Single correct option
Write the paragraph that best summarises the passage below.
A recipe passed down within a family rarely specifies exact quantities the way a published cookbook does — 'a handful of this, until it looks right' is common. This has usually been read as a mark of imprecision, evidence that home cooking is less rigorous than professional cooking. But such instructions are often better understood as adaptive rather than vague: they are calibrated to be re-derived correctly by someone who already has enough embodied experience with the dish to interpret 'until it looks right', while remaining nearly useless to a novice with none of that experience. The imprecision is not a flaw in the recipe; it is a feature that assumes, and rewards, prior practice.
A recipe passed down within a family rarely specifies exact quantities the way a published cookbook does — 'a handful of this, until it looks right' is common. This has usually been read as a mark of imprecision, evidence that home cooking is less rigorous than professional cooking. But such instructions are often better understood as adaptive rather than vague: they are calibrated to be re-derived correctly by someone who already has enough embodied experience with the dish to interpret 'until it looks right', while remaining nearly useless to a novice with none of that experience. The imprecision is not a flaw in the recipe; it is a feature that assumes, and rewards, prior practice.
- A. Family recipes are always inferior to professional cookbook recipes because they lack precise measurements.
- B. The apparent vagueness of traditional family recipe instructions is often not a flaw but a deliberate feature that relies on the cook's prior embodied experience with the dish.
- C. Professional chefs never use imprecise instructions like 'a handful of this'.
- D. Cookbooks should stop using exact measurements and adopt the family-recipe style instead.
Show answer and solution
Answer: (B) The apparent vagueness of traditional family recipe instructions is often not a flaw but a deliberate feature that relies on the cook's prior embodied experience with the dish.
The passage reframes apparent vagueness ('a handful of this, until it looks right') as adaptive rather than a flaw, explaining it assumes and rewards the cook's prior embodied experience. Option (b) states this reframing precisely; (a) repeats the view the passage argues against, and (c), (d) are not claims made in the passage.
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