Yes, they are. But the idea of recipes is to convey a repeatable means of production. If you ask me to give you a recipe because you liked my food, you usually expect it to taste as close as possible to what you experienced. For that, precision is king. Especially with strong spices. So I would not tell you “Add three cloves of garlic”. I would tell you “Add three medium cloves of garlic, about 15g in total”. Now you know what to expect, and if you like and you have the experience, you can scale this up or down.
Basically, this is not about garlic, it is about imprecise units of measurements. “Cups” is one I hate with a vengeance. As in “Take a cup of spinach” without any information on what it actually measures. Fresh leaves? Losely, oder densely packed? Already blanched? Or a cut filled with little pellets of frozen spinach?
Yes, they are. But the idea of recipes is to convey a repeatable means of production. If you ask me to give you a recipe because you liked my food, you usually expect it to taste as close as possible to what you experienced. For that, precision is king. Especially with strong spices. So I would not tell you “Add three cloves of garlic”. I would tell you “Add three medium cloves of garlic, about 15g in total”. Now you know what to expect, and if you like and you have the experience, you can scale this up or down.
Basically, this is not about garlic, it is about imprecise units of measurements. “Cups” is one I hate with a vengeance. As in “Take a cup of spinach” without any information on what it actually measures. Fresh leaves? Losely, oder densely packed? Already blanched? Or a cut filled with little pellets of frozen spinach?