7 ms·
I caught the pungent odor of John Thorne's writing right away. If you dig this, he has published several books that are basically collected essays, digging into
by beat 9y ago
I caught the pungent odor of John Thorne's writing right away. If you dig this, he has published several books that are basically collected essays, digging into some ingredient or recipe this way (I have read Simple Cooking, Outlaw Cook, and Pot on the Fire).
One nice thing about his books is he has these sort of dreamlike fantasies about what a food is supposed to taste like, and pursues recipes based on this imagination. That means that, unlike a lot of cookbooks, just about every John Thorne recipe is amazing (his pecan pie is the best I've ever tried, because he directly tackled the problem of cloying sweetness and gummy texture).
Highly recommended if you care about food.
- colanderman 9y ago> he has these sort of dreamlike fantasies about what a food is supposed to taste like, and pursues recipes based on this imagination I find this to be a good approach to software development as well.
- thenomad 9y agoThis approximately describes my approach to game development, too. It works exceptionally well there as gamedev is all about crafting a fantasy and an experience.
- isoprophlex 9y agoMan, does this guy know how to write an English sentence! Highly entertaining!
- beat 9y agoJohn Thorne's books are good for reading just for fun, whether or not you plan to cook anything in them, or go try the things he's tried. One of my favorite essays of his is on banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches), where he's just totally baffled about how they even do that. Lucky for me, I live in the Twin Cities, ground zero for the best banh mi in the world. The essence of banh mi is basically experiencing every sensation your mouth can experience, all at the same time. It's warm, cool, crisp, chewy, greasy, sweet, sour, salty, spicy, fragrant, and ALL AT ONCE.
- microcolonel 9y ago> The essence of banh mi is basically experiencing every sensation your mouth can experience, all at the same time. It's warm, cool, crisp, chewy, greasy, sweet, sour, salty, spicy, fragrant, and ALL AT ONCE. This is, incidentally, what a well-dressed hamburger is supposed to be. Warm — bun and patty, cool — pickles and sometimes lettuce and/or tomato, crisp — the cut/toasted side of the bun and the pickles (and sometimes lettuce or onions), chewy — the inside of the bun and sometimes the rind of the patty, greasy — the faces of the patty, sweet — the pickles, sour — also the pickles, salty — the patty and yes the pickles too, spicy — the spices in the patty and sometimes added peppers or enhanced mayonnaise, fragrant — the pickles. Mayonnaise adds creamy to that list.
- magic_beans 9y agoWhat's missing from a burger is the deep umami flavor in banh mi that you'll smell a mile away -- the fermented fish sauce taste that smells a bit like a ripe fart and tastes like heaven.
- rayiner 9y agoIs Vietnamese fish sauce stronger than Thai fish sauce? My parents cook Thai food, having lived in Bangkok for a few years, and fish sauce never registered as "smelly" to me.
- munchbunny 9y agoI think it really depends on how you grew up. I grew up around plenty of ingredients in my food that are just as pungent to smell, so fish sauce smells distinct but innocuous to me. But for some reason grated parmesan smells pretty bad to me even though it's delicious.
- fusiongyro 9y agoThere are huge differences in quality between brands. Many people swear by Squid, which I used to love, but having had Red Boat, let me attest: you can get the amazing flavor without the awful smell.
- ghaff 9y ago>what a food is supposed to taste like, and pursues recipes based on this imagination. They're much more utilitarian about it but this is basically the Cooks Illustrated/ATK approach as well. My main complaint is that it can lead to really fussy recipes though I think they've toned that down a bit in recent years.
- ska 9y agoI find this complaint very surprising - in my experience CI generates simplified, sometimes oversimplified, recipes for most things. They are geared towards easily accessible ingredients and minimal techniques, after all.
- ghaff 9y agoI agree the techniques are fairly simple and they tend to keep ingredients straightforward. When I say they tend to be fussy, there often seems a fair bit of cooking things different ways, using a fair number of bowls etc. It's not a big deal and I actually tend to like them as a rather mainstream if not especially exciting source of recipes. But, as I say, I think they've also focused a bit more on prep time of late.
- mark-r 9y agoCooks Illustrated was my favorite magazine, it was always interesting even when the recipes were a bit fiddly. I appreciated their ad-free format as well. Unfortunately I had to cancel my subscription when they went to auto-renewal, it just smacked too much of dark patterns to me.
- shpongled 9y agoI have Outlaw Cook... It is in fact the only cookbook I own, but I have yet to make anything from it. Thorne's writing is fantastic. I think I'll make something from it this weekend