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Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

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Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#321

Post by IanCal »

blakesley wrote: post #319
IanCal wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> go watch a ton of YouTube videos and triangulate the best way to do it I don't understand this, you can watch one video of someone just cooking a thing you think sounds tasty.

No? I'm clearly the prime demographic for this app because your comment makes no sense to me. Most recipe videos skip the tedious (but important) bits, and many ALSO don't give notes about needed techniques. I often find that 1 recipe video results in me watching at least 5 other videos to clarify things that were left out, usually in pairs so I can compare/contrast the info provided. Because, again, I'm new to this…

Is this just about finding good sources? People like Adam Ragusea seem to me like they cover pretty much everything, and he just shows a sped up video for all the chopping/etc as he explains it.

Something like this https://youtu.be/p53xab3c3tg

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#322

Post by dmitriid »

gnicholas wrote: post #229
dmitriid wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> - most of them are required for most food Most foods, or most traditional French cuisine? I've never even heard the term, despite cooking pretty decent food for decades.

As the sibling comment said, most Western food will include some variation on the mother sauces.

"The five mother sauces include béchamel sauce, veloute sauce, brown or Espagnole sauce, Hollandaise sauce and tomato sauce." French ones are the same: "The five French mother sauces are: Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Hollandaise, and Tomato"

The techniques and ingredients you use for them are the basis for most sauces used in Western cuisine. You learn those five, you've learned all (or most of) western sauces.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#323

Post by Cr4shMyCar »

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…

I think it'd be a good move to avoid assuming too much about what equipment someone might have. A wok isn't too far out of what even an absolute beginner may have, maybe they got it with some other cookware or as a gift. As others have said here, the writing does come off as kinda condescending. Granted, I'm a somewhat experienced home cook and I haven't tried the app yet, but if I'm learning something, the last thing I want to do is have a tutorial app sound condescending, even if that's not the intention.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#324

Post by misja111 »

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…

> we believed that this statement was true enough for North American beginners looking to learn how to make scrambled eggs

So your target users are North Americans? That's a pity. When reading your linked websites I got hope that Europeans were also included, because you are saying 'A giant opportunity in making cooking easier for a billion people' and 'Because a billion home cooks is good for people and great for the planet'.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#325

Post by bearmode »

Initial comments:

- On a question that was supposed to load gifs as the answers, only one gif loaded. And it wasn't the correct one, so I had to pick blind.

- You should try some localisation, e.g. 'grilling' is 'barbecuing' in the UK. What you'd call a broiler, we'd call a grill. Could cause some confusion. There's a lot of localisation issues from what I've seen, it's very USA-centric.

- I answered a question about cheese storage, it told me I got it wrong and that modern refrigerators were the way to go. So I clicked the only answer that mentioned a fridge, and I got told it was wrong again.

- I don't understand how I'm supposed to be learning anything? It just feels like I'm doing a Buzzfeed quiz

- 'Burger sauce' is just ketchup and mayo, with any other mix-ins you want. There's a lot of variety in burger sauces. The app describes it as "creamy, tangy, onion-y and with little chunks of pickle". The next question says that the 'five main components of burger suace' are mustard, ketchup, pickle relish, onion powder, mayo. Only 2/5 are essential. You can argue for mustard.

- Q: 'Why make burger sauce' - A: 'It's convenient' - what? You're making a new sauce because you want the taste of all the sauces combined, you presumably wouldn't just be putting all of the ingredients on your burger individually as an alternative?

I think it'd be worth looking at actual culinary school curricula rather than making a short buzzfeed-style quiz for each individual ingredient in a dish, there's potential here but I don't think it's going to be a great learning tool in its current form

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#326

Post by bearmode »

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…

>Edit: "what sort of pan should you cook eggs in"... "no not a wok, people don't have those at home". Ouch. At best that's incredibly sheltered for a food writer, and at worst it's practically racist.

I didn't do the eggs one, but that's hilarious. Also from the UK, also own a wok, and also agree that scrambled eggs are best in a wok.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#327

Post by bearmode »

EddySchauHai wrote: post #236
dandelany wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not cooking 101, it's at least cooking 102 or 103. I know you didn't do it intentionally, but when newbies get into a new subject they are often turned off by comments like yours which boil down to "oh noo you can't do it that way, you simply must do insert term of art or else insert negative hyperbole " - it's precisely what's meant by "gatekeeping". If I told my girlfriend a million Italians were crying becaus…

I do like Salt Fat Acid Heat too :) But I really didn't think this thread would go this way, it was clear to me OP knew his way around a kitchen and was from Europe so knew enough about Italian cooking stereotypes to understand the intended humor. Fwiw, you learn mother sauces after six weeks of knife skills at Auguste Escoffier in the US so you could definitely be right about 102 :)

Honestly I don't know how using the phrase 'mother sauces' is gatekeeping, I think it's just really basic cooking. Might not know the term, but an app trying to teach you to cook should absolutely be teaching it to you. A big part of learning a new skill is learning the vocabulary to navigate that skill. It's weird to shy away from it.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#329

Post by agos »

EddySchauHai wrote: post #96
danpalmer wrote: post #89

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…

italians regularly use store bought béchamel for their (our) lasagna. Don't be gatekeepy!

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#330

Post by rustqt6 »

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…

While I agree that the original comment was very intense, I'm truly truly tired of patronizing apps. Please don't be any sweeter than you're in real life when nobody is watching you. Seriously, I am tired of fake sweetness in life anyway.
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