Cooking for Engineers

[NewYorkTexan]

Just herad about htis website cooking for engineers

Gotta love the flow chart recipes

[MaxH]

...Gotta love the flow chart recipes

Jeez louise. (As if engineers didn't have image problems already!)

Engineering doesn't preclude interest in food of course. Don't overlook that the original public Internet food forums (of which this is one descendant) were launched by engineers (in the 1980s). In the 1980s also, one food fanatic, Steve Upstill (later of Pixar fame) sold the "-MU Recipe Formatting Macro Package," the first, or one of the first, of the document-formatting tools for recipes.

Some engineers even combine food with wit, including the immortal Rube Goldberg (Berkeley, class of 1904):

"No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney."

-- Rube Goldberg (as quoted by Lee Roth in <1259@sousa.ltn.dec.com>, 1989)

[Betts]

I was in a gourmet group where all the men were engineers. We once got a packet of recipes done as flow charts and timing notes at 2 minute intervals. Dinner was on the table 2 hours later than "projected". So true to form!

[Susan G]

I am *so* sending this site to my husband and to my uncle, mechanical engineers, both.

"Smoking Points Of Various Oils" - oh, I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

The explanation of ingredients? I clicked for "Beets" and up popped a picture of a lovely supermarket display and absolutely no mention of the various way to prepare them!

The forums are also good for a laugh..............they're like clueless eGulleteers!

[EdS]

As an engineer (software), I expected this site to reek more of an engineer. I am disappointed.

Want to see engineers and other geeks talking about cooking? These threads have a different feel than say those on eGullet.

The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking (Slashdot)

Alton Brown Answers, At Last (Slashdot)

[FaustianBargain]

I have converted all my school recipes into that format(with some twists of my own, of course). Painstakingly, but it a work of art, I am telling you! I dont look at recipes anymore except to check for quantities, but they were extremely useful when I needed that as a student. The format was very useful especially when I had to memorise basic techniques and standardised recipes.

[MarketStEl]

Want to see engineers and other geeks talking about cooking? These threads have a different feel than say those on eGullet.

The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking (Slashdot)

Alton Brown Answers, At Last (Slashdot)

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I'll say they do.

I sort of feel much like the Pope must have felt when Galileo informed him that the Sun did not revolve around the Earth reading these. Okay, maybe not that outraged, but certainly this sort of discussion takes cooking into a sort of parallel universe.

[NulloModo]

I like reading slashdot, arstechnica, hardocp, all the random tech pages. I like to stay up on whats happening in the world of gadgetry and computer science, and really, I do enjoy the behind the scenes technical looks at microchips and all that.

But, I don't want any of that anywhere near my cooking. Cooking is art, it is pleasure, it cerainly isn't science for me. There may be some science going on, but it would drain every ounce of pleasure from what I do if I actually thought about what was happenin on a molecular level as I sear meat. I am fine with collections of old wive's tales, myths, anecdotes, and anything like that, and in fact base cookign decisions on them often. However, you will never see me voluntarily get withing 100 feet of a Harold McGee book.

[Shalmanese]

I think it's about time the scientific method finally made it's way substantially into the kitchen. Not just stuff like talking about proteins and melting points, but even very simple stuff like double blind testing and controlling variables and building a meaningful ontology is something that should have been present in cooking a very long time ago.

[Really Nice!]

Actually this site makes so much sense to me. Give me bullet-point culinary verbs over verbose paragraphs any day.

The recipe for carrot cake is a great example. I know how to: blend, drain, sift, drizzle, mix, bake, cool, and frost.

I much prefer this method over: "In a large mixing bowl blend eggs and both sugars at medium speed with electric mixer until the eggs are well incorporated with the sugars. Slowly drizzle the canola oil at a pace that keeps the mixture blended."

Just give me the ingredients and what needs to be done to them. I don't care about the size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose, manner, place, frequency or time.

[NulloModo]

But without the descriptive paragraphs how do you know at which speed you should be blending,or at what point to stop, or how finely to chop the carrots, etc? I suppose for someone who has made similar dishes many times it is easy to assume what needs to be done, but I've always love the descriptive paragraph recipe approach, it allows me to check out what I'm doing as I go along vs. what the author of the recipe expects to be happening, so if the two diverge too much I know something is amiss and I can take steps to fix it before the whole thing gets ruined.

[fifi]

While sitting at the lunch table one day, we were discussing the finer points of smoking brisket and pork butt. Once I had explained the temperature stall phenomenon, pencils flew out of the pocket protectors and, before you could say "Design that!" several napkins were covered with temperature control and monitoring schemes.

[Moopheus]

I was in a gourmet group where all the men were engineers.  We once got a packet of recipes done as flow charts and timing notes at 2 minute intervals.  Dinner was on the table 2 hours later than "projected".  So true to form!

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Was it also over budget? A really efficient team of engineers should be able to get at least a 20% cost overrun, maybe more, especially if it was cooked for a Dept. of Defense contract. Actually, in which case dinner might be even later if the ingedient procurement paperwork wasn't done correctly.

[MHesse]

Go ahead, laugh at the engineers.

It's like the lazy ant laughing at the busy ant, who works hard making sure it's prepared for the challenges of the future.

Then who gets to laugh last?

I used to be an engineer (if you couldn't tell).

Now I'm a teacher, but I still like my stuff organized.

What's so scary or amusing about the flowchart? There were verbose descriptions of technique to go with them.

[NulloModo]

Hehe, I don't find it funny in a derisive way, but I do find it funny in a 'wow, one has to appreciate that kind of anal-retentive attention to detail' kind of way. I guess it just comes from two different schools of thought on cooking. Some people like to plan out every detail, double-check every step, and make precise calculations with no room for error. Others just like to go in guns blazing, no plans, and throw stuff together until it turns into something else. Both methods have their merits, I just find the latter a whole lot more fun ;).

[MarketStEl]

Count me in the latter camp with NulloModo. I like a touch of the unexplained in whatever I cook. I'll toss in a little seasoning, taste, toss in some more if I think it needs it, taste again.... Or I may vary the ingredients a little.

Of course, this means that as a result, no two batches of my signature dish (chili) come out exactly alike. But what's wrong with that?

As for the blunt vs. descriptive language, I would think that an engineer would go for as precise a description of the action to be taken as possible. "Mix" would not seem to be enough; "mix with electric mixer at 2500 rpm" would probably be better.

[Susan G]

Go ahead, laugh at the engineers.

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For me, it's not a derisive laughter, it's a bemusement that the creative process begins and continues along such different paths: Both groups (the gourmets and the engineers) are seeking to create. Both are therefore artists. But the supplemental values both hold in additon to wanting to create are diametrically opposite.

One wants to be lost in the creative process, working with whimsy and passion; the other subsumes passion into precision. Reproductability of creation is more important than the experience of pleasure of producing.

Or do I misunderstand?

[rjwong]

Actually this site makes so much sense to me. Give me bullet-point culinary verbs over verbose paragraphs any day.

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I appreciate the conciseness, the clarity and the organization of the recipe flowcharts. When I first saw them, amazingly, I thought of Julia (yes, Julia Child).

When you get the opportunity, take a look at Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Notice how the recipe is organized:

Ingredients are listed and grouped together on the left, in the order they are needed. On the right, accompanying instructions are given.

So organizational (like an engineer) and yet so passionate about food was Julia Child.

Just a little something to READ. CHEW. DISCUSS.

[redfox]

But without the descriptive paragraphs how do you know at which speed you should be blending,or at what point to stop, or how finely to chop the carrots, etc?  I suppose for someone who has made similar dishes many times it is easy to assume what needs to be done, but I've always love the descriptive paragraph recipe approach, it allows me to check out what I'm doing as I go along vs. what the author of the recipe expects to be happening, so if the two diverge too much I know something is amiss and I can take steps to fix it before the whole thing gets ruined.

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This site does have extensive descriptive prose to accompany the chart-style instructions. Really, those are just a kind of notation, and (I think) a very handy one too, useful for once you've read over the notes and just want something to refer to as you put things together.

[Jay Francis]

I came across a really good website:

www.cookingforengineers.com

[Mallet]

yes, but this one is for engineers, artists, homemakers, businesspeople, students, chefs, cooks etc..

[Shalmanese]

I love it. The recipes aren't fantastic but the non-recipe articles are always meticulously researched and presented in a clear fashion. The horizontal reciple diagrams are interesting as well and I'd like to see them pop up in other places.