To Taste
To Taste
[Cueball is standing near a stove holding a pot just above it. He is looking away from the stove, reading the recipe from a piece of paper he is holding in the other hand.] Recipe: ...And add sugar to taste.
[Cueball has placed the pot on the stove looking at it while holding the paper down along his side.] Cueball: ??
[Cueball leaves the pot and stove to walks off-panel left with the recipe.]
[Cueball returns backing up to the stove with a dolly loaded with three crates, labeled "sugar". The bottom crate is still not fully inside the panel and the first letter cannot be seen.] Sugar Sugar ugar

The imprecision of recipes is often a source of frustration to culinary novices, especially the more analytically-minded. Cueball expects a recipe to provide instructions precise enough that by following them carefully, a cook can create a dish exactly as the recipe author intended. Unfortunately, exact replication is impossible in cooking because of the natural variation of ingredients as well as differences in equipment. In addition, most home cooks lack the tools needed to make precise measurements, such as scales and thermometers. Thus, a recipe for strawberry smoothies might read "add sugar to taste " because the recipe-writer can't specify precisely how ripe the strawberries are to begin with. In addition, a smoothie recipe would typically specify imprecise quantities of fruit such as "1 banana" or "1 cup of strawberries" (much less precise than specifying the weight). Thus, it is impossible for the cook to determine the correct amount of sugar without actually tasting the drink.
The instruction "to taste " can also be used for ingredients that alter a simple aspect of the food's flavor, such as sweetness , sourness , saltiness or bitterness without affecting the quality of the overall dish. Individual preferences can vary wildly and it's not possible for a recipe's author to predict how much the reader will want. Specifying any exact amount in these cases will inevitably lead to the food being too bland for some, while being too strong for others.
In this comic, Cueball is shown as having no idea how to cook (or having a ridiculously large sweet tooth), and the suggestion that he is going to add large crates of sugar to a small pot is, of course, silly. This would ruin the dish, as whatever was in the pot would be drowned out by the sugar. Alternatively, he could simply bring in enough sugar to make sure he will not run out of this particular ingredient before it reaches the correct level of sweetness for his taste. This too would display a complete lack of understanding about what it is to cook; even a beginner cook should be able to logically deduce that this is far too much sugar.
Another possible explanation would be that Cueball plans to add as much sugar as possible to the dish and eat it, so that he can sue the recipe book's writer for any ill effects he receives as a result. Needless to say, this would be a complete waste of effort - he would probably lose the lawsuit, and even if he won and received compensation money, he would not be able to enjoy it thanks to his ill health.
The title text is Randall's (and Cueball's) personal comment on what he thinks a recipe should do to fulfill his needs. If he knew how much of each ingredient would be appropriate for a given dish, then he would not need the recipe in the first place. The title text actually scolds the recipe for being imprecise. In his view, mixing in imprecise or "use your own judgment" language makes it less of a "recipe" for the dish, and thus less suitable for those looking for the specific instructions to make the dish because they either have no cooking experience, feel they don't have the expertise to make their own decisions, or simply want to follow clearly defined steps without any decision making required.
This is the second comic this week that concerns one of the basic condiments for food, and also regards one of the five basic tastes . The first one, about salt, was 1637: Salt Mine . Lately Randall has made several food related comics .
This is the official transcript of 1639, as of May 9, 2019, valid for 1637: Salt Mine .
[Three women and a (stick) figure stand in a salt mine. There's a control panel with two benches in the centre, and two piles of salt to the right. Two figures are talking, and two are shovelling salt into their mouths.] Woman 1: So you've build this particle detector in a salt mine to block out cosmic rays? Woman 2: Yes. That is definitely why. Woman 3 and figure: <<Homf nomf nomf>>
[Cueball is standing near a stove holding a pot just above it. He is looking away from the stove, reading the recipe from a piece of paper he is holding in the other hand.] Recipe: ...And add sugar to taste.
[Cueball has placed the pot on the stove looking at it while holding the paper down along his side.] Cueball: ??
[Cueball leaves the pot and stove to walks off-panel left with the recipe.]
[Cueball returns backing up to the stove with a dolly loaded with three crates, labeled "sugar". The bottom crate is still not fully inside the panel and the first letter cannot be seen.] Sugar Sugar ugar
