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‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

theatlantic.com

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Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#101

Post by Tomte »

markdown wrote: post #53
Tomte wrote: post #16

I'm not a fan of the book. I mean, it's all correct, the illustrations are beautiful, not much to bicker about. But it fell flat for me, maybe because I already have Twenty and a few other books. I did not find really new concepts, and none of the recipes really jumped out at me and made me want to cook them, I returned the book. It's fine, really, but I think there are better ones. Twenty for concepts, Ratio for "sh…

> I returned the book. Wait, what? You read the book, returned it, and feel no shame in admitting it?

I skimmed it for about a quarter hour. Just as I would have in a bookstore.

That's actually the reason why Germany has returning rights by law when buying online.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#102

Post by pfranz »

nemo44x wrote: post #78
idunno246 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandparents made a cookbook for all their children, and it was full of microwaved recipes and dumping jars of processed foods together. I looked into remaking it with better bindings as it was falling apart, but the recipes are all so gross. So I feel like part of it is generational, that we can get good ingredients, and value high quality food more than before. As much as people hate on blue apron, they kinda pr…

It’s interesting - I assume you’re American as am I. The approach to food was completely changed after WW2 in the USA. There was so much new food tech that looking back isn’t so nice but that people of that time embraced (and many still do). And for good reason it would seem looking back through their lens. Food and cooking lost a lot of value in our culture for many years. We started optimizing around the wrong thin…

I remember hearing that after WW2 processed foods were seen as futuristic. It was more consistent batch to batch, less likely to spoil, and safer to eat. After a few generations of that it's seen as generic and bland.

This digging up of pre-industrialized food cherry picks the best of each area and uses higher standards for food quality and safety (that would have been unfeasible generations ago).

I'm not knocking regional food, I'm glad this is happening and love to see and try new things. I hate seeing the US covered by the same handful of chain restaurants.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#103

Post by nemo44x »

pfranz wrote: post #102
nemo44x wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting - I assume you’re American as am I. The approach to food was completely changed after WW2 in the USA. There was so much new food tech that looking back isn’t so nice but that people of that time embraced (and many still do). And for good reason it would seem looking back through their lens. Food and cooking lost a lot of value in our culture for many years. We started optimizing around the wrong thin…

I remember hearing that after WW2 processed foods were seen as futuristic. It was more consistent batch to batch, less likely to spoil, and safer to eat. After a few generations of that it's seen as generic and bland. This digging up of pre-industrialized food cherry picks the best of each area and uses higher standards for food quality and safety (that would have been unfeasible generations ago). I'm not knocking re…

A big part of it was we had the factories, machines and workflows to convert wartime manufacturing into peacetime manufacturing. We mastered the concept of processing and preserving food for GI's and converted it to households. Cooking was sold as a laborious task wrought with potential for failure. From there the next phase of industrial mastery was developing fast food restaurants and selling the idea that even preparing the pre-made meals was too much work and hassle - a true victory of Madison Ave.

We've come full circle now where inefficiently producing and purchasing high quality ingredients and having the time and resources to cook them is now the higher class activity VS the efficient processed food sold to the masses.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#104

Post by papa_bear »

Cd00d wrote: post #92
papa_bear wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a cookbook, but check out my website https://www.EatThisMuch.com/ You can set it to just one meal if you want (and something like 600 calories) and keep regenerating it until it looks like something you'll like. I started it because I'm terrible at thinking about what I want to eat :)

Thank you for creating this. Some feedback / feature requests: My family is 4 - a 4 yr old and a 1 yr old in the mix. They eat what we eat. So, I put in one meal for 1800 calories, which is roughly dinner for two adults and half dinner for two toddlers. Ideally, one adult would have enough leftovers for lunch the next day. The main results I got included egg dishes or oatmeal, so very breakfast heavy. The option to c…

Glad to hear it! You can swap meal types when you create an account, but if you don't want to create an account, you can edit the settings on Breakfast with the 3-dot menu (and even just name it something else like Family Dinner).

At the moment, you can set an integer multiplier on a meal to have it scale up the ingredients (it's the Family Scale setting on the Meal Type). However, it will still be based on your own nutrition targets, and you might want to set it for 3 people and split one serving between your two kids.

If you wanted something more targeted for each of your family members, would it still be appealing to you the planner said something like "You eat one serving, your wife 0.8 servings, and each of your kids 0.4 servings", with some gram weight measurements, or are exact nutrition targets not super important for your needs?

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#105

Post by marrone12 »

ilamont wrote: post #11

I started to watch the video series set in Italy featuring the author. I agree with the premise, thought a few scenes were interesting (particularly the butcher and harvesting olives in the first episode), but just couldn't get into the cooking and dining scenes ... too heavy on the "food porn" and too light on the "whys" of what they are doing. They just do something, and people are mostly left to their imaginations…

I love that she spoke Italian in that episode. It's why I like the Mexico episode because she speaks a lot of spanish.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#106

Post by resters »

I loved the book and have (so far) watched only the first episode of the show.

I look at the book as being full of low hanging fruit. The salt chapter alone has improved my cooking tremendously, and I thought I was already fairly aware of salt before I read it. It made me more bold with something I thought I already knew.

The acid chapter took away any shame I had about loving sour cream and ketchup, which was worth the read in and of itself.

I liked the travel show style of the show, and really liked how she built up the concepts in the focaccia recipe. As educational programming, it was superb. By the time she actually makes the focaccia the viewer has a love/appreciation for every single ingredient.

I don't think I've had such a visceral jealousy of someone eating on tv as I did when they bit into that focaccia.

The point she's trying to make, I think, is that the recipe anchors the region, the cuisine style, the way of life, and the meal it is enjoyed with. This was done beautifully. I will always appreciate focaccia more in the future for it.

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#107

Post by setr »

seem_2211 wrote: post #31
Nition wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In New Zealand that "one cooking book" is the Edmonds Cookery Book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_Cookery_Book Tells you all the essentials of how to cook meat and veges and make basic sauces and all that, plus has a whole lot of relatively simple recipes that use common ingredients.

What's scary is comparing the old versions of the Edmonds Cook Book with the more recent versions and seeing how much more sugar we're putting in a lot of the stuff we're making.

I remember looking up eggnog recipes and realizing that the 1950s used twice as much whiskey as the modern versions

That was some good eggnog

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#109

Post by pluma »

setr wrote: post #107
seem_2211 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's scary is comparing the old versions of the Edmonds Cook Book with the more recent versions and seeing how much more sugar we're putting in a lot of the stuff we're making.

I remember looking up eggnog recipes and realizing that the 1950s used twice as much whiskey as the modern versions That was some good eggnog

Looking at recipes on the Internet it seems eggnog barely contains any whiskey by volume. By comparison German Eierlikör consists mostly of korn (a 32% ABV clear liquor similar to vodka) or white rum.

I'm not sure what 1950s eggnog looked like but I'm guessing it was more like the German style Eierlikör (i.e. made mostly with liquor and eggs) than the modern eggnog (i.e. mostly milk and cream).

Re: ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ Is a Love Letter to Amateur Cooks

#110

Post by vkou »

setr wrote: post #107
seem_2211 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's scary is comparing the old versions of the Edmonds Cook Book with the more recent versions and seeing how much more sugar we're putting in a lot of the stuff we're making.

I remember looking up eggnog recipes and realizing that the 1950s used twice as much whiskey as the modern versions That was some good eggnog

Was the whiskey of the 1950s lower proof?
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