Please, please, please, avoid status cuisines. It's going to be hard to do, because they make good PR. But you will be helping your users a lot more of you hold them off with a ten foot pole. What do I mean by a status cuisine? They are meals that are intended to show that the cook is a worthy person, rather than that the meal is practical, healthy, and good to eat. Here are some examples:
The endurance cuisine: designed to show that the cook has time to spare, the endurance cuisine requires that no ingredient is pre-processed in any way. Grind your own grain, bake your own breadcrumbs, chop your own veg. Using grapes? You should have peeled them!
The hair-shirt cuisine: you have to endure some discomfort if it's good for you, right? This cuisine specialises in sour tastes and unpleasant mouthfeel - often using grains that our stone-age ancestors sensibly gave up for nicer ones.
The gold plated cuisine: this one's obvious. Pricier ingredients must be better - or at least show how much the cook can spend
The obscurantist/connoisseur's cuisine: it can't be good if it's easy to find. The cook can only be good if they know exactly how many 'extras' you need in your virgin olive oil, and what classification of wine you should put in your coq'au'vin.
(Okay this is a bit tongue in cheek - but only a bit. I really do think a lot of recipes are unnecessarily onerous in some way)
We agree with you 150%. Because of the algorithms driving social media, so much of food content is meant to be entertainment, not education, and far from accessible. Because of the focus on attention, cooking appears way harder than it has to be. Here are some of the principles driving what we're doing:
Cooking fundamentals rather than recipes
Education rather than entertainment ("food porn")
Don't have the right tool? No problem! Here are 3 ways to improvise
Missing that ingredient? No problem! Here are 3 substitutes
Scaling primarily using software/data/ML instead of hardware (capital-intensive) or physical delivery (operations heavy)
Exponentially less content to create with knowledge blocks ("legos") rather than recipes ("what you build with the legos")
"Learn to make this with Parsnip" rather than "buy these groceries" or "order this food" or "watch this video"
Encouraging you to be the creative process vs. outsourcing work to someone else
I believe we have a few aces up our sleeve for avoiding the status trap. You can get a sense of how we're thinking about it here: https://parsnip.substack.com/p/why-now
Yeah, what's the big thing that people feature? Beef.
Wagyu, wellington, organic grass fed, etc. Aside from knowing how to stew it and sear it, there's not really much to it, yet people will create video after video of $150 tomahawks and $200 wagyu ribeyes. And when they aren't cooking it out of the package, they're coating it with all sorts of weird shit that require special fermentation chambers to properly dry age.
Then there are the foods that look easy to prepare because the person in the video has 5 years of professional kitchen experience and can julienne a walrus faster than you can peel an apple.
Except he clearly has some cooking skills, especially with a knife. Not sure he could julienne a walrus (NFI what Julienne is..) but he isn't a pleb in the kitchen.
Love that channel and the message that with a small amount of effort and skill you can make excellent dishes 1000% better (and probably healthier) than the pre-packaged version. You don't need the most expensive cuts, or a home made demi-glace, just solid fundamentals with common ingredients.
I have a different take. Cooking for status is a gateway to cooking for other reasons, kind of like how people start working out to look hot and then stick with it for the other benefits.
Also, when you start out, it inevitably feels like a big complicated formal deal anyway, no matter what you're cooking, so why not actually make coq au vin or beef Wellington or something super cool like that? Julia Child's classic beginner's cookbook The Way to Cook paired classic French recipes with "home cooking" versions of the same recipes, and as a twenty-something with virtually no cooking skill, I found the classic versions much more motivating than the home cooking versions. When I got excited by Thai cooking, I made my own curry paste, something I would never bother with now. Some beginners are full of energy and enthusiasm for big challenges, and it would be great to have resources for them, even if other beginners should be steered to different resources according to their goals and motivations.
My grandmother was friends with both Julia Child and Martin Yan, She traveled to China several times with Yan on these cooking tours he would arrange.
When my grandmother was teaching me how to cook, what was wonderful was the non-nonchalant way she could subtly be specific...
Meaning, when she was teaching me a recipe, she would tell me "oh just however much you feel is right" but at the same time giving me subtle indicators as to what was appropriate amount.
It took the stress out of cooking, but also let me feel the bumpers to make a strike.
Endurance cuisine spreading via social media is quite silly but I did want to provide a brief counter example. My SO and I are lactose intolerant so we make occasional big batches of cheese at home - given that we're doing this if we're making lasagna or calzones we'll often set aside a portion of the cheese to tune it to the right moist/dryness level and that makes a big difference in the final product.
Knowing how to make homemade cheese and applying that skill economically when it'll make a significant difference in the final product is useful... that ends up going with a home made puttanesca sauce instead of some canned pasta sauce... but those two end up covering some store bought noodles because I have priorities about my time.
Much like a lot of we programming folks learned the basics in university (assembly programming, building basic data structures in C++) comprehending the basics can let you make a judgement call on when it's appropriate to put in the extra effort. Someone who has never cooked a load of break may find that task daunting and insurmountable... but someone who regularly cooks fresh rolls for their daily grain and just keeps a weeks worth of dough in a tin in the fridge can whip up fresh rolls for dinner in a matter of minutes.
Parsnip 5 years from now may have a recipes with a slider you can drag with "completely from scratch" on one end and "as fast as possible" on the other, which helps even beginners manage the trade-off between time and simplicity the same way that a much more experienced cook can do in their head.
This kind of magic is how we think we can help make cooking the easiest way to eat.
As a fan of programming and Star Trek analogies are sort of a required art form. And I really think it's true about cooking that a lot of cooking is insanely easy - but you need to overcome your fear of the unknown. The first time I cooked prawns I was deathly afraid I would poison people, but now that I know what I'm doing it's pretty trivial (even if I don't exercise that skill often).
> The endurance cuisine: designed to show that the cook has time to spare, the endurance cuisine requires that no ingredient is pre-processed in any way. Grind your own grain, bake your own breadcrumbs, chop your own veg. Using grapes? You should have peeled them!
This makes no sense to me at all. Where does it stop?
"You didn't use pre-peeled carrots, you're doing this for status"
"You actually made shortcrust instead of using pre-made, you're doing this for status"
"You made your own pesto, you're doing this for status"
Like, this is just some subjective line you're laying down and I do not see the point
I'd draw a clear line at any recipe that takes over 3 hours. But there's a blurrier line before that.
I like that the app tells you it's okay to use boullion and even proposes paste as an alternative. And it tells you when not to use canned tomatoes. So it's not violating this principle.
I think the point is to champion not feeling pressured to do everything from scratch and make things overly difficult. It can be really fun to cook things from scratch, but on thanksgiving with six dishes on the go at once I'm defo using some pepperidge farm stuffing and there's nothing wrong with that.
It also directly contradicts the gold-plated rule. "No, you're not allowed to chop up that potato, you have to buy a tiny and expensive tray of pre-cut vegetables that lasts half as long in the fridge!"
It's a pretty easy UX problem to solve, too, if you're writing recipes manually: just say "one carton of stock (or make your own)" and link to another recipe. If the goal is to teach, why put barriers in front of your students to stop them progressing when they're ready?
>I really do think a lot of recipes are unnecessarily onerous in some way
Cooking is different things for different people. I feel like tech people see it as nothing but sustenance (yay Soylent!), so the idea is for it to be quick, cheap and easy.
For other people it's a hobby and they actually enjoy the process. Grinding your own grain or peeling grapes can increase the food quality, and it takes nothing but time, so why not? Same goes for buying better ingredients. We probably all waste a lot of money on things that aren't necessary, but we enjoy.
Sure - as I said, partly tongue in cheek. The problem is really that as a cooking-ignorant person, it's work to figure out if a recipe is going to be time consuming, expensive, or require obscure, or (to the naive palate) unpleasant ingredients. I've no problem with other people doing whatever floats their boat, but if the app is supposed to be an easy introduction to cooking it should at least place that stuff behind a flag of some kind.
There are endless resources for the second type of person; it's the person who wants to make nacho cheese sauce that is underserved. Once you've got them to make that, you got somebody who can also make gravies and bechamel, and you can suggest other things they they might want to try to cook after they're pretty good at nachos.
There are far more resources available for those who don't know how to cook and are just looking for a bunch of shortcuts than for those who want recipes where they may be willing to spend a little more time for a better product.
Almost all the afternoon Food Network cooking shows are about shortcuts and easy ways out (Ina Garten, maybe, used to be the exception but even she's now only focusing on her simpler meals on her cooking show as opposed to the more complex stuff she used to do).
Allrecipes.com is absolutely filled with easy to prepare dishes.
And any more fancy recipe site that includes detailed instructions to, for example, make your own bread, will almost always suggest a store bought alternative you can use instead (NYTimes cooking, Bon Appetit, Serious Eats, etc., will almost always have store bought alternatives suggested).
I energetically disagree about the Food Network, which seems like a lot of long cooking times using a lot of fresh ingredients making insta-ready meals. It's food porn, and 99% of the people watching it never attempt it. The marketing might be about "shortcuts" and "simple ways," but that's to attract viewers who hold on to the hope of seeing a recipe they might actually try.
I'm suggesting (as Parsnip seems to agree) that they target people who want to cook food to eat, not just people who want to cook food to demonstrate. People who get delivery 80% of the time and cook on lazy Sundays and for dates are what most food media appeals to. It'd be easier to learn to cook with unedited video of an operating church kitchen over two days than with 48 hours of Food Network programming.
Note that Food Network recipes on their website may not be quite like what you illustrate. In my experience, they have lots of squared-away recipes that don't take long and are reliable crowd-pleasers. Even the crazed flavortown troll, Guy Fieri, has some really solid recipes on the Food Network website. It might have sucked in his restaurant on Times Square but I've made a bunch of his recipes and they've been exactly what was wanted/needed. Some of that may be because a bunch of his recipes are from third parties, but honestly I don't care: dude's 'channel' delivers.
And, if you want prepackaged sliced carrots for whatever reason, just search for Rachel Ray recipes.
This list of no-nos hilariously inverts the "shaming" you're trying to avoid: instead of feeling bad for using shortcuts, now I'm supposed to feel bad for not using them?
I chop onions instead of buying them pre-chopped (is this even a thing?) and you see that as some sort of expression of snobbery or a status signalling behaviour? I can't help but laugh here.
Endurance Cuisine: As long as it's labelled properly, those who have the time, energy, inclination, and/or desire can make the ingredient the long way. Those who don't won't and can sub in pre-prepared ingredients.
2) Hair-shirt cuisine: I'm curious which grains you're talking about. But a lot of the "old world" grains that have become popular are not popular because people find them uncomfortable to eat. They're popular because they taste good. And many people enjoy the additional texture.
3) More expensive ingredients don't have to be better. But they often can be. And in many cases even if the upfront expense is higher the actual value over a period of time may be equivalent and even cheaper. A classic and common example of this is parmesan. Yes, a block of parmesan will be more expensive than the pre-grated stuff. But it will also be more flavorful so you don't need to use as much and will probably last you longer than the pre grated stuff. It will also usually fit recipes a lot better because the pre-grated stuff has anti-caking agents which will ruin recipes.
Is there a reason to avoid this? GP commenter's list of "status" cuisines (including "chopping vegetables" as a status symbol) is just nonsense, you should not expend too much energy trying to interpret it.
If you don't like chopping, cook things whole (steaming, boiling and baking come to mind), tear with your hands, smash (eg. chinese chopper side-smashing of cucumbers is a fun thing) or use a food processor (insta-soup).
The main problems with pre-cut ingredients are that they are cut in one way only (thus you have no control over form), they are compromised in texture, aroma and flavor, they are more vulnerable to pathogens, they degrade faster and they tend to be repackaged in single use plastic which is really terrible for the environment. Being packaged, they can be difficult to inspect and thus often used as a means to dispose of subpar ingredients by penny-pinching retailers. Further, they're also more expensive.
WTF is a status cuisine? I cook French and Italian food. Simple, delicous, and teach you the fundamentals of cooking. Plus every dinner looks like I went and paid $200 for it at a nice restaurant.
Cooking has a few rules.
1. Use good fresh ingredients
2. Care about what you are cooking and who you are cooking for
3. Enjoy yourself
The endurance cuisine: designed to show that the cook has time to spare, the endurance cuisine requires that no ingredient is pre-processed in any way. Grind your own grain, bake your own breadcrumbs, chop your own veg. Using grapes? You should have peeled them!
The hair-shirt cuisine: you have to endure some discomfort if it's good for you, right? This cuisine specialises in sour tastes and unpleasant mouthfeel - often using grains that our stone-age ancestors sensibly gave up for nicer ones.
The gold plated cuisine: this one's obvious. Pricier ingredients must be better - or at least show how much the cook can spend
The obscurantist/connoisseur's cuisine: it can't be good if it's easy to find. The cook can only be good if they know exactly how many 'extras' you need in your virgin olive oil, and what classification of wine you should put in your coq'au'vin.
(Okay this is a bit tongue in cheek - but only a bit. I really do think a lot of recipes are unnecessarily onerous in some way)