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I do it but don't recall ever having been told. I have heard it on America's Test Kitchen and someone else has said ... perhaps Lidia Bastianich I think.

But cooking, particularly sautéing and frying, does have sounds and they change with conditions. As water evaporates from food the sound in the pan changes. Especially noticeable with mushrooms, which exude a lot of water and then start to sizzle when its gone.

Absolutely. My cooking teacher at Kump used to say, "When the butter stops singing, the clarifying is done." There are many times where sound comes into play with cooking but to put it in the simplest terms, look at microwave popcorn. If you don't stop that nuker very quickly after you hear the popping slow, you've got nasty burned charcoal.

Yes, absolutely. But I can't verbalize what sound means what. I only know that when the exhaust fan is on, or the radio is loud, it's hard for me to tell if something is cooking correctly on the stovetop.

And I love one of Julia's directions about roasting chicken (I think it was chicken -- and I am paraphrasing): There should be quiet cooking sounds coming from the oven.

I believe the true artists in any entereprize utilize more than the obvious senses.

I can't think of a cooking illustration, but, in a similar vein, I remember an old-time machinist tell me how he was teaching his grandson, who had already graduated from a highly respected technical college, how to "listen to the metal tell you what it wants."

The more one cooks the more one is attuned to the sounds of cooking. Stir frying has a definite sound that indicates the frying temperature is just right. A roast in the oven burbles away at a rate that indicates the oven is too hot or too cool and that it's time to check the roast. Eggs hardboiling in a saucepan sound a certain way if they are simmering at the right temperature. I try to use all my senses when I cook and to hone in on each technique I'm using. It's the "Zen of cooking" and there are cookbooks that speak of this Zen approach. However, I know too that there are times when expediency is the name of the game and we want to prepare something tasty and quick. Zen moments aren't a consideration!!

The sound of the smoke alarm definitely tells me if my food is slightly overdone.

Risotto definitely has a sound at every stage.

I realized the other day that I do a lot of stuff by sound. It's no surprise, since I'm a music teacher. Not only do I listen to the sound of stuff cooking (I just was listening tonight to see if the turkey tenderloin and potatoes were cooking right) but I listen to the sound of filling things up. I realized the other day that I know that my water bottle is about full from the way the pitch of the water changes.