[HN Gopher] In defence of garlic in a jar
___________________________________________________________________
In defence of garlic in a jar
Author : cjg
Score : 164 points
Date : 2022-07-01 08:22 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thewalrus.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (thewalrus.ca)
| mywittyname wrote:
| Elitism is cooking is why I rarely engage with people about it. I
| violate a lot of culinary "rules" because I just don't like it
| that way. It is kind of deflating to be publicly ridiculed as
| being ignorant or naive because you use iodize salt, you boil
| rice like people make spaghetti, you think cast iron sucks, you
| like drip brew coffee best, or you use flour slurries to thicken
| soups (I guess some people assume this only works with corn
| starch). Fuck'm
|
| I use the garlic paste that I find in the Indian sections of the
| grocery. It's not the best for dishes with raw garlic, like aioli
| because it's too spicy, but in cooked dishes, it tastes like
| garlic.
| mstipetic wrote:
| I just got into watching recipes from Marco Pierre White and he
| uses basic bouillon cubes for most of his seasoning.
| pteraspidomorph wrote:
| I hate garlic and remove it from every recipe, you should see
| how much hatred that has garnered me over the years.
| giardini wrote:
| Now _this_ is the perfect scenario for bringing a packet or
| two of garlic salt to the dinner party! Everybody 's happy!
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| The garlic paste in tubes?
|
| Works great.
|
| I have a stack of those from Aldi, they make other kinds too,
| Ginger and a few others.
|
| Do I buy and use fresh garlic too? Yes, sometimes, but, if I
| just want some minced garlic for some dish, it's perfectly
| fine.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I was thinking the Indian stuff in the big jars. Deep is the
| brand I usually get. https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Paste-
| Garlic-10oz
|
| The stuff in the refrigerated tubes is good too. They just
| run out a lot faster.
| Xcelerate wrote:
| > think cast iron sucks
|
| If you're elitist at cooking, you love cast iron. If you're
| really elitist about cooking, you realize that it actually does
| suck.
|
| (There are cookware-safe materials that will beat it on any
| aspect of heat transfer you're interested in).
| jandrese wrote:
| Are the alternatives as forgiving about cleaning it when you
| do manage to get something stuck to the surface? I've never
| found a nonstick surface that can't get a sauce burned onto
| it. The great thing about cast iron is that if you do have a
| tough cleaning job you don't have to worry about damaging the
| surface. At worst you may need to re-season it, but that
| would be very extreme.
|
| Some nonstick surfaces come with instructions telling you not
| to use metal turners or tongs, that kind of nonsense is just
| not worth it.
| bluGill wrote:
| My religion is Christian. I'm not allowed to make a god out
| of cookware, text editors, cars brands, or any of that
| others.
|
| Cast iron is cheap and works, so I use it. Maybe whatever
| else is better, but I'm busy making supper not building
| storage for another cupboard to store whatever the perfect
| pot of the day is.
| [deleted]
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| I use minced garlic all the time. It even comes in a squeeze
| bottle now which I find amazing. I use granulated garlic as well.
| There is nothing wrong with this. The results speak for
| themselves. People worry too damn much about what other people
| think.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I would just like to add: frozen peas and spinach are amazing.
| Doesn't spoil, can easily be added to pots or pans and often
| tastes better than the fresh alternative for a fraction of the
| price.
|
| Put them in a small bowl and microwave for a minute or two, add
| butter or olive oil and salt and pepper and you have a delicious,
| cheap and healthy hot side dish to any meal.
|
| I've also experimented with buying frozen soup vegetables as an
| easy shortcut when making broth. Carrots and onions usually come
| out with a poor texture after being frozen but they are discarded
| when cooking stock.
| andybak wrote:
| Frozen veg is usually healthier and fresher than "fresh". The
| _only_ reason to avoid it is because the texture changes. If
| you 're making a casserole or anything where "crunch" doesn't
| matter then there's no reason not to use frozen.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| frozen spinach is not even remotely similar to fresh spinach
| samatman wrote:
| Flash-frozen spinach is basically identical to wilted
| spinach once it's in the pan.
|
| It's obviously not a salad ingredient. No one was claiming
| it is.
| andybak wrote:
| It is when sufficiently cooked.
|
| But that aside, spinach was a weird example to choose to
| disagree on considering I used the word "crunch"
| subpixel wrote:
| I make pizza using a frozen Newman's cheese pie which I then top
| with prosciutto, shredded sharp white cheddar, pesto, thinly
| sliced onion, and sometimes pickled jalapenos. Then I cook it on
| a pizza steel at 420 degrees until it's just shy of burnt.
|
| It's amazing. I've made pizza professionally (long story) and I
| sometimes make my own dough and sauce etc and the result is great
| - but not _better_ than the above.
| Jedd wrote:
| > ... on a pizza steel at 420 degrees ...
|
| 95% of the world uses Celsius, and when I fire my pizza oven up
| it's in the 400-450 Celsius range, where I can approach proper
| Napoli style pizzas, using a 24-30 hour prep poolish dough
| base.
|
| Are you talking Celsius or the archaic Fahrenheit?
|
| If the former, then I'd love to know more about 'professional'
| pizzas not coming close to store-bought ready-made bases with
| some toppings.
| robonerd wrote:
| In America, most people just have "ovens", not "pizza ovens".
| And they generally can't go as high as 450C, unless maybe you
| put them in "self cleaning" mode (which stands a good chance
| of filling your kitchen with smoke if you haven't cleaned
| your oven recently.)
|
| But yes, ideally a pizza is cooked hot and fast.
| subpixel wrote:
| > proper Napoli style
|
| That is but one style of pizza, by no means the best, and
| certainly not what you make with a frozen grocery-store
| cheese puck at 420degF.
|
| My results resemble (but exceed!) bar pies:
| https://www.pmq.com/colony-grill/
| anthonypasq wrote:
| Neapolitan pizza is the worst type of pizza
| gigaflop wrote:
| An $8 frozen pizza for 1 person is sometimes better than
| ordering takeout. I usually have at least one in my freezer at
| all times.
|
| Personally, I go for the sausage and pepperoni, and add some
| extra garlic powder, tomato powder, cayenne, basil, and some
| honey before putting it on a preheated sheet.
| adammarples wrote:
| A game changer is a little silicon tube from amazon in which you
| can roll the garlic cloves and the skin peels right off. I can
| run through a bulb in less than a minute, and then you can mince
| the garlic and freeze it into ice cubes if needed for later.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Gently squeezing the clove under the blade of the knife on the
| cutting-board and it's easy to peel that way too. I find it
| works just fine, especially in combination with just chopping
| it afterwards (instead of using a garlic crusher).
| adammarples wrote:
| I don't like to crush the garlic because I tend to grate it
| mirekrusin wrote:
| The time taken to write the article must be orders of magnitude
| more than human being needs to spend on peeling and squeezing
| garlic in their lifetime.
| snarfy wrote:
| I have IBS. There is no food worse for me than garlic. It's
| delicious and I wish I could eat it. High in FODMAPs apparently.
| fifilura wrote:
| It is not that difficult to use and store fresh onions and
| garlic.
|
| I think none of them should go in a jar, I believe they emit some
| sulphuric fumes that makes them smell really bad when they are
| put in a closed jar. Have you ever tried putting half of an onion
| in the fridge?
|
| Corn has a similar problem, i don't like put that in the fridge
| as leftovers.
|
| Most other things are fine. Cilantro/coriander is ok to put in a
| jar, but the remaining taste is 1% of the fresh .
| floren wrote:
| > Have you ever tried putting half of an onion in the fridge?
|
| I wrap it in aluminum foil and never have a problem.
|
| Bonus: touching the foil neutralizes the smell of onion on my
| hands.
| cableshaft wrote:
| > Have you ever tried putting half of an onion in the fridge?
|
| I do it all the time. I just put it in a sealed glass
| container. Use it again in the next day or two. No big deal.
| Longer than that and the onion starts to soften, but can be
| still usable.
| lumberjack24 wrote:
| I'm 28 y.o and this is the first time I hear about garlic in a
| jar. U.S.A never ceases to amaze me.
| smm11 wrote:
| I eat as much like it's 1930 as possible, but have no issue with
| garlic in a jar, as right now it's a 'thing' and quite versatile.
| This, too, will pass though and I'll be back to real garlic soon
| enough.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| If you think jarred garlic isn't good, then don't use it.
|
| I had this conversation with my sister in-law a few months back.
| She prefers the fresh stuff -- and so do I.
|
| She said she would never do use jarred garlic and suggested
| various tools to mince/crush fresh garlic.
|
| I thanked her for her advice and (possibly) said "Good. More for
| me."
|
| I use jarred garlic (a lot!) and buy it in quart (~900ml)
| containers. I don't have the physical issues the author of TFA
| has, I just have better things to do (and better things to spend
| my money on -- fresh garlic is significantly more expensive) than
| minced (or chopped) garlic when I'm cooking.
|
| As for the ableist angle, I'm not convinced.
|
| Because it's not _really_ about not considering what others can
| /cannot do. Rather, it's about interacting with strangers online.
|
| For some reason, some (many?) people think it's normal and fine
| to rip into people they don't know online -- something most of
| those folks wouldn't dream of doing IRL.
|
| Don't like pre-minced garlic? Don't use it.
|
| We have (or at least we used to) have a word (actually, a bunch
| of them) for people who berate others for doing something they
| don't prefer: Jerk, asshole, busybody, obnoxious fuck, etc.,
| etc., etc.
|
| I understand why that upsets people -- it annoys the hell out of
| me too. And well it should.
|
| But as I said, I'm not buying that it's somehow "ableist," in
| that I'm sure that most folks don't know (or care, for that
| matter) that the author of TFA has a physical issue that limits
| what she can do.
|
| Rather, they just take their own preferences (and in some cases,
| they may actually be "better" for some values of that word) and
| generalize their use case and preferences as "the right way. the
| only way."
|
| Which is ridiculous on its face.
|
| This isn't _really_ about garlic. Or about ableism (which exists
| and can absolutely be an issue). It 's about rude, obnoxious
| jerks who take their trained-in prejudices for the laws of
| nature.
|
| Unfortunately, many folks don't feel comfortable calling others
| out for their asshattery and instead internalize the abuse (and
| that's what it is) they've been subjected to. And more's the
| pity.
|
| Edit: Improved my prose.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >I use jarred garlic (a lot!) and buy it in quart (~900ml)
| containers. I don't have the physical issues the author of TFA
| has,
|
| It's been so long I'm afraid to ask... But what does TFA mean?
|
| I thought it might mean the The Fucking Article... As in "Did
| you read TFA? You moron." But that seems out of place for
| someone who wrote their edit to be "Improved my prose."
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >It's been so long I'm afraid to ask... But what does TFA
| mean?
|
| >I thought it might mean the The Fucking Article... As in
| "Did you read TFA? You moron." But that seems out of place
| for someone who wrote their edit to be "Improved my prose."
|
| Just as RTFM == Read The [Fine|Fucking] Manual, the 'F' in
| TFA can mean either one.
|
| I suppose that the quality of the article might impact how
| you think about it, but _personally_ it 's 'The Fine Article'
| to me. That _can_ be ironic, but isn 't necessarily.
|
| As with most things, whatever works for you is just fine.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| The fine article?
| Xylakant wrote:
| The Fine Article.
| allenu wrote:
| I often wonder if it's also due to different communication
| styles. I remember in high school a friend and I would always
| chat about movies and tell each other what we thought after
| seeing one. My friend would always use language like "X movie
| sucked" or "Y movie was boring".
|
| For some reason whenever he would talk about his opinion of
| movies, it got me a little bit annoyed, because his statements
| always came across as objective truth. He didn't say, "I
| thought X movie sucked" or "I felt that movie Y was boring...
| for these reasons", he just said what he thought.
|
| My communication style was always, "I feel this..." or "I think
| this..." or "In my opinion, X was..." Whenever I get into
| arguments with people nowadays, I often notice it's because I
| want there to be the option for subjective opinion on things
| and some people don't like that. They want an objective truth
| that they can walk away with and say, "Well, after that
| conversation, we came to the conclusion that Z was awful."
|
| Since noticing my preferences for communications, I'm more okay
| with people trying to say something is an objective truth. To
| them, sure, there's one truth but I'm not going to waste my
| time arguing beyond a certain point. It's not my job to
| convince someone else two truths may exist simultaneously.
| tyleo wrote:
| I think it's merely a style as you mention in your first
| sentence. Some people who speak using the objective style are
| just being loose with language. They still realize what they
| are saying is subjective.
|
| I talk like this even when I'm being subjective. In fact, I
| largely talk like this because I used to talk and write more
| subjectively but I was dinged in an English class for not
| sounding convincing.
| toddmatthews wrote:
| my mom says, "don't yuck my yum"
| gwill wrote:
| my family applies this to much more than food. helps make me
| less judgmental.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| I'd go one step further: most of the people responding are
| probably not jerks or assholes, just people sharing their own
| opinions in a playfully exaggerated way which, when done in
| person and accompanied by grins or laughter rarely causes
| offense. "You like THAT movie?! That movie is the WORST! I've
| lost all respect for you!" They have no way of knowing that the
| author of the original tweet is expressing something that has
| real significance to them.
| haswell wrote:
| > _" You like THAT movie?! That movie is the WORST! I've lost
| all respect for you!"_
|
| I don't know, this is still pretty jerky behavior when you're
| on the receiving end of it, even if the person speaking is
| "joking". Even if the entire goal is to have fun, at whose
| expense? Why can't I just like a bad movie and not have to
| catch shit for it? I think there's some truth to what you're
| saying, but I think there's more to it.
|
| In 2022, it's not enough to have an opinion. You must have
| _THE_ opinion. You must be passionate about it. You must
| attack others who do not share it. Anything less makes you a
| Bad Person. This is modern online discourse. I hate it.
|
| I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but only a bit. There is
| something about online social interaction today that goes far
| beyond "the playfulness is lost to the medium". I'd argue
| that the playfulness in many cases no longer exists. And if
| it does, it's indistinguishable. Hidden among 10 other
| opinions that are also unnecessarily aggressive, and are not
| attempting to joke about it.
| moehm wrote:
| > Why can't I just like a bad movie and not have to catch
| shit for it?
|
| I don't know anything about movies, but I know a thing
| about wine, food and spirits.
|
| A thing most people don't understand is that liking a thing
| != the thing is actually good and vice versa. A good critic
| always says enjoy what you like, and their job is aiding
| your way to find it. Often there are objective-ish criteria
| to judge a thing (e.g. balance or complexity in a wine).
| But nobody knows what you personally enjoy. If you enjoy
| the taste of burned meat, a medium rare steak may not be
| what you _like_ , but you can't say it's not _good_.
|
| Same is probably true for movies as well. Just because a
| movie is _bad_ , you can still _like_ it. And you can
| _dislike_ a _good_ movie as well. Those two things are not
| the same.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I'd go one step further: most of the people responding are
| probably not jerks or assholes, just people sharing their own
| opinions in a playfully exaggerated way which, when done in
| person and accompanied by grins or laughter rarely causes
| offense. "You like THAT movie?! That movie is the WORST! I've
| lost all respect for you!" They have no way of knowing that
| the author of the original tweet is expressing something that
| has real significance to them.
|
| You may well be correct -- in fact, I'd say you certainly are
| for some folks.
|
| That said, given the ubiquity of Poe's Law[0], it's an iffy
| proposition to engage in irony/satire/sarcasm in text-only
| forums.
|
| That's a sad truth about online discourse. And it pains me.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
| mlyle wrote:
| Eh. I think what you're describing is step 1.
|
| Step 2 is people online hearing other people talking like it
| has real significance to them, perceiving it as a real
| important norm, and then persecuting others for it.
| hinkley wrote:
| My partner is impatiently waiting for me to pull up the garlic
| I planted, which is not ready yet. First hot spell turned some
| leaves brown but that doesn't mean it's ready.
|
| She does use jarred garlic for some dishes, we still go through
| a lot of store bought garlic, but she says it's rather bland
| compared to the stuff from the garden. I haven't done a side by
| side comparison but I don't have any reason to doubt her.
| Transport stable crops tend to be lacking in other characters
| so that probably is a lot of it. But most heirloom and landrace
| garlic has to survive at least 4 months and preferably 6 in
| storage to be viable as seed garlic, so it's not like peaches
| or mulberries where you have to eat, cook or can them by day 2
| or they're mush.
| mlyle wrote:
| > But as I said, I'm not buying that it's somehow "ableist," in
| that I'm sure that most folks don't know (or care, for that
| matter) that the author of TFA has a physical issue that limits
| what she can do.
|
| Well, you know, it's both.
|
| We should be tolerant and more welcoming of other peoples'
| choices that don't affect us.
|
| And sometimes we're being even worse-- being a _real asshole_
| because other people aren 't able to make the choices we're
| sneering at them for-- because of reasons of ability, or
| economics, or what's possible in the place they live, etc.
|
| When we are ready to form snap judgments of people for what
| appears to be their preference, we may actually be judging them
| for ability or economics or location or cultural background. We
| may be judging them for something they have little ability to
| control.
|
| > Don't like pre-minced garlic? Don't use it.
|
| There's a million things you can do to make food better. Yes,
| fresh ingredients are better, hand-prepared with no wait, etc.
|
| But unless you are spending all day and oodles of money making
| a Michelin-class meal, you're making some tradeoffs-- tradeoffs
| of cost, time, effort, learned skills. And you can still make a
| fantastic meal that's much better than what people typically
| eat with pre-minced garlic and shredded commodity cheese.
|
| But it's pretty easy for us to collectively turn judgey on
| small specific things.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >But it's pretty easy for us to collectively turn judgey on
| small specific things
|
| That was the entire point I was trying to make. That, and
| that doing so is douchebaggery.
|
| As to the ableist bit, it's not (as I _explicitly_ stated)
| that ableism isn 't a nasty thing -- it is -- but that those
| who engage in the activity discussed in TFA aren't
| _specifically_ being ableist, they 're just being douchebags
| and are insulting and nasty not because of ableism, but
| because they're assholes.
| mlyle wrote:
| I guess what I'm trying to clarify is: one may think
| they're just making a value judgment about someone's
| _choices_ , but they very easily can be actually also
| judging based on shortfalls in ability or income... or
| different backgrounds, location, culture, etc.
|
| I agree judging based on peoples' superficial choices isn't
| great. But I think judging people based on things _they can
| 't change_ or that are close to _intrinsic_ is even worse.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I agree judging based on peoples' superficial choices
| isn't great. But I think judging people based on things
| they can't change or that are close to intrinsic is even
| worse.
|
| An excellent point. And I agree.
|
| That said, I didn't distinguish between those types of
| "judgement," because they're both dick moves.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _I use jarred garlic (a lot!) and buy it in quart (~900ml)
| containers._
|
| I want to use it, because it seems like such a convenience, but
| every time I buy a jar it tastes...weird/bad. I think because
| it's always mixed with citric acid to keep from oxidizing
| aggressively? But then it doesn't taste like garlic anymore. Is
| that something you experience too? Is there a remedy? Does it
| vary by brand?
| klodolph wrote:
| Fresh garlic contains alliin (two Ls, two Is) and alliinase.
| Cutting or crushing garlic mixes the two, which starts a
| chemical reaction that turns them into allicin. Allicin has
| an incredibly powerful flavor--it's overwhelming, even.
| Jarred garlic has lots of allicin and there's not really
| anything you can do to prevent it. To prevent the chemical
| reaction, you prevent the alliin and alliinase from mixing,
| and to do that, you keep the garlic whole. I honestly don't
| think that choosing a different brand or different method of
| preparation is going to get you any advantages here, this is
| just how garlic works.
|
| This chemical reaction explains why every method of preparing
| garlic tastes different. If you use a sharp knife and cut
| garlic into thin slices, you'll get less allicin and once you
| cook the garlic, it will be more sweet. The sharp knife
| doesn't crush as much of the garlic's cell walls. If you
| crush garlic in a press, the chemical reaction happens at
| just about maximum speed, and you get a very pungent garlic
| flavor.
|
| This chemical reaction evolved as a defense mechanism against
| animals who would eat the garlic bulb. Bulbs in the same
| family--onions, garlic, shallots, scallions, etc--basically
| engage in chemical warfare. Humans (and certain other
| animals) have a number of adaptations which allow use to eat
| these foods anyway.
| Natsu wrote:
| Isn't that basically true of most spices? They're things
| we're immune to that other animals/bacteria/etc. aren't?
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I want to use it, because it seems like such a convenience,
| but every time I buy a jar it tastes...weird/bad.
|
| I suggest that you do whatever you want/prefer.
|
| As I said in a previous comment[0]: It's not
| that I find mincing fresh garlic onerous. Rather the
| taste difference (feel free to disagree, I don't mind
| -- please do exactly what you want to do) for me isn't big
| enough to compensate for the convenience (and lower cost)
| of dumping a couple spoonfuls of pre-minced (in water, not
| oil -- although if you prefer oil, then have at it) garlic
| and off you go.
|
| > Is that something you experience too? Is there a remedy?
| Does it vary by brand?
|
| Sort of. Yes, the flavor (if I eat it out of the jar) _is_ a
| bit different, but once it 's mixed into the dish I'm
| cooking, the difference isn't big enough for me to care.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31950407
| johnmaguire wrote:
| In case you're wondering, you're likely being downvoted
| because the person you responded to asked, seemingly in
| good faith, if you had any tricks or tips for improving
| jarred garlic (e.g. by preparation or brand choice.)
|
| To respond by quoting the very comment they replied to
| comes off as unnecessarily defensive and doesn't seem to
| assume good faith.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >In case you're wondering, you're likely being downvoted
| because the person you responded to asked, seemingly in
| good faith, if you had any tricks or tips for improving
| jarred garlic (e.g. by preparation or brand choice.)
|
| I don't have any useful suggestions and said so. Should I
| lie?
|
| >To respond by quoting the very comment they replied to
| comes off as unnecessarily defensive and doesn't seem to
| assume good faith.
|
| Except the comment they replied to was this one[0] (I
| _checked_ to make sure before responding), not the one I
| quoted[1]. In fact, GP posted their comment _before_ I
| posted the comment I quoted.
|
| I will say that clicking the "parent" link in GP's post
| (as I did) would have confirmed the above for you.
|
| I know what's in my mind and I wrote in good faith only
| to express my thoughts and ideas.
|
| If other folks don't like what I say or how I say it, so
| be it. I don't require their (or yours, for that matter)
| approval.
|
| That's not an attack on you (or anyone else) or an
| attempt to be mean or unpleasant. It's just how I see it.
|
| I don't even resent the downvotes. People wiil do as they
| do, and unless there's a _material_ impact on me, I don
| 't really care.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949856
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31950407
| [deleted]
| sbierwagen wrote:
| >I don't have any useful suggestions and said so. Should
| I lie?
|
| You are not required to reply to every comment on HN.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| My CIA handler told me that I have to respond to _every_
| response, no matter how inane (kinda like yours).
|
| I really hate it, but I don't want to go back to Gitmo.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It strikes me as weird to go from a long well worded post
| describing how different personal opinions are legitimate,
| to seemingly dismissing someone for having an opinion.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >It strikes me as weird to go from a long well worded
| post describing how different personal opinions
| legitimate, to seemingly dismissing someone for having an
| opinion.
|
| I guess my writing style isn't conducive to conveying my
| meaning. I won't rehash what I said previously[0] about
| this, but I answered (without much detail as I couldn't
| answer their question reasonably as I just don't know).
|
| Perhaps that's something I might think about.
|
| I am a little taken aback with this, not because folks
| are downvoting me, but because the _first_ assumption
| folks seem to be making is that I 'm writing in bad
| faith.
|
| Aren't we supposed to (I know I try -- not always
| successfully -- which doesn't reflect well on me when I
| don't) to read others' comments in the most charitable
| way/assume good faith?
|
| I'm not really sure what seemed dismissive there, I
| certainly didn't intend it to be so. Thank you for taking
| the time to express this.
|
| If I could impose upon you to clarify what, _exactly_ ,
| seemed dismissive, perhaps I could express myself without
| that impression in the future. Thanks!
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31951326
|
| Edit: Added the _missing link_.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| From your other posts, it seems pretty clear that
| sentiment received was different than the sentiment
| intended.
|
| I think the confusion stems from a response that seems to
| be a non-sequitur/ orthogonal to the parent statement.
| Because of this, readers struggle to fill in the intent,
| charitable or not.
|
| >>I want to use it, because it seems like such a
| convenience, but every time I buy a jar it
| tastes...weird/bad.
|
| >I suggest that you do whatever you want/prefer.
|
| The parent comment is already trying to do what they
| want, but encountering a challenge.
|
| Telling someone to do what they are already doing and
| ignoring the challenge/question comes off as inattentive
| and/or dismissive.
|
| for example:
|
| "Every time I restart my computer, I get a blue screen
| error code. do you have advice? "
|
| "Just restart your computer"
|
| It is hard to read a logical but charitable intent. The
| most charitable I can get is not understanding the
| question, or an error in the response.
|
| Hope this helps
| yellowapple wrote:
| > "Every time I restart my computer, I get a blue screen
| error code. do you have advice? "
|
| > "Just restart your computer"
|
| I'm reminded of one of the Jargon File's "AI Koans":
|
| ----
|
| A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by
| turning the power off and on.
|
| Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly:
| "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with
| no understanding of what is going wrong."
|
| Knight turned the machine off and on.
|
| The machine worked.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >>I suggest that you do whatever you want/prefer.
|
| >The parent comment is already trying to do what they
| want, but encountering a challenge.
|
| >Telling someone to do what they are already doing and
| ignoring the question comes off as inattentive and/or
| dismissive.
|
| That makes sense. Thank you. That said, it was pretty
| clear in my mind that I meant they should use their own
| best judgement as that's likely the best way to get what
| you want.
|
| Perhaps what I _should_ have said was:
| Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you about
| that, but if you find that jarred garlic tastes
| weird/bad, then I imagine you'd prefer just to use
| the fresh stuff. That said, I don't know if
| it's jarred garlic in general or just the stuff
| you purchased, but the jarred stuff *definitely*
| tastes different than fresh garlic.
|
| The comment that has been poorly received _was_ lower
| effort than my previous comment (the one replied to by
| GP) and I made assumptions (that my thought process there
| was clear) that were unwarranted.
|
| I appreciate your time and effort in explaining this to
| me.
|
| I can't change the past, but I _can_ try to do better in
| the future. I hope to do so.
| Tagbert wrote:
| See if you can find Dorot Garden's crush garlic in little
| frozen cubes. It retains the flavor of fresh crushed garlic.
| I get it a Trade Joes. https://dorotgardens.com/product-
| crushed-garlic/
| mr_gibbins wrote:
| Just a quick note, something my dad taught me. Break apart the
| garlic into segments, peel them then use a broad, flat kitchen
| knife and crush the garlic with the heel of your hand. Once
| crushed, gather together and finely chop.
|
| I've never gotten along with garlic crushers, they leave too
| much of the garlic in the tool and washing them is difficult.
| codyb wrote:
| Huh, I always crush with the knife edge _before_ peeling,
| then the skins come off easy as pie.
|
| This is after washing the garlic segments I plan to use, then
| I save the skins along with other washed refuse from carrots,
| onions, celery, etc and use that when I make broths with
| bones I've collected.
|
| Then from those broths you can reserve the fat layer that
| accumulates at the top and use that to sautee veggies, mm mm
| mm!
| blooalien wrote:
| You're sounding a lot like a right proper cook. All the
| great tricks granny taught...
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Just a quick note, something my dad taught me. Break apart
| the garlic into segments, peel them then use a broad, flat
| kitchen knife and crush the garlic with the heel of your
| hand. Once crushed, gather together and finely chop.
|
| Thank you for the suggestion. I am already aware of that
| method (as well as several others).
|
| It's not that I find mincing fresh garlic onerous. Rather the
| taste difference (feel free to disagree, I don't mind --
| please do exactly what _you_ want to do) for me isn 't big
| enough to compensate for the convenience (and lower cost) of
| dumping a couple spoonfuls of pre-minced (in water, not oil
| -- although if you prefer oil, then have at it) garlic and
| off you go.
| manmal wrote:
| > feel free to disagree, I don't mind -- please do exactly
| what you want to do
|
| Meta: I think it goes without saying that readers will do
| whatever they want to. You telling the reader explicitly
| that they should do what they want can come across as
| passive-aggressive. Paradoxically, you _are_ telling them
| how they should behave by writing that.
| phantom784 wrote:
| I think it's useful in the context of the original
| article, which is about it being okay to disagree about
| cooking methods.
| deadbunny wrote:
| Not GP but I just see it as preemptive defense as is so
| often needed online. "I like it this way" will often be
| interpreted as "I like it this way and if you disagree
| you're wrong!" leading to pointless flamewars.
| blooalien wrote:
| To me it seems that people who take "I like it this way"
| and extend it in their minds to include "...and if you
| disagree you're wrong!" when no such intent is likely are
| just actively looking for any excuse for an argument.
| Those people aren't worth engaging with further in my
| opinion. Just wasted energy/effort, and
| unwanted/unnecessary stress.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >>> feel free to disagree, I don't mind -- please do
| exactly what you want to do
|
| >Meta: I think it goes without saying that readers will
| do whatever they want to. You telling the reader
| explicitly that they should do what they want can come
| across as passive-aggressive. Paradoxically, you _are_
| telling them how they should behave by writing that.
|
| It's funny (as in disturbing -- at least to me) that you
| took my statement that way.
|
| I _intentionally_ used those words to point up my main
| thesis WRT this entire discussion: What I
| think is what *I* think, and is *not* a prescription
| (or proscription) for others. Rather, it's my take and I
| have no interest in telling *anyone* (nor should others
| do so) what to do, think or say.
|
| The idea that I _thought_ I was giving folks _permission_
| in some form or fashion doesn 't make much sense (IMHO)
| unless you assume I'm one of the people I decry in my
| initial post[0] in this thread, which is _not_ assuming
| good faith on my part.
|
| I'd be offended if I cared what you think/do/say. In
| fact, I'm only responding as it _appears_ you think that
| I 'm somehow acting in bad faith.
|
| If you find my writing to be "passive aggressive," please
| note my username and ignore (or downvote) _everything_ I
| write.
|
| I wish you health, happiness and success. Have a good
| day.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nobody9999
| gwill wrote:
| i find that lightly crushing the garlic before peeling helps
| separate the skin and makes peeling easier.
|
| also, touching stainless steel helps remove the garlic scent
| from your hands.
| someguy5344523 wrote:
| I started using garlic crushers when I learned that you don't
| need to peel the cloves to use it. Plus, if you don't peel
| them, clean up is actually pretty easy. As for leaving garlic
| behind; yes, that's true, but garlic is also cheap, so you
| can just crush more.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| You can also do this: turn the blade so that it is facing you
| and "chop" the garlic with the backside of the knife. It will
| crush the garlic into bits.
| samatman wrote:
| There's one company (Joseph & Joseph) which makes a garlic
| 'rocker' and with a soft silicone spatula you get all the
| garlic back, from a device which is as easy to clean as any
| normal utensil.
| weaksauce wrote:
| > they leave too much of the garlic in the tool and washing
| them is difficult.
|
| if you peel the garlic first you can just scrape the rest of
| the bit into the dish and while it's not as finely crushed
| and separated as the other parts... it tends to meld in just
| fine(mostly) and you don't waste anything.
| blooalien wrote:
| This is actually the same method I was taught, and I find it
| simpler and faster and just generally better all around over
| using any "special tool" made for the purpose. Lay the flat
| of the blade across a hunk of garlic, _smack_ you 're done.
| Fast and easy.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Yup, grew up with garlic crushers and have one in the kitchen
| but mostly do this, it's not much longer once you factor in
| the time to find the garlic crusher.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _(and better things to spend my money on -- fresh garlic is
| significantly more expensive) than minced (or chopped) garlic
| when I 'm cooking._
|
| This sounds like one of those few weird things in the US where
| the processed version's somehow cheaper.
|
| Fresh [1] garlic is around 1/2 the price of minced [2] here in
| Singapore.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.sg/Thygrace-Whole-
| Garlic-200g-packaging/d...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.sg/Jia-Wang-Chopped-
| Garlic-250/dp/B08NVRY...
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >This sounds like one of those few weird things in the US
| where the processed version's somehow cheaper.
|
| If you buy it in a supermarket, minced/chopped garlic _is_
| more expensive. Mostly (I surmise) because they charge a lot
| for the tiny jars and don 't sell the big ones.
|
| I buy my garlic online from folks who generally sell to
| restaurants/food service companies. As such, I pay much, much
| less than from the supermarket.
|
| If I couldn't get the big jars at a good price, I'd use the
| fresh stuff more often.
| wolframhempel wrote:
| I think in cooking, there is a joy that comes from the raw, fresh
| ingredients themselves. If you ever watch videos of Gordon Ramsay
| buying ingredients at Borough Market you see the passion he feels
| for fresh produce or a perfect piece of fish.
|
| I very much share in that. I've tried to learn how to cook light
| and fragrant Vietnamese and Thai dishes lately. Coming home with
| grocery bags full of fresh lemon grass, thai basil and vegetables
| is just really satisfying in its own right and motivates to cook.
| mtrycz2 wrote:
| "In Defence of..." articles considered harmful.
|
| All a needless justification of resisting peer pressure instead
| of letting it bounce off and enjoying life.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| We have ~4000 heads of garlic in the ground at our little farm
| here, and are in our third year of selling garlic as a business.
|
| But we still usually have a couple jars of store-bought pre-
| minced stuff in the cupboard. It comes in handy.
|
| Blanket prohibitions and snobbery are just stupid.
| bombcar wrote:
| Snobs have always existed, and they love to hate on things the
| "common man" likes. But McDonalds and Budweiser continue to make
| millions, so it's pretty obvious that the snobs are in the
| minority.
| mihaic wrote:
| I'd venture to say that internet food snobs have also ruined
| proper food lessons.
|
| Snobbery can be good or bad. At its best, it allows people to
| learn from the experience of others and protects against mistakes
| that aren't bad for the individual but bad for the overall
| system. But snobs for the sake of signaling status not only make
| everyone more unhappy, they also ruin the concept that experts
| actually exist.
|
| The right thing is almost never the opposite of the wrong thing.
| asojfdowgh wrote:
| I only have the freshest kipper during breakfast.
|
| To care much about garlic itself, when the flavor is 99% based on
| how long you heat it, would be a pinnacle of snobbishness.
|
| plus, though I'm not certain, doesn't the process of breaking
| down garlic change the flavor itself? freshly broken down garlic
| vs jarred broken down garlic, the latter I'd imagine to be
| "richer"
| dekhn wrote:
| To me the delivery mechanism of the stored garlic is not that
| important as long as it's not stale or oxidized. really gross. I
| also know from talking to most people that what smells bad in
| garlic to me smells fine to them.
| cttet wrote:
| This sentence in the article quite contradict with itself: "In a
| culture obsessed with the right and wrong way of doing things"
| But it also have this negative sentiment towards culture and
| point out "the right and wrong way of doing things".
|
| The only way for me to make it consistent is that it is a
| relative self-reflective view that "I am also part of the culture
| and this is destined to happen".
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The only way for me to make it consistent is that it is a
| relative self-reflective view that "I am also part of the
| culture and this is destined to happen".
|
| Consider the view that American culture is devoted largely to
| worrying about how evil American culture is, and that this is
| dysfunctional.
|
| Forget whether it's accurate. As an American, you can't
| technically take this view without being part of the problem
| you're identifying.
|
| But if it's enough of a problem, maybe it's worth sucking up
| the logical issues.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| This.
|
| Someone who writes 2400 words on how hot takes on social media
| about garlic are wrong doesn't really have a cooking hobby,
| they have a cooking-themed blogging hobby.
| t43562 wrote:
| My impression is that you only get this nonsense when people are
| being competitive about cooking rather than actually caring about
| eating nice food.
|
| There are shortcuts that work and shortcuts that don't work so
| well and IMO it's an incredible waste of time to put effort into
| something that doesn't make a difference.
|
| FWIW my best tricks (which I learned from other people):
|
| 1 - to make pancakes (English style i.e. thin) use self raising
| flour anyhow because it cooks through better. 1 egg per 100g
| flour and at least 125% liquid to flour ratio. If you want to be
| fancy you can grind up oats and substitute them for about 40% of
| the flour and there's a minor improvement in taste and I feel
| it's very slightly healthier perhaps.
|
| 2 - Worcestershire sauce makes mince dishes better - e.g
| bolognaise or the filling for Shepherds pie. With it, you can
| stick to very basic ingredients and still get a good result (e.g.
| fried onions and ketchup/tomato paste).
| jerkstate wrote:
| Worcestershire sauce is my secret weapon in burgers, chili, and
| other meals with ground red meat! such great umami flavor!
| skyyler wrote:
| For things that the spicy undertones wouldn't work well with,
| consider trying fish sauce. It's even more intense with the
| umami boosting ability. It's practically liquid MSG. I
| recommend Red Boat 40degN to people unfamiliar with it as an
| ingredient, it's basically "first press" and has a clean and
| pure flavour.
|
| Cheaper fish sauces can be very fishy. Good fish sauce won't
| make the final dish taste fishy unless you use an extreme
| amount.
| jandrese wrote:
| Do you have a good fish sauce brand? I tried one once and
| even a couple of drops in a sauce I was preparing managed
| to make the entire house smell like Poseidon's week old gym
| socks.
| skyyler wrote:
| I literally recommended one in the comment you responded
| to.
|
| But, Red Boat 40degN.
| webmobdev wrote:
| There's nothing snobbish about the claim that food cooked with
| fresh ingredients are more flavourful and nutritious. Nobody can
| also deny that _processed foods_ save a lot of cooking time. But
| they are often unhealthier (in the long term) because of all the
| salt, sugar, artificial flavours and preservatives that are used
| in it. And they are often always costlier. It 's the last 2
| things that really irk me - I recently bought some cocoa powder,
| and was hard-pressed to find any brand selling it without
| artificial cocoa flavouring. These cheap artificial flavourings
| allow the processed food industry to reduce or substitute the
| original ingredient with a cheaper alternative, while ensuring
| the artificial flavouring doesn't let us know the difference.
| This is one of the major reasons people who really love cooking
| avoid processed foods, and often prefer fresh ingredients.
|
| All that said, people like the author should learn to care less
| about the unimportant / irrelevant opinions of others, especially
| strangers. And learn to diplomatically handle such opinions.
| (After all, pride and snobbery does creep in when we learn a
| skill that we enjoy and become better at. I confess that I am an
| occasional snob too since I learned cooking! As is the author,
| even if she doesn't realise it ...).
| yakubin wrote:
| This article is really weird. This person developed insecurity
| about using jarred garlic, because they saw (or imagined) that
| someone in college looked at them wrong when they used it. Then
| they proceeded to look out for comments about jarred garlic on
| Twitter, because what people say on Twitter is important. And
| then they complain that the snobs don't think about disabled
| people when they behave snobby. What a surprise. When I say that
| running regularly is healthy for you, I also don't think about
| people who don't have legs, have deformed legs, or have other
| disabilities preventing them from running. What sort of a
| complaint is that?
|
| Overall, it gives the impression that this person actively
| searched for something to feel insecure about and then wrote a
| looong article about it.
|
| Also, it's weird to label mincing garlic yourself as snobby, when
| it's the cheap option done by almost everyone. Forget about
| finding jarred garlic in a pleb fridge. Hipsters with creative
| eating habits? Much more likely. And for people without
| applicable disabilities, jarred garlic doesn't save all that much
| time. Time spent mincing garlic barely registers compared to
| other activities in the kitchen. And jarred garlic is A LOT more
| expensive[1]. But if you have disabilities, it may be the
| rational choice, yup, no argument about that. And even when it's
| not the rational choice, who cares?
|
| When I cook, I don't check on Twitter if my way of cooking is
| approved by snobs. Go on detox from Twitter. Your life will get
| much better than by fighting imagined ableism.
|
| [1]: No surprise here really. Fresh food is almost always several
| times cheaper than processed food. After all, it's less work to
| make it.
| floren wrote:
| > Overall, it gives the impression that this person actively
| searched for something to feel insecure about and then wrote a
| looong article about it.
|
| Hello and welcome to modern long-form thinkpieces. The Walrus
| kinda seems like it wants to be a Canadian version of The
| Atlantic, so it's par for the course.
| throw93232 wrote:
| In europe garlic in jar is "snobbish" option. It is 5x more
| expensive, produces a lot of waste and has brand and "proper bio"
| markers. Normal garlic you buy at streetmarket or grow yourself,
| is noname option for poor people.
| eternauta3k wrote:
| Where in "Europe"? The streetmarket here is super expensive,
| cheap garlic comes from the supermarket.
| LaGrange wrote:
| Poland, circa 1995
| dagw wrote:
| _streetmarket or grow yourself, is noname option for poor
| people._
|
| In 'my' Europe, shopping at street markets and growing your own
| food is a typical rich people activity.
| simiones wrote:
| Most, or all, cooking pop-culture is coming from a standpoint
| that puts the taste of food before any other concern. And yes, in
| general fresh produce processed right before cooking is
| unbeatable in taste (ignoring the large world of home-made
| preserves). I don't think its ableist to focus on this in your
| cooking show, and sing the praises of the tastiest possible food.
|
| Of course, in practice, for people who aren't working as cooks at
| least, there are many concerns more important than getting the
| last possible bit of taste from your food (that you may not even
| taste until you've developed your palate a bit). Convenience and
| prep-time are extremely important as well, and will often
| dominate your ability and willingness to cook half-way decent
| food far above the freshness of the ingredients.
|
| The biggest problem is when such normal compromises start being
| associated with pride and shame. For example, I greatly enjoy
| high-quality coffee (especially Panama Gesha varieties), and I
| know how important is to freshly grind it to get the perfect
| taste. But most days, I just need a quick cup of coffee before
| work, so I make a cup of pre-ground cheap coffee. I don't think
| it's "just as good", but I'm also not in any way ashamed of using
| such inferior coffee.
| sybercecurity wrote:
| A wise old co-worker once told me: "The secret to happiness in
| life is bad taste." He logic being that if you only expect the
| best, you will be disappointed most of the time and to learn to
| like the mediocre (or lower). Rather stoic in nature but
| applies to "snobs" as most people associate
| food/wine/coffee/booze snobs as always complaining about things
| not being correct.
| tims33 wrote:
| I think what the author meant to say is to ignore your critics.
| No one ruined the author's love of cooking other than the author
| taking their statements to heart.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Also while some of the comments are needlessly harsh, they are
| at some level true. Fresh stuff usually does taste better and
| cost less.
|
| If you told someone "I'm using this because I'm disabled so
| it's easier", no one is going to second guess that. But for the
| average person, they are better off doing things the suggested
| way.
|
| I used to use things like pre grated cheeses until someone told
| me they are vastly inferrer to grating it yourself so I
| switched and my cooking improved.
|
| Sure, some people make a song and dance about it and call
| ingredients dried cat vomit but they are correct that fresh is
| much better if you can manage it. And even the hardcore home
| cooks will look the other way on things like frozen puff
| pastry.
| dubswithus wrote:
| True. Also, you can always criticize your friends right back.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Funny how an article about jarred garlic & ableism quickly
| devolves into a discussion of making coffee.
|
| My friend Jerry & I are preparing a series of articles testing
| whether coffee drinkers (and especially, coffee snobs) can
| actually taste the difference between the outputs of various
| choices in coffee brewing.
|
| I would think the same technique would shut up some of the
| cooking snobs about other things: can you taste the difference
| between two identical dishes, one made with freshly chopped
| garlic and the other with jarred? (where the garlic is a fairly
| small component in the dish rather than a main actor, e.g. garlic
| bread?)
| ilitirit wrote:
| I've always thought that the reason to avoid garlic-in-a-jar-of-
| oil was because of botulism:
|
| https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Can-you-get-botulism-from-gar...
| notriddle wrote:
| Keep it in the fridge.
| gnicholas wrote:
| FYI, that only works for up to a week.
|
| > _stored in the refrigerator at 40 degF or lower for no more
| than 7 days_
|
| At temperatures above 38deg, the toxin can be produced, and
| no amount of cooking will make it safe to eat.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The major concern is with homemade garlic-in-oil. Garlic tends
| to have botulism bacteria, but they can't thrive in an aerobic
| environment. When you put it in oil, it will thrive (even when
| refrigerated) and produce the toxin, which is deadly.
|
| The only way to kill the bacteria is to cook it at an extremely
| high temperature/pressure, which I believe cannot be created by
| home cooks (certainly not on the stove).
|
| Store-bought garlic jars are treated to be safe, though I don't
| know if they can become contaminated when you open them and
| leave them out on the counter. My guess is this is probably not
| common, otherwise it would happen with all sorts of food that
| is stored in oil and kept for long periods of time in the
| fridge.
| pugworthy wrote:
| For me the decision is based on whether the option has wasteful
| packaging or not. Garlic in a jar? No problem. Mushrooms pre-
| sliced in a plastic package, no way Jose. Gimme those ones I
| picked out myself and put into a paper bag.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I'm a bit of a food snob and recently bought a jar of minced-
| in-oil-garlic... got tired of finding green sprouts in freshly
| purchased bulbs (it's overripe, toss it). I give up.
| throw0101a wrote:
| America's Test Kitchen recently released a review video "The Best
| Substitutes for Fresh Garlic":
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anbWTqJMQC8
|
| Also, from a few years ago, "The Science of Garlic and How to
| Make the Best Garlic Bread" with Dan Souza in their 'science-y
| series':
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxM3tZkwNKA
| leto_ii wrote:
| One pernicious side-effect of gatekeeping snobbery is that it
| pushes beginners to adopt techniques and tools that don't make
| sense that early in the game.
|
| To give a concrete example: personally I'm an interested pool
| beginner (~c- player). One day, while at the local pool hall I
| saw a couple of guys that I could immediately tell were less
| experienced than me. They both had ~1k euros Predator cues, jump
| cues, break cues, the whole thing. They went on about deflection
| and Masse shots (pretty advanced stuff) and then proceeded to
| fail most of the pocket shots they played. They would have been
| way better served by the cheap pool hall cues and just focusing
| on the right posture when they leaned on the table...
| tappio wrote:
| This is quite funny. We have a group of friends really obsessed
| with making great food. We cook together menus with top notch
| ingredients retrieved from local sources, spending days studying
| recipes and planning menus and practicing each step. I love to
| make great foods for any friends who visit, if I can make time
| into my calendar. At the same time, we also share all possible
| hacks for making fast and efficient foods, sharing information
| which ready made canned things taste good and which not. Never
| discarding something because it's not "pure". Some processed
| goods and premade meals are amazing! Everything has their time
| and place. Being food snob 24/7 must be super exhausting. It has
| its time and place, sure, but most of the time I want something
| tasty with minimal effort.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| For this sort of thing. 'Cheat' where you dont care and and
| prep where you do. I have one recipe that is pretty much _only_
| canned items. I have tried doing scratch on it. That thing will
| just not come out the right way. But the 'right way' is it
| tastes the same as my mom made it. She used canned. Canned/pre-
| prepped has usually one thing going for it. constancy. The
| taste/shape/feel will be pretty much spot on every time. When
| going self prep though your ingredients can make a wild
| difference on how things come out. I have one I make from
| scratch and just depending on the day the cut of meat will be
| 'off' somehow. Looks identical to all the prev times. But still
| comes out different. The major downside to canned/pre-prepped
| is usually salt. Many are heavy in salt (which I personally
| like) but I know many dont. One thing I always cheat on is
| tomato sauces. I rarely can make it better than something out
| of a jar from the store.
| gigaflop wrote:
| I will never not default to using canned beans in recipes. My
| weekly meal prep involves mostly fresh ingredients, save for
| the canned beans and microwaved rice.
|
| The whole process takes about an hour already, and I just
| have no desire to cook the beans or rice in my tiny kitchen.
| And, the packages they come in are perfect size for what I
| need.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Another problem is what counts as cheating. Often, "cheating"
| techniques are actually delicious or even superior but
| because they are coded as low class they get rejected.
| jcranberry wrote:
| Thank you for the article, although I don't tend to be too
| disparaging about these types of ingredients (I think) it's
| always a good reminder to be open minded and aware that you don't
| know others situations. And on top of that there's absolutely
| nothing wrong with making tradeoffs for convenience...and its
| also not necessarily good to take what people claim are tradeoffs
| as absolute truth.
| marmarama wrote:
| In the UK we can buy Italian minced garlic (Gia brand) in a tube
| (like tubes of tomato puree) and it's pretty good, though a bit
| salty. Much better than the jars of oil-preserved garlic I've
| tried.
|
| However my mind was blown when I discovered frozen minced garlic,
| and frozen minced chillies which are now pretty widely available
| in supermarkets here. Once the block has melted in the pan
| they're basically indistinguishable from fresh.
|
| The frozen minced green chillies are also great because, being
| made from a mixture of chillies, the heat is basically
| standardised, so there's no risk of accidentally making the dish
| unsatisfactory to eat because one of the chillies was
| unexpectedly potent, or nearly as bad, unexpectedly weak.
| christkv wrote:
| Frozen minced garlic, onions, peppers and roasted vegetables
| are staples for all kinds of weekday stews.
| smegger001 wrote:
| personally i buy large amounts of onions and carmalize and
| then can them for latter use. Its major time saver and gives
| a quick savory flavor boost to any dish without having to cut
| and brown the onions which takes a long time if your are in a
| hurry which with three children and working full time
| patwolf wrote:
| I've completely converted over to frozen minced garlic. I
| especially like that it comes in a blister pack you can push
| out without having to get garlic all over your hands.
|
| I also buy cilantro frozen as well now too since dried cilantro
| is basically useless and I waste too much when I buy fresh.
| zamalek wrote:
| Frozen food is very likely to be fresher than "fresh produce."
| Unless you're driving down to the farm and buying it on the
| day.
|
| Dip into more frozen food. It's cheap and extremely tasty.
| globular-toast wrote:
| If you regularly do Indian cooking it's a good idea to make
| your own ginger and garlic paste and freeze it in ice cube
| trays. It takes maybe 10 minutes to make a batch that will last
| a month. It's well worth it and costs probably a fraction what
| those pre-made ones cost.
| Sir_Son_Son wrote:
| I'll do you one better, just throw ginger root straight into
| the freezer and grate what you need. You don't even need to
| peel it.
| smegger001 wrote:
| better still, any fresh ginger that doesn't get otherwise
| used get turned into ginger bug (a yeast starter culture)
| for home brewing ginger-beer. again no peeling as most the
| microbes you want are on the skin anyway.
| marmarama wrote:
| I'd struggle to beat the supermarket frozen garlic blocks on
| price.
|
| My local supermarket sells the 400g bags of frozen minced
| garlic at PS0.95. The same supermarket sells 4 fresh garlic
| bulbs weighing approx. 280g for PS0.99.
| Xylakant wrote:
| The same holds true for essentially every frozen vegetable.
| I believe the reason is that there's less work and less
| wastage in the frozen product. It's taken straight from the
| field to the factory without much chance to spoil, and the
| frozen product it simple to handle and doesn't spoil easily
| any more.
|
| Fundamentally, I'd also believe that in most cases, buying
| the frozen product instead of buying fresh and then freeze
| will give you a superior product since it's much fresher
| when it is processed.
| choko wrote:
| The issue I have with some frozen veggies (peppers,
| onions, garlic, celery) is that the freezing process
| damages cell walls leading to a mushier result. They also
| tend to dissolve faster in longer cooking items like
| chili or red beans and rice. I'll use them in some dishes
| where it doesn't matter since it's a big time saver
| though.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Freezing does destroy the texture to a varying level, but
| the question here was not "frozen or fresh", but rather
| "buy frozen or buy fresh and then freeze." Your freezer
| will not treat those vegetables any more kind than the
| factory freezer.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Those economics probably apply to some level, but the
| difference is more about the grade/quality of produce
| that can be hidden in a freezer bag of processed chunks
| vs what consumers expect to see in a grocers bin of fresh
| veggies.
|
| Ugly cheap bulk and semi-failed crops can go to
| processing and more carefully/successfully produced stuff
| goes to various grocers.
|
| In the US at least, you'll also see differences in grade
| depending on the demographic of the grocery store.
| Community markets will sell cheaper produce that's maybe
| softer, less ripe, more bruised, or just kind ugly and
| bougie markets will sell pretty veggies at higher
| price+margin.
|
| https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/vegetables
| Xylakant wrote:
| Definitely, you can hide a carrot that not looking great
| in frozen chunks, but that alone doesn't mean that you'll
| get worse quality. It will lead to less wastage, though.
| People are often obsessed with the look of food items, to
| the point that supermarket groceries are bred to look
| good, regardless of taste.
|
| Also, clearly, if you buy 0.99 dollar/kilo frozen peas
| you'll likely get worse quality than 10.99 dollars/kilo
| fresh. But dollar against dollar, frozen vegetables will
| very likely be higher quality than you can buy fresh.
| Unless you're buying straight from the farm - but most
| folks don't.
| jpalomaki wrote:
| Industrial freezing is better thsn doing it at home. They
| use flash freezing, which results in smaller ice crystals
| and less damage to the product.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_freezing
| taylodl wrote:
| _It's taken straight from the field to the factory
| without much chance to spoil, and the frozen product it
| simple to handle and doesn't spoil easily any more._
|
| Thanks! I'd never really thought about it that way. That
| makes a lot of sense!
| vr46 wrote:
| I shop a lot at the Indian supermarkets in the UK and frozen
| blocks of ginger, garlic etc are totally normal. If anyone
| called my parents or relatives idiots or say they were unable
| to cook, when Indians basically make nearly everything from
| scratch, I would have told them to f-off and take their
| snobbery with them.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| But those serve 2 different purposes. The diced garlic in
| preserved oil is good for cooking in a pan, but the tube of
| garlic is handy when you want to mix it with butter to make a
| dip or sauce.
|
| I wouldn't use the tube while cooking.
| marmarama wrote:
| If I need diced garlic then sure, though I'd probably just
| chop garlic cloves for that. For me the inconvenience of
| garlic comes from getting it to minced texture to maximise
| the flavour - peeling it's not that big an issue once you've
| learned the 'gently crush it with the side of the knife'
| technique.
|
| But I can't really think of a dish I cook regularly where I
| must have diced garlic as opposed to minced. Even making
| aglio e olio I'm perfectly happy with frying minced garlic.
| You get much more garlic flavour for the same amount of
| garlic that way, and because you cook it lower and slower
| (larger surface area) there's less chance of burning the
| outside and making everything bitter.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Living in Singapore I discovered the diced garlic, it
| opened a whole new world. I love LOVE garlic but I hate the
| smell on my fingers that lingers after dicing up alot of
| garlic. So being able to throw like a few table spoons in
| the pan for cooking stir fry or such instead of dicing up
| 10 cloves is handy. And I don't need extra oil.
|
| But the tube stuff, if you soften butter, mix butter, tube
| garlic, and any spices you like, then put that on bread or
| use it as a dip, omg. :-0~~~~ sooo good.
|
| Both have their usages.
|
| Soup I just throw the cloves in the soup without peeling.
| Or use black garlic. Chicken soup made with black garlic is
| the beez kneez.
| marmarama wrote:
| Slow-roasted vegetables with unpeeled garlic cloves is
| one of my favourite lazy dishes. 5 minutes to prep: chop
| whatever veg is in the fridge, stick it in a roasting
| dish, smother in oil, healthy sprinkling of chunky salt
| crystals and black pepper, maybe add a few sprigs of
| fresh rosemary from the garden, give it a stir and a
| shake, slam it in the oven at 180C, come back and stir it
| every 30 minutes until it looks good enough to eat
| (usually about the 90 minute mark for me but depends on
| how fine I chopped the veg). Yum.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Making me hungry now.
| karaterobot wrote:
| You're being downvoted, but I had the same thought. The
| garlic paste is going to be stronger in flavor than the diced
| garlic. If you use it, you'd need to adjust the recipe. This
| has nothing to do with gatekeeping: diced in oil or squeezed
| out of a tube are both fine, they're just not 1:1 equivalent.
| raspyberr wrote:
| Everything is about trade offs. Raw ingredients are the peak of
| versatility because it's the base from which all the variations
| come from. But it takes effort to get those variations. Grating
| carrots can be annoying so maybe some people buy bags of grated
| carrots. But you won't be getting any carrot sticks from that
| bag. Mincing garlic is annoying so garlic can come pre-minced.
| You obviously won't be getting sliced or whole garlic or black
| garlic from the pre-minced garlic. Also, products oxidise and
| lose their flavour quickly. I prefer buying whole peppercorns and
| using a pepper grinder. Some people take it a step further and
| buy whole spices and temper+grind them. The garlic will lose
| flavour quickly when minced so it needs to be stored in either
| oil or vinegar or frozen. That again will limit its versatility.
| If it's in olive oil, I may not want to use it in east Asian
| cooking. Also, convenience products add sugar and salt which
| again is something that you may not want. In my opinion, if you
| know what's in it and you're happy with any limitations it
| creates, then by all means use it. I imagine cooking "snobs" like
| cooking and value the versatility of the raw ingredients. When
| given a bunch of raw ingredients the world opens up with
| possibilities.
| rob74 wrote:
| This! Whole garlic bulbs (as well as onions, potatoes etc.
| etc.) will last for months if stored properly, the
| "convenience" versions need extra packaging, have to be
| refrigerated or cooled, and still can't be stored for very
| long. You don't have to dice the garlic by hand though, you can
| use a garlic press.
|
| Before anyone calls me a snob, I use some convenience products
| too, e.g. pre-cut and mixed salad - I hate cleaning salad, plus
| in this case the convenience product has more or less the same
| shelf life as an uncut salad. Also, after several quiche
| disasters where we ended up eating "minced quiche" because it
| leaked or refused to be removed in one piece, I am a huge fan
| of convenience quiche crust - tasty, crispy, and (almost) 100%
| leak-proof!
|
| If you go down the "only use base products" rabbit hole, you
| also have to make your own pasta, because after all that's also
| a convenience product...
| corrral wrote:
| > Whole garlic bulbs (as well as onions, potatoes etc. etc.)
| will last for months if stored properly,
|
| Mine have a _lot_ of green material growing in them by like 3
| weeks, max. Fridge, not fridge, doesn 't matter. What am I
| doing wrong?
|
| My potatoes and onions also sure as shit don't last "months".
| Again, maybe 3 weeks before they're getting iffy, often
| sooner. Yes, kept in the dark, not like open on the counter
| in sunlight.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Funny that everybody has examples in all sorts of fields, but the
| exact same thing is very present with programming. I guess we're
| all snobs if we don't acknowledge that.
| dairylee wrote:
| > Shredded cheese when you could grate your own
|
| I find pre-grated cheese so bizarre. The cost alone compared to a
| normal block of cheese should be enough to put anyone off. It's
| not even like it's an arduous task to grate it yourself (Or is
| it... [1]).
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWS3IxfDOHE
| have_faith wrote:
| It also sometimes has extra ingredients to stop the strips
| sticking to each other and in the majority of cases uses lower
| quality cheese.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| And those ingredients add to the allergen potential. And even
| with them, it still has a fraction of the shelf life of
| cheese in block form due to surface area:volume ratio.
| samatman wrote:
| I get the finely shredded Mexican blends for hard-shell tacos.
|
| It's impractical to get the thin, fine lines of shred off a
| block of cheese, and even if I do, without the cellulose it
| will just clump again when I try to stuff as much other stuff
| as possible on top of it. It's a better product for the dish.
| ginko wrote:
| >The cost alone compared to a normal block of cheese should be
| enough to put anyone off
|
| Hm, I find grated cheese is often cheaper pound by pound than
| blocks of cheese. Same for other precut ingredients like bacon
| for instance. The reason being that it's an easy way for
| producers to process the ends which can't be sold otherwise.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| weird, I have the exact opposite for where I shop for cheese.
| The blocks are usually cheaper (usually like half as much).
| Though they like to play games with the prices. Where 16oz
| will be one price one week and 2 8oz will be more than the
| 16. Then 2 weeks later the opposite will be true. The
| downside is grating it takes time. But if you do go with
| block get a firmer cheese. Some of the brand names will not
| be very firm and slime out the grater. I usually have pretty
| good luck with the 'store brand'.
| dairylee wrote:
| In the UK it's a lot cheaper for the blocks:
| - Tesco Extra Mature Grated Cheddar 250g - PS 2.25
| - PS9.00/kg - Tesco Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese 220g
| - PS 1.90 - PS8.64/kg - Tesco Extra Mature
| Cheddar Cheese 400g - PS 2.85 - PS7.13/kg
| - Tesco Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese 700g - PS 3.50
| - PS5.00/kg
|
| edit: Added price for a 220g block of cheese
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| I suppose as long as we are comparing areas, my local
| grocery (Lucerne is a Safeway store brand). If you get the
| same size of each, do the prices come more inline? I'm used
| to paying fairly close to the same price regardless of
| packaging if it's the same size from the same brand. But of
| course regional and national influences, along with
| consumer expectations, surely play a part in the pricing.
| - Lucerne Cheese Natural Medium Cheddar - 32 oz -
| $9.99 - $0.31/oz - Lucerne Cheese
| Shreaded Sharp Cheddar - 32 oz - $9.99
| - $0.31/oz - Lucerne Cheese Sharp Cheddar = 32 oz
| - $9.99 - $0.31/oz
| dairylee wrote:
| > If you get the same size of each, do the prices come
| more inline?
|
| Just had another look and while they don't sell a block
| that weighs the same as the pre-grated it is much closer
| in price for a similar sized block.
|
| PS9.00/kg for the pre-grated (250g) and PS8.64/kg for the
| block (220g).
| jerkstate wrote:
| I switched to block cheese when I found out that pre-grated
| cheese (SO convenient) has anti-caking agents which alter the
| flavor. The only thing I did to make this easy? buy a 2nd
| grater so I could still grate cheese if the first was in the
| dishwasher. I'm sure it's already paid for itself.
|
| On a 5lb block of cheddar, I use a plastic sandwich bag over
| the exposed end of the block with a rubber band wrapped around
| to keep it fresh.
| tallanvor wrote:
| The anti-caking ingredient has a negligible effect on flavor.
| Where you want to avoid them is when you're cooking a dish
| where you want the cheese to melt smoothly. Using the pre-
| grated stuff is fine for things like tacos, burritos, pizza,
| and even omelets. For stuff like mac and cheese and other
| cheese-based sauces, that's where you want to grate your own
| if you can. --And if you can't, well, the food will probably
| taste just fine even if it doesn't look quite as good.
| floren wrote:
| I prefer "mexican blend" (cheddar, monterey jack, asadero,
| queso quesadilla) cheddar for garnishing Mexican-type foods.
| Pure cheddar is great stuff, but I'd prefer store-brand Mexican
| blend over grated Tillamook Sharp if I'm making a quesadilla.
| Keeping and grating those individually would suck.
| Hellbanevil wrote:
| The bigger blocks of cheese are cheaper.
|
| I've noticed not much difference in price in the small blocks
| (The blocks that fit in your hand. I'm to lazy to look up the
| weight.) are sometimes more expensive than grated, or sliced.
|
| I'm pretty sure the companies know most of us do not want 5 lbs
| of cheese in our fridge, so they jack up the smaller blocks?
|
| While I'm here, I try to buy my spices, including dehydrated
| onion, at Costco quantities. Most restaurants use the same, but
| get better pricing through Sysco type companies.
|
| Some Costco's sell yeast blocks which last a long time
| refrigerated.
|
| If you are lucky, you can find high gluten bread flour there
| too. It's much cheaper than the better bread flours (King
| Arthur, etc.) at the supermarket.
|
| The one thing I disagree with is bottled lime/lemon juice.
| After it's opened once, it tastes nothing close to a fresh
| lemon/lime.
| pessimizer wrote:
| There's nothing that will cause you to mistake classism for
| ableism more than being upper-class and disabled. Is it ableism
| if you call a person lazy whose legs work perfectly well who
| insists on being pushed around in a wheelchair all day? Does it
| mean that you also look down on people who don't have the use of
| their legs or the strength to walk for using a wheelchair?
|
| Even the pressure is coming from class norms. Normal people and
| normal cooks aren't becoming depressed because chef-influencers
| look down on pre-minced garlic.
|
| Also, the packaging _is_ a problem. The reason for all of this
| prepackaged stuff is because the margins are so high on it, not
| because grocers are fighting for the disabled. They 'd love for
| us all to be living from meal kits.
| crooked-v wrote:
| As someone who's a decent cook but who has never actually
| enjoyed the fine details of cooking from scratch, I would be
| content to pay for that margin... but the sheer amount of
| packaging waste in meal kits and most prepackaged food has
| increasingly driven me to keep using fresh ingredients from a
| local grocery. Any company that can come up with some sort of
| happy medium there will probably get my business forever.
| tonymet wrote:
| The title should be reworded "How my reaction to criticism online
| almost ruined my love of cooking".
|
| We have no control over the outside world, but we do have control
| over our reaction to it.
| the-dude wrote:
| Be careful with garlic in jars, there is risk of botulism :
| https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/stinking_facts_about_garlic
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > They're dismissing those of us with disabilities.
|
| Or, really, just those of us who are "not them". Elitism,
| cultism, gatekeeping etc. exists in all realms and hobbies.
| loufe wrote:
| If the author is here, please look into getting a first rib
| resection for your TOS. I had my right side done in January and
| the other will follow in October. My symptoms (and risk of a
| pulmonary embolism) have disappeared. Check if yours is just
| nervous or also vascular/arterial and if there's an extra rib or
| your shoulders are just oddly formed inside like mine. If you
| can, find a surgeon who specializes in it to avoid them redoing
| all the scans. It may change your life.
| anchochilis wrote:
| I always resisted garlic in a tube or jar because it tasted a
| little off to me. (And, sure, maybe because I was a bit snobby.)
|
| But my supermarket started stocking Doro frozen minced garlic
| (and ginger!) and it's a game changer. Tastes the same to me, and
| so much easier. Haven't bought a head of garlic in months.
| taylodl wrote:
| You opened up a jar of object-oriented programming to make your
| stir fry and your roommate sneered that you hadn't used
| functional programming. After doing some reading online you come
| to the conclusion that _real programmers_ don 't use object-
| oriented programming, they only use fresh, all-natural functions
| and monads!
|
| Every human endeavor, even the supposedly logical ones, have
| their idiosyncrasies.
| jerkstate wrote:
| pre-minced garlic in a jar does lose some flavor and freshness,
| so I've taken to buying a big bag of garlic every few months,
| skinning it (break heads down to cloves, cut the ends off each
| clove, put it in a sealed metal container like two bowls pressed
| together, and shake your ass off). Then you mince it (like, in a
| food processor) and freeze it flat in a sandwich bag. When the
| bag has been in the freezer for about half an hour, score it with
| the back of a knife, so each "cube" is about the size of about
| half a clove of garlic. Then you can break off a few pieces for
| each recipe. The benefit of this method versus pre-frozen mince
| is you can be sure there's no filler.
|
| Not that I would turn my nose up at a home-cooked meal with pre-
| minced garlic, but this is the method I learned from an aged
| family member.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| - In defense of late binding: How static type zealots almost
| ruined my love of programming
|
| - In defense of garbage collection: how explicit memory
| pedantists almost ruined my joy of programming
|
| - In defense of files: how everything-is-an-SQL-table almost
| ruined my joy of programming
|
| ...
| skyyler wrote:
| I'd buy this if everything-is-an-SQL-table was a near-universal
| opinion online.
|
| Or if any of those fringe zealot opinions were anywhere near as
| commonplace as the jarlic hate is.
|
| Is there some hive of schizo-DBAs that I don't know about?
| cinntaile wrote:
| TIL jarred garlic exists. I don't think I have ever seen that in
| a store here (EU country), what I have seen is dried, powdered
| garlic. I'll try and find this next time I'm in a store.
| jandrese wrote:
| I like getting peeled whole cloves. Peeling is the time
| consuming part of garlic prep and alternatives like smashing
| the heads to extract the garlic always end up with bits of skin
| still attached when I've tried it. Mincing already peeled
| cloves is no trouble at all.
| anm89 wrote:
| Step 1: Invent strawman about how the cruel world is mocking you
| for using the wrong food products whereas absolutely nobody
| actually cares.
|
| Step 2: Write article demonstrating your deep bravery in using
| commercial food products that huge numbers of people use.
|
| What a real life super hero. I hope one day I will have the
| emotional fortitude and depth of character to open a jar of
| garlic.
| browningstreet wrote:
| In general, better to cook at home than eat out, from a health
| and calorie perspective.
| pwndByDeath wrote:
| I recall a documentary on where this peeled garlic comes from. It
| involved prison labor in China, the chemistry of the garlic
| disolves finger nails, and I believe they would bite the ends
| off.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| I went to a seafood barbecue course. They told me professional
| chefs use things like this all the time.
| whateveracct wrote:
| I always have minced garlic on-hand. You never know when you'll
| open up a fresh bulb only for it to be a dud.
|
| But I also drink Kroger-brand instant coffee happily.
| exabrial wrote:
| * Don't toast a fresh bagel
|
| * Don't chill red wine
|
| * blah blah
|
| Fuck the snobs. Don't let an asshole ruin what you brings you a
| little enjoyment. If you think plain yellow mustard on your well
| done steak tastes like heaven then by all means have at it.
|
| My only advice would be to occasionally try something new,
| withstanding the "avoid assholes" part.
| ginko wrote:
| Crushed garlic in a jar is a pretty common ingredient in Korean
| cooking AFAIK. The garlic gets milder after being aged for a bit.
| n4r9 wrote:
| My wife once bought us tickets to a cookery class. The leader, a
| professional chef, told us that he never minced garlic. He would
| take a couple of bulbs, peel the cloves, bung them in a blender
| with some oil, then pot up the mix and put it in the fridge for
| the next weeks' use.
| Jistern wrote:
| Unless missiles are raining down on your kitchen or there is a
| famine in your area, there's no defense for using garlic in a
| jar. Never. Ever. Learn how to peel and then crush, slice, and
| mince garlic quickly. There are a variety of techniques. Watch
| some videos on YouTube.
|
| If you are desperate to save time, you may use canned tomatoes.
| But that should be a last resort. Fresh garlic and fresh onions
| are two of life's simple pleasures. Seriously.
| irb wrote:
| I'm guessing you didn't actually read the article, just
| commented from the headline, because I think disability is a
| pretty good excuse to use pre-prepared ingredients.
| proto_lambda wrote:
| Well, good thing people don't need your approval for their
| cooking. You should still stop spreading rhetoric like this
| because, as the central topic of the article demonstrates, some
| people will still take it to heart even though their cooking is
| none of your business.
| t43562 wrote:
| if garlic is the main flavour e.g. in Cacik (ja-jik) in Turkey
| then yes you want to use fresh. Otherwise it really depends on
| where it's supposed to sit in terms of importance. On the whole
| though, a lot of classic foods can survive a bit of
| imperfection and still be delicious. Why would you crap on
| someone for taking an easy route when they need to if the food
| is still tasty?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Most of the year, canned tomatoes are _much_ better than fresh.
| Except when they are locally in season, then fresh tomatoes are
| amazing.
| askew wrote:
| A lot of these 'lazy' or convenience foods aren't just useful
| in times of famine or war, but they make it easier for those
| who are less able to cook from scratch. Somebody with dexterity
| issues will benefit from pre-prepared foods.
| politelemon wrote:
| Go deep into any topic that excites or interests you, and you
| will find the worst of people's behaviors on display. Very often
| there will be a vocal, toxic minority whose opinions sit firmly
| in the realm of gatekeeping and polarization, and a silent
| majority will stay silent as it's simpler to avoid confrontation,
| or not think about the implications of such. Author's unfortunate
| disability made them realize this, though you can see this pretty
| much everywhere.
|
| At the same time, a lot of people put too much stock (ha...) in
| what other people think is right and 'proper'. It's entirely
| possible to love cooking and use prepared ingredients, do what
| works for you. It's entirely possible to enjoy pineapple on a
| pizza, and a well done steak, with a cocktail, eat what you like
| and for yourself, don't eat for others.
| barkingcat wrote:
| also almost all chefs out there used preprepped and canned and
| jarred ingredients in restaurants.
|
| no matter how high end of a restaurant, if it is at all asian
| related/themed food you will still see Huy Fong Foods Sriracha
| sauce everywhere. And it's delicious.
| hinkley wrote:
| They say for atheists the worst moment is the Dark Night of the
| Soul, where, having accepted that nobody is keeping score, now
| you have to decide if anything means anything or if everything
| is completely pointless.
|
| Having experienced that first hand, twice, that's definitely
| true. For the person it happens to. But for the people who have
| to deal with that person? The worst is when that person
| sublimates their need for belief into a bunch of 'secular
| religions' that they cling to like a... I don't know what word
| to use here, but let's say ninja is to mall ninja as crusader
| is to <clever word for atheist zealot>.
|
| As for the steak, I often order medium well even though I want
| well done. Unless you're at a very high end steak house, which
| most of us aren't, they are always bloodier than you ask for
| and you rarely get a decent crust below medium well. At one
| point I had perfected the well done steak at home, but it's
| been so long that it would probably take me a couple hundred
| dollars in steaks to dial it back in.
| adventured wrote:
| > They say for atheists the worst moment is the Dark Night of
| the Soul, where, having accepted that nobody is keeping
| score, now you have to decide if anything means anything or
| if everything is completely pointless.
|
| They're often wrong in my observation. That's the best moment
| of your life: it's the bright, shining point of true
| intellectual freedom and real free will in action (as opposed
| to being caged by dogma, the fantasy opinions of others, and
| or outright dread of a psychotic omnipotent god looking to
| torture you for fun).
|
| It's the point where you get to decide what the meaning of
| life is for you and what matters most to you. As opposed to
| allowing someone else to set the board for you (parents,
| teachers, evangelists, preachers, assholes) and tell you
| what's supposed to be important to you and how you're
| supposed to live. It's spectacularly wonderful, and about as
| far away from the worst moment as you can get.
| pr0zac wrote:
| Its interesting you use "The Dark Night of the Soul" in
| reference to atheism cause the first place I heard it was
| with regard to meditative practice (and Buddhism) while its
| original use was in Catholicism, coming from a poem of that
| faith. The term has certainly got around!
| hinkley wrote:
| From what I understand it got adapted by the
| existentialists as well, which is where most people would
| hear of it. No idea how they got it from the Catholics.
|
| Lately there have been a lot of historians working backward
| looking for cases of 'history is written by the victor'
| situations and rewriting the histories. There's a great
| video out there, based on someone's PhD thesis, that places
| David Hume in a town in Southern France where a certain
| Jesuit priest had recently returned from a monastery in
| Siam and written a book about what he learned about eastern
| philosophy.
|
| So they can't prove that Buddhism caused the Enlightenment,
| but we know for sure that one of those guys in those coffee
| shops had the opportunity to spend time in another coffee
| shop interviewing an academic who lived with Buddhists.
|
| Edit: it was Siam, not eastern India, and definitely Hume
| gigaflop wrote:
| I've been playing dnD 5e for several years, and when I was more
| active, had a nearly didactic memory of the rules, or where to
| find the specifics of a rule.
|
| I'm currently playing with a new group at a game shop, and have
| to actively hold myself back from saying too much at once.
| There's a certain level of "enough has been said" to give
| enough detail to let things continue, without making people
| feel like they made suboptimal character choices.
| [deleted]
| dqpb wrote:
| I actually don't mind rude belligerent people if their opinion
| is novel. But I can't stand them if their opinion is typical.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| > It's entirely possible to enjoy pineapple on a pizza
|
| I was with you up until this point. You go too far.
| archi42 wrote:
| I raise you a salad pizza. It's basically a plain margherita
| with a mixed green salad, cooked eggs, sliced tomato, fine
| ham slices and joghurt dressing added after baking. Offered
| by one "okay, would order again" delivery service around
| here, it's surprisingly viable.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| You can pry my jalapeno-pineapple pizza from my cold dead
| hands.
| Groxx wrote:
| add a little bit of bacon and it's an _amazing_
| combination. 3 very different aromatic ingredients
| combining wonderfully.
|
| (lots of other aromatic things work great too)
| frob wrote:
| My partner and I have loved pineapple, jalapeno, and
| pepperoni pizza for years now.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Pineapple for the sweet and sour taste, jalapeno for spicy,
| green olives for salty umami and sausage for meaty fatty.
| smegger001 wrote:
| no, really you can keep it, no one else would want that
| abomination.
|
| (note jalapeno are a valid topping)
| hinkley wrote:
| If it's all the same to you, I think we'll just put a
| hazmat bag around you and the pizza and bury you as is. I'm
| not touching that pizza.
|
| My partner orders pineapple pizza then takes the pineapple
| off. It's there to cover the pizza in pineapple juice and
| that's it. She also likes teriyaki sauce to a fault so I
| probably shouldn't be surprised.
| pr0zac wrote:
| Gladly. (so I can then eat it)
| conradfr wrote:
| On any topics, learn from the extremists but do not trust them.
| iasay wrote:
| Those people are a cancer and make up a significant portion of
| the population. Internet forums are breeding grounds. I've
| developed some strategies for dealing with them. Before I
| engage or do something I ask three questions:
|
| 1. Is someone telling me how to behave?
|
| 2. Am I doing this to be better than myself or better than
| someone else?
|
| 3. Does this change really add value to my life or labour and
| cost?
|
| As for garlic, it's amazing stuff out of a jar. I use it on and
| in everything. I'm not disabled, I'm just lazy and fine with
| it. The stuff is called Very Lazy Garlic here. And fuck the
| snobs and elitists.
| jhot wrote:
| #2 really nails the root of the issue. #3 is big too, you can
| save a lot of money and time and still get basically the same
| value by recognizing the diminishing returns in any domain.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| >As for garlic, it's amazing stuff out of a jar. I use it on
| and in everything. I'm not disabled, I'm just lazy and fine
| with it. The stuff is called Very Lazy Garlic here. And fuck
| the snobs and elitists.
|
| First they started pushing the canned garlic, then they came
| for proper knife technique, and ultimately, they outlawed a
| good chiffonade as far too "ableist"
|
| I think automatically saying that the strong recommendation
| of a preferred cooking approach is snobbery or elitist is
| incorrect. The same thing could be said about gentle-
| rewarming of a steak, vice blasting it in a microwave
| producing a dry husk.
|
| Some of us are sensitive to certain flavors, and choose not
| to use preservatives to the extent possible. There is an
| adjective even used to describe things of quality "hand-
| made".
| robonerd wrote:
| Microwaves particularly are popular targets for snobbish
| malignment. They're great at doing a lot of things, but
| many people refuse to use them for _anything_ for the
| silliest reasons ( _muh radiation_ ). Of course they're not
| good for _everything_ , but nothing is good for everything.
| iasay wrote:
| I had that argument with someone once and she cooked me a
| full roast dinner in a wok to prove me wrong.
| robonerd wrote:
| Woks are very versatile, but even woks aren't the best
| tool for every job. You could probably bake a pie in a
| wok, but I think a pie tin would work better.
|
| No tool being the best tool for every job is one of my
| core truths (and is perhaps its own sole exception.) I
| think it's true for any class of tool you can think of;
| kitchen tools, construction or manufacturing tools,
| software, even ideologies (which are tools for making
| sense of the world.) Some tools are more versatile than
| others, and some are basically worthless even for their
| intended use. But even a tool that could be used for
| virtually anything (in that tool's natural domain) will
| never be the best tool for all of those things. I could
| bake a pie in a wok or make mashed potatoes with a knife;
| those are very versatile tools. But there are better
| tools for both, like pie tins and potato mashers.
| iasay wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| I hold oscilloscopes and santoku knives with the same
| regard :)
| prpl wrote:
| The microwaves Starbucks used are really good. The
| average home microwave is great at steaming things in a
| closed or mostly closed container and mediocre at best at
| other tasks
| currency wrote:
| There's a fine line between preferring fresh garlic, and
| turning your nose up at garlic in a jar, and your
| preferences can be a lower priority. It's very situational.
|
| If I'm making it myself? Fresh. If I'm at a restaurant and
| paying top dollar? Fresh. Fast food? Lol. At a friends'
| house being treated to meal? I'm not saying a word whatever
| they use.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'll have to give it a try. All of the jarred garlic I've
| tried tastes too much of the preservative, usually ascorbic
| acid. I don't have any objection to the preservative; it's
| just a flavor I wasn't expecting and didn't want.
|
| Thanks for the tip.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| One of the biggest problems with jarred garlic is the fact
| that it is often wet, and in a preservative with a flavor
| that imparts to the food. Because it is not fresh, it will
| not have the same health benefits either.
|
| This means in order to prepare it, you need to rinse it,
| dry it, before it is ready to go. Doing these things will
| mute the flavor even more for what is an already mute
| flavor compared to fresh garlic.
|
| Given these issues, I would vastly prefer using the garlic
| tubes more commonly found in Europe, than I would a wet can
| or wet jarred garlic. Garlic tubes are fresh, preserve
| well, and in many cases have that pungent ajoene and
| allicin still present that give it a zing!
|
| To add to this, I would prefer using a dried garlic spice
| over a can of jarred garlic if forced into deciding between
| the worst of most garlic options.
| prepend wrote:
| The kind I've seen is in olive oil. There's no rinsing
| and drying. You just scoop it into the pan.
| giardini wrote:
| prepend says _> The kind I've seen is in olive oil.
| There's no rinsing and drying. You just scoop it into the
| pan.<_
|
| Sounds really good. But FWIW there have been incidents
| where people ate garlic stored in oil for too long and
| died of botulinium poisoning.
|
| https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Can-you-get-botulism-from-
| gar...
|
| FTFA:
|
| _> Research performed by the University of Georgia
| confirmed that mixtures of garlic in oil stored at room
| temperature are at risk for the development of botulism.
| Garlic in oil should be made fresh and stored in the
| refrigerator at 40 degF or lower for no more than 7 days.
| It may be frozen for several months. Package in glass
| freezer jars or plastic freezer boxes, leaving 1/2-inch
| headspace. Label, date, and freeze.<_
|
| Search on Bing for "botulism poisoning from garlic in
| oil":
|
| https://www.bing.com/search?q=botulism+poisoning+from+gar
| lic...
|
| At the time I had some chopped garlic cloves in oil in
| the fridge but tossed the lot out since it had been > 1
| week since preparation, precisely the scenario where one
| death had occurred.
|
| Possibly commercial preparations of garlic pastes use
| preservatives to prevent such an occurrence. It would
| definitely hurt sales were a customer to croak b/c of
| botulinium in a product.
|
| BTW I love _garlic salt_ - it improves most anything and
| is so easy to use.
| prpl wrote:
| if you make it yourself without getting to spore-killing
| temperatures in a cane, yeah. Which brings up the next
| point - the stuff in a jar is cooked.
| iasay wrote:
| That's the stuff I buy. Always good.
| bartvk wrote:
| I've encountered it in work-related discussions, where people
| would confidently label something as "professional" or
| "unprofessional". When in fact, it would be a completely
| arbitrary standard.
| [deleted]
| raspyberr wrote:
| Nothing inherently wrong with gatekeeping.
| paskozdilar wrote:
| Nothing inherently _right_ with gatekeeping.
|
| Many harmful effects, though. Alienating valuable members
| comes to mind.
| raspyberr wrote:
| So if it's not inherently wrong OR right, then it must be
| inherently neutral. Which means it can be used for both
| positive or negative purposes. You gave a negative purpose.
| I would argue that health and safety can often be seen as a
| form of positive gatekeeping. In context of the original
| post, using a knife "properly".
| paskozdilar wrote:
| Sure, but that's not what we usually mean by gatekeeping.
|
| Controlling who can and cannot join the community based
| on some arbitrary, subjective critera is what we usually
| mean by gatekeeping.
|
| E.g.: FDA does not gatekeep - they enforce safety
| criteria to products; metal music fans often gatekeep -
| they enforce their own opinion of other metal music
| bands/fans and are trying to police the metal music
| scene.
| raspyberr wrote:
| I didn't realise there was a delay in replying and I
| edited my post. I didn't mean regulation based safety.
| I've noticed people get quite defensive if you tell them
| sharp knives are safer and their blunt knife is
| dangerous. I can see having to buy sharpeners and honing
| rods and being told what you're doing is wrong could be
| considered gatekeeping.
| MrFantastic wrote:
| Even knife sharpening has Gatekeeping.
|
| On many forums some people think that ceramic pull
| sharpeners will ruin your blades and you should use
| stones and oil.
|
| I've been using ceramic pull sharpener for 30 years on
| the same $100 chef knife.
|
| It's still in better shape than 95% of the knifes I've
| used in other people's homes.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I used everything from pull sharperners over stones to
| polishing the hand forged, multilayer tanto I made for my
| dad's birthday using sand paper and a stone-water paste.
|
| The pull sharpener works wonders if the knife has to be
| sharpened quickly. If you do it long enough, the edge is
| ruined (I talk actually years of daily use of the knife
| here, and even then a decent knife will be rather sharp).
| Stones are good to get nice edges, I prefer to run newly
| made, or abused, blades over a belt grinder first (I'm a
| lazy and impatient person sometimes).
|
| And the full blown 160 - 3000 grid followed by stone-
| water paste polishing is something I'll only ever do for
| special occassions. Everything after 1000 grid, stone or
| paper, is for optics only. And even bread crust will
| cause scratches at that level.
|
| Is all of that necessary? Course not, I do it because it
| is fun (sometimes), and well cutting knifes are a
| pleasure to work with.
|
| Do those knifes improve the quality of the meals we cook?
| No, they just make the preparation easier to an extent.
| And in tje end the meal counts, not the tools you used to
| cook it.
| paskozdilar wrote:
| > I can see having to buy sharpeners and honing rods and
| being told what you're doing is wrong could be considered
| gatekeeping
|
| It depends on the context, of course. Everyone is
| entitled to their own opinions and standards of what they
| consider right and wrong.
|
| I that that the essential factor of "gatekeeping" is
| demoting others unless they don't fit your standards,
| e.g. " _you are not a real cook_ if you use blunt knifes
| ". Simply telling someone that using sharp knifes is
| safer than using blunt knifes wouldn't count as
| "gatekeeping" in my book, unless someone tried to _keep
| you out of the gate_ because of it.
| iSnow wrote:
| LOL nonsense, blunt knives aren't dangerous. That's just
| more of the same toxic attitude.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| They very much are. You are prone to mishandle a blunt
| blade to try and get it to cut.
|
| You have to put a lot more force into a blunt blade. When
| it finally gets through (or jumps from) what you're
| hacking at, it's going somewhere, fast.
|
| The blade will do much more damage to your skin, tearing
| it instead of slicing, takes longer to heal from a blunt
| blade, infection more likely.
|
| It's much safer to have a sharp knife that you can handle
| with finesse. Not a dull one you have to hack with.
|
| I wouldn't really call this gatekeeping either, it's
| pretty much knife safety 101. Right up there with curling
| your fingers and pushing not pulling the blade.
| hef19898 wrote:
| This. You don't need 600 dollar hand forged, single bevel
| damast knifes so to have a sharp tool. Butchers are
| definitely not usong those, despite having a daily,
| professionally in the sense of earning their living, need
| for sharp knifes.
|
| And even the 600 dollar knife gets blunt ultimately.
|
| Sharp knife = good advice
|
| Expensive luxury tool = gate keeping
| choko wrote:
| It depends. I used the cheap knives for a long time
| before I was more successful in my career. It was a chore
| to keep them sharp as they tended to dull very quickly.
|
| Once I had more money to spend, I bought a knife with
| more desirable steel properties which came at a much
| higher price. The upside is that I have to spend far less
| time keeping the knife sharp and safe.
| hef19898 wrote:
| As for all tools, for most use cases, some decent middle
| ground tools do the trick. Pro grade tools have some
| properties that benefit pros (and can be hard to get by
| non-pros). Above that tools are an object of d!sire.
| Ehich os totally fine, if you want that 12k pro grade
| telephoto lense, by all means, go and get it. Shoot great
| photos with it and enjoy it everytime you use it. Or
| everytime you use that fancy knife to prepare a meal.
| Just don't make it a prerequisite for what you do,
| because you don't have to justufy the purchase. The
| simple joy you get of using it ia reason enough, and
| someone doing the same thing with less expensive gear is
| by no means diminishing the value you get from your
| expensive purchase.
| iSnow wrote:
| Complete nonsense, blasting something out of proportion
| to fulfill some elitism.
|
| If you have handled blunt knives for years, you are
| accustomed to handling them and have muscle memory. You
| _know_ how to use them, and the blades of most blunt
| knives develop a saw-like edge that helps in cutting.
|
| Might not be as cool or impressive as a $200 damascene
| hand-forged pseudo-japanese knife, but they just work.
| What's dangerous is going from blunt to sharp or the
| other way round.
|
| Sad to read that the same gatekeeping attitude from the
| article seeps in here as well.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Uhm no? If you want to saw something use a saw, don't
| misuse a tool.
|
| -edit-
|
| You specifically said a blade would get so dull it would
| become a saw.
|
| You weren't talking about serrated knives as you said
| "and the blades of most blunt knives _develop_ a saw-like
| edge "
|
| Using serration on a knife to saw is not misuse, using a
| dull blade to saw is misuse and dangerous.
|
| Basic knife safety is not gatekeeping. Sharpen your
| blade, or at least use the knife alone so you only hurt
| yourself if you're that insistent on using knives
| improperly.
| iSnow wrote:
| More gatekeeping, huh?
|
| Why don't you tell this to the producers of serrated
| knives? I guess they would want to know that they are
| doing this completely wrong.
| robonerd wrote:
| Serrated knives are for sawing, not slicing. They don't
| really need to be particularly sharp. Chopping knives are
| similar; a dull chopping knife will waste your time, but
| isn't particularly dangerous. But a dull paring knife, or
| a dull wood carving chisel? Beware.
|
| Anyway, per the rest of this discussion, definition of
| 'gatekeeping' is clearly contextual. Paraphrasing the
| exchange above: _" What about safety?"_, _" Sure, but
| that's not what we usually mean by gatekeeping."_
|
| Telling somebody they shouldn't weld without goggles
| isn't gatekeeping, it's safety advice. Telling somebody
| they aren't a real welder because they're using a cheap
| but functional brand of welder is gatekeeping, because
| there's no good reason to malign a welder for having an
| unfashionable brand of equipment.
|
| Gatekeeping is only 'true' gatekeeping if there isn't a
| good reason for keeping that gate; safety advice in
| particular is generally exempted. Since gatekeeping is
| only true gatekeeping in contexts where there isn't a
| good reason for it, claiming that something is
| gatekeeping without explaining why is basically
| worthless. Such accusations are assertions without
| supporting arguments. It often boils down to circular
| reasoning: _You 're gatekeeping which is bad, and it's
| bad because it's gatekeeping._
| raspyberr wrote:
| It's hard to see something as not gatekeeping when you
| think that it's the right thing to do. That's my whole
| point. It's going to be difficult to give examples of
| positive gatekeeping that people aren't going to dismiss
| as "That's not gatekeeping thats".... "just good advice",
| "just the right way to do it", "knife safety 101".
| Encouraging someone to do something the right way is
| pretty close to discouraging them to do it the wrong way.
| Gatekeeping is a spectrum and the gates move. Everything
| on one side feels like it's the correct way and on the
| other the wrong way. Imagine you posted a cooking video
| to a cooking community. You did everything right but you
| had a blunt knife and were slipping with the knife and
| crushing the vegetables some times. You would feel like
| it's a gatekeeping unfriendly community if the majority
| of the replies you got were "OMG YOURE GONNA STAB
| YOURSELF" and "you should stop using that knife till you
| buy a sharper one" and "go and get yourself a knife
| sharpener and a honing steel and throw that glass
| chopping board in the bin and buy a proper wooden one".
| And yet this is common. It may be "knife safety 101" but
| I learnt about it working in a kitchen. My parents didn't
| tell me how to use a knife. They didn't sharpen knives. I
| know people who use glass chopping boards. People are
| likely to have grown up all their lives using a knife
| without ever thinking about looking up on YouTube "how to
| use a knife properly and safely". I.e. unknown unknowns.
|
| I believe that it's important to do things safely and
| "properly" to get the most flavour/value. Turns out many
| activities are like that unless you're going to discover
| everything yourself from first principles. Gatekeeping is
| seen as something bad because the internet has made
| communities really discoverable and people entering new
| communities are finding that there are some mistakes that
| don't need to be made, they need to learn first, and the
| people of those communities tell them that. Some of those
| people are arseholes, and give advise in a very rude way.
| Since negativity has such a big effect, "Gatekeeping"
| comes up as a big negative term.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| Agreed, it's not gatekeeping to recommend someone buy a
| $5 sharpening stone so they don't get injured
| robonerd wrote:
| > _You have to put a lot more force into a blunt blade.
| When it finally gets through (or jumps from) what you 're
| hacking at, it's going somewhere, fast._
|
| Exactly right. I've wound up in the emergency room twice
| because of exactly this effect.
|
| Blunt knives are for spreading, or maybe sawing. Using
| blunt knives for slicing is just plain stupid. And let me
| tell you, learning this the hard way hurts a _lot_ more
| than somebody 'gatekeeping' you with a warning, no
| matter how rudely phrased.
| ironSkillet wrote:
| The parent means blunt in the sense of "sharp enough to
| cut things, but not sharp enough to cut things easily".
| This can lead to slips and need for excessive force,
| increasing the likelihood of injury.
| parkingrift wrote:
| This is honestly just a sad case study in people putting way too
| much value in other peoples opinions. In this case literal
| complete strangers. And it's a uniquely modern phenomenon because
| even 15-20 years ago it would have been nearly impossible to find
| these people who take pride in gate keeping. The modern world has
| given these people a massive megaphone and outsized influence.
|
| Their opinions are bad, they should feel bad, and you should
| ignore them with prejudice. Live your own life and be happy. You
| don't need to min/max everything because some loudmouth purist on
| the internet insists it.
|
| I've seen Gordon Ramsay cook with tomatoes from a can. Go ahead
| and use whatever you find simplest or most cost effective and
| truly who gives a shit what internet experts think.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > even 15-20 years ago it would have been nearly impossible to
| find these people who take pride in gate keeping.
|
| This is wildly inaccurate. Especially in cooking, notions of
| what constitutes proper cooking, especially when evaluating
| women's worth as house keepers, have been extremely common in
| the vast majority of traditional societies, along with the
| toxicity.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Snobs have always existed. What I said it was hard to find
| those snobs because you had to actually meet them in real
| life. There was no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit to
| tell people what they're doing wrong. You had to go find a
| book, join a club, read a newspaper, or something similar. It
| was exponentially more difficult to find a snob.
| krzyk wrote:
| I'm astonished that something like jarred garlic exists. I have
| seen powdered garlic, but jarred wasn't something I remember
| seeing in Poland. We always have source of 'normal' garlic.
|
| Is it popular in other countries?
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| It's mixed in with the preservative tastes of vinegar and
| benzoates. From a culinary perspective, hard pass based on that
| alone, unless that's a desirable trade-off for whatever your use
| cases are. The difference is simply extremely palpable.
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| And in many cases it can make a huge difference even outside of
| taste.
|
| For example, using pre-shredded cheese on your pizza? It will
| never melt and become gooey the way a low moisture block of
| mozzarella you've shredded yourself will.
|
| Because, as it becomes obvious once you learn about it, in
| order to prevent that shredded mozzarella from becoming just a
| clump of cheese, which is exactly what would happen considering
| the temperature differences it goes through and all sorts of
| crushing pressures that are applied on it until it makes it to
| your fridge.
|
| The pre-minced garlic needs all sorts of preservatives that
| will impart a significant flavor to preserve it and prevent it
| from browning.
|
| Presliced fruit is almost always gonna be covered in something
| to prevent it from spoiling. Sugar syrup might be the least
| offensive, but then it becomes less of a fruit serving than a
| sugar serving.
|
| There are good convenience foods you can use.
|
| Frozen foods are usually pretty high quality. The texture might
| not work for certain applications, but they are usually flash
| frozen when they are at the peak of the season and so really
| good when they're used. In fact, stuff like canned tomatoes are
| often better than their "fresh" counterparts during the off-
| season.
|
| Canned foods can also be excellent.
|
| No one sneers at people for using those, and in fact, most good
| chefs (and most of hte TV chefs as well) will recommend using
| those. Heck, even frozen sliced and peeled vegetables.
|
| But some convenience foods are simply not good if you are
| capable of doing without. Processed garlic is usually one of
| those.
| klodolph wrote:
| You're not really tasting what's mixed in; it's actually the
| garlic that is different. Cutting or crushing garlic starts a
| chemical reaction between two chemicals in the garlic called
| alliiin and allinase, which produces allicin. Allicin is the
| characteristic flavor of garlic that's somewhere between
| fragrant and overpowering. Using pre-cut garlic means that
| these chemical reactions, and other reactions, have had a lot
| of time to progress.
| Tagbert wrote:
| We've been using the Dorot Gardens crushed garlic. It is crushed
| and pressed into a tray with little cubic depressions to hold the
| garlic and then frozen. It's like tiny garlic ice cubes. We get
| them at Trader Joe's. Each cube packs a wallop of garlic flavor
| and is indistinguishable from crushed fresh. The melt easily in
| some hot pasta or when sauteing vegetables. My husband still
| wants to use fresh garlic but it takes enough extra time that we
| don't. These garlic cubes are ways ready to use and it makes a
| big difference.
| Groxx wrote:
| I've largely converted to frozen too I think. Getting rid of
| that always-slightly-present jarred-flavor-weirdness is nice,
| the cost is more than close enough to not care, and it lasts
| practically forever because _it 's frozen_.
|
| Fresh garlic is such a pain to deal with, the minor flavor
| improvement is just nowhere near worth the increase in effort,
| or ingredient loss due to it growing old before use.
| anchochilis wrote:
| I'm obsessed with the stuff! The crushed ginger is also
| excellent for curries and stir -fries.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I use mostly fresh ingredients but not because of food snobs. If
| anything I'm the snob. I genuinely think it tastes better and I
| like to know exactly what I'm putting in to my food. Some things
| store better than others and are fine to use
| dried/frozen/preserved etc. A few things I can think of that
| cannot be substituted: coffee (freshly ground makes all the
| difference), basil (freshly picked and properly prepared),
| coriander (freshly ground), cumin (seeds must be used whole of
| freshly ground), tomatoes (fresh or tinned whole tomatoes taste
| way better than any pre-made sauce or passata).
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| Food and your personal desire to cook and eat it is so so
| subjective that the idea that anyone can try and say you are
| doing something wrong that you have done before and enjoy...well
| it's silly.
|
| The entire industry around cooking and especially the
| glorification of shows like hells kitchen is to the detriment of
| food everywhere. You might as well try to critique how someone
| hugs their wife.
| yding wrote:
| Unless you're eating it raw, there's no problem with minced
| garlic or prepeeled garlic. Yes, it has slightly less flavor, but
| you can just add more of it if you want.
| jakzurr wrote:
| This article is long, funny, and has some excellent tips for us
| seniors who need a little shortcut, or are just having a nice,
| lazy morning.
| benj111 wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with the basic premise though. Maybe I'm
| not bothered what others think, but for me, half of 'learning
| how to cook' is finding what works for you. I now buy 'proper'
| garlic, but I still buy the cheapest tins of tomatoes because
| that's what works for me.
| bethling wrote:
| I think also what happens is that some people feel that the
| comparison is between doing everything from scratch and
| taking a couple shortcuts. Sure - not using jarred garlic or
| some other timesaver won't taste as good as starting with the
| original ingredients.
|
| But really, it's more often between taking shortcuts and not
| cooking at all. When I have time, I love doing everything
| myself. But after a long work day, I often don't have the
| energy. But if there's something like a meal kit that I know
| I can cook, that'll stop me from having dinner delivered.
| vrc wrote:
| I buy the frozen ginger and garlic cubes TJs has and that's
| been a revelation. Fresh taste, no prep, only slight
| modifications to use. The snobs can go rub stainless steel
| with their garlic scented hands!
| rkangel wrote:
| I buy ginger in a squeezy tube that I keep in the fridge.
| And I use real garlic. And I have bags of frozen herbs in
| the freezer. But often I use fresh ones.
|
| As I think we all agree here - it's about what works for
| you. Not just in general, but on that day.
| jakzurr wrote:
| That sounds tasty, thanks!
| ufmace wrote:
| The trick of this person's story IMO isn't so much that cooking
| snobs are bad or that any way of cooking is good or bad. It's
| that the author wants to be a cooking snob themselves. They're
| upset that the made-up qualifications of being a cooking snob
| don't accommodate their disabilities. Okay yeah that's unfair,
| but the whole point of snobbery is to be unfair to people and
| consider yourself better than them. You don't have a lot of
| credibility if you want to be a snob yourself but are upset that
| you can't meet the qualifications. Instead of shaming the snob
| group for not accommodating you, let go of your desire to be a
| snob yourself. Once you do that, their opinions don't matter to
| you anymore and you aren't constantly searching for signs that
| some random stranger approves or doesn't approve of how you cook,
| and sometimes perceiving them even when they aren't there.
|
| Cook however you damn well feel like. Your food tasting good to
| you and whoever else you're feeding is all that matters, not the
| opinions of internet strangers on Twitter about how you did it.
|
| Once you really understand things and let go, you can see
| snobbery as kind of a joke, a fun game to play, instead of
| something super serious and important. I think all of the people
| who have strong opinions on, say, Vi vs Emacs are older and
| mature enough to not take it too seriously anymore, so any
| "flamewars" about it nowadays feel more like people joking around
| than an actual battle.
| DreamFlasher wrote:
| Exactly this! When I read it my first thought was: Wow in the
| US they even have minced garlic, isn't that amazing. I wish we
| had that in Germany. I hate peeling garlic, the fingers smell,
| why would I ever do that again if I don't need to?
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Slightly crush it with a knife before you peel and the skin
| will slide right off.
| woofyman wrote:
| I use a silicone tube. Roll the garlic in the tube and it
| peels the garlic.
| commenter1234 wrote:
| Of course depends on where you live but if you have a South
| Asian grocery store (or a broader Asian one that stocks south
| Asian ingredients) in any way accessible to you, they
| normally stock jars of garlic paste/minced garlic (and
| ginger+garlic paste).
| germanjoey wrote:
| Great post; this is how I felt about it too.
| em500 wrote:
| Maybe the author should try James May's cooking show/book[1].
| It's a decidedly anti-snob take on cooking, with a focus on
| amateurs ("You wouldn't be reading this if you knew how to cook")
| and convenience, unabashedly using low class preserved
| ingredients that last forever in storage (spam, alphabet pasta).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_May:_Oh_Cook
| [deleted]
| aaron695 wrote:
| onion2k wrote:
| Garlic in a jar is the React of cooking.
| zachrip wrote:
| Can you explain further? Whenever I try to create abstractions
| around alliums it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
| onion2k wrote:
| It's technically 'cheating' but it's perfectly acceptable to
| most people because it gets the job done as well as you could
| do it without it. People who complain about it are snobs.
|
| Also, I use an ungodly amount of it.
| ImPleadThe5th wrote:
| > Also, I use an ungodly amount of it.
|
| (Same) Lol
|
| Out of curiosity what makes react cheating to you?
| mhh__ wrote:
| "Cooking should be a pleasure, if it's a job get a takeaway" -
| Marco Pierre-White
| tpoacher wrote:
| Yeah I don't disagree with the article, but at the same time I
| can't shake that vibe that the author is also guilty of precisely
| the same crime they're finger-wagging about: shaming other people
| for their passions and preferences.
|
| It was a nice article, but also left a slightly sour aftertaste;
| surely you can just say "actually prepeeled garlic has its own
| set of benefits which you may not have thought of, here is a nice
| article pointing some out" and leave it at that, without going
| for the "you ableist scum" narrative to get the point across.
|
| I like peeling garlic when I cook. The implication that I
| henceforth have to consider myself posh privileged ableist scum
| whenever I peel garlic is not something I particularly cared for
| to be honest.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I've recovered from serious injuries before, mostly broken
| bones, but there's been some nerve stuff in there as well. I
| think the article is more to say something is better than
| nothing. To me it seems like a person finding a way to live
| like themselves and embracing the fact that they are becoming
| their own source of influence.
|
| Anyway, sometimes I'm so tired from the programming mines that
| heating up a frozen meal or even driving to pickup take out
| feels like I've done something.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| The problem I have with this blog post is that the author is
| conflating two things.
|
| The author has a disability, and the author's disability means
| they struggle with fine tasks. Obviously absolutely nothing wrong
| with that part.
|
| The author then launches into a lengthly tirade about "food
| snobs", some of which is not really supported by facts. Not cool.
|
| Because the problem is that its hard fact that pre-ground spice
| looses its potency very quickly compared to its whole
| counterparts. And its a hard fact that you have to "do stuff" to
| garlic in order to put it in a jar or a tube in order to preserve
| it (you will have to suspend it in something, many processes will
| likely add salt to it, I suspect quite a few will add
| preservatives to it, others may even heat it in order to
| sterilise for long shelf life).
|
| e.g. quick internet search, example product "Gia Garlic Puree
| 90G", its ingredients ? Garlic (55% - Origin Italy/Spain),
| Sunflower Oil, Salt, Preservative (Potassium Metabisulphite)
|
| So, 55% of what is in the tube is garlic. The rest of it ? Salt,
| oil and preservatives.
|
| Calling people "food snobs" for pointing out hard facts is not
| cool. The fact that garlic in bulb form is different to tin/tube
| garlic is simply an inescapable fact. Different texture,
| different strength, different everything. It is quite clearly not
| "just pre-chopped garlic".
|
| In the end, IMHO the author should have focused more on the
| quality of life aspect and less on the ranting.
|
| I have a lot of respect for the author in finding ways to adapt
| in order to maintain their quality of life and their love for
| cooking. I think that would have made for a far more interesting
| blog post than an unsubstantiated rant about "food snobs".
|
| P.S. I'm not saying "food snobs" don't exist, they certainly do.
| But the author picked the wrong example here !
| rglullis wrote:
| Yes, this is nothing but a wasted opportunity. Instead of
| showing a story of overcoming challenges, it tries to make the
| case that everyone should stop pursuing excellence just because
| it is unattainable to some unfortunate minority facing some
| kind of handicap.
|
| It is basically saying "because _I_ care about this and _I_ can
| not be as good as others, _everyone else_ should be brought
| down to my level. " It glorifies complacency and appeasement to
| the lowest-common denominator.
|
| You see this type of mentality applied to everything. Every
| moral failing should be normalized "because no one is perfect".
| Any one that tries to defy the odds is privileged and selfish.
|
| It seems like no more articles can be written today to inspire
| people. It's like every media channel wants to you believe
| "See, things look shit now, but you should be content that you
| are not as bad as this poor soul."
| tallanvor wrote:
| The author didn't pick the wrong example here. Pre-minced
| garlic is good enough for most people. The oil is a neutral
| flavor, and the small amount of salt isn't going to affect the
| taste at the end. --Once it's been cooked, the difference is
| indistinguishable to all but a few super tasters.
|
| Most home cooks don't want to grind all their spices fresh, and
| even most professionals probably don't, for example try to
| grind their own cinnamon. The pre-ground stuff is good enough,
| especially if you pay attention to use-by dates (which are
| still going to be pretty conservative).
|
| It absolutely is food snobbery to suggest that if you use pre-
| minced garlic or pre-ground spices that you aren't a real cook,
| or that you should just leave the ingredients out if you can't
| use fresh versions for whatever reason (health, time, or even
| just laziness).
| klodolph wrote:
| > Once it's been cooked, the difference is indistinguishable
| to all but a few super tasters.
|
| I don't think that's correct. My own experience is that pre-
| minced garlic tastes very different from garlic that you
| mince yourself.
|
| It takes a long time to get a sense of how different versions
| of ingredients differ, and what the impact is of using
| prepared foods. Dried basil is radically different from fresh
| basil, and both options are good. Frozen peas are as good as
| fresh peas in nearly every dish. Fresh pasta is usually no
| better than dried pasta. Frozen concentrated orange juice
| tastes radically different from fresh orange juice, but both
| options are good.
|
| Pre-minced garlic in a jar is just too different. I don't
| think I'm any kind of "super taster". Garlic is one of those
| foods can give you radically different flavors with different
| preparations. It's because as soon as you cut or crush the
| garlic, it starts a reaction between two chemicals called
| alliin and allinase, producing allicin. The allicin can then
| participate in further chemical reactions. In the jar, the
| chemical reactions have a long time to progress.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| On a similar note, real photographers use prime lenses. Zoom
| lenses are for noobs who can't relocate. You also put your prime
| lenses on DSLRs, mirrorless cameras are clearly ulterior. If you
| think smartphones are a camera, you're the reason we're behind as
| species.
|
| For you coffee, by the way, you grind it yourself, then you use
| your weiss distributor and flattener before you tamp it. If your
| coffee doesn't cost at least 20$ per pound and involves at least
| 5 manual steps, there's no way it can be good. If you put pre-
| ground coffee in a machine, you might as well skip these steps
| and drink directly from the toilet.
|
| And since we're on HN, real developers use Unix as an IDE. With
| vi, obviously - emacs people can quit right now. And don't even
| get me started on those IntelliJ script kiddies
|
| ---
|
| Seriously, there are always be people in each niche who think
| that their way is the only way and people who stray from the path
| are to feel the wrath of god [0]. I could go on and on with
| examples like this. Funnily enough, this quite often doesn't even
| work for them (I can tell from personal experience that bringing
| a DSLR with gear up a mountain is not pure fun, for example).
| Simply do what works for you and ignore them - unless you asked
| them or they pay you, their opinion is pretty irrelevant.
|
| [0] Although it should be mentioned that usually quite a few
| people just act snobby for the joke and aren't actually on a
| crusade. The pineaple-pizza-thingy seems to be mostly a joke, for
| example.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| It cracks me up how defensive people get about what tools you
| use, meanwhile I'm just gonna keep building things because your
| audience doesn't give a crap what tools were used to make the
| actual end product.
| hef19898 wrote:
| This is so true. And that also defines "pro" tools, those
| tend to be the best money making devices, and not the
| technically best devices. They speed up work, maybe hold
| longer, or are a tad more ergonomically. Because all of that
| matters if tools are being used for hours every day to earn a
| living.
|
| In the end, it is the end product that matters. And that is
| influenced a lot more by the person and ingeredients / raw
| materials then it is by the tools being used.
| cttet wrote:
| I personally really don't care about this judgements. But an
| interesting thing to me is that all the claims are pointing to
| a category of people. I wonder why some people what to be
| categorised, like, even if "real programmer use vi", why do I
| want to be a "real programmer" if I don't like vi? What's the
| charm of the arbitrary tag?
| Groxx wrote:
| Purely on the coffee note: freshly grinding coffee is _by far_
| the best $-investment vs quality-improvement you can make. A
| $10 (or cheaper!) blade grinder makes a noticeable improvement
| over pre-ground for nearly everyone, and you can absolutely
| just stop there and enjoy the step up and that grinder will
| probably last as long as your drip machine.
|
| Very little after that will achieve such a large improvement,
| and no matter what it'll cost a lot more money and time (e.g.
| to find and buy better coffee beans).
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > mirrorless cameras are clearly ulterior.
|
| I'm going to assume this is satire but in case this isn't,
| modern mirrorless cameras are far superior to dlrs for most
| applications these days. my z5 does everything my previous dslr
| does and gives me realtime exposure preview. And don't get me
| started on the Z9. With that camera, the dslr's's days are
| numbered.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| >The pineaple-pizza-thingy seems to be mostly a joke, for
| example.
|
| Tell me you haven't visited Italy/don't know any Italians well,
| without telling me you haven't been to Italy.
| barkingcat wrote:
| In fact Italian pizza stores love selling pineapple pizza to
| tourists!
|
| Whatever gets a euro from a tourist is whatever they will
| sell.
|
| When I was in Italy, all the pizza shops sold pineapple
| pizza, for a slightly higher price, cause it sells that well
| to North Americans.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| At this point American pizza isn't an Italian food, it's
| American/global. No one thinks "pizza" when you say, "lets's
| get some Italian".
| samatman wrote:
| In the more populous parts of America, Italian pizza is one
| of six or seven varieties one can find, generally (though
| not on the West Coast) dominated by the local take.
|
| I've had pizza margherita in Italy, and at least three
| large US cities: the one in Rome was better, but frankly,
| that's probably because I was in Rome when I ate it. It was
| the same sort of pizza you get from Italian pizza joints in
| the States.
| rr888 wrote:
| > Tell me you haven't visited Italy/don't know any Italians
| well, without telling me you haven't been to Italy.
|
| Seriously who cares what Italians think, are you that
| neurotic? Hawaiian pizza is great.
| jfengel wrote:
| I have been to Italy, a fair bit, and as far as I can tell
| their attitude is "pizza is a flatbread that you use to
| stretch out whatever other ingredients you have on hand".
| There are certainly regional traditions, and obviously
| pineapple isn't any of them, but I don't see why they'd
| object to you putting whatever the hell you want on your
| pizza.
|
| Caveat: I haven't been south of Rome, and I gather that there
| may be more pizza grumpiness further south.
| leoedin wrote:
| Having worked closely with Italians from all over Italy,
| living in London - every one of them I spoke to felt
| passionately about food being a specific way. Nothing would
| get my Italian colleagues more riled up over lunch than a
| British interpretation of an Italian classic dish. There's
| clearly a very strong traditionalist food culture in Italy.
| FooHentai wrote:
| Something I believe is that persistent satire and sincere
| belief are indistinguishable in many settings, and that
| persistent application of satire tends to cultivate sincere
| belief in the same thing as the idea spreads around. Not that
| I think Italians look down on Hawaiian pizza as a result of
| satire, that's more that Italians often see a national dish
| that's been heavily evolved overseas in a negative light, and
| Hawaiian pizza is the shining example of it to be seized
| upon. Chicago Deep Dish being another. But online it's
| definitely an issue - Ironic shit-posting of dumb things
| eventually leads to areas chock full of people with those
| exact beliefs for real. That's how meme magic works. Meme
| something, no matter how dumb, persistently enough, and it'll
| enter the collective conscious as a sincerely held belief.
| rascul wrote:
| > Hawaiian pizza
|
| I've always found that name amusing.
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_pizza :
|
| > Sam Panopoulos, a Greek-born Canadian, created the first
| Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham,
| Ontario, Canada in 1962. Inspired in part by his experience
| preparing Chinese dishes which commonly mix sweet and
| savory flavours, Panopoulos experimented with adding
| pineapple, ham, bacon, and other toppings. These additions
| were not initially very popular.
|
| > The addition of pineapple to the traditional mix of
| tomato sauce and cheese, along with either ham or bacon,
| later became popular locally and eventually became a staple
| offering of pizzerias on a global scale. The name of this
| creation is, in fact, actually not directly inspired by the
| U.S. state of Hawaii at all; Panopoulos chose the name
| Hawaiian after the brand of canned pineapple they were
| using at the time.
| sybercecurity wrote:
| There are lots of weird stories behind famous dishes.
| Like the Pu Pu Platter that is seen in American Chinese
| restaurants. The version everyone knows comes from Trader
| Vic's, which basically had (Americanized) Cantonese food
| like char siu and spring rolls with vaguely Pacific
| islander names. Then it started appearing in American
| Chinese restaurants.
| FooHentai wrote:
| Hah, that's great. Hawaiian pizza always made sense to me
| since I grew up in the UK in the eighties, where
| pork/gammon with canned pineapple rings was an ordinary
| evening meal (bear in mind, this was close to the era of
| Salmon Mousse, many culinary crimes were committed around
| that time). I guess the association between pineapple and
| Hawaii is in and of itself kinda odd too, since I think
| they're native to South America.
| cykros wrote:
| Don't forget to grind that coffee in a hand crank burr grinder,
| so you can control every aspect of the process. And don't even
| THINK about using water that is even a degree away from 200F (I
| know someone who uses boiling water -- the monster!)
|
| While you're at it, if you're drinking tea, of course follow
| the RFC. Pouring the hot tea out of the pot and then adding
| milk is absolutely barbaric.
| [deleted]
| hef19898 wrote:
| Regarding prime lenses: If you are unable to take good pictures
| with a zoom pense you clearly have bad technique. And the only
| true way if taking pictures is on film, it forces to think
| about composition and exposure. Unless you are into wildlife
| and birds, there of course anything below a pro-DSLR, or maybe,
| _maybe_ a pro mirroless action body and 600 mm OEM prime
| lenses, on a carbon fibre tripod, is clearly not enough.
|
| On a serious note, as long as you like your pictures everything
| is good. If you make living selling your pics all is good as
| long as your clients are happy. And nobody cares about the gear
| used in taking a particular picture, or cooking a meal. No idea
| why we cannot simply enjoy common hobbies.
|
| All that are reasons I stay away from forums and social media
| on my hobbies. With the sole exception of a very helpfull forum
| on the particular brand of my classic car, I need my technical
| advice from somewhere.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| > Unless you are into wildlife and birds, there of course
| anything below a pro-DSLR, or maybe, maybe a pro mirroless
| action body and 600 mm OEM prime lenses, on a carbon fibre
| tripod, is clearly not enough.
|
| DSLRs are far behind mirrorless these days for wildlife
| photography, especially birds in flight. The autofocus
| systems of the high-end mirrorless cameras are substantially
| better than any DSLR, and the frame rates (20-30 shots per
| second) allow far more chances to get a good shot.
|
| Which doesn't mean DSLRs are useless. It just means you have
| to take more photos & spend more time to get the same number
| of "keepers", so depending on what you value (time editing vs
| time in the field vs money spent) you might want to get a
| wildlife-focused mirrorless for wildlife.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Tell me! Not sure on auto-focus so, the mirrorless sytems
| seem to struggle with gast moving objects. If there are
| eyes to track they beat DSLRs everytime so. Also frame rate
| can be better, the absence of a mirror really helps. Not
| that close to 10 fps is bad by any stretch.
|
| Fully agree that mirrorless is the future, took long enough
| to fully get track.
|
| There are some DSLR snobists, there are prime lense
| snobists, there are mirrorless snobists, there are frame
| rate snobists.
|
| In the end the picture matters, whatever helps you get good
| pictures is good for you.
|
| That beimg said, as of now I'd say a Z6ii is still behind a
| D780 a bit and quite a bit behind a D6 (I'm a Nikon
| shooter, so don't ask questions about other brands). A Z9
| on the other hand... That being said, none of those options
| beats the one you can actually afford and know how to use.
|
| Edit: Which DSLR (Edit 2: I mean mirrorless...) gets 20
| fps? The Z6ii is at 12. Everything above is, what, 5k plus
| for the body?
|
| Edit 3: That seems to be Nikon's Z9 with 20-30 fps in
| continous mode. Up to 120 in small JPEG. Impressive, and
| with 6k Euros almost reasonably priced when compared to
| other Nikon top mofels of the past. One can still get a
| Z6ii and a bunch of top notch lenses. Damn, I shouldn't
| have looked it up...
| marcolussetti wrote:
| The parent comment is saying mirrorless are getting 20FPS
| and thus are better than DSLR for bird photography.
| gigaflop wrote:
| Something I keep in mind: The people who spend most of their
| time online talking about a hobby, are usually not the ones
| who spend most of their time _doing the hobby_.
| hef19898 wrote:
| True! And those talking online about the _gear_ used for
| their hobby are the worst cases of that.
| gigaflop wrote:
| With one potential exception being mechanical keyboard
| cultists. After all, the best use of a $1k keyboard is to
| talk hype about how great it is, and how trashy MX Browns
| are.
| hef19898 wrote:
| When you sit at the center of an almost impossible ven
| diagram, you can do anything!
| [deleted]
| mrmincent wrote:
| I feel like snobs really miss out on enjoying the full spectrum
| of the thing that they're snobby about. I know people who only
| drink single origin coffee and single malt whisky and the like,
| but to me often a good quality blended product of either usually
| tastes just as good, and far cheaper.
|
| For me, being free to enjoy something for what it is, rather than
| what is not, makes life much more enjoyable.
| Saint_Genet wrote:
| Beer is pretty funny that way. The most fancy, expensive and
| artisanal beard guy stuff is often impossible to distinguish in
| a blind test, it's just sharp tasting hop juice.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| It's spectacle and consumption.
|
| It's not about the actual thing, it's how consuming it makes
| you feel. So if drinking one beer makes you feel cool and
| part of a group and another beer that tastes the same
| doesn't, then many people will think the first beer is
| authentic and more real.
|
| In a way the author of the article is actually wanting this
| phantom sense of belonging and authenticity. They are looking
| for that feeling of buying and consuming stuff.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Atleast with beer you can actually get different tastes.
|
| The tests with water are funny, when knowing the name or
| price people pick the most expensive one as the best tasting,
| when it turns out that all the bottles were filled with tap
| water.
| wink wrote:
| Maybe it's also different levels of carbonation, there are
| definitely at least 2 brands of locally available water
| that I can pick out. One just tastes a little bit off (and
| is REALLY carbonated) and the other one is so salty you can
| only stomach it when you're used to it. My parents used to
| buy the brand and only after not drinking it for a few
| years I was unpleasantly surprised...
|
| But in general, yeah - uncarbonated ones I've never ever
| tasted any difference to local tap water.
| corrral wrote:
| Dasani's uniquely terrible. IDK what they do to it, but
| it's awful (to me--apparently _someone_ likes it). I 've
| not had another name-brand non-super-cheap bottled water
| that was outright _bad_.
|
| Every now and then I'll get a cheap gas station or local
| brand bottle of water (when traveling, say) and on the
| first sip it's like "yep, that's just not-very-good tap
| water, not even filtered". Other times it's fine, but
| it's pretty obvious the ones that just went with whatever
| the cheapest local source was and didn't do _anything_ to
| it.
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| > For me, being free to enjoy something for what it is, rather
| than what is not, makes life much more enjoyable.
|
| This is honestly the mature endpoint of any snob or obsessive's
| journey - relearning how to enjoy the bad and the ordinary. But
| I'd argue the chasing-the-dragon phase comes with the territory
| of diving really really deep into anything.
|
| By learning the deep intricacies of some area (be it food,
| coffee, music, musical instruments, headphones, chefs knives,
| fountain pens etc etc) you learn to appreciate the highs of the
| best, most nuanced things that area has to offer. But you also
| learn how to pick apart all the flaws and imperfections in
| things you otherwise may have enjoyed.
|
| It takes a long time but I'd say the journey of expertise goes
| from enjoying the bad or ordinary for what it is, to disliking
| it for what is, to enjoying it because despite all its flaws,
| what it is is still pretty good.
| jerf wrote:
| "Qingyuan declared that there were three stages in his
| understanding of the dharma: the first stage, seeing mountain
| as mountain and water as water; the second stage, seeing
| mountain not as mountain and water not as water; and the
| third stage, seeing mountain still as mountain and water
| still as water." - https://terebess.hu/zen/qingyuan.html
| thekingofrome wrote:
| The author's main problem is her sensitivity, not a culture of
| "ableist" cooks. Nobody should be this concerned with how random
| internet users care about their method of preparing garlic. And
| of course YouTube cooks promote the "best" method even when it
| might be unnecessarily time consuming - because they are cooking
| to make a nice video, not a time efficient meal.
|
| The part about her causing herself pain by mincing garlic shows
| well how she is too worried about other people's opinions (who
| aren't even present when she does it) over factors that influence
| her health.
| info781 wrote:
| robonerd wrote:
| Sensitivity really is the problem. Sometimes people mock me for
| drinking instant coffee. Instead of letting that hurt my
| feelings, I laugh in their face and ask if they're volunteering
| to make coffee for me.
| kashkhan wrote:
| i like instant coffee. It tastes better. To me.
|
| A lot of fancy coffees taste terrible. But we aren't allowed
| to say that because how can it be you spent 10x more to get a
| far worse product?
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Instant coffee is just freeze-dried coffee, it's not my
| favorite way of making coffee but it's focusing on the wrong
| thing (technique over product).
|
| I'd take instant coffee from good beans over perfectly brewed
| coffee (IMO this is espresso or pour-over in a pinch) with
| shitty beans.
| bittercynic wrote:
| Sensitivity is _a_ real problem.
|
| When I was younger I would sometimes feel deeply hurt when
| someone expressed disapproval of something I did or something
| about me, and as I've grown older realized that sometimes
| people don't like the way I do things, or don't like me, and
| that's okay.
|
| I don't have a really specific point to make here, but it may
| be worth considering that snobby humor is sometimes really
| hurtful to some people, and telling someone "you're too
| sensitive" is probably not helping them grow into a more
| secure person with a healthier level of sensitivity.
| ludston wrote:
| Ego is the real problem. Placing too much value on managing
| your external identity is what leads to assuming how other
| people feel about your experiences is more important than
| how you feel having them. How can you enjoy a nice meal
| when you are worrying more about status than how it tastes?
| Why is it so important to express your superior status and
| look down on those that produce fractionally less tasty
| food than yours?
|
| Better to not spend your life planning on how to improve
| your status and instead focus on finding things rewarding.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _and telling someone "you're too sensitive" is probably
| not helping them grow into a more secure person with a
| healthier level of sensitivity._
|
| I fundamentally don't agree with that. That's not the way I
| want other people to treat me, so that's not the way I
| treat other people. If I have a problem with getting
| bullying and pressuring into doing something I don't like,
| I would rather have somebody set my priorities straight by
| telling me to ignore the haters. Offering me a shoulder to
| cry on won't help me. That's a superficial sort of
| kindness, like not washing a wound because it would be
| painful, choosing instead to let the wound fester.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There's more than two ways to do things, which is the
| other problem with conversations with random internet
| users.
|
| You don't need to just let them cry and not address
| anything, but also telling someone to "just ignore the
| haters" is probably just as effective as telling a
| depressed person "have you tried not being depressed?"
| bittercynic wrote:
| I think we mostly agree - I'm with you that "Ignore the
| haters" is usually a good, supportive thing to say in
| these situations.
|
| Are you sure that you want to be told "You're too
| sensitive" when you're having a vulnerable moment, and
| someone happened to criticize you in an area where you
| have some insecurity? Though it may be true, don't you
| already know it, and really don't want to hear it at that
| moment?
| nightski wrote:
| A pour over coffee only takes a few minutes to make. I can't
| imagine you are saving much time in this case, and the
| quality difference is substantial. But I'm not judging you, I
| know people that just like instant coffee better.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > A pour over coffee only takes a few minutes to make.
|
| The trouble with that mode of argument is that for nearly
| every conceivable action you take in your life, there is
| going to be a "higher quality" version of that action that
| only takes slightly longer. There's probably always a way
| to get better results by spending slightly more time tying
| your shoes, brushing your teeth, shaving, washing your
| face, catching up on news, preparing your coffee, having
| your morning walk/bike ride/gym session, etc.
|
| And yet you only have so much time in the day, so it's
| important to know which of those things you enjoy well
| enough to take the time to do the higher quality version of
| them. Maybe you love coffee and gladly spend a few extra
| minutes getting a cup that you enjoy, but maybe you
| couldn't care less about your skin care routine. But maybe
| I enjoy skin care and will gladly spend time shaving and
| washing my face, but maybe I couldn't care less about the
| quality of my morning coffee and just want the instant
| crystals.
| [deleted]
| madmax108 wrote:
| > I'm not judging you, I know people that just like instant
| coffee better.
|
| As a self-confessed coffee snob (who owns everything from a
| Aeropress to a French Press to you-name-it and gets freshly
| roasted beans from across the world which I hand grind at
| home), it's always a matter of contention for me when my
| sister visits home and PREFERS both the speed and the taste
| of nescafe instant coffee over my finely tweaked-over-the-
| years methods for making great coffee.
|
| She's not in the computer science field, so the instant vs
| fresh coffee debate is our version of the Emacs vs Vim
| debate ;-)
| cronix wrote:
| oh, you're not really a snob until you roast your own
| beans and won't drink any others /s
| bdowling wrote:
| FYI, that's the coffee equivalent of the one-of-a-kind
| mechanical keyboard with custom layout and custom QMK
| firmware with modal overlays.
| stevejb wrote:
| I've had many pourovers and I appreciate them if I have the
| time. If I like pour overs at value P, then I would rate an
| instant coffee at 0.9 _P. The 0.1_ P of value I miss out on
| isn't worth the hassle of filters, dealing with coffee
| grounds, all that stuff.
| [deleted]
| gnicholas wrote:
| Don't forget to account for the time spent cleaning the
| equipment and getting the beans/grounds fresh on a regular
| basis. Instant coffee keeps for months, and of course is
| also much cheaper.
| robonerd wrote:
| A scoop of instant coffee in a mug and 60 seconds in the
| microwave is good enough for me. Coffee is a drug delivery
| mechanism to me; I drink it when I don't have caffeine
| pills handy.
| iakov wrote:
| Damn, this is the most unrefined way of preparing coffee
| that I've heard of. I have cut down on caffeine a lot a
| few years ago, but I still enjoy the ritual of brewing
| coffee in a espresso machine or in chemex. Most of the
| time it's decaf, too.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Occasionally I make too much coffee so there will be about a
| cup leftover. Instead of pouring it down the drain I'll just
| keep it and the next time I'd like a cup I put it in the
| microwave for a bit to warm it up.
|
| The looks of utter disgust and horror I've received always
| put a smile on my face.
| blooalien wrote:
| My solution to "extra" coffee is "iced coffee". I keep a
| small pitcher in the fridge to dump extra coffee in and
| pour me a glass over ice with a bit of flavored creamer
| whenever the urge strikes.
| hvs wrote:
| I'm most assuredly not a coffee snob (Folger's? Bring it on),
| but I just don't like the taste of instant. I will say that
| an AeroPress is one of my best investments for a quick, good
| tasting cup of coffee (faster and cleaner than my previous
| plastic pour-over thing that cost me $2).
| cronix wrote:
| Try Starbucks Via Instant. You might be surprised. I use it
| mainly for camping due to the ease, or if I run out of
| regular and can't bring myself to go to the store just for
| coffee right when I wake up, but I can't really tell the
| difference. Normally I grind the beans fresh for each batch
| and normally don't drink starbucks.
| rocqua wrote:
| People are getting more sensitive to the opinions of others,
| and I am not sure that is necessarily a bad thing. It does mean
| we might want to be a bit more careful with how we express
| opinions, considering others a bit. I also don't think that is
| necessarily bad.
| ramblerman wrote:
| Being sensitive to the opinion of others implies trying to
| see things their way. It means increased communication,
| empathy.
|
| Being neurotic about if people agree with how you cook garlic
| does the opposite. It's founded in insecurity and achieves
| the opposite.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Did you only read the first page of the article? She describes
| a physical condition that actually does prevent her from
| chopping fresh garlic:
|
| > A repetitive strain injury led me to develop thoracic outlet
| syndrome. Pain shot through my forearms and into my fingers
| when I did simple tasks. My hands often went numb. My elbows
| ached and seized. Looking down at anything--a book, a cutting
| board--hurt my neck and shoulders and worsened the rest of my
| symptoms.
|
| The article is actually interesting from a human perspective:
| many disabilities are invisible, or only manifest in ways that
| _appear_ trivial on their own but that exacerbate feelings of
| inadequacy, inauthenticity, etc. She doesn 't dispute the fact
| that fresh chopped garlic is better; she's found herself aware
| of a source on inadequacy that feels trivial to everyone else.
| I think that's a pretty relatable sentiment.
| odshoifsdhfs wrote:
| I use normal bulbs of garlic as it was as I learned to cook (my
| country grows and uses garlic a lot) but I had no problems using
| 'pre prepared' garlic when I lived in other countries, BUT I
| would recommend everyone that does so to make sure it is sourced
| ethically (seems most peeled garlic in America comes from china,
| which doesn't have a good track record:
| https://www.ft.com/content/1416a056-833b-11e7-94e2-c5b903247... )
| marak830 wrote:
| I was going to post this as well.
| bbarnett wrote:
| China has entire regions now, where they have to pollinate
| fruit trees by hand, due to excessive pesticide use. Saw it in
| a movie about declining bee populations.
|
| So there are additional reasons to not eat garlic from China.
|
| Regardless, source local is a good thing anyhow.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > seems most peeled garlic in America comes from china
|
| I used to eat at a restaurant in Shanghai which had a fridge in
| the back, in which enormous bags of pre-peeled garlic cloves
| were visible.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Not to go too far with commercial promotion, but I'm pretty
| sure that in the US garlic distribution, especially the
| processed options, are dominated by Christopher Ranch in
| Northern California: https://christopherranch.com/products/
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| You can use jarred garlic all you like. If someone gives you
| shit, tell them GFY.
|
| I use it once in a while, e.g. for marinades.
|
| One method of crushing that I don't see here: if you have
| drinking glasses with heavy glass bottoms (most of them, from
| what I can tell), you can just smash the clove with that. Peel
| the skin, then smash the clove again. Now it _might_ be usable as
| is, but if not, you can chop it pretty easily. I 've never broken
| a glass that way.
| skyyler wrote:
| I greatly dislike the idea of using a glass object as a hammer.
|
| The side of a knife works very well, not sure why it's not
| universal...
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Okey dokey, then. You don't have to do it.
| France_is_bacon wrote:
| andybak wrote:
| The culinary arts are second only to the world of audiophiles in
| being seriously in need of some double-blind tests to dispell
| long-standing myths.
|
| The trouble is _some_ myths are true. I have a strong hunch about
| a few that aren 't but I'd love to see a TV show that tested some
| pundits to actually tell the difference.
| wffurr wrote:
| Serious Eats does a lot of double blind testing and analysis of
| long standing culinary myths.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| They're mostly Cook's Illustrated personnel who have been
| doing similar testing for many decades. Similarly, many of
| the Serious Eats alumni have moved on to do their own thing.
| (J. Kenji Lopez-Alt for example).
|
| But their focus is very much on taste, sacrificing
| convenience to maximize taste. Only when the double blind
| shows taste to be equivalent do their recipes contain the
| more convenient step. If you read the entire article prose
| it'll give you some hints on which conveniences will have
| little effect on taste and which will significantly
| compromise the dish.
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