This is me with cooking. My chef will regularly ask me how much of each ingredient I used in a particular dish I created and every time I’m just like “dude I just kept throwing shit in until it tasted right”
Don’t get me wrong if you give me a recipe I’ll follow it to the letter, but if I’m making something on the fly there’s not a single thought about measurements.
Someone who’s been doing something along enough totally can
Well, that’s how I usually do my estimations on software projects.
If I’d go through the work to make an exact estimation, most of the work would already be done - and then I still wouldn’t be 100% sure, that the approach works, until it’s tested
So, I kinda eyeball what I’ll need to analyse the problem, create a concept, implement and test it - and leave some spare room for getting back to step 1.
The head of quality control at Tesla in charge of eyeballing: reincarnated Marty Feldman
Best part of cooking compared to baking, in my opinion, is this.
You need 2 cups of whatever? Well, an extra eighth cup by accident isn’t going to kill it, probably.
Your pastry or whatever your baking calls for exactly 2 pecans? Better not forget them or whatever you’re baking will go thermonuclear!
Honestly this is less true the more you bake. I find myself tearing recipes apart and substituting/modifying amounts of all sorts of ingredients.
Sure if you want to make a fluffy white cake or a classic chocolate chip cookie you better do that by the book but you can get pretty creative with baking if you know what you’re doing.
Vibes-based QA only
It’s like translating grandma’s units of measurements from her old recipes.
“A smidge of this, three sprinkles of that, and a can full of something that does not come in a can” (The can was her ‘measuring can’ that was some kind of weird size that doesn’t exist anymore)
Same!
Turns out they use to send an “envelope” of yeast.
Ours would deliberately omit things. Family had to watch her and then take independent notes/ write in the margins what she was really doing
RIP you bitter but loving gal
I’m assuming an envelope of yeast is in no way close to a packet of yeast? lol because that would be too easy.
Ours would deliberately omit things.
The old secret ingredient. I don’t think we had to contend with that, thankfully.
Grandma was a constant ball buster and, as my aunts and uncles weighed her prep carefully, said “why? You’re still gonna mess up the cooking. Stick to baking.”
Better write that down in a useful metric.
That cup isn’t going to exist in 50 years and someone will encounter the same problem.
And don’t use those German 90’s hardcore nightclub noises neither.
Just in case…
When they said “7 ounces / just under a cup.” that’s not a particular physical cup. A “cup” is an exact measure in the US, it’s 8 fluid ounces, which is 236.5882365 milliliters precisely.
Even if the US does go metric, it will take a lot longer than 50 years for people to not know how big a cup is, all measuring tools in every kitchen are marked for them and the other common units like tablespoons and teaspoons*, and virtually every recipe uses them.
*I wish I was joking.
