Comment by talkingtab | Hacker News Reader

Comment by talkingtab | Hacker News Reader

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People in the US are so trained by the food industry, that they do not know what good food is. Yogurt for example. Here is an experiment you can do at home if you want to disbelieve my statement.

Step #1 Make good yogurt and eat it.

1. Go buy a quart of milk, full fat. 2. Buy some yogurt culture. Bulgarian preferred. 3. Follow the directions. You need to keep the temp at around 110F, warm water bath, heating pad, hot water bottles, put it in a cooler, whatever.

This is one of the best foods there is.

Step 2. Go to your grocery store or stores and try to find some yogurt that is as good.

You can repeat these steps for other foods. Coffee - roast your own. Cheese. Just go to a gourmet cheese store. Get something that does not come in a plastic bag.

Or go to Europe and try real croissants. Everyone in Paris can get real croissants almost anywhere every day. And not to mention real bread - again the plastic bag.

We are so used to what is available here that we have come believe it is "food" when really it is just adulterated to have a long shelf life. Sorry, but really just try it.

Finding full fat, no sugar added yogurt is quite easy, and completely subjectively up to taste. You may make your own yogurt yes. But perhaps the flavor difference you are experiencing is due to the intensive labor you spent time to produce said yogurt.

- https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/product/painterland-sisters...

- https://www.hy-vee.com/aisles-online/p/2284457/Siggis-4-Milk...

- https://www.jewelosco.com/shop/search-results.html?q=yogurt&...

- https://www.marianos.com/p/dannon-gluten-free-whole-milk-non...

As for roasting beans, that is an immensely deep rabbit hole that will #1- not give you better results than specialty roasters and #2- cost you much more than specialty roasters. Not to mention you will have a tough time getting high quality beans unroasted.

Edit: also all of these grocery stores I listed I can guarantee have fresh bread made daily to buy. Not "white bread", but "real" "European" bread.

Intensive labor? It is one of the easiest things to do. Here is my process step by step:

1) 32oz of whole milk into a pot, set burner to 6, set a 7 min timer (whats optimal for my burners), walk away.

2) Come back, check temp with thermometer, should be between 180°-190°f. Shut off burner. Set 10 min timer. Go do something else.

3) Come back, put burner on low simmer, set 20 min timer, do something else.

4) Come back, shut off burner, crack lid of pot open, do something else for about a half hour.

5) Come back, check temp, should be around 110°f now. If not wait. If it is, add last scoop from last batch of yogurt to pot.

6) Pour into mason jar. Put in instapot. Put in 1 cup water into instapot. Hit yogurt button. Get yogurt in 12 hours.

This is like less than 5 mins of actual hands on work. Probably the easiest thing you can do in the kitchen beyond like making spaghetti. I started my initial batch with one of those premium yogurts so I stole their cultures.

Compare this to the work and planning involved with peeling aluminum lid from a plastic cup to eat exactly the amount of yoghurt that you want to eat at the time.

You are right, so much mental load running the instapot!

If somebody handed me 32 oz of yoghurt it would be too much mental load for me to decide what to do with it. I would probably end up putting in the fridge and forgetting about it for months.

As for the coffee roasting part, that is something that is near and dear to my heart.

I have been roasting my own coffee for decades. The part about a tough time getting green beans is just plain, factually wrong. SweetMarias.com among many others has an outstanding selection, low cost shipping and good prices. A better selection of beans than any specialty roaster.

My current setup is a gas one butane stove with propane adapter. $56. A 4" section of stove pipe (for wood stoves) $?, and an 8 cup crank flour sifter $20-$30. I've been using this variation (instead of a cheap heat gun) for the last year. You have to deal with the smoke, with either a stove vent or outside.

My testament to the quality of the coffee I make is that I have consistently roasted in the snow and cold. I would not consistently do that if the cost/benefit was not far in the benefit column.

My experience contradicts each of the points you made about roasting beans. Maybe not #1, depending on what you like and how much you want to spend, but even that one is arguable.

Oh no, I'm making yogurt to eat and the only reason it tastes good is that I did it myself! Drat the uncertainty principle!

In the Northeast corner of the US, there are tons and tons of bakeries. I was really bummed when I moved away and discovered most of the country just eats crappy bread.

Still, almost every grocery store I've been to (even the lower-cost ones in my region, like King Soopers) has a fresh bakery area. It's such a profitable product to sell, it really makes no sense not to add it if you have any space at all to spare. Even Target has one.

I'm cheap, so I go like 30 minutes before closing time and get the bread for like 80% off because it doesn't have the shelf-stabilization stuff, so it will go bad in a couple days.

I mean there are things you can reasonably do better than the grocery store but something things are unrealistic. Like "just go to a gourmet cheese store" is not something you can do in most of the country.

I live in one of the largest metro areas with quite a few Michelin star and recommended eateries, lovely food culture, and we love our dairy. I think there are two dedicated cheese mongers you can walk into in the entire area, neither are particularly accessible.

If you live in a metro city then your regular old kroger/vons/ralphs whatever will have cheese monger tier cheese cut from wheels and sold by the pound. Hard, soft, moldy, sheep, goat, all of that stuff is pretty widely proliferated in this country. Maybe not if you lived hyper rurally but in a city of at least 100,000 this should certainly be possible.

The suggestion was just to try good cheese so you know what it is. $35 a pound is a bit pricey for cheese. Another option is to make your own. It is a skill, not a recipe, but most mistakes are extremely edible and tasty.

The biggest obstacle is that you need a cheese cave to age the cheese. This can be a small dorm refrigerator with something like an inkbird temperature controller.

I do know one family that makes cheese and then just eat it without the aging. Store it in the refrigerator. They think it is much better than store bought.

I think dedicated cheese mongers are a lot more accessible than you are envisioning based on your experience. I live in Denver, which is a large city but by no means one of the largest in the country. We have no Michelin star restaurants that I know of, we don't have a dairy industry or anything like that. We still have multiple dedicated cheese stores in the area that one can get to. It's not that niche to enjoy good cheese.

Denver absolutely has michelin star restaurants right now. It's a food mecca.

edit: https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/colorado/denver_1261491/res...

I wouldn't call it niche I just don't think "gourmet cheese store" is accessible to the average American. You can buy plenty good cheese at the supermarket.

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