Unlike your typical fifty-something, I’d go so far as to say, overall, I’m in favor of progress. I have plenty of tech toys and gadgets that allow me to do literally dozens of things I didn’t know I needed to do. And, I actually know how to use most of the devices I own–although I’m pretty sure my phone is smarter than I am.

I also believe that every technological advance comes with a downside. Which is why, sometimes, I prefer the old way of doing things. The aforementioned telephone is a perfect example. Sure, now I can press three buttons and find the nearest dry cleaner, or Ecuadoran restaurant. But the old-fashioned rotary phone had its advantages. Foremost among them, when you have a rotary phone, you’re a helluva lot less likely to drunk-dial employers, or ex-girlfriends. With an old phone, you might want to tell her off, but by the time you’re through dialing the area code, you’ve had time to gain some perspective.

Which brings me to molecular gastronomy (“I’ll take ‘CLUNKY SEGUES’ for $200, Alex“). If you’re not hip to it, it’s like cooking, minus the nostalgia and warm feelings. See, the theory is that we shouldn’t be locked into making food the way Grandma did, when we have all this technology now, and just try to tell me that Grandma wouldn’t have used a centrifuge if she could have (“Goshdurnit–how can I turn this pecan pie into an  industrial-looking aerosol foam!).

Me, I like ‘comfort food.’  Those two words belong together. I also appreciate creativity, but I think there’s a limit to how ‘challenging’ I want dinner to be.  Yet that’s what molecular gastronomy is all about–using chemistry and physics to create new and interesting meals. It’s cuisine meant for rich New Yorkers to enjoy from an ironic distance. Think of ‘molecular gastronomy’ as the bastard love child of Marie Curie and Mario Batali. It’s perfect for people who feel, “I like to cook, but I was hoping there would be more exposure to dangerous chemicals, and lasers.”

The bible of the movement is called ‘Modernist Cuisine,’ and it comprises five volumes and 2,438 pages. Far as I’m concerned, anything that long should be about particle physics, or genetic engineering.  Oh–and, six hundred dollars is a little pricey for a cookbook, unless it also, say, predicts the future.

So.  ‘Modernist Cuisine” has a dessert recipe for something called ‘Garnet Yam Fondant with Sage Foam.’  If you want to liven up your next pool party with this treat, you’ll need plenty of xanthan gum, isomalt and something called Versawhip; you’ll also want a vacuum sealer,  three pipettes, and a mandolin. There’s one step you’re supposed to do for exactly 15 seconds, and something or other is supposed to be cut into 3cm by 1 1/4″ tubes. Then you blanch the yam disks! Yum!

I swear, with all the references to emulsions and infusions in modernist cuisine, I’m not sure if they’re making food or shampoo. Maybe ‘sage foam’ can be both. I don’t know. I do know that for the last, oh, all of recorded history, people have done just fine cooking with pots, pans and spatulas. And I guarantee, nobody has ever had a meal in a restaurant and told their waiter, “I’ll have the special, but could you immerse it in liquid nitrogen? I’d like to feel like I’m dining in a laboratory.”

The equipment alone for a ‘modernist’  kitchen is a little intimidating. Unless you scored a 4 or a 5 on your Advanced Placement science exams, do you really want to be using a ‘rotary evaporator,’ or a ‘vitoceramicgriddle’? Let alone a twelve-hundred dollar ‘immersion circulator.’ I’d be too worried about meeting OSHA workplace standards, and waiting for an environmental impact study.

By comparison, let’s look at the ‘Country Kitchen Cook Book.” Published originally in 1911 by the ‘Dakota Farmer’ newspaper, I happen to own the 1924 edition (“Completely Revised,” because you wouldn’t want guests digging into some ‘stewed prairie chicken’ and thinking, “Seriously? That is SO 1911!”). This handy volume weighs in at a lean 150 pages.

Most of the ‘information’ in here was probably common knowledge to the pre-Depression ‘Farm Woman.’ C’mon, who didn’t know how to make ‘Chicken Maryland,’ or ‘Broiled Squab on Toast Points (“Not squab again, Mommy!)? What makes this book a treasure are the various clippings that some random woman named Mae kept tucked between the pages of the book.

There’s a recipe for making crackers. Shows you how spoiled by modernity I am–I didn’t even know you could make crackers. I thought all the crackers on Earth were made centuries ago and packaged by Augustinian monks only to be discovered on modern grocery store shelves. She saved a news item with the headline “Autumn Dish Recipe Wins In Contest,” and as you read about ‘Mrs. Thomas’ and her ‘Better Homes and Gardens Recipe Endorsement’ (really), you can almost picture Mae ripping it out in disgust and vowing to win in 1925. There’s also a recipe for rabbit pie, taken from a booklet called “How to Dress, Ship, and Cook Wild Game,” published by Remington Arms Company! Yeah, it’s a shame that  gun manufacturers got out of the cookbook industry.

My favorite discovery in this book was stuck between pages 77 and 78, and it’s Mae’s personal recipe for ‘Apple Crisp.’ This, my friends, is what a recipe looks like. And don’t think Mae wasn’t doing her own experimenting–notice she changed the amount of oatmeal at the last minute? Brilliant, and no doubt based on years of empirical evidence. I just wish she’d told us what makes up the ‘crumbly topping,’  but that secret may have, sadly, died with her. Whatever it was, I’m almost sure you didn’t need protective goggles or hazmat gloves. So, I pass this one along, in memory of Mae, and all the other Farm Women who didn’t need a digitally calibrated thermometer to tell when something was done.