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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

one of the truly frustrating things about renaissance and medieval recipes is that they are shorthand notes, not detailed instructions. Think inferring documentation from commit messages, basically.

i found a 15th century recipe for a particular kind of soup that started “make soup as normal;in addition add ...”

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You don't have to go back to the middle ages for that. I have a recipe book with recipes from my grandmother and her contemporaries which are often just lists of ingredients. Knowledge of how to assemble them is assumed. Even some of the ingredients already aren't what you think. "Sour cream," for example, is naturally soured (spoiled) cream, not the stuff we now buy in the grocery store.

Just a little correction, naturally soured cream isn't spoiled but is fermented by lactic acid bacteria that occur naturally in raw milk. To sour pasteurized cream you don't let it spoil, but introduce the right kind of bacteria.

Yes, I know you are correct. I choose the word "spoiled" as a shorthand for the fermentation process. It is "spoiled" in the same sense that yoghurt and cheese are "spoiled" milk. Not entirely accurate, but perhaps more descriptive to those who don't know what it is.

In retrospect, I should have used "fermented" rather than "spoiled."

If you want to further understand the evolution of dairy - and the history of many other foods - I would highly recommend the book "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen". It's long but utterly fascinating for food nerds.

You will be surprised in how many modern recipes lack of critical details (My mom is chef and try to replicate many!).

Contrary to belief, is not about quantities. The procedure is more critical

> Contrary to belief, is not about quantities. The procedure is more critical

Indeed - in cooking, technique is supreme when it comes to to creating great food. So many new cooks get hung up on precise measurements but don't consider time and temperature and don't ask themselves why they're doing certain things at certain times. With time you begin to acquire a bit of an intuition about how much of whatever it is you might use and you learn quickly that you can always add more, but you can't often take something away.

You should also be able to answer why each ingredient is being added - what is it trying to add, complement or remove if it wasn't added. And also remember that you can season and spice as you cook. You should always taste while you're cooking - it's a simple thought but so many people don't and once you find discipline in tasting while you cook, you hit a new level.

Now baking - yeah you better get your measuring cups and scales out!

E.g. intuitively grokking the Maillard reaction, fond, deglazing, etc.

In my experience with beginners - the number one error they make is not understanding their heat source and pans. For example, they'll put oil in a thin pan, turn on the burner and drop in a chicken breast right from the fridge and wonder why its not done in 6 minutes.

My advice to beginners cooking on stove tops: get a cast iron skillet - treat it with love and kindness. Let it warm up for a bit before you start cooking.

Good advice considering cast iron is super cheap to buy. You need heavy cookware that can hold heat and it's super important to get the pan hot first and as you said, let the meat sit out for 30m-1h before cooking it. Dry the meat as well and salt a good 45m before cooking to draw moisture out of the thin surface areas and then sear in a hot pan.

I usually use Falk copper cookware (but have some cast iron too when I want a ton of heat that stays hot) since it gets super hot but also has the added ability to change temperatures quickly. So when cooking, I have control and can start hot and take it off the burner to rapidly get the pan temperature down and then back up if I want to start creating a sauce from the fond, deglazing, etc.

But I wouldn't recommend someone spending $300-$500 per copper pan when they're getting started! Cast iron is a great place to start - and if taken care of, will last you forever.

My daily mix is a couple of cast iron skillets and all-clad stainless steel saucepans. The combination is perfect for me.

Just looked over the Falk line - absolutely beautiful. I've never considered copper cookware. What benefits do you get? How much time in maintenance do you spend? Do you have to clean and polish the copper bottoms of your pans weekly? I periodically pull out BKF and polish my all-clads - but it isn't necessary.

Yeah, the Falk stuff is pretty top notch. They actually produce the copper for other major brands too.

All-clad is great stuff. The copper stuff distributes heat a bit more evenly and also has more temperature control. It reacts a bit faster to changes in temperature and is more precise in holding a temperature and not creating hotspots. Very useful especially when making sauces or trying to keep precise temperature on something like a reduction that you don't want to boil.

In terms of maintenance I clean the insides with BKF (the most magical cleaner on Earth) which is a thin stainless steal lining and I don't really polish the outsides - just soap and water. I prefer the patina look and because Falk doesn't polish the outsides and uses a brushed finish it really looks nice after many, many uses IMO.

This is exceptionally true. Half of cooking is understanding that (with the exception of baking), most of what you're doing doesn't have to be terribly exact, but the technique is really the key of what's happening. Like any other skill, it just takes a bit of practice to catch on to what's going down, and some people catch on more quickly than others.

My great-grandmother's recipes include instructions like "use more coals than normal for oven."

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