As Cooked on TikTok by Emily Stevenson and TikTok

TikTok.

If you ask me, it's the single most important piece of media to influence and inspire amateur chefs and foodies in the last 5 years. In the 80s, it was PBS cooking shows. The 90s and 2000s, it was Food Network. The 2010s was the decade of abrasive chefs like Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay. Today, if a student comes to me wanting to explore a new recipe, the idea usually came in the form of a video from TikTok.

Due to the apps questionable tracking methods of users data, I don't use TikTok. Plus my school blocks it. So if a student wants me to see something on the social media site, they usually have to show the video from their phones. So when I discovered this officially licensed cookbook over the summer, I jumped at the chance to buy it for my culinary classes. 

The recipes are all from TikTok users. Add to it some cooking tips from professional chefs such as Blue Ginger's Ming Tsai. Throw in some useful cooking hacks from the TikTok tech team and include QR codes in order to access each recipe and you're as close to becoming a TikTok chef without being an official user of the site.

My students were very excited when I showed them this book. Some laughed, thinking it was absurd to buy a cookbook when I can get all the recipes for free on TikTok. But just about everyone I shred this book with was enthusiastic to use this new resource.

I decided to incorporate this cookbook into my lesson plans under the unit for recipe development as well as the unit for pricing and budgeting. Incorporating social media technology into a culinary business was also explored. We tested out several recipes ranging from a cake recipe that only called for ice cream and flour to a lasagna noodles recipe that called packs of ramen noodles. 

My students were very surprised at how the ice cream cake turned out. But I explained to them that ice cream with it's milk, fat, sugar and eggs has everything else you need to make a cake with in addition to the other ingredient of flour. So if you are in a pinch or can't afford all the ingredients that a cake recipe calls for, you can make a semi-decent cake alternative similar to a pound cake loaf consistency.

The reaction to the ramen lasagna was mixed. Some folks liked it. Others abhorred it. All wanted to know why someone would use ramen noodles to make a lasagna. I explained that a lot of users on TikTok are Millennials and Gen Zers on a budget. You can buy 4 packs of ramen for almost as much as 1 pound of lasagna noodles - or cheaper. Frugal cooking calls for creative substitutions and as a chef who's known for utilizing items about to go bad or expire in creative and affordable ways, it's one thing that I really admire about the TikTok community. 

We also explored food trends and how recipe ideas go viral by making one of the foods that put TikTok on the culinary map: cloud bread. Essentially egg whites, baking soda, some sort of dairy and of course food coloring, these tie-dyed little cakes are like eating a eggy little cloud. We also learned that with something as simple as cloud bread, it's really easy to mess it up. The easiest recipes usually are.

There's a bunch of recipes that I personally hope to explore. Full of quirky and creative ideas that can also be rather affordable, I think I found a great modern resource for my culinary students; that's also a book! Sure, my students could use the app on their phone. But one problem I noticed with TikTok is that nothing is written down. Unless you follow the video precisely and can remember all the steps, my students often get lost and tend to forget something important. So while the app is free, having everything collected in a book that can easily be photocopied and shared with multiple cooking teams is a handy tool to help bring a relatable culinary resource safely into my classroom without breaking the confidentiality of anyone's online presence.

Plus a portion of the sale of this cookbook benefits No Kid Hungry; a very worthwhile cause that I support and personally battle every single day within my school's struggling community.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Don't Get Me Confused With...

It's come to my attention that there's an entity on Tumblr who has the moniker Madman-with-a-book. He also goes on other social media as Enlightmentality. This person appearantly has several sites in which they offer counseling to abuse victims. This Madman-with-a-book is not a licensed therapist and supposedly uses some questionable techniques. They've also been accused of being emotionally and verbally abusive.

I would like to clarify that I am not that other Madman-with-a-book. I've been maintaining this blog for about 10 years now. My focus is on and has always been on books and pop culture. I do not and never have used Tumblr. Also on other platforms, I do not go by Madman With a Book.

In the past year, I have been writing as both Madman With a Book and my real name, Tony Dillard for the website Outright Geekery. But that is all.

My wife is a licensed clincacl social worker and I have written a couple of articles about mental health and autism in the realm of comic book collecting. But I have never offered counseling advice to any of my readers.

I've noticed my personal readership has gone down in the past couple of months. This is about the same time that Madman-with-a-book began his amatuer clinic. Thank you to those who have continued to read my blog. And special thanks to the reader who pointed out the other Madman-with-a-book so that I can clarify that I am not that appearantly toxic person on other social media platforms.