My Take on Quality Ingredients and Special Equipment

What you see on this picture is a classic "Fischbrötchen" (literally "Fish Roll/Bun") - one of the gems of Northern German cuisine. Located along the shores of the Baltic and North Sea, there is traditionally an abundance of amazing fresh fish in the area. 

You can choose from varieties of freshly cooked, salted, pickled, or fried fish which gets served on a fresh but simple white bread roll (slightly crispy but thin crust, tender on the inside) with raw onions, a bit of lettuce, sometimes cucumber, and sometimes a smear of remoulade (a mayo based sauce, similar to tartar). 

It tastes amazing, but the reason is of course the great quality fish. Try to replicate this with some low grade, mass-farmed frozen fish, and it won't  be an outstanding experience. And this brings me to an issue I have when choosing video topics: How much can I allow my recipes rely on quality ingredients? Let me explain ;)

Obviously, high quality ingredients will always make for better and healthier food. But when I personally watch YouTube cooking videos, it sometimes rubs me the wrong way when I'm instructed to only use highest grade beef or fish or whatever. 

It's similar with kitchen equipment.  "You can only make this if you have a KitchenAid with XYZ pasta extruder attachment, five different sieves and a fridge the size of a car". I don't mind sharing a complicated process (like croissant making), but it's different when it comes to asking you to have physical stuff.

And don't get me wrong, for some recipes, this is essential. A ceviche from cheap low end fish is not just unpleasant in flavor but also a health hazard. Making a BLT with thin, overseasoned bacon, goopy mayo and watery, unripe tomatoes is not exactly fun, either. 

Rather than telling you to only make the recipe with the best ingredients isn't the solution for me - I tend to instead decide to make video on a different topic instead. To me, the best cooking videos are about techniques we can all apply in all sorts of situations, not just if we have access to special ingredients or kitchen gear.

The downside of that is - some amazing foods, like the Fischbrötchen, might be unlikely to make it onto the channel. I could share the experience of finding & eating one, but any recipe would pretty much just be "get the BEST fish and the FRESHEST German bread roll", which I would probably hate as a viewer :) 

There are also local differences of course. You guys live all over the world, I know there are things that I can easily find in the US but not in Germany or Singapore, etc. It will always have to be a compromise, othewise I'd jut be cooking with cheap rice and salt or something ;) But I try to make universally relatable content, if you know what I mean?

Of course all of the above is just me presuming you think along these lines, too! So here's my question: How do you feel about videos in which I use specialized equipment or expensive/difficult to source ingredients? Still fun to follow along, or more of an unsatisfying/unfair feeling?

Would love to know what you think. 

Take care guys, stay healthy!