Recipe authors have probably been using the word "caramelize" to mean "soften and turn brown and sweet" for longer than food nerds have been nitpicking the exact definition of caramelize.
It would have been nice if someone had clued people like me in to their special definition of the word before now. I'd have saved a whole lot of time and frustration.
But now I'm presented with the other problem: when a recipe calls for carmelized onions, how am I supposed to know if they mean carmelized onions or "cook until translucent"?
You aren't supposed to interpret a recipe. You are supposed to follow it. If you have enough skill, practice, or ability to order pizza, THEN is the right time to make decisions about whether this recipe actually needs REAL caramelized onions.
Recipes have been vague and don't make sense out of context for millennia.
So when a recipe says to "carmelize onions", that's what I do. To do anything else is to deviate from what the recipe is plainly telling me.
> Recipes have been vague and don't make sense out of context for millennia.
True. But the fact that this is true means it's essentially impossible to follow a recipe without some degree of interpretation.
I'm just irritated that there was a secret definition to "carmelize onions" that nobody clued me in to.
Many words will have definitions you don’t know — sometimes literally the opposite of their “proper” definitions!
It’s not a secret, it’s just a thing you didn’t know yet. So don’t be too mad, now you know.
That's even worse. And it begs the question: why are they lying about this?