Field of Science

Showing posts with label recipe quantification. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipe quantification. Show all posts

Standardized zucchini

Us scientists often have problems with less than precise instructions and let's face it, recipes are often a prime source of loosey-goosey instructions.  So when a recipe asks for you to grate a medium-sized zucchini, just how much zucchini is that anyways?  Now TPP has often seen and occasionally raised zucchini the size of naval destroyers.  Now if that's a big zucchini, then how big is a medium?  No mass, no size measurements, no means of determining how much zucchini the recipe really calls for.  Medium?  This is quite annoying.  Now in my general judgment a zucchini  that is 9-10 inches long and probably about 2 inches in diameter at its thickest part is a medium-sized zucchini.  The navy calls to put in dibs on any that are larger.  Nobody should let zucchini get any bigger than 9-10 inches, but sometimes they can grow from 6-7 inches to 9-10 inches in a matter of 2 hours or less.  How a fruit so big can hide from view also remains an interesting question.  But it would help a great deal if recipe authors would attempt to quantify their amounts a bit more.  Is it too much to ask for some zucchini standardization out there?