Since COVID-19 I am cooking at home a lot, and I would say that most details don’t matter (either the difference is difficult to notice, or the difference is negligible). Even cooking a soup 30 minutes longer (I got distracted and forgot I was cooking) made no big difference.
Exceptions: burning food; adding too much salt or acid.
Possible explanation is that some people are more sensitive about the taste, and those may be the ones that add the tiny details in recipes. They may be overrepresented among professional cooks.
Before I got some experience and self-confidence, I was often scared by too many details in the recipes. These days I mostly perceive the recipe as a “binary code” and try to see the “source code” behind it. The source code is like “cook A and B together, optionally add C or D”, with some implied rules like “always use E with A, unless specifically told otherwise”. The amounts officially specified with two significant digits usually don’t have to be taken too precisely; plus or minus 20% is often perfectly okay. Sometimes a details actually matters… you will find out by experimenting; then you can underline that part of the recipe.
I would like to see a Pareto cookbook. (“Potato soup: Peel and cut a few potatoes, cook in water for 10-30 minutes, add 1⁄4 teaspoon of salt. Expert version: while cooking add some bay leaves and a little fat.”) So that one could start with the simple version, and optionally add the less important details later.
These days I mostly perceive the recipe as a “binary code” and try to see the “source code” behind it.
Wow, that’s an awesome analogy!
I would like to see a Pareto cookbook.
I was thinking the same thing. I spend way too much time watching cooking videos on YouTube, and so if there was something like that out there I feel like there’s a good chance I would have stumbled across it at this point. Although I’d say Adam Ragusea is reasonably close.
+1 there are some entries in this genre but I’ve found them to be low quality and still aimed at a dramatically higher level of effort:results ratios because of the selection effect on the sort of person who would write a cook book and take lots of actions for granted. I want recipes by Musashi. If you make an extra movement you’ll lose your arm in a sword fight.
Since COVID-19 I am cooking at home a lot, and I would say that most details don’t matter (either the difference is difficult to notice, or the difference is negligible). Even cooking a soup 30 minutes longer (I got distracted and forgot I was cooking) made no big difference.
Exceptions: burning food; adding too much salt or acid.
Possible explanation is that some people are more sensitive about the taste, and those may be the ones that add the tiny details in recipes. They may be overrepresented among professional cooks.
Before I got some experience and self-confidence, I was often scared by too many details in the recipes. These days I mostly perceive the recipe as a “binary code” and try to see the “source code” behind it. The source code is like “cook A and B together, optionally add C or D”, with some implied rules like “always use E with A, unless specifically told otherwise”. The amounts officially specified with two significant digits usually don’t have to be taken too precisely; plus or minus 20% is often perfectly okay. Sometimes a details actually matters… you will find out by experimenting; then you can underline that part of the recipe.
I would like to see a Pareto cookbook. (“Potato soup: Peel and cut a few potatoes, cook in water for 10-30 minutes, add 1⁄4 teaspoon of salt. Expert version: while cooking add some bay leaves and a little fat.”) So that one could start with the simple version, and optionally add the less important details later.
Wow, that’s an awesome analogy!
I was thinking the same thing. I spend way too much time watching cooking videos on YouTube, and so if there was something like that out there I feel like there’s a good chance I would have stumbled across it at this point. Although I’d say Adam Ragusea is reasonably close.
>I would like to see a Pareto cookbook.
+1 there are some entries in this genre but I’ve found them to be low quality and still aimed at a dramatically higher level of effort:results ratios because of the selection effect on the sort of person who would write a cook book and take lots of actions for granted. I want recipes by Musashi. If you make an extra movement you’ll lose your arm in a sword fight.