What's Your "Pumpkin Soup" Style?

Are you the type of person who analyzes every step of a recipe before you start cooking, or do you feel your way through the process? A friend recently sent us a lighthearted look at different personality types in the kitchen (based on Myers-Briggs) and we thought it would be fun to share. What kind of pumpkin soup cook are you?

In the Pumpkin Soup exercise, there are four different personality types: Sensing, Intuitive, Thinking, Feeling.

Here's how a Sensing cook might start cooking pumpkin soup:

1. Lay out necessary equipment: heavy pan, knife, caliper, thermometer, spirit level, tablespoons, and measuring cups.
2. Check ingredients. Consult cookbook or call a friend to find our how much nutmeg is in a dash, and how much salt and pepper should go into a batch of pumpkin soup.
3. Chop mushroom and onions. (Caliper will be helpful here. 3/16th inch thickness recommended.)...

While the process for an Intuitive cook might look something like this:

There is a lot of possibility for creativity in this soup. A good, rich pumpkin soup offers potential for synchronous cooking. Open your refrigerator. Let your imagination roam, water chestnuts, olives, a dab of mustard, and pieces of chicken, whatever catches your imagination...

• Read the rest: Pumpkin Soup (click View Handout)

Do you see yourself in any of these? It's interesting to think about how not only our personal styles but also the particular cookbooks and cooking shows we enjoy (and don't enjoy!) might fall into these different categories.

(Image: Dana Velden)

Comments (6)

Very amusing. I thought each cooking style fit me until I got to the last one, which was a perfect match!

I'm a very strong ENFP ("The Champion") and find myself fitting quite well with both the intuitive and feeling (which I guess are both in my type) directions. But I think that they go hand in hand so it makes sense!

I'm a mix between feeling and intuitive - and what do you know? My recipe style (when I e-mail a beloved recipe to a friend) sounds just like a mish-mash of those two! That's fantastic. :)

I've never cooked with pumpkin, other than the canned kind. Can you do a post on choosing pumpkins? All I know is that jack-o-lantern pumpkins are not the same as eating pumpkins.

<em>If you are going to call this pumpkin soup, it will be helpful to have some pumpkin; however, mashed carrots, squash, or even sweet potatoes will do.</em>

Yup. INTP. That be how I thunk.

I also do the supposed T thing with optimizing the number of bowls and pans used. Hey, I have a small kitchen and no dishwasher. It's only... logical.

@eilonwy, I'm with you. (Also, I love your handle. Is it from The Chronicles of Prydain?)

This is how my INTP mind works: 1)Make pumpkin soup. 2) But we only have sweet potatoes! 3)And some black beans. 4) What-evs. Sounds delicious. 5) While we're at it's let's roast those leftover turnips and use the last bit of sour cream from the back of the fridge. 6) Be sure to use the dutch oven--for maximum onion caramelization, serving beauty, and minimizing clean-up. (After all it IS logical.)