Qualitative recipes

I love qualitative recipes. We had a company potluck and one guy brought these amazing Indian sweets for dessert. I asked him for the recipe and he said he'd ask his wife. Then there was a long delay during which he promised that she was "working on" getting the recipe to me.

She didn't have a recipe! She did eventually write one out, sort of in Western style, but it wouldn't have made the cut at Sunset magazine. It's great. It includes instructions like "keep on stirring until one thread forms." This is code for the "soft ball stage," which modern recipes just call "238 degrees on a candy thermometer." I don't think they use candy thermometers in India. Her recipe also has such vaguenesses as "heat up a pan and form sugar syrup" and "now you can feel the mysore pakku thickening-- stir until it resists a medium amount."

Brilliant! It will clearly take me several tries to get this recipe right. But mysore pakku is worth it. It's a little like my recipe for Afghan "fudge" that is sugar syrup with cardomom, pistacios, and walnuts.

This is cooking.