[xormapmap]

> shortcuts like bagged premixed salad, bottled dressing ...

At what point is something no longer a shortcut? Do you also consider the time it takes you to track, shoot, carry, & butcher an animal? Or do you take the shortcut of buying your meat? Do you grow your own wheat? Grind your own flour? Or are those shortcuts too?

[caseyohara]

This reminds me of a quote that's been around a while (about music production but perfectly analogous to cooking)

> I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples.

> I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums.

> I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real.

> I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own.

> I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it.

> I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat.

> I also think that is cheating, but I’m not sure where to go from here.

> I haven’t made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all.

[dekhn]

See also "The Toaster Project"- building a toaster from scratch using raw materials (even then, there was some cheating).

[josiahpeters]

Oh no. This describes my desire to make a large following the Gingery Machine shop series.

[Spivak]

No, obviously. Are you being deliberately obtuse or do you really not know what ingredients are considered culturally to be atomic and what is considered composite and therefore a shortcut? Like there is a floor and it's not very far down.

* A cut of meat is atomic, that cut pre-marinated isn't.

* Flour is atomic, a Jiffy box is composite.

* Oil is atomic, bottled dressing is composite.

* Potatoes are atomic, frozen french fries aren't.

* 5 spice powder is atomic, but cinnamon sugar is composite.

* Cream is atomic, bottled Alfredo isn't.

* Hidden Valley packets are atomic, but bottled ranch isn't. But when bottled ranch is used as an ingredient in a larger dish it becomes atomic again.

* Rice is atomic, Uncle Ben's isn't. Same rule as ranch when it's used in a larger dish.

* Bread is composite until you make a sandwich with it.

* But this rule doesn't apply to jarred pasta sauce when made into spaghetti. But it does apply to jarred pizza sauce when made into pizza.

Like sure the rules are organic and messy as all cultural norms all, but if you cook with any regularity you just "know" them because it defines when you're allowed to say "I made this" when presenting the dish to others.

[nraf]

Many of these items are complety arbitrary. As someone who's been cooking some pretty elaborate dishes for over a decade, I don't actually recall ever coming across these two distinctions.

Why is cinnamon sugar "composite" whereas 5 spice is atomic? Who defines these? Are you suggesting that if you use packaged cinnamon sugar on donuts you can't claim to have made them?

For reference, I mostly roast and grind from whole spices. If I need garam masala, Chinese 5 spice, Lebanese 7 spice, etc, I'll make it from scratch. If I new cumin or coriander powder, etc, I'll grind them in my spice grinder.

Are you suggesting that jarred pasta sauce and pizza are different to each other? Following your criteria, I'd classify both as composite.

Not to say that I disagree with most of the list - there's a distinction between highly processed and cooking dishes from scratch, but it's more nuanced than what you've presented here.

[mensetmanusman]

I like this thought process of different food axiom/atoms being cultural… thanks for sharing the insight!

In the context of healthy diets for living to 100 I wonder what the best axioms are.