4 ms·

I absolutely understand what you're getting at. But, I have a reason to disagree. I find cookbooks help expand the cultural horizons to cooking. Only because yo

I absolutely understand what you're getting at. But, I have a reason to disagree. I find cookbooks help expand the cultural horizons to cooking. Only because you can get "authentic" cookbooks of other countries. The Polish ones I have, are in Polish. So, that's easy. The French ones I have, though in English, are written either originally by Frenchies and translated or they also know English and have a good editor. Same goes for Japanese, Thai and German. But I also look for keywords about their grandmother. Best way to know the authentic level of a cookbook in English is how much they admit they're stealing from their grandma. The higher, the better. Especially if they talk about struggling to get the right ingredients. Honestly, I miss absolutely nothing from the internet when it comes to cooking. But I also wanted to be a chef. So I studied how to properly cook long ago and I cook almost every day... so I'll admit in already an outlier. Still, the way the internet treats cooking is retarded. It doesn't surprise me that people don't like to cook if they grew up with the internet as a learning resource. All these people overcomplicate easy recipes and substitute anything because it makes them feel like pretty snowflakes.

rorykoehler 7y ago
Cultural is just one dimension. I've had to change my diet drastically recently for health reasons and the niche I fall into (no starch, no dairy, very low sugar others known as no dairy keto) is barely catered for, even on the Internet.
ip26 7y ago
Although the trouble sometimes with "authentic" cookbooks is they occasionally depend on a certain level of shared intrinsic knowledge of the cuisine! That's a tough one to solve on your own.
- deleted 7y ago
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- bigmanwalter 7y ago
  It's amazing really. My other half's family is Greek and it took me years to get the hang of some of their simplest recipes. The whole time they were saying "It's only olive oil and salt! What can be so difficult?""
dagw 7y ago
is how much they admit they're stealing from their grandma. Does that still work? Most people's grandmas today where very much alive and cooking in both the 70s, 80s and even 90s and thus as steeped as anybody in all the international influences and 'foreign' ingredients that those decades brought. the way the internet treats cooking is retarded. And here you and I disagree. I like the way that 'modern' cooking is willing to revisit well established and 'sacred' truths about food and put them to the test. Perhaps a housewife in the 1920s isn't the authoritative source on the best way to prepare a dish, and even if she is there is no way to know without someone actually testing that hypothesis. Sites like Serious Eats and all the sites they begat bring both rigor and the joy of experimentation back into cooking. I mean why not substitute one thing for another just to see what happens or apply the 'wrong' technique to a standard dish? Many a dish that is considered a 'classic' today no doubt got their start that way.

rorykoehler 7y ago

Cultural is just one dimension. I've had to change my diet drastically recently for health reasons and the niche I fall into (no starch, no dairy, very low sugar others known as no dairy keto) is barely catered for, even on the Internet.

ip26 7y ago

Although the trouble sometimes with "authentic" cookbooks is they occasionally depend on a certain level of shared intrinsic knowledge of the cuisine! That's a tough one to solve on your own.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bigmanwalter 7y ago
It's amazing really. My other half's family is Greek and it took me years to get the hang of some of their simplest recipes. The whole time they were saying "It's only olive oil and salt! What can be so difficult?""

dagw 7y ago

is how much they admit they're stealing from their grandma. Does that still work? Most people's grandmas today where very much alive and cooking in both the 70s, 80s and even 90s and thus as steeped as anybody in all the international influences and 'foreign' ingredients that those decades brought. the way the internet treats cooking is retarded. And here you and I disagree. I like the way that 'modern' cooking is willing to revisit well established and 'sacred' truths about food and put them to the test. Perhaps a housewife in the 1920s isn't the authoritative source on the best way to prepare a dish, and even if she is there is no way to know without someone actually testing that hypothesis. Sites like Serious Eats and all the sites they begat bring both rigor and the joy of experimentation back into cooking. I mean why not substitute one thing for another just to see what happens or apply the 'wrong' technique to a standard dish? Many a dish that is considered a 'classic' today no doubt got their start that way.