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Cooking has been massively impacted by software. Even if you’re only talking about home cooking. The shared information available is truly phenomenal. Sure the

Cooking has been massively impacted by software. Even if you’re only talking about home cooking. The shared information available is truly phenomenal. Sure there’s lots of low quality cooking information, but that’s the same in all domains. It’s many orders of magnitude superior to the pre-internet level of information available. The ability to sift through all of the information out there, including an endless amount of user generated content, and have it translated from basically any language you want is incredibly useful. Being able to find a video tutorial for almost anything on demand is incredibly useful. Being able to search for shops that stock exotic ingredients is incredibly useful. FaceTiming mom to get her help with a technique is incredibly useful. Having a private GitHub repo for sharing recipes with my friends is incredibly useful. I’d completely reject the idea that the information revolution hasn’t been hugely impactful on cooking, even if you still have to put in the effort of trying things out for yourself.

DantesKite 5y ago
Maybe I was being a bit too hyperbolic. I'm just frustrated at how much better cooking could be. You're right. It's much better than it used to be. I just dislike being stuck wandering around the Library of Babel.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  I’d suggest that every field of knowledge has/is approaching a Library of Babel type situation. I think the way to navigate it pretty much always boils down to practice, experience, and all the other typical learning behaviours. If you want to follow that path with cooking, you have to really enjoy the process though. Because putting tremendous amounts of effort into home cooking is probably the least efficient way to nourish yourself. Another problem that I think the field of culinary knowledge has, that a lot of other fields also have, is the prominence of the highly opinionated knowledge sharer. Especially if you’re interested in traditional or culturally significant dishes. Most people will want to try and convince you of the one true way to make something, when really they’ve just got the particular way that they make it. If you want to get past that barrier, you have to take a look at as many different perspectives as you can find, to try and seperate the core characteristics of a dish from peoples individual idiosyncrasies, and put aside the dogma altogether that there even is one truely correct way to make something.
- petra 5y ago
  It's not that hard to find great recipes, from respected chefs with good user reviews, that have high likelihood to turn out very tasty. So how could you improve that? And where's the value?

DantesKite 5y ago

Maybe I was being a bit too hyperbolic. I'm just frustrated at how much better cooking could be. You're right. It's much better than it used to be. I just dislike being stuck wandering around the Library of Babel.

AmericanChopper 5y ago
I’d suggest that every field of knowledge has/is approaching a Library of Babel type situation. I think the way to navigate it pretty much always boils down to practice, experience, and all the other typical learning behaviours. If you want to follow that path with cooking, you have to really enjoy the process though. Because putting tremendous amounts of effort into home cooking is probably the least efficient way to nourish yourself. Another problem that I think the field of culinary knowledge has, that a lot of other fields also have, is the prominence of the highly opinionated knowledge sharer. Especially if you’re interested in traditional or culturally significant dishes. Most people will want to try and convince you of the one true way to make something, when really they’ve just got the particular way that they make it. If you want to get past that barrier, you have to take a look at as many different perspectives as you can find, to try and seperate the core characteristics of a dish from peoples individual idiosyncrasies, and put aside the dogma altogether that there even is one truely correct way to make something.
petra 5y ago
It's not that hard to find great recipes, from respected chefs with good user reviews, that have high likelihood to turn out very tasty. So how could you improve that? And where's the value?