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Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

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Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#261

Post by scrollaway »

themodelplumber wrote: post #258
drc500free wrote: post #253

Tried the cheeseburger recipe. Got the question: "The best indicator of freshness for ground beef is:" I chose "(B) Smell." Because, you know, that's the answer (though I'm not sure why I'm starting out with a food safety question). I got a snotty response that I wouldn't be able to smell things that are in a sealed package, and I should always go by the manufacturing date printed on the package. No. You're wrong. An…

There seems to be a bit of useful feedback in here, wrapped in quite a strangely emotional comment. Did you use the app for six hours straight and forget to hydrate or something? Or is there some other reason to make your message this intense, that I'm missing? Surely there's a way to get the same message across without so much hyperbole. It's just beef!

Im not reading hyperbole in the parent message.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#262

Post by junon »

mizzao wrote: post #63
Tepix wrote: post #58

I haven't seen an recipes. Do you only support US measurements (cup, pint, oz, quart. etc)? That would be a pity.

We actually think recipes are mostly unimportant, but teaching the underlying principles are what's important. Measurements are more important for pastries but less important for stovetop/oven cooking. The recipes we have right now are pretty easy for any English speaker to use. Our main content creator is from Australia, lives in Canada, and makes fun of the Imperial system all the time :)

American living in Germany. The thing you're not understanding is that "use roughly an ounce or so" will mean nothing to anyone in Europe. It's not about "recipes aren't important" but speaking the language of people who use your app. Locality is just as important.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#263

Post by djtango »

mizzao wrote: post #131
bkandel wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chop your own veg Is there a way to avoid this? I can get some chopped vegetables at the grocery store, but the vast majority of vegetables are only available whole.

Can you share more about why you'd want to avoid chopping your own vegetables?

From experience pre-chopped veg is usually less fresh and poorer quality

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#264

Post by drc500free »

themodelplumber wrote: post #258
drc500free wrote: post #253

Tried the cheeseburger recipe. Got the question: "The best indicator of freshness for ground beef is:" I chose "(B) Smell." Because, you know, that's the answer (though I'm not sure why I'm starting out with a food safety question). I got a snotty response that I wouldn't be able to smell things that are in a sealed package, and I should always go by the manufacturing date printed on the package. No. You're wrong. An…

There seems to be a bit of useful feedback in here, wrapped in quite a strangely emotional comment. Did you use the app for six hours straight and forget to hydrate or something? Or is there some other reason to make your message this intense, that I'm missing? Surely there's a way to get the same message across without so much hyperbole. It's just beef!

Heh, I may be having a strong reaction to the overly-patronizing app. I'm surprised myself at how unpleasant I found it to use.

Reading through this thread, others have also been rubbed the wrong way. The approach they're using is to tell you you're wrong over and over, but in a saccharine "that's okay squirt, you're doing your best!" kind of way.

Like, here's another question: "What is the best way to store hard cheese?

A) In a cool, dark place like your pantry B) In an airtight bag C) Wrapped in parchment paper and foil D) Exposed to the open air of your fridge"

If you answer (A) it's wrong, because nowadays fridges have more constant temperature than pantries. Okay, let's try (D) since it's the only answer that refers to a fridge... nope, that would dry it out. It's (C), which doesn't refer to a fridge at all.

It's question after question like this, with a snarky little spawn-of-Clippy giving you an "ACKKshoowly" about a badly worded question or something that's really a matter of opinion. And in the end, if you unlock enough silly quizzes, they might deign to tell you how to actually cook a hamburger.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#265

Post by potatolicious »

themodelplumber wrote: post #258
drc500free wrote: post #253

Tried the cheeseburger recipe. Got the question: "The best indicator of freshness for ground beef is:" I chose "(B) Smell." Because, you know, that's the answer (though I'm not sure why I'm starting out with a food safety question). I got a snotty response that I wouldn't be able to smell things that are in a sealed package, and I should always go by the manufacturing date printed on the package. No. You're wrong. An…

There seems to be a bit of useful feedback in here, wrapped in quite a strangely emotional comment. Did you use the app for six hours straight and forget to hydrate or something? Or is there some other reason to make your message this intense, that I'm missing? Surely there's a way to get the same message across without so much hyperbole. It's just beef!

I don't read hyperbole in GP's comment either. I also think that it's generally unreasonable to expect people to reframe criticism always in a dispassionate, clinical way. This is a tone expectation that seems widespread in our community that seems unreasonable. I'm all for civility, but there's something annoying about the expectation that all thoughts we express be sanded down so every edge is smooth.

More specifically, the beef complaint is legitimate. I have lost count of how many times I have bought things from the grocery store that went bad well before the best-before date. It isn't often, but it happens - and teaching home cooks food safety absolutely must include this! Dutifully trusting the best-before date with no sanity check for how the ingredient should feel/smell/taste is a recipe for food poisoning!

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#266

Post by potatolicious »

drc500free wrote: post #264
themodelplumber wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a bit of useful feedback in here, wrapped in quite a strangely emotional comment. Did you use the app for six hours straight and forget to hydrate or something? Or is there some other reason to make your message this intense, that I'm missing? Surely there's a way to get the same message across without so much hyperbole. It's just beef!

Heh, I may be having a strong reaction to the overly-patronizing app. I'm surprised myself at how unpleasant I found it to use. Reading through this thread, others have also been rubbed the wrong way. The approach they're using is to tell you you're wrong over and over, but in a saccharine "that's okay squirt, you're doing your best!" kind of way. Like, here's another question: "What is the best way to store hard che…

> If you answer (A) it's wrong, because nowadays fridges have more constant temperature. Okay, let's try (D) since it's the only answer that refers to a fridge... nope, that would dry it out. It's (C), which doesn't refer to a fridge at all.

Wow, that seems especially bad if the goal is to help get people into home cooking. I eat a lot of cheeses, and practically none of them are stored in parchment paper and foil!

I'm willing to believe that might be the optimal way to store cheese, but is it how basically anyone at home stores cheese?!

It seems counterproductive to insist to novice home cooks that to "properly" make a cheeseburger that they store their cheese in the same exacting standards as a cheesemonger? This seems like it will work against the goal of making home cooking less intimidating and more approachable.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#267

Post by themodelplumber »

potatolicious wrote: post #265
themodelplumber wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a bit of useful feedback in here, wrapped in quite a strangely emotional comment. Did you use the app for six hours straight and forget to hydrate or something? Or is there some other reason to make your message this intense, that I'm missing? Surely there's a way to get the same message across without so much hyperbole. It's just beef!

I don't read hyperbole in GP's comment either. I also think that it's generally unreasonable to expect people to reframe criticism always in a dispassionate, clinical way. This is a tone expectation that seems widespread in our community that seems unreasonable. I'm all for civility, but there's something annoying about the expectation that all thoughts we express be sanded down so every edge is smooth. More specific…

> expect people to reframe criticism always in a dispassionate, clinical way

I don't see where I wrote this at all? If you're arguing for passion, great, but I guess I would at least try not to simultaneously make a counterpoint for the clinical-side benefits of some good ol' accuracy...

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#268

Post by scrollaway »

klipt wrote: post #240
arcticbull wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mother sauces" is not gatekeeping lol, its an industry term. It's no more gatekeeping than "data structure." I don't understand at all, honestly - I see a term I don't know, I grab the googs and figure it out. My first reaction isn't to accuse the person who knows something I don't of gatekeeping.

Quoted post unavailable.

I’ve flagged your comment because it’s essentially inviting a flame war, on top of being utterly irrelevant to the topic.

10 seconds on Wikipedia would have answered your question by the way. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_mother_sauces

The reason is that “sauce” is feminine in French. Une sauce. C’est tout.

You want to talk about pointlessly gendered, as a French native I agree that the French language, as most other Romance languages, Slavic languages and several Germanic ones, are all pointlessly gendered. I am envious of English natives that don’t have to deal with knowing that a chair is feminine but a stool is masculine, a bank is feminine but a shop is masculine. Or that a book is masculine in French but feminine in Russian, and it’s the other way around for the unknown gender of a domesticated animal!!!

Still I would invite you to learn more languages.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#269

Post by MisterBastahrd »

drc500free wrote: post #253

Tried the cheeseburger recipe. Got the question: "The best indicator of freshness for ground beef is:" I chose "(B) Smell." Because, you know, that's the answer (though I'm not sure why I'm starting out with a food safety question). I got a snotty response that I wouldn't be able to smell things that are in a sealed package, and I should always go by the manufacturing date printed on the package. No. You're wrong. An…

For example: I froze the ground meat after purchasing. It has been sitting in my freezer for 3 months. Meanwhile, I bought some fresh ground beef 2 weeks ago, but it's been sitting in my fridge and doesn't smell great.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#270

Post by MisterBastahrd »

mizzao wrote: post #130
ajb wrote: 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…

We agree with you 150%. Because of the algorithms driving social media, so much of food content is meant to be entertainment, not education, and far from accessible. Because of the focus on attention, cooking appears way harder than it has to be. Here are some of the principles driving what we're doing: Cooking fundamentals rather than recipes Education rather than entertainment ("food porn") Don't have the right too…

Yeah, what's the big thing that people feature? Beef.

Wagyu, wellington, organic grass fed, etc. Aside from knowing how to stew it and sear it, there's not really much to it, yet people will create video after video of $150 tomahawks and $200 wagyu ribeyes. And when they aren't cooking it out of the package, they're coating it with all sorts of weird shit that require special fermentation chambers to properly dry age.

Then there are the foods that look easy to prepare because the person in the video has 5 years of professional kitchen experience and can julienne a walrus faster than you can peel an apple.

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