Learning a new type of cuisine is more than just learning a few recipes. You need to be able to "speak" the basic spices and sauces involved in most dishes.
Recently my mode of thinking about cooking and food has shifted.
Cooking is a mode of communication and ethnic cuisines are languages to be learned. New recipes are easier for us to tackle within cuisines or languages we already speak.
Just as there are basics that transcend languages -hand movements, facial expressions, sounds, etc.- there are basics that transcend cuisines- knife techniques, application of heat for cooking, garlic makes things good, etc.
A specific cuisine is more than just basic communication though. It's a culturally and historically evolved set of tools and techniques to communicate.
To fluently speak the language of a specific cuisine, the basic grammar is essential. It is possible to learn a few catch phrases here and there, but if you don't understand why you are speaking a certain way, you won't be able to creatively use the language in the future.
To switch from language to cooking: the basic grammar of cuisine is the fundamental spice and sauce set used in the majority of recipes. Once these are learned and mastered, the ability and comfort to experiment and improvise will be vastly increased.
I am going to try to write a series of basic flavor profiles, loosely based on some of the ones described by chef Rick Bayless, that will make Latin and Mexican cooking a less intimidating task for anyone. I frequently encourage people to experiment with the recipes that I present to utilize fresh local ingredients, but this is an intimidating task if you don't have the basics down.
