Better Eats - Works in Progress

Scientifically guided cooking has deep roots in the history of American food. It’s apparent in early calls for standardization and precision in early hit cookbooks like The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, where Farmer obsessed over ultra-precise measurements, down to eighths of teaspoons, and standardizing measurement of the liquid’s meniscus (keep it below the line) (View Highlight)

Note: Interesting - makes sense that original cookbooks needed to be SUPER specific in their description of measurements, because nobody had a “feel” for it Similar to how cooks with no experience have to follow the recipe exactly, versus just saying “sauté some onions and garlic then add meat and som spices”

It’s a familiar pattern in how innovation seems to work. The central thesis of Anton Howes’s Arts and Minds, a history of the Royal Society of Arts, is that the Industrial Revolution was driven by a new “ideology of innovation.” This ideology held that everything could be improved by careful tinkering and experimentation. And this ideology spread from person to person. People become more inclined to experiment when they see others doing it and succeeding. Copying, not innovating, is the basic human skill (View Highlight)

Note: Good example of the idea that everything is a remix