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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

Is the problem explained in text anywhere? (TFA delegates to a video and afaict only discusses another video-suggested solution and a novel solution in text, I don't understand what we're solving.)

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> Is the problem explained in text anywhere

the problem is that you want to cut up an onion in such a way as to minimize variation in the size and shape of the cut-up pieces

usually, so that the pieces will cook evenly

meh, the food processor usually handles that for me pretty damn well

You're not wrong, but I think that the author's goal was not "how do I cut an onion evenly" but rather "how would someone do this if they had only a knife". He was solving a puzzle, not trying to suggest cooking technique.

yes, atomization is certainly one strategy, though often people enjoy onions that are not a slurry.

i think you are confusing a food processor and a blender. a food processor has other attachments/blades that do not result in a puree.

No, but they do beat the shit out of the onion. The bigger thing though is that they're a pain; you have to clean it out when you're done (also: have it handy on your counter to begin with), as opposed to just wiping down your knife, which you're already using for other things.

I don't do much with my food processor anymore besides grating cheese; even biscuit dough I'll do with a box grater at this point, just to avoid having to clean out the food processor.

I've had a food processor for maybe 20 years.. I use it at most twice a year specifically because it's a pain in the fucking ass to clean. Though thanksgiving is when I always bring it out, one bag of cranberries, one whole orange (quartered before throwing it in the food processor, peel and all), and sugar.. run it until you get a nice chunky relish.. deeeelish.

> The bigger thing though is that they're a pain; you have to clean it out when you're done (also: have it handy on your counter to begin with), as opposed to just wiping down your knife, which you're already using for other things.

I agree that cleaning the food processor is more of a pain than cleaning the knife. On the other hand, using it is far less of a pain than using the knife (especially in cases like this where you're trying to get even, small pieces). So you're really trading off one pain for another. It's not clear to me that either option is the obvious winner or loser here.

Depends on how much you are making really. If I want an entire bowl of thin cucumber slices I thank my food processor. But yeah, not worth the trouble for just one or two onions.

We clean our food processor in the dishwasher. :-/

If you have to clean things by hand, I'd take the awkward inside of a smooth plastic cylinder over a grater any day.

Don't know about your food processor but the ones I have seen are not just a plastic cylinder but also a funnel and circular blade attachment plus a couple of other bits that all tend to get pieces of food on them.

It's not impossible to clean and worth it when making larger amounts but definitely more of a hassle than a knife, even with a dish washer.

Yes, I agree it's more hassle than a knife. I don't agree that it's more hassle than a box grater.

It is.. at least my box grater which can be folded out flat making it very easy to clean the inside with a sponge and a tiny amount of elbow grease (much like the outside).

The box grater (in the biscuit dough case, just for the butter) fits into the top rack of my dishwasher along with the cups.

You are clearly not the target audience.

You would like to slice (half) an onion in a way that minimizes the variance in volume of the pieces. The problem is then simplified to slicing half an onion in a way that minimizes the variance in cross-sectional area of the pieces at the widest part of the onion.

The problem is "I have an onion that is spherical with even layers. How do I cut it into pieces with equal volume?"

It's more of a geometry thought experiment than a practical epicurean "problem".

> Is the problem explained in text anywhere?

Not very well. There are some snippets:

"to keep the pieces as similar as possible"

"The Jacobian r dr dθ gives a measure of how big the infinitely small pieces are relative to each other"

"The variance is a good measure of the uniformity of the pieces."

The problem is how to get roughly equal sized pieces from cutting an onion. If you cut towards the center the inner pieces are much smaller than the outer.

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