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Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

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Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#351

Post by mattkrause »

dsr_ wrote: post #220
EddySchauHai wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay I concede this is Western, yes. But they're used all over, even if they get slightly adapted over time to the local area. I was learning Creole cooking the other month making a gumbo and it starts very similar to the espagnole mother sauce (a dark roux) with a modified sofrito (red peppers instead of carrots). And also, if you look at the best cooking schools in the US such as Auguste Escoffier they also start w…

They are core essentials for the Western cooking tradition codified by Escoffier. The Indic tradition is different (and North India is quite different from South). There are at least four major groups of African traditions. I am being profoundly ignorant by referring to the Asian tradition - Northern Chinese is wheat-centered and Southern is rice-centered, and Thai flavors are quire different from Viet not to mention…

Not those mother sauces, and not by that particular name, but Indian cuisines do have the same "variations on a theme" structure.

A lot of North Indian dishes start with a base of tomato, onions, ginger, and garlic, to which various things are subsequently added. I think you could call that a "mother sauce", and people occasionally do: https://food52.com/blog/19216-does-indian-cuisine-have-mothe...

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#352

Post by econner »

mizzao wrote: post #150
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!

On iOS

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#353

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

IanCal wrote: post #314
mizzao wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 liv…

> 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 I typed "botan shrimp nigiri" into Google and got detailed videos showing me how to prepare, fillet, cook the shrimp. Most full recipe videos explain side bits…

Amplifying your comment, this seems like a huge disconnect that they are assuming a beginner home cook is going to do everything from scratch.

> how would you learn about sushi rice, how to buy live shrimp, how to fillet the shrimp, preparing wasabi

Buy pre-filleted frozen shrimp and ready made wasabi and tips on taking regular rice to a sushi rice quality. The goal for a beginner should be the easiest path to success and with cooking that is a meal that was safely prepared. Then build on that later - like if they like spicy these are some things to try.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#354

Post by ddoolin »

whateveracct wrote: post #230
ddoolin wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost poetic, thank you. As someone who has a very weird and perhaps phobic relationship with cooking, you made it seem more approachable with a few words.

Thank you for the kind words, and I hope you do approach it! My wife and I recently started cooking together all the time and it's become one of our favorite hobbies. Spending a couple hours building a meal as a team after work is great fun. If you want a recommendation, I highly recommend Laura Vitale's YouTube channel. She helped us get brave enough to do it. I use her recipes all the time (take your pick - it'll b…

Thanks! I did check out her channel and a few videos and this is pretty good and right at my level (i.e. where she assumes the viewer knows things, I know them). I think I'll try one tonight :D

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#355

Post by asoneth »

EddySchauHai wrote: post #187
asoneth wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do I not know how to make a bechamel, this is the first time I've heard this word or the expression "mother sauces". (Maybe because I'm only a quarter Italian?) If we're going to gatekeep cooking behind a lot of prior knowledge perhaps it would be even more efficient to reduce the lasagna recipe to a single sentence: "Make a lasagna."

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…

I think we may be coming at this from different perspectives.

You clearly know a lot about food and seem to enjoy it, which is fantastic!

I do not cook professionally so the idea of me spending literal weeks in a cooking school or reading cooking textbooks sounds fun but also incomprehensibly decadent. My partner and I spend about three hours per week on meal planning and prep for our family, and we typically end up cleaning the kitchen concurrently with cooking. Because of this we end up cutting a lot of corners and incorporating meal kits and frozen food into our weekly rotation.

If I could improve the nutrition and/or taste of my meals by spending an additional ~15 minutes a week I would consider it, so Parsnip seems like it might be relevant to me.

But I assume that anyone who talks about "taking a class" or "reading a book" or "learning to make all the master sauces" is coming at food from a wildly different perspective that is probably wonderful for them but not particularly relevant to my life where I get home and have about twenty minutes (less if there's traffic) to figure out how to turn the ingredients from the fridge into something my kids will eat.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#356

Post by Mikeb85 »

mizzao wrote: post #298
SteveDR wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 desperate…

I think it would be a miracle if any product could teach you how to cook and get you food in 5 minutes. I'm not sure it's possible. But, I think we can get you there after a few weeks of using Parsnip on a regular basis, with some basic dishes.

There's plenty of techniques you can learn in 5 minutes. The key is to show something in 5 minutes. Whether it's just an egg, or just assembling a salad, making something in a blender, anything.

On TikTok you can see a whole recipe in 1 minute. Sure making it takes a tad longer, but it's definitely possible to learn something in 5 minutes or less. Then build on that.

I like the idea, it's good, but no one's going to wade through random trivia that doesn't matter.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#357

Post by drc500free »

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…

It kind of feels like one of those corporate cybersecurity online training classes. "Should a password contain English words?" "How often should you reset your password?" "Does phishing come from a weird email, or should you ignore that because they're spoofing the email anyway?"

Crap, what year was this training written in? The correct answers keep changing, and it will talk to me like an idiot if I guess wrong.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#358

Post by mhuffman »

mizzao wrote: post #298
SteveDR wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 desperate…

I think it would be a miracle if any product could teach you how to cook and get you food in 5 minutes. I'm not sure it's possible. But, I think we can get you there after a few weeks of using Parsnip on a regular basis, with some basic dishes.

>I think it would be a miracle if any product could teach you how to cook and get you food in 5 minutes.

I mean, TikTok and Youtube do this with simple recipes by the thousands.

Good luck with this idea, but I think it might be targeted at a very precise type of user that is interested in food facts and maybe one day learning how to make simple dishes.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#359

Post by munk-a »

mizzao wrote: post #291
munk-a wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endurance cuisine spreading via social media is quite silly but I did want to provide a brief counter example. My SO and I are lactose intolerant so we make occasional big batches of cheese at home - given that we're doing this if we're making lasagna or calzones we'll often set aside a portion of the cheese to tune it to the right moist/dryness level and that makes a big difference in the final product. Knowing how…

Awesome comparison to learning programming. Parsnip 5 years from now may have a recipes with a slider you can drag with "completely from scratch" on one end and "as fast as possible" on the other, which helps even beginners manage the trade-off between time and simplicity the same way that a much more experienced cook can do in their head. This kind of magic is how we think we can help make cooking the easiest way to…

As a fan of programming and Star Trek analogies are sort of a required art form. And I really think it's true about cooking that a lot of cooking is insanely easy - but you need to overcome your fear of the unknown. The first time I cooked prawns I was deathly afraid I would poison people, but now that I know what I'm doing it's pretty trivial (even if I don't exercise that skill often).

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#360

Post by aerostable_slug »

pessimizer wrote: post #183
asdajksah2123 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are far more resources available for those who don't know how to cook and are just looking for a bunch of shortcuts than for those who want recipes where they may be willing to spend a little more time for a better product. Almost all the afternoon Food Network cooking shows are about shortcuts and easy ways out (Ina Garten, maybe, used to be the exception but even she's now only focusing on her simpler meals o…

I energetically disagree about the Food Network, which seems like a lot of long cooking times using a lot of fresh ingredients making insta-ready meals. It's food porn, and 99% of the people watching it never attempt it. The marketing might be about "shortcuts" and "simple ways," but that's to attract viewers who hold on to the hope of seeing a recipe they might actually try. I'm suggesting (as Parsnip seems to agree…

Note that Food Network recipes on their website may not be quite like what you illustrate. In my experience, they have lots of squared-away recipes that don't take long and are reliable crowd-pleasers. Even the crazed flavortown troll, Guy Fieri, has some really solid recipes on the Food Network website. It might have sucked in his restaurant on Times Square but I've made a bunch of his recipes and they've been exactly what was wanted/needed. Some of that may be because a bunch of his recipes are from third parties, but honestly I don't care: dude's 'channel' delivers.

And, if you want prepackaged sliced carrots for whatever reason, just search for Rachel Ray recipes.

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