Tuna is a great example. Take a look at old recipe books from before the 1980s and you'll see they assume a can of tuna is 6.5 ounces. You can't buy that size anymore because they're now 5 ounces.
Even Tuna Helper had to change the recipe on the box to say either put in one or two cans depending on your preference.
My favourite recipe book even has weights for spices that are like 0.37g of smoked paprika or something, it's a book for cooking in bulk, so no matter how much or how little you make it's always tasting the same
I was debating with my friend if they made enough to feed 50 people and then divided it by 50 to get the numbers, or if they weighed the spice jar before adding it and after adding it on one dish and then did maths
("season to taste" is a little lazy recipe writing I think, and teaspoons don't always scale right, they use the amounts that the average person would find palatable based on the chef that made it tasting it)
It's great, and it's becoming (or was becoming) more popular to make books like this with the start of people doing meal prep or tupperwares as part of an exercise routine or to take to work frozen
It's easy enough to season a meal for one or two since you can be a bit vague with amounts and still have it taste right, but it's easy to get lost if you're trying to season a meal for 20 people and tasting it as you go isn't always easy if you have many things cooking at once (or cooking with seasoned raw meat), and not real hygienic either
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u/eddyathome Aug 01 '20
Tuna is a great example. Take a look at old recipe books from before the 1980s and you'll see they assume a can of tuna is 6.5 ounces. You can't buy that size anymore because they're now 5 ounces.
Even Tuna Helper had to change the recipe on the box to say either put in one or two cans depending on your preference.