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Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

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Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#281

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

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…

The actual answer also depends on how fast you intend to consume your cheese.

If you are not a big cheese eater, like me, the correct answer is cut of the amount you intend to eat, wrap the rest well in cling wrap and put the rest in the freezer.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#282

Post by muzani »

Ntrails wrote: post #178
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…

> 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'd draw a clear line at any recipe that takes over 3 hours. But there's a blurrier line before that.

I like that the app tells you it's okay to use boullion and even proposes paste as an alternative. And it tells you when not to use canned tomatoes. So it's not violating this principle.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#283

Post by yw3410 »

TheDarkestSoul wrote: post #279
drc500free wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The matter of opinion thing got me too. I felt like I had to guess what the writer's intention was with many of the questions instead of just answering them factually. I was clicking through the pasta quiz on "Spaghetti and Meatballs" and one of the questions is something like "True or false: Any pasta dish can be made with any kind of pasta." ...What? What does that mean? I mean, I guess it's called "Spaghetti and m…

Is lasagna not a pasta dish? Or cannelloni? Surely it ceases to be those dishes when you use, say, orzo...

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#284

Post by elcamino44 »

sumnuyungi wrote: post #276
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…

This is such an HN comment: pedantic, emotional, arrogant, completely out of touch with reality. > 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. And you're wrong about food safety, which is really not good. You go by smell, sliminess, color. The printed date is a nice guide but NO…

> It seems like if you think cheese storage is arbitrary, you do not cook for yourself on a regular basis enough to think about ingredient storage/preparation.

Eh, I love cooking and do some pretty complex stuff (including with cheese) and I think cheese storage is pretty arbitrary tbh. I would have had no clue what to answer in the example quiz question.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#285

Post by _carbyau_ »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #270
mizzao wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even Nat's what I reckon, (may not be SFW language): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEFW1E8QzP-hKxjO2Rj68wg

was a bit of fun and seemed to be "common man".

Except he clearly has some cooking skills, especially with a knife. Not sure he could julienne a walrus (NFI what Julienne is..) but he isn't a pleb in the kitchen.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#286

Post by dymk »

Ekaros wrote: post #169
ac29 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The picture of quizzes on their blog post was odd too. The idea of washing ground beef to make a hamburger is very weird. Sounds like the result of an algorithm that decided that washing {ingredient} was always the first step in any recipe.

Washing ground meat? Just no.. There are few cases when it might make sense like when the skin has impurities like feathers or hair, but generally it is not recommended. I would throw instructions right out if they even suggest something going against modern basic foot safety.

It’s why it’s important to wear close toed shoes in the kitchen

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#287

Post by drc500free »

sumnuyungi wrote: post #276
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…

This is such an HN comment: pedantic, emotional, arrogant, completely out of touch with reality. > 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. And you're wrong about food safety, which is really not good. You go by smell, sliminess, color. The printed date is a nice guide but NO…

Yeah, for HN comments you really need to channel "best player at the 9th grade chess club."

Reddit is more "college freshman back home for Thanksgiving."

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#288

Post by smegsicle »

klipt wrote: post #252
rfrey wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because they're the very basic sauces that "give birth" to all the others. It's not because it's a sauce your mother used to make.

"Ancestor sauce" works fine for that and is less pointlessly gendered.

wouldn't that make it pointlessly ungendered? do you feel that gender is inherently bad?

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#289

Post by SteveDR »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #191
mizzao wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal we're building toward is that you can pick any recipe on the Internet and learn it in this way. But first we have to start with a small group (beginners) and make sure it's actually fun and interesting for them. I explain how this works at https://parsnip.substack.com/p/a-new-hope The unintuitive observation for beginners is that their pain doesn't seem to be cooking the food and making the recipe. It's "I d…

Just curious if you've ever actually taught someone to cook before? Like, I can definitely see a market for something that teaches skills versus recipes. I've thought about doing it myself. But if someone wants to learn to cook an egg, it's because there's an egg in their fridge and they're hungry. So start with actually cooking that thing. Like, getting a suitable frying pan, setting the right temperature, throwing…

> But if someone wants to learn to cook an egg, it's because there's an egg in their fridge and they're hungry. So start with actually cooking that thing. Like, getting a suitable frying pan, setting the right temperature, throwing some butter in and then cracking and flipping the egg, learning to recognise when it's cooked to the desired doneness. No one cares about how to buy eggs...

This is exactly it. I desperately need to learn to cook and I came across this post while hungry. I was so excited. But after 5 minutes of giving this app my full undivided attention I was just learning about how to store potatoes and I’m still hungry. And I was meeting friends in an hour. So I closed the app and made my 4th Peanut-Butter-Nutella Sandwich this week.

But the idea of a skill-tree for cooking sounds amazing. To start with simply scrambling an egg, then learning how to make an omelette, and then getting a bunch of toppings recommendations and whatnot— I would LOVE if this product existed and definitely pay for it, because I know cooking more could save me $400/month.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#290

Post by mizzao »

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…

OP here. A couple of thoughts...

We created this app to focus on teaching beginners, so the content assumes no prior knowledge (for now). It's clearly eliciting strong reactions from experienced cooks, who have many opinions about how to do things.

But put yourself in their shoes: if you wanted to learn how to make a Botan shrimp nigiri (perhaps that's new to you), how would you learn about sushi rice, how to buy live shrimp, how to fillet the shrimp, preparing wasabi, etc? We hope this model can apply.

> they might deign to tell you how to actually cook a hamburger.

The dirty secret is that by the time you get to the end of the quizzes, you'll already know how to cook the hamburger. The recipe is ridiculously elementary.

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