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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4028 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 17, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Hate to put out the AskReddit tier question. But what did you find to be grossly overrated?

I'm a Chinese food enthusiast and shop far and wide for authentic ingredients to recreate dishes at home. Once I found out that a 'chili oil with beef 'is a thing that exists and is apparently delicious, I immediately hit the Asian grocery store and got some. It was even more enticing to me because said product is not available in North America, well I don't live in a communist country (joke) so I got my hands on some fairly easily.

It was meh. Really did not live up to the hype from the linked video. Regular chili oil with fried minced beef, that's it. Maybe the American who made the video just finds it to be better because he knows there is a forbidden quality to it and his subconscious mind does the work. Obviously, not everyone's tastes are the same. Mildly regretting driving 45 minutes each way to the Asian market for one product.

Equally hot take: balance within a meal is vastly overrated and not at all required. There's no need to balance out something very rich in fat with something acidic (for the most part, I have found exceptions). Chefs and food authors talk it up as if it's one of the ten commandments, but it's not actually a big deal.

It very much is.

The purpose of balance in a meal isn't to please Thanos or Chefs with indefensible arbitrary notions. It's to make the meal enjoyable for the longest amount of time. So that when you integrate the time-series plot of taste, you get the largest area.

A Korean-bbq meal would be much inferior without all the banchan because after eating a few fatty slices of meat, your tongue will be coated in fat and you won't be able to taste the other meats as well. The pickles reset that so the meal is most enjoyable in its duration and not only the beginning.

It's not required for a good meal, but I'd be hard-pressed to find a great meal that lacks balance.

I understand the theory, I simply don't find meals with that balance any more enjoyable than those without. Thus, I consider it overrated and not something which is required.

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