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Yes? It lowers the degree of difficulty tremendously. And most people, even bbq judges, probably can’t taste the difference between a sous vide with smoke fini

Yes? It lowers the degree of difficulty tremendously. And most people, even bbq judges, probably can’t taste the difference between a sous vide with smoke finish and a full smoker preparation. But bbq competitions are about making the best ribs the same way car racing is about going around an oval the fastest. Equipment rules matter more than bare outcomes.

tptacek 1y ago
I get what you're saying but I don't just mean that it's unsporting or defeats the purpose of the conversation, but rather that it suggests the outcomes are judged on a rubric that doesn't capture what makes extremely good BBQ good, but rather basic textural and visual things. Like, Green Street in Chicago is, IIRC, combi-cooked before it's smoked; it's also just OK.
- kasey_junk 1y ago
  I think we probably disagree on the impact of the sous vide preparation then. Green street is just ok for lots of reasons. I don’t think the sous vide is one of them.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    Interesting. You've had sous vide BBQ where you were like, "this is as good as anything I've ever had"?
    - kasey_junk 1y ago
      Yes. By people who compete in bbq competitions. I’d also argue that most smoker designs are a matter of tradition and competition rules, not outcomes.
- cogman10 1y ago
  Food judging will always be subjective. Famously wine tasting is mostly just pretentious bunk. That's why silly things like plating often matter more in a restaurant than actual taste.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - computably 1y ago
    IIRC, wine tasting isn't bunk, wine pricing is. People can tell the differences between wines, and reasonably reliably if they are trained, but those differences (and the tasters' preferences) have weak/no correlations with $$$.
    - cogman10 1y ago
      Not as much as you'd think. In this article [1], one expert failed to identify that a white wine dyed red was the same. They used different descriptors for the same wine. And none of this should be too surprising. Our brains are complex things that like to hallucinate details. If you tell someone a bottle of wine cost $1000, their brain will happily invent reasons why it's one of the best wines they've tasted. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta...
      - School-Cotton 1y ago
        I wonder whether something similar applies to spirits. I feel absolutely sure that I could tell the difference between, say, a long-aged rum and an unaged one. But if you added food coloring to an unaged one and told me it was aged, would my brain invent oak barrel flavors behind my back? Who knows.
        cogman10 1y ago
        You can always give yourself a blind taste test. Get two (or more) opaque bottles, add the various rums in test, mark the bottom of the container for the type of rum, mix it up and see if you can reliably tell the difference. My assumption is you could because that oak flavor is pretty strong, but who knows. Worst case scenario is you find out you still prefer expense alcohol :)
- jfengel 1y ago
  The law applies to cooking as well as programming: any metric that becomes a target ceases to be a valid metric.

tptacek 1y ago

I get what you're saying but I don't just mean that it's unsporting or defeats the purpose of the conversation, but rather that it suggests the outcomes are judged on a rubric that doesn't capture what makes extremely good BBQ good, but rather basic textural and visual things. Like, Green Street in Chicago is, IIRC, combi-cooked before it's smoked; it's also just OK.

kasey_junk 1y ago
I think we probably disagree on the impact of the sous vide preparation then. Green street is just ok for lots of reasons. I don’t think the sous vide is one of them.
- tptacek 1y ago
  Interesting. You've had sous vide BBQ where you were like, "this is as good as anything I've ever had"?
  - kasey_junk 1y ago
    Yes. By people who compete in bbq competitions. I’d also argue that most smoker designs are a matter of tradition and competition rules, not outcomes.
cogman10 1y ago
Food judging will always be subjective. Famously wine tasting is mostly just pretentious bunk. That's why silly things like plating often matter more in a restaurant than actual taste.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- computably 1y ago
  IIRC, wine tasting isn't bunk, wine pricing is. People can tell the differences between wines, and reasonably reliably if they are trained, but those differences (and the tasters' preferences) have weak/no correlations with $$$.
  - cogman10 1y ago
    Not as much as you'd think. In this article [1], one expert failed to identify that a white wine dyed red was the same. They used different descriptors for the same wine. And none of this should be too surprising. Our brains are complex things that like to hallucinate details. If you tell someone a bottle of wine cost $1000, their brain will happily invent reasons why it's one of the best wines they've tasted. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta...
    - School-Cotton 1y ago
      I wonder whether something similar applies to spirits. I feel absolutely sure that I could tell the difference between, say, a long-aged rum and an unaged one. But if you added food coloring to an unaged one and told me it was aged, would my brain invent oak barrel flavors behind my back? Who knows.
      - cogman10 1y ago
        You can always give yourself a blind taste test. Get two (or more) opaque bottles, add the various rums in test, mark the bottom of the container for the type of rum, mix it up and see if you can reliably tell the difference. My assumption is you could because that oak flavor is pretty strong, but who knows. Worst case scenario is you find out you still prefer expense alcohol :)
jfengel 1y ago
The law applies to cooking as well as programming: any metric that becomes a target ceases to be a valid metric.