Banana Pudding Philosophy
My oldest daughter loves to try to do things that she watches on Youtube. Slimes, crafts are among the many attempts. More recently she turned into cooking. I am almost capable of telling some recipes by memory since I am part of the (captive-forced) audience.
For the holidays she decided to make a banana pudding using the videos as her guide. She was all excited about it and soon enough we had something in the refrigerator. Then the excitement was shifted for us to try it out.
That’s when we got into a deep conversation about the current way we do things. Then I saw myself trying to teach a few things to my 11-year-old daughter, but also being surprised by how what I was saying applied to my own life.
Taste was good. However, we had a non consistent texture and “air gaps” in it. After getting my second portion (taste was good!), I very carefully started to make suggestions on how to do it next time. After immediate push backs (of course) and me being informed that it was done just like the video I asked “exactly like the video?”.
Not really. Then I realized a few things.
Process killers
I believe we have a serious challenge ahead of us. We are getting unused to processes. We no longer have patience to follow step by step actions. In that sense, Youtube helps a lot with that. First of, things seem to be very easy, simple and quick. The teenager preparing the banana pudding was accelerating the video during the steps, probably because she is aware that the audience will not stay tuned to long videos.
The real process was “cheated”. That is not the real time, consequentially the real effort. We watch things and think we will accomplish the same result that should take three, four, five times more time than a 5-minute-Youtube-like real life kitchen time.
I remembered when I was taking engineering classes at the university. Some of them were on line. That is when I found out I could speed up the videos up to 2x !. You should try it. You will love it. I promise. However, just remember that we should not avoid the process and that means having discipline. Talking to her I explained how challenging her future will be.
End results are more praised than the discipline to get to them.
Layers, Layers, Layers
If we don’t get the layers right, the pudding will not be the same. I clearly saw that she had inverted some of the layers. This banana pudding had a slight different nuance than the other ones I had tried before. It had banana pieces. I particularly like the idea of having pieces in the mix, although sometimes I thought I was eating just the banana itself.
She started placing the banana pieces first, then adding the pudding mix and finally covering it with whipping cream. It was a challenge to get all of them at the same time, since they were not consistent.
I explained that she should have put some pudding mix first, then the bananas, then some more pudding, finally topping it with the cream. Inverting the priorities and the sequence will always cause an unexpected result. I used the illustration of setting tile on the floor. Same principle. First, mortar, then tiles, and only then the grout joints. This is the only way we can avoid the air gaps.
That is when I faced reality again. I can’t tell how many air gaps I have in my knowledge because I do not follow the layers principle. I struggle with this on a daily basis. Overall, I have a knowledgeable banana pudding. However, it comes with lots of air gaps. The reason is that being a self learner in pretty much all I am capable of doing, I did not follow the layer principle, but reversed a lot of steps and not only that. I did not even take them!
Try to follow the process. If you don’t, later on you will need to face air gaps. Lots of them.
