There seems to be a bit of useful feedback in here, wrapped in quite a strangely emotional comment. Did you use the app for six hours straight and forget to hydrate or something? Or is there some other reason to make your message this intense, that I'm missing?

Surely there's a way to get the same message across without so much hyperbole. It's just beef!

Heh, I may be having a strong reaction to the overly-patronizing app. I'm surprised myself at how unpleasant I found it to use.

Reading through this thread, others have also been rubbed the wrong way. The approach they're using is to tell you you're wrong over and over, but in a saccharine "that's okay squirt, you're doing your best!" kind of way.

Like, here's another question: "What is the best way to store hard cheese?

A) In a cool, dark place like your pantry B) In an airtight bag C) Wrapped in parchment paper and foil D) Exposed to the open air of your fridge"

If you answer (A) it's wrong, because nowadays fridges have more constant temperature than pantries. Okay, let's try (D) since it's the only answer that refers to a fridge... nope, that would dry it out. It's (C), which doesn't refer to a fridge at all.

It's question after question like this, with a snarky little spawn-of-Clippy giving you an "ACKKshoowly" about a badly worded question or something that's really a matter of opinion. And in the end, if you unlock enough silly quizzes, they might deign to tell you how to actually cook a hamburger.

> If you answer (A) it's wrong, because nowadays fridges have more constant temperature. Okay, let's try (D) since it's the only answer that refers to a fridge... nope, that would dry it out. It's (C), which doesn't refer to a fridge at all.

Wow, that seems especially bad if the goal is to help get people into home cooking. I eat a lot of cheeses, and practically none of them are stored in parchment paper and foil!

I'm willing to believe that might be the optimal way to store cheese, but is it how basically anyone at home stores cheese?!

It seems counterproductive to insist to novice home cooks that to "properly" make a cheeseburger that they store their cheese in the same exacting standards as a cheesemonger? This seems like it will work against the goal of making home cooking less intimidating and more approachable.

The matter of opinion thing got me too. I felt like I had to guess what the writer's intention was with many of the questions instead of just answering them factually. I was clicking through the pasta quiz on "Spaghetti and Meatballs" and one of the questions is something like "True or false: Any pasta dish can be made with any kind of pasta."

...What? What does that mean? I mean, I guess it's called "Spaghetti and meatballs" and not "spaghetti and pasta" for a reason? Most dishes use specific pastas for their specific qualities with regards to how they absorb sauce and things like that. False?

"Wrong! You can make any pasta dish with any pasta! Just because the recipe calls for spaghetti doesn't mean you can't use fettuccine!"

Ok? What does this have to do with anything?

I'm imagining it being 6:30 and the user is already hungry and can't even open the recipe yet because he's working through these insane questions lol.

Is lasagna not a pasta dish? Or cannelloni? Surely it ceases to be those dishes when you use, say, orzo...

It really depends what that question is trying to ask. You can make a casserole by following a lasagna recipe and using orzo or whatever pasta you want instead and it will probably taste good. Most wouldn't call it lasagna but does that matter? It's a really odd question without a lot more context on what the goal is.

It kind of feels like one of those corporate cybersecurity online training classes. "Should a password contain English words?" "How often should you reset your password?" "Does phishing come from a weird email, or should you ignore that because they're spoofing the email anyway?"

Crap, what year was this training written in? The correct answers keep changing, and it will talk to me like an idiot if I guess wrong.

The actual answer also depends on how fast you intend to consume your cheese.

If you are not a big cheese eater, like me, the correct answer is cut of the amount you intend to eat, wrap the rest well in cling wrap and put the rest in the freezer.

OP here. A couple of thoughts...

We created this app to focus on teaching beginners, so the content assumes no prior knowledge (for now). It's clearly eliciting strong reactions from experienced cooks, who have many opinions about how to do things.

But put yourself in their shoes: if you wanted to learn how to make a Botan shrimp nigiri (perhaps that's new to you), how would you learn about sushi rice, how to buy live shrimp, how to fillet the shrimp, preparing wasabi, etc? We hope this model can apply.

> they might deign to tell you how to actually cook a hamburger.

The dirty secret is that by the time you get to the end of the quizzes, you'll already know how to cook the hamburger. The recipe is ridiculously elementary.

I really like the concept of breaking things down to ingredients and techniques. I think your "naked knowledge graph" is worse than other approaches. I can't tell if it needs polish or a different structure.

The thing that stands out to me is context. A lot of your questions are presented as if they are context-free, but they are highly contextual both when they are written and when they are presented.

E.g. The meat spoilage question was written from the context of purchasing meat, not checking meat in your fridge. Your egg questions are written from an American perspective. That's fine if you know it and present it in the context it was written in.

When you rip those from the context they were written in, and present them bare, it's confusing and sometimes can mean something incorrect.

The other part is the recipe itself is contextual, but the knowledge graph isn't picking up some nuance. Hard cheese doesn't melt well, so why are you bringing up how to store it? It seems like you're grabbing the "cheese" node and whatever questions come with it. Maybe you can fix that by specifying "soft cheese."

Your knowledge graph needs to be truly context free, and/or it needs to contextualize its elements correctly for the recipe (and culture). Right now you're not really doing either.

I feel like the knowledge graph idea only works at a higher level. Rather than "how to buy an egg" unlocking "how to store an egg" and then "how to boil an egg" I want "hey there's a thing called mirepoix that's pretty fundamental, learn how to do it properly".

I learned about lactofermentation, it's really easy and opens a huge range of things.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the app.

There is so much wealth and context when it comes to food. Every region, culture etc has their own ways.

Like a sibling says to store pieces of cheese that you won’t use in a freezer.

I can imagine that framing all of the questions in the right context all the time is hard. But now it seems to be a bit too simple “know-it-all”.

> But put yourself in their shoes: if you wanted to learn how to make a Botan shrimp nigiri (perhaps that's new to you), how would you learn about sushi rice, how to buy live shrimp, how to fillet the shrimp, preparing wasabi, etc? We hope this model can apply

I typed "botan shrimp nigiri" into Google and got detailed videos showing me how to prepare, fillet, cook the shrimp. Most full recipe videos explain side bits about what to buy and things like that.

> The dirty secret is that by the time you get to the end of the quizzes, you'll already know how to cook the hamburger. The recipe is ridiculously elementary.

Here's where I think there's a disconnect.

Why would someone not start with a recipe which shows most of this and then look up the bits they are missing?

You seem to be then targeting someone who wants a broader base understanding of cooking at home, so why would a basic cooking course not be the structure?

Amplifying your comment, this seems like a huge disconnect that they are assuming a beginner home cook is going to do everything from scratch.

> how would you learn about sushi rice, how to buy live shrimp, how to fillet the shrimp, preparing wasabi

Buy pre-filleted frozen shrimp and ready made wasabi and tips on taking regular rice to a sushi rice quality. The goal for a beginner should be the easiest path to success and with cooking that is a meal that was safely prepared. Then build on that later - like if they like spicy these are some things to try.

While I agree that the original comment was very intense, I'm truly truly tired of patronizing apps. Please don't be any sweeter than you're in real life when nobody is watching you. Seriously, I am tired of fake sweetness in life anyway.

I don't read hyperbole in GP's comment either. I also think that it's generally unreasonable to expect people to reframe criticism always in a dispassionate, clinical way. This is a tone expectation that seems widespread in our community that seems unreasonable. I'm all for civility, but there's something annoying about the expectation that all thoughts we express be sanded down so every edge is smooth.

More specifically, the beef complaint is legitimate. I have lost count of how many times I have bought things from the grocery store that went bad well before the best-before date. It isn't often, but it happens - and teaching home cooks food safety absolutely must include this! Dutifully trusting the best-before date with no sanity check for how the ingredient should feel/smell/taste is a recipe for food poisoning!

> expect people to reframe criticism always in a dispassionate, clinical way

I don't see where I wrote this at all? If you're arguing for passion, great, but I guess I would at least try not to simultaneously make a counterpoint for the clinical-side benefits of some good ol' accuracy...

Im not reading hyperbole in the parent message.

For example: I froze the ground meat after purchasing. It has been sitting in my freezer for 3 months. Meanwhile, I bought some fresh ground beef 2 weeks ago, but it's been sitting in my fridge and doesn't smell great.