This isn't specifically related to this database (since it doesn't contain recipes), but how cool would it be to finetune a GPT model on hundreds of thousands of recipes and have it generate new ones to try.
A Database of Historical Cookbooks
51–60 of 68 posts
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm... how many people go oh let me check what the stats are for black pepper in 18th century? Baseball metrics have value on its own to a vast number of people. Cookbook metadata has little value to most people beyond the academic researchers. This is a poor analogy, no offense.
Food has a value on its own to a vast number of people. I would argue there are far more cooks than baseball fans.
This isn’t about Food. It’s about a question such as “During which decade black pepper was the most popular?”
Perhaps you can find more use cases for it? I can’t think of
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#53I recently read and was amazed that ”The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy“ by Hannah Glasse, published in 1747 was a best seller around the English speaking world for over a hundred years. “We had emancipated ourselves from the sceptre of King George, but that of Hannah Glasse was extended without challenge over our fire-sides and dinner-tables, with a sway far more imperative and absolute"
Seems English tables of the 18th century were quite the culinary scene: this is exactly contemporaneous with the famed Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Montagu,_4th_Earl_of_Sand...
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Food has a value on its own to a vast number of people. I would argue there are far more cooks than baseball fans.
This isn’t about Food. It’s about a question such as “During which decade black pepper was the most popular?” Perhaps you can find more use cases for it? I can’t think of
This is a funny argument because I can certainly imagine myself giving baseball statistics as a prime example of huge effort going into collecting “useless” data! (Unless you manage a baseball team.) I don’t see how your question is less interesting than “who had the 43rd highest batting average in 1934?”, which I’m sure there are multiple places to look up.
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Give me times, and temperatures, and sizes, and weights! The thing is, it's pointless to give such precise instructions because they will only ever work for one time and one time only, the time the recipe was (presumably) tested. After that, everything you do as you carry out the instructions in the recipe with absolute precision, like a little robot chef, will still produce a different result not least because yo…
> Like I say in another comment, a recipe is not a precise set of instructions that leads to a reproducible result, like a computer program or an algorithm. It's a template, a mnemonic, an informal description of how to achieve a result in the ballpark of a certain target. Which is provably false for the vast majority of recipes. And you need a starting point for a recipe. You can't "grab ingredients in the quantitie…
>> Which is provably false for the vast majority of recipes.
I'm not trying to pick a fight but I'm genuinely curious to see how you would disprove my statement. Like, a formal (counter) proof etc.
Just to clarify, I mean that a recipe might be written as if it was a precise set of instructions, but that's not the proper way to use it. And yes, to be honest, "grab ingredients in the quantities you desire and cook them" is how I cook all my meals. There are very few things I actually measure, for instance I have a little dosimetric spoon that I use for spices, mostly beause I like the spoon though, not because I really need it to figure out how much I need of each spice. Everything else I eyball, because I know what makes sense to cook. Everyone I know who knows how to cook more than basic stuff cooks that way.
That's cooking- not baking, btw. Apparently that requires precision, but I don't really bake.
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#56As a person who doesn't cook very well, the value I find in most old cookbooks (and a surprising number of modern cookbooks) is just that: historical. And sometimes the sadness that no one makes certain dishes anymore. But I can't for the life of me figure something like "Stew until ready. Not long before it's ready add finely chopped garlic" [1] or "Prepare the duck, stuff it and stew until done" [2] Give me times,…
>> Give me times, and temperatures, and sizes, and weights! The thing is, it's pointless to give such precise instructions because they will only ever work for one time and one time only, the time the recipe was (presumably) tested. After that, everything you do as you carry out the instructions in the recipe with absolute precision, like a little robot chef, will still produce a different result not least because yo…
A favorite quote seen in the introduction of a cookbook
in the 1970s or so,
which unfortunately I have never been able to later attribute:
“The world needs more cooks, not more cookbooks.”
I think this can also apply to some programming environments.
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember both my grandmothers cooking and I don't remember either of them speaking about food processors or say pressure cookers in terms of "miracles". Both grew up and learned to cook at a time when such niceties where not available. I myself cook most of my food in simple pots and pans with simple utensils no different than what would have been available even a thousand years ago. Ovens are another matter- but e…
> So you're actually losing something with too much technology in cooking, so I think anyway. Somewhat OT: You're talking about cooking, but the same is true for many other activities and systems. Our technology level permits us to ignore many details and so we fail to learn the underlying mechanisms, processes, etc. In cooking: learning details of the cooking process, why you can make it with a hand or stand mixer v…
Agreed. My other example is animation. I studied classical animation (in another life, another career...) and then I learned how to do 3d computer animation. I was never very good at 3d animation (I preferred modelling) so I can't brag about it but it's very clear to see who hasn't learned to do it the traditional way first, e.g. when you look at character animations in games vs. animated movies.
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember both my grandmothers cooking and I don't remember either of them speaking about food processors or say pressure cookers in terms of "miracles". Both grew up and learned to cook at a time when such niceties where not available. I myself cook most of my food in simple pots and pans with simple utensils no different than what would have been available even a thousand years ago. Ovens are another matter- but e…
>>> I've made mayonnaise by hand and by hand mixer. Strongly disagree !!! :-) Although I'm a pretty good cook, I fail the mayonnaise 9 times out of 10. So my wife does it. And I can assure you she does that in a short and super quiet way, all by hand. Just softness. It's been like that for years and I'm stall amazed. Oh and when she bakes, I have a lot of pride in mixing everything by hand : Chantilly, egg yolks and…
Well, maybe I'm doing it wrong, who knows :)
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#59I'm personally interested in what old fast food and junk food used to taste like, for example the recipe to the original Coke drink: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/extras/the-recipe . I wish I could go back and taste a 50's In-N-Out meal.
Lard burgers and fries are really good. I highly recommend checking them out. It may not be the exact taste of a brand from the past, but it will be closer to the taste of a mom and pop burger stand pre 1970s.
Re: A Database of Historical Cookbooks
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>A: It does not contain the texts of books or recipes. Seems to be a bit useless without it. Yes, it's "useless" if one wants the The Sifter to be a source of recipes. Instead, the Sifter's goal appears to be a database of meta information [1] (e.g. ingredients, techniques, etc) of recipes and not the full text of recipes themselves. An analogy might be a website of baseball statistics[2]. Yes, one can also complain…
Hmm... how many people go oh let me check what the stats are for black pepper in 18th century? Baseball metrics have value on its own to a vast number of people. Cookbook metadata has little value to most people beyond the academic researchers. This is a poor analogy, no offense.
With that attitude, you’re missing out on the cultural and historical significance of food and ingredients.
Food tells so many stories. Pepper usage could tell you things if you’re combining it with other data. There’s a lot there, with such a simple data point — class, race, ethnicity, technology, famine, publishing trends, economic output, agricultural history, climate, trends in taste — so much!
Food history is not just for academic researchers.