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What the hell is breakaway cooking, and what does it have to do with this baby?
Easy part first: This little buddha girl is our daughter Daphne, as many of you know by now. And I just turn to her whenever I need a good image for an abstract post! I often open up random spices for her to smell. She seems to enjoy it.
Harder part:
I’ve been defining breakaway cooking for more than 10 years as a style of “weeknight” home cooking that uses a lot of global ingredients and good produce in freewheeling and untraditional ways. The food tends be to unfussy, healthful, relatively quick, nutritious, and packed with flavor. It leans heavily on the great culinary ingredients and techniques of Japan, India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia without “sticking” to any of those traditions. We’re interested in making food that makes us deliriously happy, and if we have to break a few traditions and rules to do that, so be it — we’re just not worried being “authentic” (whatever that means — it’s an endless source of argument for chefs and cooks in every country on earth). All we want is breakfast, dinner, and lunch on the table, and we want it to be good.
So how can the breakaway approach to food make you cook, feel, and live better?
It all starts with a simple acknowledgement: that food is important, that eating has a HUGE impact on the nitty gritty of daily life. When you eat well, you feel good — you work with a clearer mind, you have more energy, creativity flows better. Your body’s various biological systems just work better. Conversely, when you eat crappy food, you feel crappy — you might feel lethargic, you tend to crave MORE food because you’re not satisfied with what you’ve just had, you might upset your digestive system. How we feel throughout the day is, at least in my experience, strongly correlated to what we put inside our bodies.
One way or another, we have to feed ourselves. Many of us cook, and many of us don’t — we just somehow get by with takeout, we go to restaurants, we succumb to fast food, we buy frozen meals from Trader Joe’s or supermarkets, we assemble salads occasionally, make a pasta here and there. We just sort of … make do.
This business of eating takes a great deal of time and energy, no matter what we do. If we cook, we have to shop for ingredients, prep them, cook them, and clean up. If we don’t cook — that is, if we outsource our need to eat to food companies — we still have to get to the restaurant or takeout counter or supermarket deli or wherever, pay (usually too much) for it, and come back home.
Once we accept that food plays such a massive role in our health and well-being, the next step seems painfully obvious: we have to make it priority to feed ourselves well.
In stark contrast to just a few generations ago, feeding ourselves well is so much easier today! Most of us can walk out our front doors and find very high quality raw ingredients, we have access to the world’s great cuisines just by visiting some ethnic markets, and we can order just about anything on earth with the click of a button and a credit card. Everything is available from anywhere, anytime! The earth continues to radically shrink, and home cooks continue to be the beneficiaries of it.
The flip side: it’s also easier than ever to buy packaged crap, heat-and-eat frozen meals, calorie-laden meals in restaurants that rely on hyperpalatability. It’s almost as if the “work” of feeding ourselves has been outsourced to those that can do it the cheapest and who can make it the most convenient. What’s missing in all this convenience, however, is the concept of “taking ownership” of what you put into your body. Breakaway cooks don’t look at the concept of feeding ourselves as work, or an unpleasant chore to get through. Taking a half hour or an hour to prepare something wholesome and tasty is the opposite of a waste of time; it’s an ideal opportunity, one that comes three times a day, to be in the moment, to become absorbed in the very old dance of connecting to the natural world. It delivers huge benefits to both the cook and to his or her family and friends. It’s a practice that has a lot in common with yoga or meditation. You get more comfortable, and freer, with it as you do it more. So please don’t think of cooking as a waste of time. It’s the opposite! And the breakaway approach can help.
Why thank you Cody! Glad to hear your feeding your overworked neurons the good stuff — keep it up!
What an amazing concept and ideology to live by! I wholeheartedly agree and especially love this part: "It all starts with a simple acknowledgement: that food is important, that eating has a HUGE impact on the nitty gritty of daily life. When you eat well, you feel good — you work with a clearer mind, you have more energy, creativity flows better."
As a college student, avid foodie, and new blogger myself, I truly appreciate your message. Food isn't something to pick up in a greasey bag on the way home from a night of studying for me. It is a break from my studies that allows me to center myself and prepare for what is ahead.
Thank you so much for this blog! I am featuring it in my next post to my blog, Cody's Food Blog. (codymthompson.wordpress.com) along with some of my other favorite food bloggers!
After spending 2 weeks in China, my food buds were reawakened…….roaming through the markets with live chickens,ducks and turtles,fresh veggies and some unidentifiable things….or having a delicious freshly made meal in a very tiny Hutong home…think 16 people in a 10×10 room…best meal of the trip…yes food crosses all languages and barriers……
You look great, Eric, so Breakaway Cooking must be good. I will never forget your dishes you prepared in Japan. Also, wow, what a cute daughter!
:’: I am really thankful to this topic because it really gives great information ,~.
Hi Eric,
I see you are down as a "Yes" for Bill & Christine's wedding in CA next month. Unfortunately we can't make it as we will be in New Zealand. Funnily enough, before seeing your name on the wedding guest list I had re-acquainted myself with your excellent book; The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen. As the years advance and lifestyle takes its toll I realised I needed to take care of two – often conflicting – imperatives in life; enjoying great food and improving my general state of health. Up to now, these two have been more in conflict than not but all was not lost as I am an enthusiastic (if somewhat erratic) home cook and spend a lot of time reading not just recipes but food politics tomes and general material on what is healthy and what is not. The usual themes emerge and then it's just down to imagination. Well I am lacking in that department so your book's fabulous recipes have been getting a hammering lately. To wild applause from dinner guests and a grudging thumbs-up from my (Japanese) missus.
Just wanted to let you know that your legacy in Japan is still intact and the word continues to spread.
Enjoy the wedding and come visit us again in the Land of the Rising Sun some time soon.
And write another book!
All the best,
Chris Drake
Chris, so great to hear from you. Sorry we won't get to see you at the wedding. I love that you get the GRUDGING thumb's up from the missus!
New book is coming out soon! Its pub date was delayed because of everything happening with matcha –btw, drinking matcha may be one of the simplest and most enjoyable ways to boost your overall health. Looks like the Breakaway Vegetarian Cook will come out May, if all goes well. I'll keep you posted. REad this space often (or subscribe to get it delivered to you) if you can ….
Excellent post!! I really like your site!!
AHH! I was just reading your post about the birth of your daughter (loved the bit about molasses!) and was thrilled to see this picture. What a cutie.
I'm very curious about "breakaway" cooking. I haven't done any research on it, so I'm not sure if this is a term & idea you've come up with yourself for you and your family (and now the rest of the world!) or if this is something that's been around awhile? Either way, I love the philosophy you've got here… I'll be following your posts here on out!
Thanks — she's now coming up on two!
I did coin the term, and the approach is something born from all my years in Japan — using Japanese ingredients in accessible, easy ways that tend to be unorthodox. It then morphed into other culinary traditions that some home cooks consider hard to approach, namely Southeast Asian, Indian, and Middle Eastern (in addition to Japanese). It's really kinda simple: powerhouse staples from those cuisines, combined simply with lots of fresh produce.
Anyway welcome! Please do stick around.
Thanks!! I plan on it.