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> because cooking isn't a science and precise measurements are generally worse than useless Cooking and baking are both sciences, and have very different toler
by haswell 3y ago
> because cooking isn't a science and precise measurements are generally worse than useless
Cooking and baking are both sciences, and have very different tolerances and methods for working with those tolerances.
As others have pointed out, baking tends to require far more precision, and the methods used are focused on precision as a result.
To your point, spending all of your time focused on precise measurements while cooking - especially with fresh ingredients - isn’t going to be as helpful as developing the underlying skills and intuitions to know how to adapt what you’re cooking to the ingredients you have on hand.
Those skills and intuitions are focused on getting a particular dish into a state that is hard to precisely measure because of the high degree of variation in ingredients (egg size, garlic freshness, how spicy are those peppers?). If we could precisely measure more aspects of the ingredients, cooking could become far more “scientific”, and indeed this is what happens in the mass production of foods in factories.
The point here is that the degree of “science” involved has more to do with the practical considerations and limits of our measuring apparatus across a diverse array of ingredients.
Baking tends to involve ingredients that can be precisely measured, and an end result that can’t be tested until the bake is done. Any baker who focuses on consistent and repeatable results knows that precision is part of the path to getting there.
There is still value in knowing how to adapt to your circumstances while baking. Precise measurements just reduce the variables that you may need to adapt on the fly.
- vlan0 3y agoFor sure! If anyone is looking to expand on this, the book Ratio by Michael Ruhlman is a must.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoIt's an interesting book and definitely trains you to keep an eye on the relationships between different ingredients. And especially the continua between different foods made of the same things in different ratios. Unfortunately a lot of the recipes in that book are not very good! When settling the ratios he prioritized small, clean numbers to make the relationships clear. But those aren't guaranteed to be an optimal recipe. It's simply more likely that the best custard for example is 28:15 or 11:5 or whatever than it is precisely 2:1. Ditto every single thing in the book. It is a good starting point for learning how baked goods work, developing intuition for how changing ingredients influence the final product. Virtually none of them are excellent ratios though.
- BlackFly 3y agoI agree with your points, but your conclusion is equivalent to suggesting that painting is a science because perspective is geometry. I am not denying that ingredients work in a deterministic fashion, I am suggesting that subjective aspects of the person eating the dish are the most important thing once you have a basic skill level.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago>> Any baker who focuses on consistent and repeatable results knows that precision is part of the path to getting there. I make bread. Every time I make bread that is better than my standard it's because I accidentally deviated from my standard recipe. When that happens I will sometimes make a note of what exactly I did and then try to do it again, but I never got the same results that way. In fact I never get the same results with my standard recipe either. There is always variation, even when I use the same flour from the same sack. I don't think baking is like you say at all.
- glandium 3y agoBread making is influenced by air humidity and temperature.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y agoDid you forget an /s at the end of your comment?
- glandium 3y agoNo.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y agoOK, thanks for clarifying. In that case, I suspect you must be a mathematician.
- glandium 3y agoNot sure what you mean, but no.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y agoOh, it's an old joke. It goes like this: A man in a balloon realises he's lost and, spotting another man walking his dog in a field, descends to ask the dog walker for directions. "Do you know where I am?" asks the balloon man. "Yes" answers the dog walker. "You are in the basket of a hot air balloon, hovering a few feet over an empty field, talking to a man walking his dog". "Ah", says the balloon man. "You must be a mathematician". "That's right" says the dog walker. "How did you know?" "Because" says the balloon man "you gave me an answer that is at once entirely correct and completely useless".