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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

#121

Post by lorenzhs »

markdown wrote: post #73
xxpor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel there's in inherent risk in any trade. And why should the consumer accept that risk and not the vendor?

Because the buyer is making the decision to purchase. It's their choice, and particularly in this case they have very good data to support the decision (actually leafing through the book in a bookstore, reading the countless reviews available online, etc). Caveat emptor. If OP had bought the book from Samin Nosrat selling her own book out of a stall, I highly doubt he'd return the book a week later demanding his mone…

As Tomte noted, EU law requires that you be able to return online (and catalogue, phone, and other distance marketing) purchases within 14 days, exactly because in those cases you don't have the possibility of leafing through a book or having a product demonstrated at a store. Reviews aren't a substitute for that.

Full detail can be found at https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...

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

#122

Post by Deganta »

amelius wrote: post #116
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.

Do all the "cooking bibles" assume a specific cuisine?

Yes, in my expericen they all kind of do.

This doesn't mean that you won't find recipes from a foreigen cuisine in them. Most of them are however adapted to the cuisine the book is from.

Sometimes it's a recipe that is basically unknown in it's country of supposed origin (Spaghetti with meatballs).

But often they are only adapted to the different preference in taste, or the different things you will get at the grocery store.

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

#123

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> None of the higher-level stuff like "let your steak rest after cooking"

That's not particularly “higher-level”.

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

#124

Post by dragonwriter »

markdown wrote: post #67
cthalupa wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a fiction book you read for entertainment. Books of this nature are meant to be a reference and resource you continue using.

I feel that's beside the point. The vendor can no longer sell it as a new book. You've deprived them of some value, and you refuse to pay for what they've lost. I feel there's in inherent risk in any trade. You rarely know for certain that you'll love what you're paying for, and you should accept that risk. One shouldn't feel entitled to 100% satisfaction when one makes a purchase, and certainly shouldn't deprive the…

> The vendor can no longer sell it as a new book.

Returns generally can be, and usually are, sold again as new unless damaged or returned for defect, AFAIK.

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

#125

Post by geodel »

Cd00d wrote: post #96
sincerely wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alton Brown talked about this in his Hot Ones interview but basically Food Network became insanely popular directly after 9/11, as a sort of apolitical escape from the real world.

Interesting. The latest season of Serial claims that cooking shows are what's on the tvs in the waiting rooms for courts (in Cleveland) because they're so apolitical. Makes sense, I guess.

Lately I have been visiting Doctor's office lot more. And I notice HGTV is choice of TV channel in at least 5 different Dr's office. Again I think a kind of apolitical choice.

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

#126

Post by morsch »

amb23 wrote: post #29

If we're on the topic of how to cook rather than just what to cook: I just got A New Way to Dinner (a cookbook from Food52) earlier this summer and have been using it religiously pretty much every week since. It's a strategy guide on how to prep all your food on the weekend and have diverse meals throughout the week. You basically do 1-3 hours of cooking on the weekend to make the components for your dishes, and then…

Sounds like something I might want to try. We mostly cook vegetarian, so roast chicken turning into salad and then sandwhiches is out, would you still recommend it?

On a sidenote, this made me realise Food52 is back online for me; it used to be down with a GDPR apology page, I stopped checking after a while.

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

#127

Post by Cd00d »

papa_bear wrote: post #104
Cd00d wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thank you for the reply. For my use, exact nutrition targets are not super important, but I could see families all going in on a new diet plan together as a resolution. Might be a good feature to implement before New Years!

Best of luck!

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

#128

Post by lazerpants »

vkou wrote: post #110
setr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Definitely not. In fact, I think more of it was probably bonded (100 proof).

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

#129

Post by Wistar »

ktta wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #15

I've read the book and watched the series. Both are fine. The series is in a weird place in between Mind of a Chef (which, in most of its seasons, is a significantly better show) and a more conventional FoodTV cooking show. I think they're trying to do too much in each episode, and also that the travel-show part of each episode works better than the cooking demos do. The book is better than the show. I have friends t…

Might not be a "classic", but in my opinion, The Food Lab is one of those 'if you only own one' book. Though it might seem like it is for home cooks who aren't just beginning. I remember you talking about serious eats somewhere so I'm interested why you didn't include this.

Although not a cookbook, McGee's On Food And Cooking certainly improved my ability to cook.

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

#130

Post by mlevental »

markdown wrote: post #61
mlevental wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wut. if the book isn't good why would one feel ashamed of returning it? is there a moral obligation to keep a bad product?

After you've used it, absolutely. I wouldn't dream of using something I paid for and then demanding money back after I've used the item. > is there a moral obligation to keep a bad product? No, but I feel there's a moral obligation to not ask for your money back for a product you didn't like after using it. This of course doesn't apply if the product is faulty/broken such that it can't be used. Do you do that for oth…

>A cultural difference, I guess.

which culture do you think you're a part of that i'm not? just curious.

>After you've used it, absolutely. I wouldn't dream of using something I paid for and then demanding money back after I've used the item.

so cars that have defects that have been used shouldn't be subject to recalls?

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