The Lesson of Sous Vide

There's my boy doing his rendition of tuna, sous vide, complete with plastic orange letter "w" in the preparation.

I thought it was so cool that he started playing around with this thin slice of tuna and then he noticed that if he submerged it into hot water it changed color- it was cooking.

Sous vide is some what controversial, but any great chef I've talked to has said it's THE way to perfectly cook food. It concentrates better. It cooks perfectly uniformly. It allows for so much more control in the professional kitchen. Will it eventually make its way to the household kitchen? Well, it would guarantee that your chicken is properly cooked- your whole chicken.

But, I (and many of my chef friends as well) wonder if sous vide takes away some of the soul of cooking. It brings into play the 'perfection' question and whether being slightly imperfect is actually a better thing.

I guess it's summed up like this: is it better to be consistent or to have character?

Funny, that the business mind of me says consistency, but the humanity of me wants character- in food, wine, and at the table.