10 ms·

Great article. If you ask a real chef, "What do home chefs do wrong the most?" They will often say, "Not enough butter, not enough salt."

paulpauper 2y ago
This is why eating out is so bad if you're on a diet. Too much oil and fat, sugar, salt, fat, and other stuff
- foobarian 2y ago
  I feel like restaurants really have an unfair advantage there as far as flavor goes. Whenever I try to make something following a recipe, I balk at the amount of butter/sugar/oils/salt and cut way down or leave them out entirely, with predictable results. With a restaurant this is completely abstracted away so it's easier to get past.
- matwood 2y ago
  I disagree. If we're talking about restaurants and not fast food, it's portion size that's typically the issue in the US. Oddly enough, the higher end restaurants start to move in the other direction and shrink portion sizes.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    >I disagree. If we're talking about restaurants and not fast food, it's portion size that's typically the issue in the US. i think you are right. i have always seen big portion sizes in restaurants when i have gone to the US. also, very recently, i saw a youtube video in which a french person says the same thing. they said that even though the French eat a lot of fat, their overall portion sizes are smaller than those of the US. so overall, they end up eating less calories than US people. also the French tend to walk a lot, while the US people tend to drive a lot. it's a generalization, i know.
    - UIUC_06 2y ago
      My own impression from a week in Paris is that you're right: if you get the "menu" at most restaurants (appetizer, entree, dessert), you walk out full but not stuffed. The weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, supposedly make you feel like that. I haven't taken them myself. It's like you don't really want any more. Americans seem to feel entitled to two meals for the price of one, and they may or may not eat them both in the restaurant. (If they don't finish, they take the rest home with them)
      - fuzztester 2y ago
        >Americans seem to feel entitled to two meals for the price of one, and they may or may not eat them both in the restaurant. (If they don't finish, they take the rest home with them) yes, when my parents used to go to the US, a few decades ago, they told us kids about this practice called using doggie bags. apparently people used to ask for the uneaten part of their restaurant orders to be packed in what was called a doggy bag, under the euphemism that they were taking the extra food home for their dog. I don't know whether the practice is still followed.
        bigstrat2003 2y ago
        I don't know that anyone has ever used "doggy bag" to mean/imply an actual bag for dogs in my lifetime (I'm 39), but yes it's still common to get the rest of your food in a container to take home. These days your waiter/waitress will usually ask "do you want a box" instead of referring to a doggy bag, but everyone knows what you mean if you ask for a doggy bag.
        xarope 2y ago
        If my trips to the cheesecake factory are any indication, then yes, too much food, and let's doggy bag the rest of the yummy.
        ghaff 2y ago
        I don't think the term is all that common today in the US. But, counter my pervious comment (though I hadn't been active that day and it was quite hot), a few of us were having dinner and most of us took something home (for us, not a dog)--and I just had a starter! Considered quite normal. Good food but there was just a lot of it and I didn't have much of an appetite. I do know a few places that are sort of known for having portion sizes that are oriented towards people taking leftovers home.
  - oldpersonintx 2y ago
    [dead]
- more_corn 2y ago
  Or if you have health problems or want to not have health problems. Restaurant food has 3-5x as much salt as you should be eating.
polar8 2y ago
Eating in restaurants is terrible for your health. Here's a study that finds a 49% increase in all-cause mortality risk for those who frequently eat meals prepared away from home. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33775622/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33775622/ I have stopped eating out completely as I always feel gross and tired after a restaurant meal vs energized after home-cooked food. I think it's mostly due to cheap oils in quantities you would never dream of using at home.
- m463 2y ago
  ...but you could just get a suana and use it 4-7 days a week for 20 min > 174 F, which reduces risk of all-cause mortality 66% and come out 17% ahead! :) I suspect portion size and number of dishes with homecooked food. In a restaurant, adding appetizers, side dishes and desserts can be done with a nod. At home, it will take a lot of work to add each dish. But yeah, if you do apples:apples I think restaurants are paid to make things tasty - with salt, cheese, cream, butter, oil. And then with more of those. (also, I wonder how restaurant review eating compares to supersize me)
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    >salt, cheese, cream, butter, oil. there is a famous cooking book with a name close to that. ;)
    - m463 2y ago
      add chocolate and get the perfect click ^H^H^H^H cookbait.
      - fuzztester 2y ago
        no, I meant an actual famous cookbook. I read about it on hn, actually. it's called something like fat, acid, salt and heat. you can Google it.
        2y ago
Workaccount2 2y ago
This is also why I don't like eating out much anymore. Every restaurant just leans so hard on heavily salting fats to make their food taste good. I'd rather cook myself now where I can actually taste flavors and feel good, rather than just having the primal "mmm good food" button bashed in my lizard brain and feeling like garbage afterwards.
- standardUser 2y ago
  It sounds like you are describing gorging yourself at Taco Bell. There must be better restaurants and eateries than that around you.
  - krallja 2y ago
    Taco Bell doesn’t use butter, AFAIK.
    - standardUser 2y ago
      Neither do many major cuisines, like Mediterranean, Mexican, Thai, Japanese and Chinese. Is butter really the problem here? Because to me it sounds like the problem is habitual over-eating.
      - throwaway2037 2y ago
        Risotto in Italian cooking definitely uses buttoer. But, I already know what your reply will be: "Oh, that's Northern Italian cooking -- it doesn't count." Most normie readers don't care about that distinction. Japanese izakayas frequently sell grilled items wrapped in foil that is swimming in butter. Again, I assume you will reply: "Oh, but that's not traditional Japanese cooking -- it doesn't count." Again, most normie readers don't care about that distinction.
        xanderlewis 2y ago
        Miso and butter is also a common combination even in home cooking these days.
analog31 2y ago
Since my mom moved to town, we've been eating at her place frequently. She uses a lot of recipes from the NY Times. They are heavy. Lots of butter, cheese, coconut milk, etc. We've asked my mom to cut those things in half. She's a very good cook, and the things she improvises or makes from memory are much lighter fare. I learned to cook from her, so my meals tend to be fairly light too. Sure, the fat and salt (and don't forget sugar) are yummy, but they'll kill you. There needs to be a compromise. An amusing aside, Julia Child said that it's perfectly honorable to be a home cook and not a chef. Making stuff that's good but healthy is an art unto itself, especially if you're feeding vegetarians.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  > She uses a lot of recipes from the NY Times. They are heavy. There’s a good chocolate chip cookie recipe from the NYT that I’ve used several times. Not only is it heavy, I’ve had to halve the ingredients and even then it still produces enough to satiate the Cookie Monster for probably at least a month. As a Brit, I also had to convert all of the measurements (patent absurdities like ‘cups of butter’, ‘tablespoons of chocolate’, etc.) to grams — taking account of the variation in density, of course.
  - analog31 2y ago
    Some of the measurements are aided by how the ingredients are packaged. For instance, butter is sold by the pound, in boxes of 4 "sticks" that are marked as being 1/4 cup each, which ignores the density variation but is familiar to every home cook. Chocolate comes in "squares" that are some predictable amount. In fact some recipes call for squares. "A pint's a pound the world around" is a workable rule of thumb for a lot of things, but of course you need to know when greater precision is needed. Since I don't bake sweets very often, I measure most things by eyeball. For instance my bread recipe is based on filling a glass measuring cup nearly to the top, above where the volume markings end. Maybe it's a reaction to spending my day designing precision measuring equipment. But yeah, it's a hodgepodge of archaic units, and quite unnerving if you hail from the metric world.
    - 2y ago
Johnsorc 2y ago
Try replacing your salt shaker with 1:1 kosher salt to MSG.

paulpauper 2y ago

This is why eating out is so bad if you're on a diet. Too much oil and fat, sugar, salt, fat, and other stuff

foobarian 2y ago
I feel like restaurants really have an unfair advantage there as far as flavor goes. Whenever I try to make something following a recipe, I balk at the amount of butter/sugar/oils/salt and cut way down or leave them out entirely, with predictable results. With a restaurant this is completely abstracted away so it's easier to get past.
matwood 2y ago
I disagree. If we're talking about restaurants and not fast food, it's portion size that's typically the issue in the US. Oddly enough, the higher end restaurants start to move in the other direction and shrink portion sizes.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  >I disagree. If we're talking about restaurants and not fast food, it's portion size that's typically the issue in the US. i think you are right. i have always seen big portion sizes in restaurants when i have gone to the US. also, very recently, i saw a youtube video in which a french person says the same thing. they said that even though the French eat a lot of fat, their overall portion sizes are smaller than those of the US. so overall, they end up eating less calories than US people. also the French tend to walk a lot, while the US people tend to drive a lot. it's a generalization, i know.
  - UIUC_06 2y ago
    My own impression from a week in Paris is that you're right: if you get the "menu" at most restaurants (appetizer, entree, dessert), you walk out full but not stuffed. The weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, supposedly make you feel like that. I haven't taken them myself. It's like you don't really want any more. Americans seem to feel entitled to two meals for the price of one, and they may or may not eat them both in the restaurant. (If they don't finish, they take the rest home with them)
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      >Americans seem to feel entitled to two meals for the price of one, and they may or may not eat them both in the restaurant. (If they don't finish, they take the rest home with them) yes, when my parents used to go to the US, a few decades ago, they told us kids about this practice called using doggie bags. apparently people used to ask for the uneaten part of their restaurant orders to be packed in what was called a doggy bag, under the euphemism that they were taking the extra food home for their dog. I don't know whether the practice is still followed.
      - bigstrat2003 2y ago
        I don't know that anyone has ever used "doggy bag" to mean/imply an actual bag for dogs in my lifetime (I'm 39), but yes it's still common to get the rest of your food in a container to take home. These days your waiter/waitress will usually ask "do you want a box" instead of referring to a doggy bag, but everyone knows what you mean if you ask for a doggy bag.
      - xarope 2y ago
        If my trips to the cheesecake factory are any indication, then yes, too much food, and let's doggy bag the rest of the yummy.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        I don't think the term is all that common today in the US. But, counter my pervious comment (though I hadn't been active that day and it was quite hot), a few of us were having dinner and most of us took something home (for us, not a dog)--and I just had a starter! Considered quite normal. Good food but there was just a lot of it and I didn't have much of an appetite. I do know a few places that are sort of known for having portion sizes that are oriented towards people taking leftovers home.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago
  [dead]
more_corn 2y ago
Or if you have health problems or want to not have health problems. Restaurant food has 3-5x as much salt as you should be eating.

polar8 2y ago

Eating in restaurants is terrible for your health. Here's a study that finds a 49% increase in all-cause mortality risk for those who frequently eat meals prepared away from home. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33775622/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33775622/ I have stopped eating out completely as I always feel gross and tired after a restaurant meal vs energized after home-cooked food. I think it's mostly due to cheap oils in quantities you would never dream of using at home.

m463 2y ago
...but you could just get a suana and use it 4-7 days a week for 20 min > 174 F, which reduces risk of all-cause mortality 66% and come out 17% ahead! :) I suspect portion size and number of dishes with homecooked food. In a restaurant, adding appetizers, side dishes and desserts can be done with a nod. At home, it will take a lot of work to add each dish. But yeah, if you do apples:apples I think restaurants are paid to make things tasty - with salt, cheese, cream, butter, oil. And then with more of those. (also, I wonder how restaurant review eating compares to supersize me)
- fuzztester 2y ago
  >salt, cheese, cream, butter, oil. there is a famous cooking book with a name close to that. ;)
  - m463 2y ago
    add chocolate and get the perfect click ^H^H^H^H cookbait.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      no, I meant an actual famous cookbook. I read about it on hn, actually. it's called something like fat, acid, salt and heat. you can Google it.
      - 2y ago

Workaccount2 2y ago

This is also why I don't like eating out much anymore. Every restaurant just leans so hard on heavily salting fats to make their food taste good. I'd rather cook myself now where I can actually taste flavors and feel good, rather than just having the primal "mmm good food" button bashed in my lizard brain and feeling like garbage afterwards.

standardUser 2y ago
It sounds like you are describing gorging yourself at Taco Bell. There must be better restaurants and eateries than that around you.
- krallja 2y ago
  Taco Bell doesn’t use butter, AFAIK.
  - standardUser 2y ago
    Neither do many major cuisines, like Mediterranean, Mexican, Thai, Japanese and Chinese. Is butter really the problem here? Because to me it sounds like the problem is habitual over-eating.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      Risotto in Italian cooking definitely uses buttoer. But, I already know what your reply will be: "Oh, that's Northern Italian cooking -- it doesn't count." Most normie readers don't care about that distinction. Japanese izakayas frequently sell grilled items wrapped in foil that is swimming in butter. Again, I assume you will reply: "Oh, but that's not traditional Japanese cooking -- it doesn't count." Again, most normie readers don't care about that distinction.
      - xanderlewis 2y ago
        Miso and butter is also a common combination even in home cooking these days.

analog31 2y ago

Since my mom moved to town, we've been eating at her place frequently. She uses a lot of recipes from the NY Times. They are heavy. Lots of butter, cheese, coconut milk, etc. We've asked my mom to cut those things in half. She's a very good cook, and the things she improvises or makes from memory are much lighter fare. I learned to cook from her, so my meals tend to be fairly light too. Sure, the fat and salt (and don't forget sugar) are yummy, but they'll kill you. There needs to be a compromise. An amusing aside, Julia Child said that it's perfectly honorable to be a home cook and not a chef. Making stuff that's good but healthy is an art unto itself, especially if you're feeding vegetarians.

xanderlewis 2y ago
> She uses a lot of recipes from the NY Times. They are heavy. There’s a good chocolate chip cookie recipe from the NYT that I’ve used several times. Not only is it heavy, I’ve had to halve the ingredients and even then it still produces enough to satiate the Cookie Monster for probably at least a month. As a Brit, I also had to convert all of the measurements (patent absurdities like ‘cups of butter’, ‘tablespoons of chocolate’, etc.) to grams — taking account of the variation in density, of course.
- analog31 2y ago
  Some of the measurements are aided by how the ingredients are packaged. For instance, butter is sold by the pound, in boxes of 4 "sticks" that are marked as being 1/4 cup each, which ignores the density variation but is familiar to every home cook. Chocolate comes in "squares" that are some predictable amount. In fact some recipes call for squares. "A pint's a pound the world around" is a workable rule of thumb for a lot of things, but of course you need to know when greater precision is needed. Since I don't bake sweets very often, I measure most things by eyeball. For instance my bread recipe is based on filling a glass measuring cup nearly to the top, above where the volume markings end. Maybe it's a reaction to spending my day designing precision measuring equipment. But yeah, it's a hodgepodge of archaic units, and quite unnerving if you hail from the metric world.
  - 2y ago

Johnsorc 2y ago

Try replacing your salt shaker with 1:1 kosher salt to MSG.