I take the point, but I think the author picked a poor analogy. Cooking even an excellent steak is actually not that hard. In fact, I'd argue that it's among the easiest things to master/make at a top level quality at home. Does it require some modicum of attention and understanding? Sure. But starting with a high quality cut, owning a meat-thermometer, and knowing about reverse searing is about all it takes to reliably and easily get a near perfect steak every time.
There are far, far better cooking examples out there.
I'm more of a coffee nerd than a steak aficionado but I've often made the comparison between those two. In both cases, the enthusiast considers their skill in making coffee/cooking steak to be a differentiator and they immerse themselves deeply into the process, skills, and tools. But for both coffee beans and steak the most important factor for a good end product is starting with high quality inputs. In other words, most of the work is being done by the farmers, the processors, and the quality of the raw stock (the cow or the coffee plant). Your job at the very end of that long value adding chain is to not ruin the hard work that others have put into it.
I'm not sure if this analogy holds up in the AI software metaphor that the author of the blog post is making.
That's almost as long as Australia has been colonised and certainly older than Australian federation and yet, A1 steak sauce is not a thing in our supermarkets apparently.
Yes. It is about learning all of these things. Knowing what kind of cut you have, and how to treat it to best effect.
A very tough gristly cut can be improved by tenderizing. Going low-and-slow/sous vide to melt the connective tissue. Even grinding it up to make a hamburger steak / loco moco.
Once you know all of those things, choosing the right approach and executing it is not that hard. The steps themselves are simple.
But the point is that no matter how well you cook the steak you're not creating quality, you're just getting the most out of what you have. The cow and the farmer created that quality. I believe we lose sight of that because so much of the value chain is not visible to us and we hyper fixate on the fun part, becoming a better barista/chef.
Coffee is a good metaphor here too, because bad technique can ruin a good steak just as surely as good coffee. "knows how to use a meat thermometer and reverse sear" describes like 10% of the population or less, same with coffee - there are people who use a bad grinder and a not-regularly-cleaned Mr. Coffee with good beans and get gas station coffee, and there are people out there making solidly B+ class coffee using costco beans, a no name burr grinder, and a french press.
Edit for people who've never had good coffee:
"I don't like coffee. Can James Hoffmann change that?" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo
They have digital thermometers now that will map out the temperature curve and even predicted when the meat will reach core temp. You really don't need to use them many times before you internalize the behavior.
Since this is HN, here's the maximum technology option: <a href="https://combustion.inc/" rel="nofollow">https://combustion.inc/
They have a thermometer with multiple sensors in it that finds the core temperature of the food you're cooking automatically, and predicts the rise in temperature over time. So the alarm goes off when it's time to pull and rest, which is absolutely amazing.
I have one of the Combustion thermometers, and I like it. I used it more than I expected. In particular, I use it for roasting chicken and for sous vide things more than anything else. Then I got a Breville Control Freak, and I used it much less. :)
For maximum techyness, Combustion, Inc. correctly identified that sous vide is normally an overdamped system. If you follow their instructions you can increase the water temp some and then bring it back down in order to move the system closer to critically damped and speed up your sous vide.
I've had a Combustion thermometer since they came out. The best uses for me are butterflied whole chicken on the grill and roasts in the oven. You can get extremely precise results and account for carry over cooking very easily. Huge leap in results.
The funny part is steak is one of the easiest foods to cook without a thermometer
You don’t have to worry about undercooking like you do with most other meats and most steak cuts will be delicious anywhere from 11-130 (if you cook a filet to 130, it won’t be the best but it’ll still be good) and some can go even higher
It’s not like poultry where the range where it’s “good” is very small. A 170 chicken breast is almost inedible and 160 is not safe…
I agree with your broader point but the chicken food safety thing is missing a ton of important nuance. The safety comes from how long you hold the meat at the temp. 165 is the safe point if you are only holding for 10s. 145 is safe if you hold it for 10 minutes.
This is why sous vide is such a popular way to cook chicken. You can hold a breast at 145 for hours trivially.
You can be safe down to 135F if you give it enough time.
<a href="https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Poultry_and_Eggs" rel="nofollow">https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Poultry_and_Eggs
In particular, I use 135F for 90 minutes (75 minimum recommended) to pasteurize eggs that I am going to be putting into something that asks for "raw" eggs (egg nog, mayonnaise, etc.) that I will serve to other people (if it's just for myself, I'll probably just be lazy and use the raw egg). So far, nobody has noticed any difference from "raw".
I thought that too, honestly, before I had truly great coffee. I honestly didn't like coffee at all, and then a coworker brought in some coffee he'd roasted and prepared himself and it was lifechangingly good. I also made myself incredibly sick with the enormous amount of caffeine, it's been very rare that I've had to go home from work in the middle of the day but that was one.
That likely means that you've only had "bad" coffee. You're one of today's lucky 10,000 - go treat yourself to a decent cup of coffee it tastes completely different. The difference between a good steak and a bad steak is actually a good comparison.
Here's an obligatory Tom Scott + James Hoffmann episode:
I don't like coffee. Can James Hoffmann change that? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo
Sometimes it's a matter of not having taste for it. If you give me multiple bottles of alcohol drinks, I might be able to distinguish them, but I have no clue at all which ones are supposed to be good. To me it's all just alcohol. Same with coffee - but not the same for steak.
You'll start to taste the difference once you get that one really-well-made pourover at a place that _lives_ for the love of coffee.
There are some coffee beans that have crazy taste profiles when properly extracted with the right water. I had one that tastes literally like a peach and another that tasted like a really nice tea.
So I can taste differences, but they simply don't matter enough for me. My areopressed coffee with nice fresh locally roasted beans does taste different from a mcdonalds pot. Less harsh, less chemically flavored. But for me those differences don't really matter. They are close enough that I can enjoy both.
But I would say I know I'm also weird in that food temp really doesn't bother me all that much. I enjoy my coffee even as it goes from hot to cold.
A steak for me can be more easily messed up. But then I've not tried instant coffee so maybe I've just never tasted the bottom of the barrel for coffee.
Yeah Mcdonalds is, at this point, acceptably C-grade coffee. You have to go to something like a cafe bustelo in distilled water to get the full contrast.
It’s about experience. If you’re not into classical music, or jazz, or metal, it all sounds the same - how could anybody tell the difference? Only when you put in the work to listen to it a lot, different works, and actually pay attention, you will notice how your sense and understanding develops over time. Suddenly you’re able to make out differences, recognise patterns and repeated segments and structure where before there was none.
Or pick dancing: when you start out, you’re entirely occupied with placing your feet in the right spots at the right time. As you practice, your mind gets freed up and you’re able to make deliberate alterations, embellishments, larger figures. That seems impossible at the start.
No offence, but for some reason some people just can't accept a simple fact: for some people this difference is still not a difference.
I've tried good coffee. At least that's what people told ne on multiple accasions where I was taken to "the right places" in multiple countries. On two sides of the globe (Brazil and Vietnam if we are talking about producers, not to mention countries that import the beans).
Thing is: no matter where it grows, no matter how they prepare it, fermented or not, different frying, different brewing techniques - all the same to me.
I can tell the difference. Some times small, some times very huge. But still for this difference is like a cat piss from some street cat and a cat with a pedigree.
It may have the ideal temperature, ideal acid levels, zinc amounts or whatever - still tastes like cat piss. The fact that it has a pedigree does not make it better.
Tea is whole different story for me though. But I do accepts that people are fine with whatever they love in their "english breakfast tea" or a nameless teabag.
All coffee tastes like cigarette ash to me. Similarly, I have been to places that people rave about. My buddy used to run a coffee shop. "Your beans were overcooked"; no, not it. There is something innate to espresso or something. Smells amazing. Tastes like ash.
> can't taste much of a difference between "good" coffee and "bad" coffee.
I found a 5+ year old half-full bag in the back of the pantry once; that was quite noticeably bad even though I usually can't tell the difference between kinds beyond recognizing that there is some sort of difference.
Pickling a cucumber sure has a lot of resemblance - a great cucumber is good fresh and great pickled, but a bad pickling brine can ruin even a great cucumber.
I don't know if I agree with the take I've written below, but I think you can make the analogy work:
It has been argued, even in the before-AI-times, that most professional software is just gluing together open source tools and libraries. Your job isn't to write software, it's to set up redis and postgres and a programming language and a react frontend or whatever in a way that lets them do what they're there to do. Most modern programming is just configuration of pre-existing tools. It doesn't really matter how good your code is as long as it isn't terrible, Real Programmers already did 95% of the necessary work before you decided to build your little app.
I don't know about about cocktails, but aren't traditional mixed alcoholic drinks an even more straightforward example? There's very little that goes into an old fashioned, or a Manhattan, or a martini. Just 2-3 ingredients each that should be as high quality as possible. I guess you probably want nice ice and glassware too.
I strongly disagree with this on the steak part and maybe the coffee too. Many people pride themselves on buying expensive ingredients and thinking they have the best steak but it actually sucks.
To get good steak you don't need USDA Prime dry-aged steak. You just need USDA choice, picked for a bit of marbling, salted the day beforehand and dried out uncovered in the fridge, then a ripping hot heat source (grill or cast iron etc) to get a good sear on the outside (reverse or not) and a thermometer to hit medium rare on the inside.
Even a modest steak made this way tastes better than a prime steakhouse steak that was doused with salt right before cooking, where you're going to get hypertension immediately yet the meat tastes weirdly unflavorful.
To extend this analogy further, consider making BBQ brisket Texas style. Brisket is a cheap cut of tough, fatty meat. The input quality matters even less there, and it's all dependent on chef skill. Same thing with sourdough bread — 4 ingredients, all outcome depends on skill.
Source: we make an app that teaches people how to cook (www.parsnip.ai)
One way to phrase that would be to say that you have a vested interest in supporting the idea that end user skill is more important than ingredients since you sell a means of improving end user skill. Not sure if that's a source or a conflict of interest. I'm not saying cooking a steak is easy or hard, I'm saying that you are not creating quality when you cook a steak; the maximum attainable quality is capped by the ingredient. It's like the "I made this" meme.
You're arguing against a strawman on your other points since I didn't make a generalization about all cooking and wouldn't have listed sourdough or brisket in the analogy.
MostlyStable · · focus · HN ↗
There are far, far better cooking examples out there.
MerrimanInd · · focus · HN ↗
I'm not sure if this analogy holds up in the AI software metaphor that the author of the blog post is making.
SoftTalker · · focus · HN ↗
But even a cheap steak can be decent if it's cooked properly. And an expensive prime cut can be ruined by cooking it improperly.
recursivegirth · · focus · HN ↗
chuckadams · · focus · HN ↗
Sir, I regret to inform you that you are going straight to hell.
zem · · focus · HN ↗
jmalicki · · focus · HN ↗
geodel · · focus · HN ↗
ErroneousBosh · · focus · HN ↗
CBF with having to travel a bull up here when a dewar goes in the boot of my car.
shen · · focus · HN ↗
_carbyau_ · · focus · HN ↗
This is likely some food thing I don't know about rather than a quite large piece of paper yeah?
But when I google "A1 food":
- AI summary: "A1 is a famous Malaysian food brand known for herbal soups and instant noodles"
- top link is "A1 Nutrition Lean Protein Blend Dry Dog Food 15kg"
At this point, I don't what is going on.
BenjiWiebe · · focus · HN ↗
_carbyau_ · · focus · HN ↗
That's almost as long as Australia has been colonised and certainly older than Australian federation and yet, A1 steak sauce is not a thing in our supermarkets apparently.
RajT88 · · focus · HN ↗
A very tough gristly cut can be improved by tenderizing. Going low-and-slow/sous vide to melt the connective tissue. Even grinding it up to make a hamburger steak / loco moco.
Once you know all of those things, choosing the right approach and executing it is not that hard. The steps themselves are simple.
It's this story all over again:
<a href="https://engineerine.com/10000-dollar-chalk-mark/" rel="nofollow">https://engineerine.com/10000-dollar-chalk-mark/
inigyou · · focus · HN ↗
RajT88 · · focus · HN ↗
jibal · · focus · HN ↗
MerrimanInd · · focus · HN ↗
jaggederest · · focus · HN ↗
Edit for people who've never had good coffee:
"I don't like coffee. Can James Hoffmann change that?" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo
spiffytech · · focus · HN ↗
Knowing really is half the battle.
jmaw · · focus · HN ↗
OJFord · · focus · HN ↗
buildsjets · · focus · HN ↗
Ekaros · · focus · HN ↗
psalaun · · focus · HN ↗
ddoolin · · focus · HN ↗
pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
jaggederest · · focus · HN ↗
They have a thermometer with multiple sensors in it that finds the core temperature of the food you're cooking automatically, and predicts the rise in temperature over time. So the alarm goes off when it's time to pull and rest, which is absolutely amazing.
bsder · · focus · HN ↗
For maximum techyness, Combustion, Inc. correctly identified that sous vide is normally an overdamped system. If you follow their instructions you can increase the water temp some and then bring it back down in order to move the system closer to critically damped and speed up your sous vide.
deanputney · · focus · HN ↗
lkjdsklf · · focus · HN ↗
You don’t have to worry about undercooking like you do with most other meats and most steak cuts will be delicious anywhere from 11-130 (if you cook a filet to 130, it won’t be the best but it’ll still be good) and some can go even higher
It’s not like poultry where the range where it’s “good” is very small. A 170 chicken breast is almost inedible and 160 is not safe…
kasey_junk · · focus · HN ↗
This is why sous vide is such a popular way to cook chicken. You can hold a breast at 145 for hours trivially.
bsder · · focus · HN ↗
In particular, I use 135F for 90 minutes (75 minimum recommended) to pasteurize eggs that I am going to be putting into something that asks for "raw" eggs (egg nog, mayonnaise, etc.) that I will serve to other people (if it's just for myself, I'll probably just be lazy and use the raw egg). So far, nobody has noticed any difference from "raw".
aqme28 · · focus · HN ↗
cogman10 · · focus · HN ↗
I can certainly tell the difference between a good steak and a bad one.
jaggederest · · focus · HN ↗
inglor · · focus · HN ↗
jaggederest · · focus · HN ↗
I don't like coffee. Can James Hoffmann change that? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iNAyu-ejo
greengrocer · · focus · HN ↗
flaunf221 · · focus · HN ↗
nunez · · focus · HN ↗
There are some coffee beans that have crazy taste profiles when properly extracted with the right water. I had one that tastes literally like a peach and another that tasted like a really nice tea.
Or maybe not. Different strokes!
cogman10 · · focus · HN ↗
But I would say I know I'm also weird in that food temp really doesn't bother me all that much. I enjoy my coffee even as it goes from hot to cold.
A steak for me can be more easily messed up. But then I've not tried instant coffee so maybe I've just never tasted the bottom of the barrel for coffee.
jaggederest · · focus · HN ↗
Really, I get it, even bad pizza is still pizza.
harrall · · focus · HN ↗
Unsurprisingly my interests are very color-dominant (design, art, fashion) and I do not care for anything where smell matters (wine, coffee, flowers).
9dev · · focus · HN ↗
Or pick dancing: when you start out, you’re entirely occupied with placing your feet in the right spots at the right time. As you practice, your mind gets freed up and you’re able to make deliberate alterations, embellishments, larger figures. That seems impossible at the start.
whythismatters · · focus · HN ↗
konart · · focus · HN ↗
I've tried good coffee. At least that's what people told ne on multiple accasions where I was taken to "the right places" in multiple countries. On two sides of the globe (Brazil and Vietnam if we are talking about producers, not to mention countries that import the beans).
Thing is: no matter where it grows, no matter how they prepare it, fermented or not, different frying, different brewing techniques - all the same to me.
I can tell the difference. Some times small, some times very huge. But still for this difference is like a cat piss from some street cat and a cat with a pedigree.
It may have the ideal temperature, ideal acid levels, zinc amounts or whatever - still tastes like cat piss. The fact that it has a pedigree does not make it better.
Tea is whole different story for me though. But I do accepts that people are fine with whatever they love in their "english breakfast tea" or a nameless teabag.
sethammons · · focus · HN ↗
tbrownaw · · focus · HN ↗
I found a 5+ year old half-full bag in the back of the pantry once; that was quite noticeably bad even though I usually can't tell the difference between kinds beyond recognizing that there is some sort of difference.
givemeethekeys · · focus · HN ↗
jaggederest · · focus · HN ↗
miyoji · · focus · HN ↗
It has been argued, even in the before-AI-times, that most professional software is just gluing together open source tools and libraries. Your job isn't to write software, it's to set up redis and postgres and a programming language and a react frontend or whatever in a way that lets them do what they're there to do. Most modern programming is just configuration of pre-existing tools. It doesn't really matter how good your code is as long as it isn't terrible, Real Programmers already did 95% of the necessary work before you decided to build your little app.
Hikikomori · · focus · HN ↗
tshaddox · · focus · HN ↗
brunoborges · · focus · HN ↗
"Your job is to not mess up."
Also applicable to any corporate job.
mizzao · · focus · HN ↗
To get good steak you don't need USDA Prime dry-aged steak. You just need USDA choice, picked for a bit of marbling, salted the day beforehand and dried out uncovered in the fridge, then a ripping hot heat source (grill or cast iron etc) to get a good sear on the outside (reverse or not) and a thermometer to hit medium rare on the inside.
Even a modest steak made this way tastes better than a prime steakhouse steak that was doused with salt right before cooking, where you're going to get hypertension immediately yet the meat tastes weirdly unflavorful.
To extend this analogy further, consider making BBQ brisket Texas style. Brisket is a cheap cut of tough, fatty meat. The input quality matters even less there, and it's all dependent on chef skill. Same thing with sourdough bread — 4 ingredients, all outcome depends on skill.
Source: we make an app that teaches people how to cook (www.parsnip.ai)
MerrimanInd · · focus · HN ↗
You're arguing against a strawman on your other points since I didn't make a generalization about all cooking and wouldn't have listed sourdough or brisket in the analogy.