I find it scary that I remember this came up 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27632835
I thought this seemed familiar, and generated a decent amount of discussion last time, too.
Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
481–490 of 747 posts
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not really surprised. There's a youtube channel called Chef Jean Pierre. He is a retired Chef that used to run a restaurant since the 1970s, has cookbooks, was featured on PBS, etc. (Some say he has a more colorful past with his cooking school/restaurant business in Florida, but I don't know much). Either way. He's got the consistently longest cooking videos on youtube. He explains that long videos don't do well.…
Video editing is a thing. Something that takes 30 minutes to cook can (and should!) be cut down to 10 minutes of video. You cut five onions, you film how you cut one and edit out the rest. If you stir for 10 minutes watching for certain signs to note when it's done - put in a 30 second show&tell for when it's close to done but not yet; and a 30 second show&tell for when it is ready; and edit out the other 9 minutes.
Video editing? Shhhh! Don't give away all the secrets.. I'm waiting for their geology channel.
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#483I personally know a baker who publishes recipes that will fail along with a picture of what the end result should be. This is an attempt at self-promotion: you fail; but I am marvelous and can make these wonderful things.
This should be a capital crime.
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#484My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…
Ok so if they don’t try their own recipes, then how did they make the pictures that accompany the recipes?
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not really surprised. There's a youtube channel called Chef Jean Pierre. He is a retired Chef that used to run a restaurant since the 1970s, has cookbooks, was featured on PBS, etc. (Some say he has a more colorful past with his cooking school/restaurant business in Florida, but I don't know much). Either way. He's got the consistently longest cooking videos on youtube. He explains that long videos don't do well.…
> Audiences want fast. Audiences don't want long segments of monotonic action with predictable outcome. No need to show how to slice a kilo of onions. It doesn't sound like the chef videos you mentioned suffer from this, but your "want fast" generalization is off the mark.
He doesn't waste time mincing onions, at most he'll showcase how to do one with proper technique. He has entire videos dedicated on how to chop vegetables and prepare meat. His videos take a long time because he doesn't bullshit the cooking process. You watch him stir until he's at the right consistency to add other ingredients, you watch him go through the entire process for literal 30 minute meals because that's what he promises you. If you have your ingredients ready, this will take 30 minutes. And 30 minutes is what you get.
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#486My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…
Ok so if they don’t try their own recipes, then how did they make the pictures that accompany the recipes?
If it’s a fairly common dish, stock photos.
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly this. You simply aren't going to speed up the chemical reactions that happen during cooking. Even if you do find a way, your result will often be different or the result of using ready-made ingredients at the store. (I can buy frozen caramelized onions, for example).
I think cooking times assume the ingredients are already at room temperature. If you cook chicken taken straight from the fridge it'll take longer and cook more unevenly than room temperature chicken.
it also depends on the cut and what you cook too. If you only stir-fry chickens that has been diced small with high heat, (I think?) you can achieve it 3-4 minutes, however that requires extreme precision and I think also require good utensils with precise heating. Cooking it longer, ex 7-8 minutes with lower heat usually bring better result and far easier.
Deep-fry or boiling? I'm unsure. Steaming one? Surely you can't
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#488Lol, we're so pampered today.
Watch Tasting History with Max Miller (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCsaGKqPZnGp_7N80hcHySGQ). Every old recipe used to leave out salt, not explain any technique, times, temps, types of ingredients, and barely had proportions. People who cooked recipes were usually professionals who just knew how to cook things. It was around the end of the 19th century that cookbooks for home cooks came out, and they too didn't explain much.
If you are really interested in cooking, either take a class, or buy a book that teaches you how to cook. La Technique and Mastering the Art of French Cooking are excellent instruction manuals. If you learn better from video, Jacques Pepín did a 3 hour video of cooking mostly everything in La Technique.
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#489My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…
Recipe writers are the original large language models, making up superfically plausible bullshit to waste our time on.
Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether or not GP is actually a PhD, that was a joke about lack of units. (20 what ago, a 2 on what scale, a PhD in what)
Strictly speaking a PhD isn't a PhD "in" something. It is simply a PhD (a doctorate in philosophy). Obviously philosophy isn't that informative a term, so people try to be helpful by adding what field or topic their actual research was about. Some vocational/applied higher degrees in specific fields do have specific initials to differentiate them from a "generic" PhD (for example, the EngD). Apologies for ++pedantry…
Sure. But it was the commenter writing the misunderstood joke that said 'PhD in' (just omitted the next word), I was just explaining that.
> people try to be helpful by adding what field or topic their actual research was about
Right, and a common way to do that is to say 'PhD in blah', or 'on bazzing foobars for blah' as though 'PhD' referred specifically to their thesis.