{"id":220,"date":"2015-09-29T12:50:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T12:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/09\/29\/problems-with-recipe-books\/"},"modified":"2023-12-18T15:26:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T15:26:50","slug":"problems-with-recipe-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/problems-with-recipe-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Problems with recipe books."},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size: x-large;\"><b>I<\/b><\/span> really like recipe books. Lots of people do. I can sit and read them, though I suspect this actually causes me to put on weight. But more people buy them and read them than actually try to make the food they describe. If you have more than a couple of recipe books, and have tried very many of the recipes, you will have encountered one or more of the following problems.<\/span><\/div>\n<ul style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Photographs that are nothing like the result you get.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Ingredients hardly anyone sells.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Ingredients that have not been manufactured for years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Disgusting ingredients.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Items missing from the ingredients list but in the method.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Items in the ingredients list that are not used in the method.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Incomprehensible procedures, and obscure terminology.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Steps missing from the method.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Preparatory steps part way through the method.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Method that is just a solid chunk of text.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Ludicrous measurements.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Photographs that are nothing like the result you get.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-hHZyKIdZmfQ\/Vgp-am_B5MI\/AAAAAAAAdZw\/3LEkYwWlgAg\/s1600\/phoenix-enhanced.jpg\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-hHZyKIdZmfQ\/Vgp-am_B5MI\/AAAAAAAAdZw\/3LEkYwWlgAg\/s1600\/phoenix-enhanced.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">One of the causes of this is that recipe books often have really terrific photography, which takes time. So the food is actually photographed cold, which stops the picture being blurred by steam. And the photographer often constructs a beautiful composition by arranging the food carefully, which is easier if it is very undercooked. I don&#8217;t know if this Phoenix Cold Meat Combination was actually constructed by the photographer or the cook. Either way, it looks wonderful, would probably taste very good, and would be far too much like hard work unless you were trying to impress someone.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\"><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Ingredients hardly anyone sells.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">That delicious-looking phoenix contains a small amount of abalone. If you want that, you are going to have to go to your favourite Chinese Supermarket. They will have it in tins, but it&#8217;s less edible than fresh abalone, according to my favourite Chinese cookery book. It costs a fortune, and you will have most of the tin left over. Do you have a recipe that requires three quarters of a tin of left over abalone? Nor do I.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Ingredients that have not been manufactured for years.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">When we lived in Hong Kong, in the early 1960&#8217;s, we used to buy Daw Sen curry paste, because it was really good. I have been searching for it for the last five years, in every oriental supermarket I have visited, and on the Internet. (This was written over twenty years ago, and I still have not seen any.) I know how to search, and I know how to look at jars in shops. So it is understandable that I become irritated when I see recipes on the web that tell me to use Daw Sen curry paste, <i>because it is so good<\/i>. Like this one, for instance, quoted from a tediously Messianic vegetarian web site-<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><u>BRYANNA&#8217;S HUNAN-STYLE &#8220;DUCK&#8221; CURRY<\/u>&nbsp;Serves 4<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">This is an excellent winter dish. It has all the flavor of a long-cooked stew, but is quick to make. The Chinese generally use an oil-based curry paste ( Daw Sen brand from Calcutta is good), which can be found in most Asian grocery stores, but a good-quality curry powder will do.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">So I asked Bryanna if she really knew where it could be bought, and the reply was an airy &#8220;oh, just look in any oriental supermarket&#8221;. I politely replied that I&nbsp;<i>had<\/i>&nbsp;looked, and all my messages vanished from their web site. New ones I send don&#8217;t appear.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">The fact is that these people have copied their recipes from somewhere else (probably &#8220;Recipe Hound&#8221;, who also mentions Daw Sen curry paste) without bothering to see if the ingredients are actually available. They have never cooked the recipe themselves, they are only interested in selling their faddy diets to misguided vegetarians in order to make large sums of money. Well, their web sites are <i>long <\/i>gone, but I&#8217;m just getting started&#8230;<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Disgusting ingredients.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">I am reasonably sure I will never want to cook any recipe that contains a &#8220;Hershey Bar&#8221; or a &#8220;Twinkie&#8221;, even if I accidentally find out what those things are.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Items missing from the ingredients but in the method.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">This is absolutely infuriating. And it is always something you don&#8217;t have in the house.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Items in the ingredients that are not used in the method.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">This is also quite annoying. At least you now have some of the ingredient in the house. I hope it wasn&#8217;t abalone.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Incomprehensible procedures, and obscure terminology.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">I know, we all have to learn some time, and then the terminology is no longer obscure. If we are truly committed to this noble art, we must be prepared to learn how to spatch-cock small creatures. Except abalone. But it is annoying to have to stop cooking your steak and find out how to de-glaze the pan.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Steps missing from the method.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">What on Earth am I supposed to do with this abalone&#8230;<\/span><\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Preparatory steps part way through the method section.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">This one is a real pain. Having to stop cooking, take the octopus outside, and whack it against the wall for an hour to tenderise it before you can continue is fairly irritating. When you find out that you must then marinate the octopus for three days, you may wish to tenderise the author.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Method that is just a solid chunk of text.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">The author cannot be bothered to make things easier for you with a clear layout. Numbered steps would have been a start. Increasingly, recipe books are &#8220;step by step&#8221;. Mostly they have four photographs, each with some text underneath. Perhaps some day they will use a sufficiently large number of small steps&#8230;<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Ludicrous measurements.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">I know most American recipe books use cups as the only way to measure things, and I don&#8217;t mean to offend the authors very much, but how big is a cup? Also, let us not even talk about recipes where some things are measured in &#8220;cups&#8221;, unless <i>everything<\/i> in the recipe is in the same units. Then we can at least determine the volumes of the various ingredients by ratio.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Also, let us calmly throw away recipes that say silly things like &#8220;three tablespoons of butter&#8221;. Would that be level, heaped or a big block of butter balanced on the spoon? How big is a tablespoon? We have several sizes.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Mixing pounds, grams, cups and tablespoons in a recipe? Hanging is too good for &#8217;em.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">So what do I suggest?<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">I had been re-writing some of my favourite Chinese recipes using a format of my own devising, twenty years ago, intending to use them on some recipe pages. I devised the format when I was trying to write a book with the working title <i>&#8220;How to Cook Like a Computer Programmer&#8221;<\/i>. It never got finished, and I have some doubts about whether it would ever have been accepted by a publisher.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">The basis of the format is the TV cooks&#8217; ready prepared containers of ingredients, but I found it just wasn&#8217;t general enough for every recipe you might want to cook. However, it did work well for most Chinese food, where many (but by no means all) dishes are cooked rapidly from carefully prepared ingredients.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">You need a number of containers. Cleaned yoghourt pots are acceptable, but lots of small plastic food containers or glass dishes will be easier to maintain in the long run.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">The ingredient list is pretty much the same as everyone else&#8217;s, except that I organised it according to which pot the ingredient went in.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">The preparation proceeded in a number of discrete steps, each of which resulted in a prepared container of food. These can include cooking steps.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Finally, the containers are all combined during the cooking process, using a method much like the other recipes have.<\/span><br \/>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"background-color: white; text-align: left;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">Sometimes, you have things in your cupboard that no recipe requires&#8230;<\/span><\/h3>\n<div>\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;\">\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\">I was given this tin by my brother Stephen. Eventually, I ate the contents. If you see a tin like this, you might wonder what the contents taste like. I am unable to describe them. They were drier than I expected, and less piquant than I had hoped.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-pI7BK4R7J1M\/VgqE6R2Ta7I\/AAAAAAAAdaA\/tl04osw65es\/s1600\/brushtoothlizardfish.jpg\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"168\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-pI7BK4R7J1M\/VgqE6R2Ta7I\/AAAAAAAAdaA\/tl04osw65es\/s640\/brushtoothlizardfish.jpg\" width=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><span face=\"Verdana, sans-serif\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I really like recipe books. Lots of people do. I can sit and read them, though I suspect this actually causes me to put on weight. But more people buy them and read them than actually try to make the food they describe. If you have more than a couple of recipe books, and have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/problems-with-recipe-books\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Problems with recipe books.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctor-dark.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}