I’ve recently been caught up on noodling on the combinatorics of cooking food. I wonder if a structured recipe format would be helpful to explore the ‘solution space’ of any given dish.
For example, think of all the decisions required to specify a curry dish:
How do you cut/mash your garlic and ginger and onions? (If you even add all of those ingredients)
Do you use whole or ground spices? What about for each spice? Cardamom pods or ground cardamom?
Do you toast each spice?
How long do you cook your onions?
And so on. Eventually you get to an absolutely gigantic amount of options that all generate a somewhat similar dish, but with key sensory differences. They may all be ‘chicken tikka masala’ but I’d argue you’d have a very different eating experience across that decision spectrum.
I think this may also play (specifically for Indians) into the idea that moms is best. It’s probably because mom’s is universally unique and you crave that nostalgia.
For example, think of all the decisions required to specify a curry dish:
How do you cut/mash your garlic and ginger and onions? (If you even add all of those ingredients)
Do you use whole or ground spices? What about for each spice? Cardamom pods or ground cardamom?
Do you toast each spice?
How long do you cook your onions?
And so on. Eventually you get to an absolutely gigantic amount of options that all generate a somewhat similar dish, but with key sensory differences. They may all be ‘chicken tikka masala’ but I’d argue you’d have a very different eating experience across that decision spectrum.
I think this may also play (specifically for Indians) into the idea that moms is best. It’s probably because mom’s is universally unique and you crave that nostalgia.