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Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

parsnip.ai

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Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#141

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

> Recipes are surprisingly deceptive. They seem like instructions you can follow, but a more apt analogy is that the recipe is an iceberg and beginner cooks are steaming along on the Titanic.

Devil's advocate (and very serious home cook): Food Youtube solves all of these problems in various and (IMO) much more entertaining and informative ways. There's a plethora of content ranging from highly-technical restaurant inspired recipes to "authentic" home cooking traditions passed down through generations. Tracking a progress meter isn't going to make me a better cook: having access to lots of different ideas and styles and trying the ones that speak to me will make me a better cook. Also, our tastes are largely inspired by what we ate growing up and there few universally-loved recipes. That's one of the most beautiful things about cooking: there's a million different ways to do it.

You don't know how to chop an onion? There are a million videos on how to do that. Want to know the history of a certain spice? There's a channel for that.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#142

Post by pessimizer »

appletrotter wrote: post #123
pessimizer wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are endless resources for the second type of person; it's the person who wants to make nacho cheese sauce that is underserved. Once you've got them to make that, you got somebody who can also make gravies and bechamel, and you can suggest other things they they might want to try to cook after they're pretty good at nachos.

A quick google search for "nacho cheese sauce" gave this as the first result -> https://www.budgetbytes.com/5-minute-nacho-cheese-sauce/

Did you think that I was saying that no recipes to make nacho cheese sauce exist?

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#144

Post by lief79 »

mizzao wrote: post #121
blindseer wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried the app too and experienced exactly the same thing. I’m surprised the app is getting as much positive reception on here as it is. Sure it is cute and “gamey”, but I don’t particularly think it’s even useful. I’d rather have the knowledge graph displayed to me in a way I can easily find information or navigate it. Why would I EVER want to use this to learn something new when I could just read the information a…

As the knowledge graph gets bigger, we're definitely going to have to find better ways to present it. The challenge is that most people don't want to see the whole knowledge graph, they want an extremely simple experience. Do you think your perspective represents something that would appeal to the mass market? Here's the technical approach we're taking with the goal of taking a very hairy knowledge graph and turning…

People have different learning styles. If you can come up with a gentle introduction, while still allowing deep dives in the specific areas, you'll boost your potential customer/referral base.

HN is going to tend to attract more of the individuals who prefer the deep dives.

As always, the trick is finding that first customer base, and figuring out how you can grow with them to keep them, and get them to spread the word.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#145

Post by mizzao »

pessimizer wrote: post #108

I've had very similar ideas, and although I can't quite get the vision of how you're organizing the material since your last pivot, I want to throw in a few ideas (that you may be already doing.) 1) Cooking skills are physical acts of dexterity and timing that can be explained and modeled by text and videos, but not mastered. This is a good place for the use of spaced repetition; every time someone makes a recipe tha…

1) totally agree with the spaced repetition. Can't quite get that in a MVP though ;)

2) this is a really interesting idea, but I'm not sure it's really a conjugation, but just different nodes on the knowledge graph. What do you think is the benefit of a noun-verb relationship?

We believe there's some incredible fruit in a serious computer science approach to cooking and food. Here's a preview: https://parsnip.substack.com/p/vision-part-one

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#146

Post by blub »

EligibleSpatula wrote: post #118
danpalmer wrote: post #84

I've done a few quizzes on the app now, and I don't get it. The questions feel very contrived, like someone had a quota to fill so just put whatever looked plausible together. They are also _very_ culturally specific. Questions about eggs barely made sense to me being from the UK, with incorrect pack sizes, animal welfare terms, and completely missed our great standards body that makes it easy to know which eggs have…

Apologies if the wok explanation came across as insensitive or racist. The wording used was 'a wok is unwieldy and uncommon in a lot of home kitchens'. As one of the two Asian writers who this got past, we believed that this statement was true enough for North American beginners looking to learn how to make scrambled eggs. I have changed the copy there and endeavour to make sure that we are more culturally sensitive…

How did we get to a point where somebody with an English sounding name is teaching lessons on racism against Asians to an Asian?

You did nothing wrong. As a European I didn’t even have a clue what a wok might be for most of my life. Buying one would make no sense.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#147

Post by mizzao »

anosidium wrote: post #8

This looks incredible! I would love a macOS app as I spend more time on the Mac than on my iPhone. Well done for not enforcing account registration and letting me actually try the app.

EDIT: so apparently we are actually on MacOS, just in an iPhone sized frame. Have you tried searching the app store?

http://apps.apple.com/us/app/parsnip-level-up-your-cooking/i...

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#148

Post by tdhz77 »

mizzao wrote: post #55
tdhz77 wrote: post #22

Took me way to long to unlock a recipe. But, the questions were good. Where is my skip to recipe button?

There are lots of ways to skip directly to a recipe all over the Internet. Tell me more, what are you trying to find? Our recipes are actually pretty simple and not particularly special in any way. It's about the journey, not the destination ;-)

Ok, as a first time user that’s what I didn’t understand. My impatience grew, and you were saved by the fact I didn’t want to lose my progress so I powered through. Annoyed, but somewhat satisfactory end experience. I’ll have to try the recipe to see the full benefits.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#149

Post by Spivak »

dathanb82 wrote: post #37
dangerlibrary wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=how%20to... It was fun, actually

No surprise here: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=how%20to...

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=how%20to...

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#150

Post by mizzao »

econner wrote: post #100

There is a weird bug on your "What do you want to learn about first?" question. I am able to select both "Cheeseburger" and "Greek Salad" but not "Greek Salad" and "Spaghetti & Meatballs". If I tap "Greek Salad" after first tapping "Spaghetti & Meatballs" then it deselects the "Spaghetti & Meatballs" and selects "Greek Salad" (even with only 1 item selected). Anyway, cool concept.

Are you on iOS or Android?

You are supposed to be able to only select one dish at a time. In RPG gaming terms, that is your "quest" and the levels are basically what you need to complete the quest.

If you can select multiple dishes then there's a bug we need to fix, please let us know!

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