make knaves and clowns of themselves to protect their recipes” (103). I don’t really know whether my grandmother has the “secret ingredient” that she never told us about to make her pancake extremely delicious. She might hide her true recipe with careful deception because she has pride of being the best cook of making kimchi pancake, also she might not want to share her recipe that consists with her timeless efforts and trials. No one is perfect in his or her first cooking experience. By using different kinds of ingredients and trying different cooking methods to create wonderful dishes, she and Bertie became a cookery witch. Therefore, it is a cook’s right to give away her true recipe or not. I also found out that it was impossible to follow my grandmother’s way of cooking kimchi pancake exactly same like strength of flipping the pancakes aren't easily controllable.

I think that physical ingredients aren't the only factors that make dishes amazing. Inside of dishes of Bertie and my grandmother, there is passion that they went through by so many trials to make best dishes. Fisher says that “If at times they protected their secrets to the point of knavery, at least they had the courage to stay passionate about it. Perhaps that was the Secret Ingredient: the blind strength of timeless passion” (108). Bertie was particular for not only her process of cooking but also serving her dish and preparing ingredients which requires so much passion than just making food without careful thoughts.

At the end of “The Secret Ingredients”, Fisher says that these days people don’t really seek for secret ingredients or magical power of cooking great dishes, but they depend on packaged-box foods. I agree to it, and I think that these great foods created because of true flavor and changeless quality within these foods. Passion is indeed the key to make flavor that no one can make and makes the best food accompanied with truthfulness and endeavor. Whenever I ate my grandmother’s kimchi pancake, I could receive her kindness toward our family. I could feel and taste her wish for us to eat her dishes happily. This kind of food nourishes our body but also comforts our mind. I wish I can be that kind of grandmother who uses magical power or secret ingredients to make the dish that gives happiness to people who I love.