The Stovetop Traveler
Whether your particular home-cooking rut is rewarmed beef stew or roasted Vermont quail with favas, boning up on world cuisines can provide just the exotic spice (or mushroom or chutney or...little fishies) that your dinner table's been missing lately. No passport required.
- Photos by Sean Alonzo Harris.
Plot the Right Course
Whether hands-off or elbow-deep, global-cooking tutorials call for smart prep work.
ASSESS YOUR COMMITMENT.
When choosing a class, decide if your goal is to impress friends or to launch a new career—or just to chow down with an informed narrator. Newbury College's international cooking course, taught by Madonna Berry, requires seven intensive full-day sessions. The students, clad in chef's whites, rarely sit down, and by graduation they're almost ready for restaurant work. More-casual chefs might prefer the offerings at the Boston Center for Adult Education, which seldom last more than two nights. "This isn't a professional class," says chef Bon Koo of his course "I Love Sushi!" "But you'll learn how to please your party guests."
TAKE IN THE SHOW—OR RUN IT.
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On a recent Sunday at Watertown's Yasin Culinary, class participants stood spellbound as Ahmad Yasin assembled a Syrian feast, peppering them with trivia. (In the Arab world, they discovered, spinach is considered "the prince of vegetables.") Students left with a stack of new recipes and a full belly.
By contrast, a session of Berry's Newbury College class resembled a Top Chef episode, as students scrambled to prepare 10 types of tapas for diners in the next room. "You know how there are classes where four of you are working together on one blueberry muffin?" she said, adjusting the heat on a pot of cumin-spiced pork. "It's not like that here."
JOT DOWN SHOPPING TIPS.
Your instructor may take it for granted that you know the best place to buy Aleppo pepper or nori. You probably don't, so don't forget to ask. (See "Prepare Your Pantry.")
PRETEND YOU'RE GOING IN FOR SURGERY.
That is, arrive with an empty stomach. Classes often consume what they learn. "This is almost like an all-you-can-eat sushi class," Koo says.
BRING A CAMERA.
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With a few exceptions (no offense, Poland), the foods of other countries tend to be gorgeous, like the vibrant Islamic green of a spinach-almond soup in Yasin's class. Snapping a photo will also help you remember what the dish is supposed to look like when you try it at home.
WATCH, DON'T READ
Chef-instructor Ahmad Yasin says cooking-class students tend to bury their heads in their handouts instead of watching the action and savoring the flavors. "If you're looking down at the recipe," he notes, "you're missing the point."
