Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better.
Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.
Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.
I always fail to remember this when getting frustrated at programmers who don't seem to improve
For example, if you're trying to get better at playing drums, playing the same beat poorly for an hour probably won't do much. A technique like starting to play at a slow tempo and gradually speeding up, cleaning up the mistakes as you go, is a technique that can help you practice more effectively.
The same is true for programming. Implementing a simple TODO app, while a good intro problem to solve for beginners, is probably not going to make most programmers better or more knowledgable at programming.
I don't know if framing it as "natural" is super helpful. I think you're right that some people stumble onto the right feedback loops for some activities. But that doesn't mean that the feedback is unattainable for others. You may have to hunt around, but it's still there. And once you find it, you can make progress on the skill.
My experience is that the most important tool that affects your success at building some skill is being mindful of your narrative around it and how it relates to your identity.
Humans naturally pick and fixate on identities. Once we feel an attribute is true about ourselves, we tend to choose behavior that reinforce that attribute even if it's an identity we don't like. If you define yourself as someone who is incompetent forever at cooking, then you will naturally overlook or avoid actions and input that doesn't confirm that.
You won't cook as often. When you do cook, you won't pay as much attention to the process or results. You won't remember the details of what you did last time (since it was such an unpleasant experience that you shut out the entire memory) and how it differs this time. Without that stuff, there's no way to actually get better.
But if you define yourself as, say, "someone who is not naturally gifted at cooking but wants to learn and is perserverant", you may find it to be a more attainable goal.
Copy an established method from someone else.
Try something random until you run out of ways to mess up.
The latter is extremely time consuming but if you get through the initial hurdles you will have a complete understanding why the "established method" works in the first place.
IMO, cooking is best learned one or two dishes at a time. After some experience, you'll start to get a broader picture of the art. Think of it like trying to learn "music" from scratch by picking up a different instrument each night - it could work eventually, but you're probably make better progress with a little focus.
To develop the intuition for flavour and quantities you have to be willing to ruin your food. Add too much salt and you'll find out pretty quick. You'll also learn pretty quickly that the "right" amount is somewhere between too little and too much.
And of course, it takes a long time to taste something and realize exactly what it misses or what causes it to taste good, but as long as you are able to test out different recipes you'll eventually end up with quite a few dishes that taste great.
@silvestrov: just try easy recipes and buy good and fresh ingredients, and continue with harder recipes once you get the hang of it.
Smell the spices before you try them out, use small amounts then taste the food while it's cooking. This works for almost anything that isn't baked. Google to find out what spices intensify through cooking (Fenugreek, Cayenne Pepper, etc.)
Also check out The Food Lab's book for information on what different things do, so you can construct a mental model of it.
I've burned soup. I believe you, it can be super hard. There is a feedback loop, you're maybe not seeing it yet. Look at all the things, try lower temperatures, let things take longer.
Experimenting is a later skill. Follow the recipe as well as you can, and observe the outcome. I want to say you'll know where the errors are, but that's not realistic. Maybe your oven is poorly calibrated. Maybe it's too hot for too long. or not hot enough.
The main point is, this is a place you can try and fail, and try again tomorrow. If you don't like the product, figure out why it's bad and fix it. Lots of room to try stuff out, and even if you're vaguely close, you get food. For me, eating changes my mental state. even if the food isn't good, it has this weird effect of ending hunger.
You do you. If cooking is too hard, don't do it. But kinda the point is; try, fail try, fail, try ok, try good. You can figure it out. 7 billion other people did, you can too.
Do it ~3 times as the recipe states. sometimes I even do it 3 days in a row.
After that, write it up based on what you learned that you fixed between each attempt. After that, try making some changes. Note - if you're baking don't experiment too much especially as a beginner, but if you're making cinammon rolls you can experiment with the filling much more than the dough, or you can find dozens of different kinds of dough recipes for cinnamon buns.
There is a lot to learn when cooking, but there are a ton of resources online (youtube and otherwise). You need to actively be trying to get better to get better at most things, I've found, unless you're doing it for 8 hours a day at which point you kind of have to become better just by time spent.
The feedback is straightforward: If your food sticks, you've messed up. It teaches you loads about the right amount of heat and patience.
Frankly I never thought about it before since I self learned cooking quite easily. Maybe it's my French genetics? ;)
I thought cooking was easy, pastry on another hand requires much more dedication and precision, I would say it's the last 20% of cooking.