[pickledshrimp]

Surely that can’t be true. Even semi professional chefs need to figure out what flavour combinations need to go together, amounts of each item, etc. Plus every modern recipe has pictures to show what the result should look like. I just don’t believe she would get anything approximating a good result from this.

[voytec]

> Surely that can’t be true (...) every modern recipe has pictures to show what the result should look like

You may be looking at glue used as milk, motor oil as sauce or mashed potatoes pretending to be ice cream [1].

(And don't call me Shirley)

[1] https://petapixel.com/2018/11/30/tricks-food-photographers-u...

[mmkos]

I hate that we do this in so many domains of our lives.. create unrealistic expectations via fake representation and then wonder why so many people are unhappy.

[dragonwriter]

> Plus every modern recipe has pictures to show what the result should look like.

Food photography very often is staged for visual appeal, not prepared as directed (for a recipe illustration) or as actually prepared (for a restaurant illustration.)

[geocar]

> Even semi professional chefs need to figure out what flavour combinations need to go together, amounts of each item, etc.

No they do not. Haven't you ever tasted something and said "this needs salt?"

Once you know what x+y tastes like and y+z tastes like, you can sometimes imagine what x+z would truly taste like; Any two things you think might taste good together probably do, for just as surely as you can imagine what something looks like, or sounds like, you can imagine what something tastes like.

The amounts generally remain the same orders of magnitude so even if they're not to your taste, the dish will probably "work", and if it doesn't, home cooks have priors:

Everyone has a crap oven, or high/low humidity or altitude or whatever, so there isn't a single recipe that would work for everyone, and I think most home-cooks know this! Hasn't a recipe ever turned out badly for you?

So if there are any issues they might have with a recipe, I could believe they would blame their skill and/or their kit, and/or adjust a few times before they ever blamed the recipe, because surely that can't be true!

> Plus every modern recipe has pictures to show what the result should look like. I

We have hi-resolution AI pictures all the time on this very site that people can't tell from fiction, and food surprises you?

C'mon! You can get pictures of just about anything from stock photography services. At newspaper-dpi nobody is going to notice!

> I just don’t believe she would get anything approximating a good result from this.

Well I guess it depends what exactly you mean by a "a good result..."