Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

parsnip.ai

201–210 of 377 posts

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To perhaps be a bit more constructive, and to suggest a way forward... I'd like to see a cooking teaching app that allows users to work through a recipe in varying levels of detail. For example, consider a Lasagna. A lower level recipe may use ricotta for a quick and easy version, a higher level might explain step by step how to make a bechamel, and the "hardest" level may just say "make a bechamel". As a user, being…

> I'd like to see a cooking teaching app that allows users to work through a recipe in varying levels of detail. For example, consider a Lasagna. A lower level recipe may use ricotta for a quick and easy version, a higher level might explain step by step how to make a bechamel, and the "hardest" level may just say "make a bechamel". Can you hear that noise? That's the noise of a million Italians crying. Because of yo…

> Can you hear that noise? That's the noise of a million Italians crying. Because of you. Learn to make 'mother sauces' straight away guys! They're simple and flavorful.

You don’t need to know how to make a bechamel to know how to make a lasagna.

( Beside this, making a bechamel is time-consuming and a lot of Italians just use the prepacked ones you find in every supermarket all over Italy. )

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#202

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…

Not a racist comment.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really isn't gatekeeping! But if you're learning to cook there are fundamental things you need to learn. This is like the simplest sentences of learning a new language on Duolingo here, it's not some crazy term. Literally week 1 in many cooking schools, maybe week 2 after stocks. If you're trying to teach people cooking, you want to be taught the fundamental key steps to follow recipes no? How many start with bu…

Mother sauces is absolutely gatekeeping. You can get pretty far, and even know how to turn a roux into a béchamel without ever knowing it’s a mother sauce or that there are others.

It's not gatekeeping. I wish I had someone teach me the mother sauces (or the base sauces of the French cuisine) because:

- most of them are ridiculously easy

- most of them go with most food

- most of them are required for most food

- most of them are the basis of many other sauces

- they are better than store-bought ones

Any recipe apart from maybe putting sliced cheese on sliced bread will be more complex than being able to make a sauce. How is it gatekeeping?

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mother sauces is absolutely gatekeeping. You can get pretty far, and even know how to turn a roux into a béchamel without ever knowing it’s a mother sauce or that there are others.

We're talking about a course on cooking here, how is it gatekeeping to talk about cooking 101 subjects?

For what it's worth, you're the only one talking about a cooking course in this thread.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#205

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…

It's not racist, but I would consider it an invalid assumption. You should ask what people have available from a tools and ingredients perspective. Take for instance everyone I know owns a wok, I have two.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mother sauces is absolutely gatekeeping. You can get pretty far, and even know how to turn a roux into a béchamel without ever knowing it’s a mother sauce or that there are others.

It's not gatekeeping. I wish I had someone teach me the mother sauces (or the base sauces of the French cuisine) because: - most of them are ridiculously easy - most of them go with most food - most of them are required for most food - most of them are the basis of many other sauces - they are better than store-bought ones Any recipe apart from maybe putting sliced cheese on sliced bread will be more complex than bei…

It's more gate-opening than gatekeeping.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#207

I really think an open source clobe of Duolingo would be really popular. People could upload and share courses similar to Anki.

> People could upload and share courses similar to Anki.

If it’s not curated it can be a mess. Italki has a feature that lets people make their own language quiz and it’s like this: some quiz are great, a lot of them are average or repetitive, and some are bad/useless or even contain mistakes.

Also, you don’t really need open-source to have a crowdsourced service (see: YouTube, HN, etc).

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really isn't gatekeeping! But if you're learning to cook there are fundamental things you need to learn. This is like the simplest sentences of learning a new language on Duolingo here, it's not some crazy term. Literally week 1 in many cooking schools, maybe week 2 after stocks. If you're trying to teach people cooking, you want to be taught the fundamental key steps to follow recipes no? How many start with bu…

Mother sauces is absolutely gatekeeping. You can get pretty far, and even know how to turn a roux into a béchamel without ever knowing it’s a mother sauce or that there are others.

It’s one of the first chapters in Julia Childs’s book for a reason. It’s fundamental technique, that’s really not gatekeeping. And some recipes do it but don’t tell you that’s what you’re making.

Mac and Cheese is basically a sort of béchamel, even the out of a box kind and I wouldn’t call that gatekeeping.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#209
post #12
post #7

From the privacy policy: > We may collect the following information from you in order to provide our Services: > .... > Your child’s first name; > Your child’s age or birthday; Why?

My co-founder handled the privacy policy so I've pinged him to provide a response. We'll get back to you as soon as possible! EDIT : lynndotpy was right; it's required by law under COPPA if we have users under 13. It's the same reason that sites ask people for their age/birthday to check if they're under 13. We want kids to be able to learn to cook too!

Still don't understand the "Your child" part. Does COPPA require the parent to sign up on behalf of their kid or something?

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#210
post #105

Please, please, please, avoid status cuisines . It's going to be hard to do, because they make good PR. But you will be helping your users a lot more of you hold them off with a ten foot pole. What do I mean by a status cuisine ? They are meals that are intended to show that the cook is a worthy person, rather than that the meal is practical, healthy, and good to eat. Here are some examples: The endurance cuisine: de…

> The endurance cuisine: designed to show that the cook has time to spare, the endurance cuisine requires that no ingredient is pre-processed in any way. Grind your own grain, bake your own breadcrumbs, chop your own veg. Using grapes? You should have peeled them! This makes no sense to me at all. Where does it stop? "You didn't use pre-peeled carrots, you're doing this for status " "You actually made shortcrust inst…

I think the point is to champion not feeling pressured to do everything from scratch and make things overly difficult. It can be really fun to cook things from scratch, but on thanksgiving with six dishes on the go at once I'm defo using some pepperidge farm stuffing and there's nothing wrong with that.
Post reply on HN