I’m sick of having to look up what country an author is from to know which variant of teaspoon they’re using or how big their lemons are compared to mine. It’s amateur hour out there, I want those homely family recipes up to standard!
What are some good lessons from scientific documentation which should be encouraged in cooking recipes? What are some issues with recipes you’ve seen which have tripped you up?
That man fucks me right off. “Here’s how you can feed your family for a fiver”
Proceeds to use an entire fucking spice rack that’ll cost about 80 quid to get set up properly.
That’s not totally disingenuous. If you’re cooking for yourself rather than eating out or buying ready made things and you plan to do that a lot of it, some outlay on things that get used across multiple recipes over long periods (can be years with spices) is reasonable to expect and also not to be costed in recipe estimates. What exactly is reasonable to expect someone to have in their pantry already for a recipe is very subjective so what to me seems fair to assume won’t seem so to others, but there are assumptions you can make. You wouldn’t for example criticise a recipe for failing to incorporate the cost of a pan if it tells you to pan fry something or a spoon to stir it or the cost of the water out of the tap. Most of those examples are equipment but I think there’s an extent to which you can write recipes with similar givens for ingredients as well, otherwise it becomes untenable to estimate costs. You don’t typically have to use the same spices as recommended by a recipe either. For some it’s essential but for many it’s just what you like or what you have so, don’t buy 80 quid of spices for one recipe, but if you can figure out which are most important for that recipe and which you also really like the taste of, buy just those and use them in that recipe and many others going forward. You gradually add to your collection as you try new things and when you have some spices and a recipe calls for you to get more, it’s not such a stretch because you’re not buying a ton of them at once just the few you don’t have and consider it worth trying. It takes a long time to get through spices and eventually you get to a point where you have most of the spices referenced in a given recipe or decent substitutes or you only need like 1 extra one that will help you cook more things in future. If you’re sure you won’t use a spice outside of the one recipe you’re looking at, just skip it.
Sorry sib, but you gotta buy the spices. They’re like salt and oil, or pots and pans - you are almost always going to be using some of them, no matter what you’re cooking. It helps a lot to find an Indian supermarket, because you can get big packets of spices for much cheaper than the bottles in regular supermarkets.
Also too many spices has never been an issue I’ve had with Jamie, if anything I feel he overrelies on access to good quality ingredients. Yotam Ottolenghi is the spice dickhead, most of his recipes require a specific overpriced spice blend only he sells.