The apple salad of Thesseus
Day one. This salad needs more pineapple.
Day two. It needs more apple.
Day three. we added too much apple, we need more cream.
Day four. It needs more craisins and pecans...
Oddly enough, as a good home cook, I sometimes have to go through that very process, albeit in minutes or hours, not days.
Here’s “Five Cup Salad”, a dessert I made for Christmas:
Originally, it was 1 cup each of pineapple chunks, fruit cocktail, marshmallows, shredded coconut, and sour cream. Mix, chill & serve. (I liked adding cherries for presentation.)
But over time, packaging sizes have changed dramatically, so I’ve had to alter it from “cups” to ounces. This included an expansion of the final recipe beyond 5 cups because I couldn’t easily store all the leftovers from partially used containers of ingredients I’d have if I stayed true to 5 cups.
And
this year, at least one of the wet ingredients came in a can 50% bigger than it used to, so I once again had to alter proportions on some of the other ingredients.
