4 ms·

Completely anecdotal, but I suspect some part of this comes from modern Americans' desire to have a meal that has a specific name and must be made with an oddly

Completely anecdotal, but I suspect some part of this comes from modern Americans' desire to have a meal that has a specific name and must be made with an oddly specific recipe that uses the exact ingredients. Apparently "thing of tomatoes and eggplant with some bread" is not acceptable – but when some chef puts the same recipe in a magazine and labels it "rustic Mediterranean bruschetta", people are all over it.

Spooky23 11y ago
Some of it is the agony of choice, and the effectiveness of marketing. If my dad woke up in 1975 where he lived in Brooklyn and decided that he wanted a Greek yogurt fresh blueberry and organic granola parfait... Well too fucking bad. Best case, you had a tub of Dannon plain yogurt and a bag of frozen berries. Now everything is available all of the time, and that hyper-specialization of everything has eliminated cheap stuff that everyone bought to get by. Something like flank steak used to be sold for pennies on the dollar, now I see it prices the same as a strip steak!
deleted 11y ago
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henrikschroder 11y ago
My pet peeve in discussions like this is that people insist on looking up or following recipes, slavishly, as if that's the key to making a good meal. It's not. If you don't know how to cook, buy a cookbook, one that has the fundamentals in it, one that teaches you about meat and bread and vegetables and starch and sauces and fish and condiments. And once you've learned the basics of "frying meat" or "cooking pasta", you can easily start to combine what you've learned into meals, and you can more easily follow recipes for variations or ideas on how to spice it or prepare it or present it.
- wj 11y ago
  I really love Ad Hoc at Home for this. It is Thomas Keller's most accessible book and in addition to recipes contains instructions for things like piecing out a chicken. I've bought the book as a gift at least a half-dozen times. But, I do believe as you allude to in your last sentence that nothing takes the place of practice. I think a lot of people get overwhelmed looking at a list of ingredients. With experience you know what ones are critical to the dish and what can be left out or substituted as you have learned tastes and can intuitively understand measurements.
  - henrikschroder 11y ago
    Yeah, what recipe collections don't tell you is that you need a lot of practice to be able to follow them, I've found that the hardest part of cooking is getting the timing right, and that just takes a lot of tries to get right and understand. And to circle back to the article, I think a lot of young people in America simply don't even get to try cooking for themselves the way society is organized. When I started university and moved out of my parent's home, I didn't move into a dorm with a cafeteria, instead I moved into a small student apartment. If I wanted dinner each night, it was completely up to me. Frozen pan pizza gets kinda boring, so I had to start cooking for myself.

Spooky23 11y ago

Some of it is the agony of choice, and the effectiveness of marketing. If my dad woke up in 1975 where he lived in Brooklyn and decided that he wanted a Greek yogurt fresh blueberry and organic granola parfait... Well too fucking bad. Best case, you had a tub of Dannon plain yogurt and a bag of frozen berries. Now everything is available all of the time, and that hyper-specialization of everything has eliminated cheap stuff that everyone bought to get by. Something like flank steak used to be sold for pennies on the dollar, now I see it prices the same as a strip steak!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

henrikschroder 11y ago

My pet peeve in discussions like this is that people insist on looking up or following recipes, slavishly, as if that's the key to making a good meal. It's not. If you don't know how to cook, buy a cookbook, one that has the fundamentals in it, one that teaches you about meat and bread and vegetables and starch and sauces and fish and condiments. And once you've learned the basics of "frying meat" or "cooking pasta", you can easily start to combine what you've learned into meals, and you can more easily follow recipes for variations or ideas on how to spice it or prepare it or present it.

wj 11y ago
I really love Ad Hoc at Home for this. It is Thomas Keller's most accessible book and in addition to recipes contains instructions for things like piecing out a chicken. I've bought the book as a gift at least a half-dozen times. But, I do believe as you allude to in your last sentence that nothing takes the place of practice. I think a lot of people get overwhelmed looking at a list of ingredients. With experience you know what ones are critical to the dish and what can be left out or substituted as you have learned tastes and can intuitively understand measurements.
- henrikschroder 11y ago
  Yeah, what recipe collections don't tell you is that you need a lot of practice to be able to follow them, I've found that the hardest part of cooking is getting the timing right, and that just takes a lot of tries to get right and understand. And to circle back to the article, I think a lot of young people in America simply don't even get to try cooking for themselves the way society is organized. When I started university and moved out of my parent's home, I didn't move into a dorm with a cafeteria, instead I moved into a small student apartment. If I wanted dinner each night, it was completely up to me. Frozen pan pizza gets kinda boring, so I had to start cooking for myself.