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Comment by prpl | Hacker News Reader

Kenji is very good but also highly opinionated, often bordering on food snob. That’s fine, he’s often right but not always. I think that feeds into this problem: People following him will seek out “the best/perfect XYZ” which he looks for based on his own obsession at the time (smashed burgers, XLB, detroit pizza, etc…).

If you watch old episodes of Jacque and Julia you will see how they could easily and happily disagree on what makes something special, and there is nuance there. That nuance is lost in translation with cults of personality.

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That’s an interesting characterization, because I would have said precisely the opposite: I’ve seen that he consistently goes out of his way to denounce notions like “it’s not real X unless you make it with Y.” He’s pretty outspoken that it’s better to adapt recipes based on your own preferences, skills, and ingredient availability than to try to chase “authenticity.” It’s not uncommon to hear him say things like “it’s probably more traditional to include X in this recipe, but I don’t like that flavor, so I’m leaving it out.” I’m genuinely curious why you characterize him as a food snob.

I think the characterization comes from a legion of homecooks online going through a cooking journey and treating Kenji's whimsical opinion as a law, especially when written down for one recipe.

Kenji's videos show how creative and open minded he is with cooking, but I've also had plenty of online encounters with folks preaching the food lab gospel.

> treating Kenji's whimsical opinion as a law,

Whatever his stuff is, 'whimsical opinion' is pretty rare.

Eh if you've been following him for long enough you've seen him get onto kicks and off again. He did a vegan month for a while, but that's gone. Once upon a time he was convinced that using baking soda (something you'll see him use a lot more than most) was the way to perfect, fast caramelized onions. It took a while but Daniel Gritzker and others eventually convinced him he was wrong.

None of this is bad -- the food lab is the cook book most often open in my kitchen and I love his videos -- but develop your own taste and understand the palates of those you're cooking for, don't just assume that whatever Kenji does is right.

I don’t even assume that what I do is right.

I wasn’t suggesting assuming anyone is right, that would be silly,

But I think “whimsy” is just really off target. Most or his stuff (notwithstanding some retractions, we all learn as we go) is either pretty well researched and backed up or he’ll be very clear it’s just the way he is doing something, not canon. He has strong opinions about some things - especially cookery myths - but they tend to be backed up with a bunch of data, otherwise not so much,

I said whimsical because a lot of times Kenji's opinion will be like "I usually just whip this up looseygoosey but if we're trying to be as silly about it as possible, I suppose we could do this fourteen step process..." and then the mantra online becomes "Kenji's Iron Clad 14 Step Process for This Meal -- The Only Way Its Done".

That's why watching his videos is really important. If there's any recipes he ignores completely the most, it's his own.

That's different though "it's not real X unless you make it with Y" is about authenticity. I did not bring up authenticity in the criticism. You are right - Kenji rarely cares about authenticity or tradition. That's fine.

If you go through his old recipes though on SE, you'll see "The science of the best XYZ" or "Perfect XYZ" all over the place:

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-5118015

I stopped following him a few years ago on Instagram because it was tiring. It looks like he's changed a bit.

"The best X" is just good marketing. I've generally found him to be very up front with the criteria he's using to judge a particular food, and where there's a well-known broad range of tastes (like with chocolate chip cookies), he often includes information on how to get different results than he personally prefers. But the goal of those articles _is_ to find the best way to make (a particular style of) that dish, so the title is fair.

Sure, he could put "in my opinion" and "to me" all over the place, but that would just be useless clutter. Everyone knows that "best" when referring to an aesthetic experience is always a subjective matter.

Apparently this is news to you: nearly all writers do not get to choose their headlines, no matter the topic area. This goes from newspapers to books. If you're basing those views on the headlines vs the explicit content in his articles and videos, you've very much got the wrong end of the stick here. He goes out of his way to repeatedly emphasize "but you can do it how you like and that's ok" in everything he's done purely solo.

It’s true that writers often don’t get to choose their titles, but in this case I wouldn’t consider it snobby or ridiculous even if he had chosen those titles himself. There’s simply no reasonable interpretation of titles like “The best X” or “Perfect X” other than as clear subjective claims based on the author’s own preferences. These titles very clearly are not philosophical treatises about how there are actually objective moral truths about different ways of preparing food, and any interpretation along those lines is either extremely misinformed or (more likely) made in bad faith.

Years ago I had an exchange with him on twitter where he argued that some pre-made taco sauce kit (possibly from Frontera?) made a kind of taco (possibly al-pastor or something like that) that was superior and more authentic tasting than any corresponding kind of taco he could get at taquerias in NYC. It was an absolutely insane and inane twitter argument to engage in but also there was no way that it made any sense to take that stand. He just kind of dug in on things and had hot takes back in the day -- he's mellowed since those days but I will always remember that weird interaction.

Now that he's more into videos and his presence is about instruction and eduction through example as opposed to making a splash with authoritative longform pieces and deriving the perfect recipes and guides through Serious Eats he comes across as more welcoming to all approaches but there were times in the past when he pounded the foodie gavel.

Ironically, I stumbled across an example pretty quickly: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTnq7srJRs&t=7m34s

Might be a good idea to clarify what you mean by example in this comment. Had to click into the video to realize you meant basically an example of him NOT being a food snob.

I usually do recipes "by the book" a few times, and then do it the way I want.

For example: chinese braised pork belly. Generally you cook the pork belly in the sauce until the sauce itself reduces and coalesceses around the pork belly, giving it a reddish appearance. Then you serve it over rice.

Problem for me?

I'm cajun/creole. While I'm perfectly fine with eating plain white rice by itself in the asian tradition, it's just not how we do it back home. We smother things so that the sauce mixes with the rice. So I added more of the liquid ingredients and brown sugar. I added some korean red pepper to up the pepper flavor of the sauce. I addded some cinnamon sticks because I felt it complimented the other ingredients.

Side by side, my pork tastes a little better than theirs. It's got more flavor. It also has sauce to pour over the rice.

It's not authentic (and not as red), but it's also something that everyone who has ever tried it has enjoyed.

Then again... if I see someone put tomatoes in a gumbo or jambalaya... or sprinkle seasoning on top of seafood after they've been pulled out of the boiling pot... that is a friendship breaker lol.

I sincerely think you missed the last 3+ years of anything he did (I don't know how he used to communicate before) because if there is one thing I cannot say of him is that he's a food snob.

He is opinionated, but explains why he does things (often offering a scientific reasoning/experiment), especially if he's not following the traditional way, he seems to give context on what would be more traditional, and is quick in communicating "but you do you"...

You are right, I stopped caring around that time (~3 years ago). That said, the science explanations are occasionally wrong.

If you like science of cooking you might enjoy Cooking Issues/Dave Arnold quite a bit more. I generally prefer Dave's cut of the jib.

> the science explanations are occasionally wrong

what science isn't :)

I'll take a look at your recommendation, thanks

Dave Arnold is amazing and is probably a better HN food follow than Kenji (they're both great, but Arnold is distinctively HN-y, and also a truly idiosyncratic character.)

But Dave Arnold's slogan is "you're an enemy of quality", a title you can obtain by doing almost anything differently than he might, including not precisely measuring the displacement of ice and water before mixing a G&T. He calls things "garbage products" all the time. He is far, far more opinionated than Kenji is.

If Dave's opinionated demeanor isn't a problem for you, then opinionation (is that a word?) isn't really your problem with Kenji.

I highly, highly, highly recommend Arnold's book, Liquid Intelligence.

Dave is 95% theatrics (faux shock jockey?) and usually those are around technique (though sometimes a food is inseparable from technique) so maybe I am more forgiving in that scenario.

Cooking Issues is fundamentally a podcast about failures and attempts first and foremost, so it tends to skew a bit more towards scientific method I suppose.

Respectfully, I think you're wrong about this. Watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2ZsYUPkXQ8

Skip to around 13:30, at the marker "Hose discussion becomes rant" (I assume Nastassia wrote that). He's not kidding. (He's often kidding about "enemy of quality", but sometimes he isn't, and it's a far blunter thing to say than anything Kenji has said.)

I love him so much.

I like Dave Arnold’s “Liquid Intelligence”, but I cannot stand his podcast. Comically, I don’t really like Kenji / Serious Eat’s written content, but his YouTube channel is great.

Yeah I usually prefer Chef John. I feel like his recipes are creative and practical, and he's also just a hilarious super down to earth person. He comes up with methods that pretty much get you 95% of the way there at a fraction of the time and cost. His Chicken Tikka Masala recipe is the best I've had (homemade or at a restaurant) and among the simplest. He also has a famous method for Demi-glace

IMO, a lot of the material from Kenji, Babish for example tilt more on the food snobbery side that demand several hour long recipes[1] and vast number of expensive ingredients.

[1] Compare https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-chili-recipe with https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/244558/beef-bean-and-beer-...

Personally, I’m torn between Chef John and Adam Ragusa. Both produce attainable recipes, but Ragusa goes a bit further with pieces about the history and cultivation of food. An excellent example is found here: https://youtu.be/hQD9-FBs2qQ

Homogeneity! He kept saying that in every video and it was so offputting. I get it it's a cool fancy word but I don't don't like his style too much. Adam's tech knowledge is top game though - he researches everything so deeply and provides historical context.

I'm a big fan of Chef John as well. The value I find with Kenji is less the recipes themselves than the articles that come along with them. He explains how he arrived at each of those ingredients:

https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-make-the-best-chili-ever-...

What's useful here is that you can make less ambitious versions of the full recipe (using canned beans and/or cheaper meat, using ground spices rather than grinding your own, etc.) while still benefitting from some of the tricks he found (chocolate, vinegar, liquor, soy sauce/Marmite, etc.).

I also want to point out that not all of Kenji's Serious Eats recipes are "the best X ever". Some are simpler and quicker, like this chili recipe. This is much closer to Chef John's recipe in terms of complexity.

https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-pork-three-bean-chili-food-...

> If you watch old episodes of Jacque and Julia you will see how they could easily and happily disagree on what makes something special, and there is nuance there.

One distinct event that stuck out to me was when they were cooking kale. I think it was going into a quiche or something but that didn't matter. It was such a perfect dichotomy and juxtaposition, the French man was preparing it using the contemporary American method of sautéing it directly in a pan touting the benefits of nutrition retention while the American woman was for the traditional French method of boiling it and nutrition be damned for the sake of it being less bitter.'

I miss programs like that, now when there's more than one chef it's a full on ESPN level competition.

I think he has leaned into the "best/perfect" as an SEO trick, and his audience tends to treat him as gospel - but his recipes are amazingly flexible and there is not a lick of pretense. I still use his trick for how to fake a smoke ring when making sous-vide brisket.

He's also said that those were intended to be examples of all out recipes. The accompanying article will then describe what each component makes. At that point the reader/cook is expected to determine what subset of the often over engineered recipe fits their tastes/desired level of effort.

"The best" and "Perfect" sounds a heckuva lot better than "way over the top" :)

Snob? Have you watched the man make a pizza on a store-bought tortilla with pineapple? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v7nhyjCx5Q

I really get the opposite vibe. He's a huge fan of Jacque and tries to make his food accessible. He often mentions in his videos that "you can do it whatever way you want, this is the way I do it". He often makes almost junk food versions of popular dishes (potato chip tortillas).

I think he is opinionated, in that he knows what he likes so will do that and not waste time on anything else. But snob implies he'd judge you for not liking the same things, which I definitely disagree with. I do agree he has a bit of a cult following.

I get where you're coming from but don't think it's snobbery per se. There are things he prefers that I don't prefer. Over the years I've come to just understand that he & I have different tastes.

A great example would be his obsession with crispy potatoes in all things potatoes. Sure, sometimes I love a shatteringly crisp fry. Other times I want something mushy. Same with roasted potatoes. But I don't ever feel put down by him for wanting mushy potatoes.

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