I was marvelling today at the existence of Miso, an ingredient which is made from fermenting soybeans. This fermentation process turns it into a gooey paste that can be mixed with hot water—hot, not boiling, mind you—to produce a tasty broth for soup, or it can be mixed thicker with other liquid indgredients to make sauces and salad dressings.

Coding is a matter of knowing all the constituent elements of a computer system, and coming up with creative ways to combine them.

Cooking is not. You can mix ingredients till your mixing spoon rots, but the real innovations in food come from people who accidentally leave soy beans in a bucket of water for two weeks and taste the sh/t. "That's good!" you say. "I could mix this goop with hot but not boiling water to produce an ethereal soup!"