Comment by calf

A steak is hard because the processes to make it are physically contradictory (crust vs interior). Its hardness is a microcosm for why cooking in general is hard. There is a profound value in that, in that if you can handle a single steak (to some standard of satisfaction) then you will have the general skills to handle recipes involving even more steps. It becomes a reduction argument. It is true that the more moving parts/steps/interactions a dish involves the hardness grows combinatorially. But that is logistical hardness, e.g. managing the complexity of a flavor profile. Soon that amount of multiplication/permutations escapes the realm of any one human being to handle.