Nathan Myhrvold's $500 Cookbook Now an $80 iPhone App 193
Nathan Myhrvold's six-volume foodie encyclopedia, Modernist Cuisine, writes reader SmartAboutThings, is one of the most expensive cooking encyclopedias, the original six-volume version retailing for $500, with the two-volume addition that followed after that selling for $115. "Now, Nathan and his team have transformed their huge food encyclopedia into
an iPhone/iPad app. It's not just a digital book, but rather an expensive $80 interactive app that can do more than just provide recipes. The interactive digital cookbook is the fruit of a development team of 10-15 people that have worked over nine months on the project. The app contains 37 technique videos, 416 recipes and 1,683 photos."
Another slashvertizement! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I look forward to the .IPA!
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Another slashvertizement all right.
And so continues the once noble /.'s slip into undignified obscurity, one tepid and irrelevant sponsored submission at a time.
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It has beer recipes too?
alternatively (Score:5, Informative)
you could just mirror recipesource.com and dump it on an old notebook. Made the missus well happy, that did.
Re:alternatively (Score:5, Informative)
Ever since coming down with stage 4 kidney failure, I've had to do a lot of cooking of my own food, and that was starting from basically knowing nothing. I've learned the vast majority of my technique from youtube, which offers not just one person's technique but many. I'd be quite surprised if this cookbook or even the app had any information that couldn't be found on youtube.
For example, there are tons of videos that show you how to properly choose a chef's knife (word to the wise, most people have very dull knives in their kitchen - very dangerous and makes food preparation so much slower, but they don't know the difference as they've never actually had a good sharp knife) and how to properly cut different types of foods. It may sound elementary, but try going on youtube and looking up how to dice an onion, you may find a technique that is much better than what you've been doing which will save you time.
(By the way, Victorinox 40520 is easily the best starter knife you can get, has a lifetime warranty, and even well seasoned chefs tend to love it and it is cheap if you buy it as part of a kit.)
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Also learn to hold the knife at the right angle and move it properly.
It's one of those things that people think they don't need to learn. It's just a knife, right? How hard can it be?
Learn how to sharpen one, too. No knife edge lasts forever. That metal stick you see people rubbing knives on? That's a stropper, not a sharpener. Stropping a knife does nothing once the edge is gone. It has to be re-sharpened first.
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That metal stick you see people rubbing knives on? That's a stropper, not a sharpener.
As someone else already said, no. The "metal stick" is used to hone. Honing is something you do to straighten the edge before cutting, since a fine edge will gradually begin to bend and lean in places if not honed.
Stropping is generally done with leather (think of an old-style barber sharpening a straight-edge razor). The stropping step similarly straightens the edge, but the material (leather or sometimes other cloth) also polishes the edge slightly, effectively removing a very small amount of burrs a
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"invest in a sharpening stone" and run the risk of ruining your knives.
I take mine to the butcher shop about 2x a year. they sharpen for free ;)
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I shave using an old fashioned cut-throat razor, and I can tell you now I wouldn't want to be doing that with a blade sharpened with a 1800 grit stone. I use a stone recommended by many fans of cut-throats, which is 8000 grit one side and 12000 on the other. That still leaves it with a rough edge, so once it is sharpened I use a horse leather strop to refine the edge until it is razor sharp and smooth.
You might want to reconsider what you think is a sharp knife.
Re: alternatively (Score:5, Funny)
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Amateurs.
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Kind of goes without saying. You can't work metal successfully without lube.
Kind of like, you have to hold your breath underwater.
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Check the thread on coprolites elsewhere in the forum today.
It's the #2 contest.
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Hmmm, I just cut an onion with a straight.
I saw a man shave with an ax.
Did you have some sort of obfuscated point?
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None of those would still be sharp enough to shave with so I don't see why you bothered to mention any of them. Why don't you try and actually shave yourself with one of those "terrifying" knives of yours and tell me how it turns out. Take time to note how many nicks or cuts you gave yourself and how close to the skin the blade cut the hair.
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NONE? REALLY?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scary_sharp [wikipedia.org]
-1 lacks insight.
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Honing is only the first step in getting a blade ready for shaving with. It's the sort of thing you might do every few months. Stropping is what you do every time before you shave, that's the step that makes it really sharp. It's pretty interesting what happens to the metal at a microscopic scale when you sharpen and strop the blade, which rather than removing material works instead by aligning it all.
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It's all about technique. You could use a Maul to cut tomatoes, sufficiently sharpened. Do not lack imagination and piss for accuracy, not distance.
Disinterest will only get you wet pant legs.
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That's not needed for a razor for two reasons. Firstly, you're going to be sharpening the blade with a stone that is already a completely flat hard surface and of a suitably fine grit. The second thing has to do with the way the blade itself is cast. The razor has a natural in-built guide to hold it at the correct 18-20 degree angle with no effort required from the person sharpening it. The thick part of the blade is made just thick enough so that when you lay it flat on it's side it forms the natural best
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If I had mod points, you'd be getting a couple for redundancy. You mentioned that damn link too many times.
Also, I sharpen my knives on my BF's cock. It's so tough it can take it. Yeah.
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Am I the only one thinking that no matter how little I spent on getting a "real" knife, and sharpener, and whetstone, and all the other crap other commenters suggest, and the time spent researching, choosing, and maintaining such equipment, it still wouldn't be worth my time compared to doing it "wrong"?
Sorry, guys, but the food tastes the same no matter how you cut it, and 99% of the time the cut ends up in the blender or oven where it makes absolutely zero difference.
If you were into sailing, or even back
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Keeping tools you use every day in good working order is a good thing imo. It doesn't make food taste better; it just makes life easier in general.
Buying a fancy knife doesn't do anything for you (unless it can sharpen itself).
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Funny that you should mention onions. I take it that you never slice tomatoes, either.
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Well you can get away with a dull knife for *most* foods. However for some foods, like sushi after you've rolled it, cutting it with a dull knife will result in a pretty mashed up roll. Believe me, I've tried, and it was making sushi that lead me to eventually get a proper knife. Tomato as well, if you've ever had trouble cutting them to your exact desired thickness and cutting them straight, a sharp knife makes all the difference in the world, and gets it done faster too. If you've ever seen those cooking
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For example, there are tons of videos that show you how to properly choose a chef's knife (word to the wise, most people have very dull knives in their kitchen - very dangerous
People say duller knives are dangerous, but my experience suggests the opposite. When my knife set was new, I cut myself badly with them on two or three occasions. Nearly took the end of a finger off once. Now that the knives are a little duller they're safer. I maintain the edges a little but I don't bother getting them back to where they were before. It's true they cut faster, but they also cut me faster. Probably I'm just clumsy, but then the lesson is that sharp knives are more dangerous for the clumsy
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People say duller knives are dangerous, but my experience suggests the opposite. When my knife set was new, I cut myself badly with them on two or three occasions. Nearly took the end of a finger off once. Now that the knives are a little duller they're safer.
I agree, but I'd qualify this a bit. Very sharp knives are dangerous. Very dull knives are also dangerous. If you're not careful when cutting, I agree that it's best to have something in the middle.
Very dull knives are dangerous in unpredictable ways. You have to use excess force to make them cut, and at times that may just slide off the food rather than cut into it. I can't tell you how many times I've been at someone else's house with a set of terribly dull knives, and I'm asked to slice an onion o
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Youtube to the rescue. I'd look for some videos on proper knife technique. It takes a little mastering, but I like the method where I wrap my index finger around the blade (instead of the handle) with the blade pinched between that and my thumb.
I didn't use that method at first, but after you try it for a while you'll realize just how good it is and it'll fit so naturally after you force yourself to do it for a short time. And then slice rather than chop when you can, that'll stop a lot of the accidental kn
Re:alternatively (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure you get a basic recipe from allrecipes.com (most of them just mediocre, I bet there are only a few gems that would be just as good/better than a 5 star restuarant). It is one thing reading a recipe and following, but do you know WHY they use the method they choose, why one food reacts with a different one the way it does.
Proper technique also makes a huge difference. I could put a handful ingredients along with a recipe on your counter, and exact same ingredients with exact same recipe on a professional chefs, and I pretty much guarantee you the professional chefs will taste better.
Also, how many typical home cooks are using sous vide technique to cook their meat, using liquid nitrogen for desserts, using a centrifuge to make beef stock. This set of books also use a ton of ingredients that you would not find at your local grocery store, or even a local specialty store, I bet quite a few need to be special ordered.
I am not saying you need to be a professional chef to make good food, of course not, nor do you need to know all of the techniques, or have all the crazy equipment. I was just stating this volume of books is not just your typical $10 recipe book that you find on amazon.
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With the number of counter-top vacuum preserver devices, doing sous vide in home is not that hard. It's not as perfect as a full industrial vacu-sealer, but it works. Additionally, LN isn't too hard to get in small amounts as an engineer; and for in-house use you could use dry ice or LCO2 from a fire extinguisher.
But I'm one of those home cooks who likes trying crazy chemistry shit, and has the gear and respect for the chemicals to do it safely. Might have gone to the cooking industry if I had gotten into c
Re:alternatively (Score:4, Insightful)
There is actually a separate edition of the book called Modernist Cuisine at Home [modernistcuisine.com] which is specifically tailored to home chefs who want to try out the techniques, for substantially less money than the full version. Actually, the ebook which is the topic of the article is based on the "at Home" edition, which means the price differential between the ebook and dead tree version is only about thirty bucks, not several hundred.
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Taking a quic klook, it still doesn't seem that the @home version is for your typical home cook with a family of 4 trying to cook dinner in an hour. It still looks like it is meant for an upcoming/aspiring professional chef who doesn't have access to all of the equipment.
I could be wrong though as I did only spend a couple minutes looking at it.
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Easy there, know who you are dealing with; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold [wikipedia.org]
This Microshit Patent Troll is just waiting for you to possess or post a recipe that looks like his.
This is how he makes money. Just watch what you cook and tell no one.
Its free over (Score:3, Funny)
here http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/7153205/Modernist_Cuisine_-_The_Art_and_Science_of_Cooking_%5BVol_1-6%5D_(HQ [thepiratebay.sx]
Re:Its free over (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting, I think it is the first time I see a link to copyright infringing material here. Will it be deleted?
Re:Its free over (Score:5, Informative)
Were you here for the scientology clambake/xenu thing like 13 years ago? Scientology sued Slashdot to get an embarrassing copyrighted comment deleted and Slashdot was coerced into compliance. The subsequent Slashdot story about the comment being deleted was in the old Slashdot faq (or maybe hall-of-fame or something) that used to be in the left navbar but now seems to be missing.
There also may have been a time when a link to windows 2000 source code within a comment was deleted but I don't remember if it actually was. I think CmdrTaco et al may have fought and won to keep the comment but my memory on Slashdot lore isn't that good any more.
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Interesting, I think it is the first time I see a link to copyright infringing material here. Will it be deleted?
You must be new here. Slashdot is heavily pro-piracy.
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Slashdot users may be, on average, but I don't think the suits at dice holdings, inc. would really appreciate potentially violating an advertising agreement they have with the company that ostensibly paid to have this submission put to the top of the queue by allowing a link to a pirated version of the commercial book that the app being advertised is based on.
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Interesting, I think it is the first time I see a link to copyright infringing material here. Will it be deleted?
Since when is a .torrent file considered copyrightable material? What you are seeing is a link to a file that tells you how to get (is itself a link) copyrighted material.
Moo
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That's not a photograph, that's a computer-generated photo manipulation at best, but more likely it's closer to being pure CGI.
So innovative (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how the culinary specialists that first developed the techniques in his book are getting compensated for their innovations.
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Careful...with talk like that, you could prompt Myhrvold to become a copyright troll.
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I saw an article about the "modernist" hamburger recipe from this book. Just about every ingredient in the burger is first saturated with beef suet (fat). Even the bun has fat smeared on it before grilling.
No matter how flavorful it is, it's not so much hamburger as greaseburger. Seriously, it must have about 4,000 calories.
I don't know what's "modern" or "modernist" about that. I thought smearing everything with lard before c
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Certainly better than those assholes that think putting chunks of onion in the burger is the best way to go. Sure, I get it, you want your burgers to not be dry an mealy. Instead of ruining the burger with all that nasty onion flavor, just learn to cook properly.
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... just learn to cook properly.
In other words, learn how and when to use a panade, something the French figured out a long time ago ;-)
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good idea, we could use an onion panade!
Seems like we've gone in a circle...
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I love lots of onion in the food I cook. Sweet, red, and scallion, and they can taste different ways depending on how you cook them. If you just don't like the bite, just cook them longer.
Re:So innovative (Score:5, Informative)
In addition to the loads of suet, it also uses fish sauce.
I can just about guarantee that if you knew how genuine fish sauce was made, you wouldn't put it in your mouth.
If that's "modernist" cuisine, I probably don't want any.
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I can just about guarantee that if you knew how genuine fish sauce was made, you wouldn't put it in your mouth.
Grumph! Ehh, scratch that...garumph?
Re:So innovative (Score:4, Informative)
It is made by fermenting small whole fish in brine and drawing off the liquid, which is then bottled. I've got no problem with that.
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It is made by fermenting small whole fish in brine and drawing off the liquid, which is then bottled. I've got no problem with that.
No, it isn't. Unless you mean the Korean variety.
The biggest-selling brand in the world is made this way: Fish entrails (not whole fish... the meat is sold for food) are fermented. If, that is, by "fermented" you mean literally poured into barrels and left to rot, outside in the sun, for 2 years.
THEN, the liquid is poured off, and bottled. (It is cooked before bottling. So it's not going to make you ill in that sense.)
I watched the whole process from beginning to end on the food channel. I'll not i
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If, that is, by "fermented" you mean literally poured into barrels and left to rot, outside in the sun, for 2 years.
I'm not quite sure how you've equated fermentation with decomposition. Fermentation prevents decomposition, as the salt used and acids and alcohol produced by the fermentation inhibit the growth of those bacteria which decompose the food.
Are beer, bread, yoghurt, gherkins, and olives also "left to rot"?
Fish entrails (not whole fish... the meat is sold for food)
Respect for the animal and frugality. Fermenting to make a sauce is just one good way to use the parts of an animal which are not particularly appetising on their own.
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I'm not quite sure how you've equated fermentation with decomposition. Fermentation prevents decomposition, as the salt used and acids and alcohol produced by the fermentation inhibit the growth of those bacteria which decompose the food.
I'm not sure where you learned science, but fermentation *IS* decomposition.
Are beer, bread, yoghurt, gherkins, and olives also "left to rot"?
In the sun, for 2 years? Not even. (By the way: there are several kinds of "fermentation", and the kinds that happen with bread and beer do not even remotely apply in this case. Especially bread. If you want to call the metabolism of sugar by yeast "rotting", then you're rotting right now. Yecch.)
"Respect for the animal and frugality. Fermenting to make a sauce is just one good way to use the parts of an animal which are not particularly appetising on their own."
Right. Silk purse from a sow's ear. That works well. I do appreciate the attempt to make something useful out of refuse, but in this case
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I'm not sure where you learned science, but fermentation *IS* decomposition.
Fermentation is part of decomposition, but you referred to it previously as rotting. Rotting involves all three decomposition processes, not just the break down of carbohydrates (fermentation), but of the proteins (putrefaction) and fats (rancidification). In salty environments, like that used in making fish sauce, you can stop the breakdown of proteins and fats, and are left with just fermentation.
By the way: there are several kinds of "fermentation", and the kinds that happen with bread and beer do not even remotely apply in this case.
What happens in bread and beer are very similar to what happens in fish sauce. There are different possible
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Are you talking about the American kind or the most popular brand in the world? 'Cause I watched a whole television show on the most popular brand in the world. I know all about it.
I didn't claim to "know all about it." But I do know enough to have an opinion about it. Don't put words in my mouth. It shows that either you weren't paying attention, or made a moronic assumption, or both.
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You're taking an awfully American-centric view to assume everyone who disagrees with you has never eaten or seen fish sauce from outside the US.
You're taking an awfully assumption-centric view to assume that's what I was doing. I did not write that, and I did not mean that.
Nonetheless, you are still incorrect, the method of making fish sauce is not rotting, but is specifically fermentation.
I stated that one brand -- a very popular one -- was made the way I described. I also stated, very clearly, that I was aware other kinds are NOT made that way.
Misunderstood (Score:2)
FYI I and probably almost no American absolutely cannot eat for example shiokara which is Japanese soupy squid entrails. I am totally with you. Not even in the realm of acceptability.
But fish sauce, I don't know the process beyond that it is fermented anchovies, according to wikipedia. There are high quality and lesser quality brands. Basically, do you like Thai food? Then you like fish sauce. It's like soy sauce for them. Incidentally wiki says worcestershire sauce is related, also being fermented and havi
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Wuss. I don't see how fermenting fish entrails is any worse than the processes used to make cheese. Or sausages. Or stinky tofu. Or sauerkraut.
Fermentation as a preservation method (and a developer of umami flavor) goes back millennia.
I know how fish sauce is made, and I still use it all the time. It's *great* stuff.
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I can just about guarantee that if you knew how genuine fish sauce was made, you wouldn't put it in your mouth.
I counter-guarantee that if you knew how awesome and useful it is, you wouldn't care how it is made. It should be called "magic sauce"
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I counter-guarantee that if you knew how awesome and useful it is, you wouldn't care how it is made. It should be called "magic sauce"
Are you talking about the U.S. kind? It's made very differently.
But if you mean the most-sold brand in the world (which probably would be illegal to sell in the U.S.), yes, I do care how it's made. Even if every bite gave me an orgasm I still wouldn't touch it.
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"Even if every bite gave me an orgasm I still wouldn't touch it."
I know what I'm getting you for your birthday. (Of course, it's more one of those, I bought it for my self presents...)
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There is a long list of foods that involve letting them spoil in a specific way, including in Western cultures, but people usually only object to the ones they are not familiar with.
I'm familiar enough. But there are varying degrees, and in the case of Southeast Asian fish sauce, I have seen it done and it is far outside my standards. Fair enough?
As for the kinds made in the U.S.: They are made differently and although they meet my standards of sanity, I still don't like them very much.
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Well, the fact that it routinely fails to kill or cause massive illness in the millions of people who do eat it makes it fine in my book.
You soft westerners have too low a squeamishness level. Harden up a bit and enjoy your food rather than worrying that it will kill you when obviously it doesn't.
Fish sauce didn't kill the Romans and it won't kill you.
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You soft westerners have too low a squeamishness level. Harden up a bit and enjoy your food rather than worrying that it will kill you when obviously it doesn't.
I'm not "worried that it will kill me". Obviously it isn't killing people. I'll just repeat: I don't like the way it's made. Okay?
Eating dogs won't kill you, but I don't like that practice either. The reasons may be different, but they're MY reasons.
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I can just about guarantee that if you knew how genuine fish sauce was made, you wouldn't put it in your mouth.
No, I am not such a little wimp that it would bother me. I know very well that many, many of the foods I eat are made through very disgusting processes.
Does it taste good? Is there any chance of it making me ill? If the answers are yes and no, why should I care about how it is made?
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Whoosh.
Myrvhold and "Intellectual Ventures" are some of the biggest patent trolls on the planet. Hence the joke.
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Very well, since you're going to be so damned obtuse....
Myhrvold and IV are patent trolls, insisting that they be paid for every "innovation" that they come up with.
Unless Myhrvold came up with EVERY SINGLE technique and recipe in that book, he's using something someone else invented. Thus the OP's comment that he hopes that the inventors of the techniques are compensated. And again, obviously YOU care, or you wouldn't be continuing this thread.
If you care as little as you claim to, why don't you just ig
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Apparently you care so much that CAPITAL LETTERS aren't enough. They have to be BOLDED CAPITAL LETTERS.
Yep. READ THE THREAD.
I did NOT care about his joke. But I **DO** care when somebody calls me stupid because he thinks I didn't get his joke, and I had already explained to him 2-3 times before that the problem was not that I was stupid, but that I actually did get his joke and it WASN'T FUNNY.
Tell me: how else do you get the message across, if the other person isn't getting the clue after that? Huh?
For other readers: what kind of arrogance or narcissism does it take for the following train of thoug
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But have you cancelled all your meetings yet? [thelas.info]
More hype? (Score:5, Insightful)
Among the top features that the Modernist Cuisine app comes with are the high-resolutions pictures and the ability to search within the app's own information which will also fetch extra data from Wikipedia and other web services.
Wow, an app that can search its own information! And use that cool web resources like Wikipedia!
As someone who admired the photography from the original book, though, the high-res photography is awesome.
Unfortunately, that's about all the book was good for, at least unless you're some professional chef with a large budget and a bunch of fancy equipment. I find it hilarious that TFA makes it sound like a regular cooking and recipe app:
the recipe cards dynamically adjust the measure of ingredients you'll need to yield a given number of servings, then add these items to a shopping list.
Have people even looked at the book? The exotic ingredients used in many recipes aren't exactly the sort of things you can find at your typical supermarket. Even if you have the centrifuge and other fancy equipment needed to prepare some things, you're going to have to special order a lot of ingredients... not just pack your iPhone in your purse and head off to the grocery store.
The hype for this book was huge, with people claiming that it revolutionize the way we would cook and introduce a whole new "scientific" approach to cooking. That was complete nonsense -- it's more about fancy technology and fancy ingredients, with lots of fun pictures. If you like $600 coffee-table books, by all means, get a copy... or maybe get the photos for a steal in an $80 iPad app.
I know I'm a dissenting voice on this book, but all the blather about using "science" in cooking really bothered me. I'm actually the scientific type of cook -- I have many digital thermometers, scales, a pH meter, and many other precision devices, along with a "lab notebook" (journal) of my kitchen "experiments."
But this book is more about presenting pretentious culinary "culture" that uses lots of technology as if it were "science." That's not science. It's just somebody's wacky cooking vision. I'm not saying the food is bad, but claiming that their approach is "better" is rarely backed up by any data... therefore, it's hardly "scientific."
Anyhow, I could go on about this for some time, and already have here [amazon.com]. But from my experience with this book, I'm a little hesitant about recommending the $80 app, unless you just like paying that much for a lot of pretty pictures.
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So he is leeching off the work of many people and resources provided to a non-profit in order to make money? Way to go for someone so investing in intellectual property rights!
I hope the app provides the appropriate attributions for photos and such licensed under a creative commons license.
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Indeed. You can pick up a copy of Cook's Illustrated "Best Recipes" and "More Best Recipes" for about $10 at a book store. While yes, they might give you a comparison of which $200 pan is the best, their process is fascinating.
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But this book is more about presenting pretentious culinary "culture" that uses lots of technology as if it were "science." That's not science. It's just somebody's wacky cooking vision. I'm not saying the food is bad, but claiming that their approach is "better" is rarely backed up by any data... therefore, it's hardly "scientific."
Then it truly is modernist cuisine. At least the book is aptly named.
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The hype for this book was huge, with people claiming that it revolutionize the way we would cook and introduce a whole new "scientific" approach to cooking. That was complete nonsense -- it's more about fancy technology and fancy ingredients, with lots of fun pictures. If you like $600 coffee-table books, by all means, get a copy... or maybe get the photos for a steal in an $80 iPad app.
That's already been done.
The guy's name is "Alton Brown".
We don't need this arrogant asshole patent troll to do it. It's been done. (and probably better, I might add)
Destined to be undercut (Score:2)
That's what I did [google.com] when an app came out with an insulting pricetag [engadget.com].
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Dude, it doesn't count as a slashvertisement unless it's mentioned in an article approved by an 'editor'.
In order of increasing difficulty, it goes
Almost any fool can mention their own app in a comment...
Wrong book, SmartAboutThings. (Score:5, Informative)
It's still a fantastic book for wannabe kitchen scientists but it seems the author got a little too excited in writing his sensational headline.
"It was at this point that I..." (Score:2)
"It was at this point that I set the device with the charged Lithium battery on the still hot cooktop and turned to chip the celery".
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Misleading summary, as usual. (Score:5, Informative)
This is a "modern" (or Modernist) cookbook, so the recipes inside are going to be closer to what you'd find in a restaurant that uses an obscure adjective for it's title rather than what you'd see in your grandmother's kitchen. If the idea of cooking a beautiful cut of salmon in a Ziploc bag seems blasphemous, or using a digital scale instead of an elephant-shaped measuring cup is akin to high treason, you may not be ready to make the jump.
Modernist Cuisine at Home [amazon.com] introduces a consolidated set of kitchen tools and gadgets that the home chef can reasonably afford. Don't have the funds for the laboratory-grade centrifuge featured in "Modernist Cuisine?" No problem. Not only does MCAH omit the prohibitively expensive tools from its recipes, but many of them are the same recipes found in the original, redone for the home cook. MCAH even goes as far as offering several options at varying price ranges for the equipment used within.
The same goes for the ingredients. MCAH mostly does away with the laundry list of exotic spices and chemicals featured in many "modernist" cookbooks and instead relies on ingredients you can find either at the local grocery store, or in reasonable quantities online. For the ingredients you are probably less familiar with (malic acid? agar agar?) there is a two-page spread detailing what each does, where it comes from, and what it costs. In many cases, the recipes will list alternatives if you choose not to add their recommendations to your shopping list.
[purchaser review]
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[The original Modernist Cuisine] is also one of the most expensive cooking encyclopedias, the original six volume version retailing for $500, with the two-volume that followed after that selling for $115. Now, Nathan and his team have transformed their huge food encyclopedia into an iPhone/iPad app.
I don't know about you, but when I read that, I assumed the app was based on the "huge" original version or even BOTH versions, probably edited in some way to make it work as an app.
But the appstore link makes it clear that you're paying for the modified "home" version. So even if the book is COMPLETELY available in the app, you're paying $80 for a book that costs about $120.
"at home" is not the full version (Score:2)
Save your money (Score:5, Funny)
Just use lots of butter.
Re:Save your money (Score:4, Funny)
You joke, but I remember seeing a cookbook that was "200 Delicious Recipes With Only Three Ingredients" and with ever single one of the recipes, one of the ingredients was butter.
I don't care how good the recipes might be (Score:2)
I'll never purchase anything with Nathan Myhrvold's name attached to it. In my opinion, the world would be a better place if he weren't part of it.
INSANE PRICE!!! (Score:2)
$80 for software?!?! What is this, 2005? ....
$500 to $80 (Score:3)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Much like books on technical/theoretical software topics, even though the information is out there and relatively accessible sometimes it's nice to have it all together in a consistent and well thought out collection. Yes there's a tonne of easily available perl resources on the net, but the camel book guides you from start to finish at a consistent pace, using consistent terminology, etc..
I have the two volume set, and it's nice (posting AC, so by all means assume I'm a paid shill).
I do agree that this isn't really newsworthy from a technical perspective and probably doesn't belong here.
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But I like the advertisment, your PR team is awesome to have submitted this to slashdot!
Yeah. It's a very exclusive and highly selective process to get a story on Slashdot.
Hopefully from here on we'll be seeing a story for every single iOS/Android app release.
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Not only that but Google has a special recipe search tool that will let you specify certain combinations of ingredients and find recipes that incorporate them.
Re:I'd spent my money somewhere tastier (Score:4, Interesting)
1) You wouldn't, obviously.
2) People cook for lots of reasons, not all of them are based on your argument.
3) Home cooking can be cheaper than anything you buy pre-cooked elsewhere - or else restaurants wouldn't be able to make a profit selling it.
4) Not everyone is a dolt in the kitchen. Home cooking is rarely a "dozen attempts" kind of thing if you have anywhere near half a brain and have done it a few times before. Those that are dolts need recipes to follow to become "non-dolts".
5) Home cooking can be prepared when you like, how you like, without having to try a dozen restaurants that are open when you want and where the cook is one that you happen to like (how many attempts would that take you, trying all your local restaurants?) - there isn't a "professional chef" in the world that will cook to you exact preferences, or else there's no point being a chef. You get what you're given, and the modifications you can make apply to the removal of certain ingredients and choosing how well done you want it.
6) Cooking, in itself, is a hobby.
More to the point, the argument I would propose, is why do you need to pay someone to tell you approximate proportions of ingredients when the web is full of millions of free recipes (many of them reviewed, and even ripped directly from recipe books without attribution) and you can't really "copyright" a recipe - you can copyright the exact text, the arrangement of them within a book, the photos of the dishes, etc. but there's not much to stop people sharing recipes and their own variations of your recipes.
My girlfriend's "recipe shelf" is full of more scrap cut out from newspapers, handwritten notebooks of recipes from friends/family, and photocopies of single recipes that she happened to like than anything else.
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The vast number of those free recipes are pretty terrible. My personal favourites are ones which claim to teach you to make a recipe and then the main ingredient is a pre-made sauce from the supermarket. Even the ones that are basically right need usually need a fair amount of adjustment because the poster doesn't know how to use herbs and spices or how to blend flavours.
They are however pretty good if you are just looking for the basic way to make simple dishes and don't mind a bit of experimenting. I usua
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I was looking for a cheap knockoff version of Myhrvold's $800 cookbook and found On Food and Cooking [amazon.com] by Harold McGee, $25 hardcover. All the cooking-theory topics you mentioned are covered. Tell your SO you want it for the holidays.
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Also check out the cable TV informercial for Nu Wave Portable Induction Cooker [nuwavepic.com].
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"I'm so rich I can force a useless over-priced piece of crap on the market, and there's nothing you can do about it."
Joy of Cooking (Score:2)