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Comment by nofreelunch | Hacker News Reader

Professional chef of 20 years here. Old Betty Crocker cookbooks are absolutely essential in any kitchen library, and vary from year to year, so it is worth having several. Some of the best, most reliable recipes you will ever find will come from these sources. Your advice here is terrible. Don't give advice that you aren't qualified to.

As long as the recipes use standard measurements (i.e. no "knuckle of butter" type measurements) you are in great hands with Betty Crocker manuals and Joy of Cooking. Also, Julia Child and Jacques Pepìn are not from recent decades. It is difficult to overstate how terrible your advice here is.

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Exactly. What you're looking for here is a collection of various cookbooks that you use as a starting point to create your own recipes, which you collect an store in whatever fashion pleases you.

Gran might have used index cards in a box, I use a 3-ring binder, you might use a Wordpress installation on a vanity domain. Doesn't matter.

The Betty Crocker is a great starting point for a wide variety of dishes. America's Test Kitchen released a book with 100 recipes that covers a wide variety of basics. I have a copy of "Real Stew" that is invaluable. All these go on a shelf as reference, to be transcribed into your own recipe book as you choose.

I use my memory (my repertoire is small, and my recipes are not sensitive to quantities).

I can't not think of this song now when Betty Crocker is mentioned:

Betty Crocker's Bail by Clare Fader and the Vaudevillains - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpwhW_RrNOc

  Mrs. Betty Crocker is going to jail
  Her chocolate brownie cake mix is looking mighty stale
  Good ladies of the city are having a bake sale
  Raising necessary dough for Betty Crocker's bail

How can a professional chef end up on HN? I am curious. Did you turn into a dev later in life?

Chefs are most definitely hackers, just operating in a different medium.

Absolutely. And not just hackers, they're also, literally, makers.

More of a superuser than a hacker. General interest in technology my whole life. Still a chef.

I've never heard of butter measured in knuckles. I thought they used knobs?

Americans still use "sticks" for some reason =)

Betty Crocker is a marketing invention. She is a fictitious character made to sell food: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Crocker

I don't think you know what you're talking about, lol. At least recommend someone that exists and has legitimately good advice and history like Julia Childs and The Joy of Cooking.

You obviously didn't read my comment. I prefer Joy of Cooking to Betty Crocker manuals, but both are written by teams of culinary professionals.

Edit: in regard to your rambling point about changes in food production and popularity of dishes falling out of style, my 2006 edition of Joy of Cooking has 8 recipes for aspics and savory mousses (like lobster). The recipe for turtle soup calls for 1 pound of canned or thawed turtle meat cut into 1/2 inch chunks. Please stop invalidating others' exploration into topics you speak so authoritatively of from a position of ignorance.

Your attitude which started with your first comment is terrible. You're getting what you give here.

Lurk more before you post.

> Betty Crocker is a marketing invention. She is a fictitious character made to sell food

Did anyone here suggest otherwise? It's just a brand name. Big deal.

So? Nobody thinks Betty Crocker is a real person.

Congratulations on informing us Buzzfeed writer.

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