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Comment by ortusdux | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, fellow food youtuber Adam Ragusea swears by the importance of heterogeneity. Optimizing for uniformity might not be the best strategy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cWRCldqrxM

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I literally came in here just to make this comment. Like Ragusea, I prefer every bite to be slightly novel and different.

One of my favorite hacks for Ceasar Salad: Take a bag of packaged croutons, put it flat on the table, and crush it with the bottom of a pan. Repeatedly. Until you get a mix of various sized crouton chunks, gravel, and dust. Apply to salad.

I ate a Ceasar this way in some fancy restaurant and I've been making it that way ever since.

You brought your own croutons and pan to a fancy restaurant?? Bold.

If it was a fancy restaurant, he probably asked the waiter for pan-smashed croutons.

At normal restaurants, you can use the two-plate method to approximate the effect of pan-smashing croutons.

Gar son, jay nay pal a crooton pan? Smoosh?

Adam was solving a different problem statement. Kenji's point was to have one simple rule that anyone could remember and follow to make the best cuts without having to worry about precision. This rule gets you close enough to the homogeneity that is expected in most recipes (for things like onions) without having to fuss over particular cuts. Having watched Ragusea for a while, I'm betting he would be perfectly on board with that solution to that problem.

I remember reading about the consistency of cuts from classically trained chefs. I think Adam Ragusea has a lot of niche, quirky practices that don't align with actual profession. He's more of a culinary advocate in the same way that Bill Nye is a science advocate. They're not professional chefs or scientists.

Adam's never claimed to be a chef or want to do things like a chef would, he tends to focus on how someone at home could do it, where things like preparing 50 onions as quickly as possible don't matter as much, hence the difference in style. I think both practices have their place, adam just home as he's never been trained in food and so all his cooking is for the home

Well the logic presented in that video certainly cannot be argued against.

really isn't a right and wrong way to do it. Erring too far toward either extreme makes your food probably a bit boring versus poorly executed.

That being said, most of Ragusea's takes haven't aged all that well, some by his own admission.

it's definitely one of the more subtle tool to use when cooking, mixing heterogeneity and homogeneous!

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