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 Post subject: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 1:17 am 
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Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:03 am
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Location: Portland, OR
Folks,

I had two major issues this TY weekend with recipes which made me guess at dimensions and quantities. First, I had Jeff Koehler tell me to put "coin-sized" pieces of butter in pastry, failing to explain what coin, and considering this was a Moroccan recipe, we're talking an international breadth of options. Next, I had the Brown Sugar Kitchen tell me to pour out grits into a "rimmed baking sheet", which I took to mean a half-sheet pan, but the author actually meant a quarter-sheet pan, as I realized once the grits where set and too thin.

I've run into this sort of thing, it seems to me, more often lately after a decade of increasing precision in recipes. Or is it just selection bias? How about you?

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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 8:47 am 
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I'm pretty sure its intentional. I've read a couple of articles in recent times about trends in cook books, and apparently they are making efforts to make them more 'accessible' by using looser language and being less anal sounding. Apparently giving precise directions puts some people off, by making it sound hard.

There is also a new-ish class of cookbooks which are (edit:)NOT recipe oriented, and these are even less precise. They give the flavour (metaphorically and literally) of the chef in question, and are more of a coffee table book kinda deal; meant to be looked at, and give inspiration, but not cooked from directly.

Anecdote: I gave a friend, some years ago, a 30-minute meals CI book. The feedback I heard was that the recipes were very complex, with a lot of steps. Now, of course, some CI recipes really are crazy number of steps, but lots (especially in this book) are just very specific in their instructions. You can say "make a roux", or you can list 5+ steps in doing it. The work is the same. Lots of people will look at those 5+ steps and be put off at the complexity, despite the fact that they probably don't really know how to make a proper roux without the steps being laid out. I've seen this same reaction to many-step, precise recipes quite a few times. There are probably two base causes to the reaction: (1) People see the intricate details and instinctively get put off, as at a glance it appears detailed and complex. This is mistaking detail for complexity, a common enough failing. (2) Not liking to be precise. Lots of people want to do the pinch and stir, loose cooking style. If given detailed instructions, they may feel they need to follow them, but don't want to follow them; give them loose instructions, they feel more at home, and less like they are fighting the recipe.

One of my former titles was "Senior Research Scientist". You can guess what sort I like :)


Last edited by Paul Kierstead on Tue Dec 02, 2014 9:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 8:58 am 
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Right, people watch these chefs never using measures and apparently just cooking by the seat of their pants and think that they should be able to do the same, despite not having the years of training or talent. When I hear "Oh, I don't really follow recipes -- I'm very experimental," I cringe. Maybe they can still cook, I do know some who can, but usually not so much.


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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 9:22 am 
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I don't know if a higher % of the CBs are this way today, but there have always been a lot of them that were imprecise, in my experience. Many of the books I would look at in the beginning would have things like "saute the onion; add the xxxxx and cook briefly; then cook the xxxxxxxx." They wouldn't say heat level or approx time - how imprecise can you get?! A lot depends on the author. Rick Bayless is one who comes to mind, that is very precise, and tells the reader how to do certain basic things, such as toasting chiles, in each recipe where it is used.

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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 9:53 am 
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Location: Winchester, MA
I agree - I've been cooking a lot more with vegetables and too often the books will say "two sweet potatoes" or "an eggplant"—and these can be hugely different in size. What happened to two cups of diced sweet potatoes? Sometimes it doesn't a difference, but sometimes, when you're baking for example, it really can. I really, really wish we'd get into the European style of giving everything by weight.

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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 11:08 am 
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Don't get me started AGAIN on "...reduce the wine..." :lol: :evil: :roll: :shock: :?


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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 12:20 pm 
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Paul,

Also we're in the Food Network era of a majority of folks who buy the cookbook never cooking from it. This means that it really doesn't pay for most publishers to test the recipes, especially given the slimmer margins on book sales. Given that, I can see that publishers who think "loose language == approachable" wouldn't bother to question a total lack of measurements in a recipe.

It still makes me disappointed in the chefs involved, though, and discouraged from buying cookbooks in general. Why should I pay for an imprecise, untested recipe? I can get that from the internet for free.

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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 4:02 pm 
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Well, my medieval cookbooks are full of that kind of recipe, so maybe they are going back to their roots? "Cook until done" and "serve it forth" are common instructions in cookbooks from 900CE forward. I've had some serious arguments with folks about just what we can and can't assume about the finished product from the info we have.
That said, if you are giving measurements at all they should be precise. In one video about a guy cooking from Alinea At Home, he discovers that one of the recipies is wrong. It's a revelation to him. He had been treating the book like a perfect object.


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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 2:31 am 
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My favorite recipes have weights or measurement for everything. Our produce here is generally much smaller. And strips of bacon, almost 2:1 I discovered and was very upset at realizing all the bacon I had cheated myself out of over the years. I also like it when recipes tell you how to do things in advance. Fine Cooking and Dorrie Greenspan do a great job at this.

Jamie Oliver is an interesting combination. He is of "the make cooking approachable" school and gives measurements In handfuls and glugs and tells you to just bash thing together. And yet his recipes work very well and he is quite good at getting timing done. His meal cookbooks guide you through making entire meals; there will be 3 or 4 recipes with one set of instructions. A great thing for a beginner or anyone really. Saves a few mental calculations. Fine Cooking also does meal planning guides. CI gives good detailed recipes but not so good at prep tips or how to fit things into a meal.
The other thing I like is how to vary a recipe. Again Dorrie is good at this, as are Mark Bittman and Donna Hay. CI also does good variations.
And yet, I am able to screw up the well-written recipes as well as the less so. Good thing no one does Mary-in-the-kitchen reviews!

Mary


Last edited by marygott on Wed Dec 03, 2014 8:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Are cookbooks getting less precise?
PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 7:56 am 
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Yeah, half the prep in any CI recipe will be in the ingredient list. The Cobb Salad recipe talks you through broiling the chicken and boiling the egg, but the second to last ingredient is "8 ounces bacon, cut into 1/4-inch strip and fried until crispy." I almost invariably forget it.


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