I came across this instruction in a celebrated book on home bread baking:
To the autolyse, add about half of the water, the salt, and ripe levain.
Now, I’m neither a grammarian nor an expert baker.
But I’m left wondering. Am I being told to halve all three ingredients (the water, the salt, and the ripe levain)?
The answer is no. Which I eventually figured out by inference and reading the rest of the recipe.
Clear instructions are essential in a recipe book. The reader shouldn’t have to work that hard, but the editors of this book were apparently more concerned about having flashy layout and beautifully composed, dramatically lit photographs (including of the baker’s biceps).
For the greater good, I offer this revised sentence, free of charge, to any future edition of the book:
To the autolyse, add the salt, the ripe levain, and about half of the water.
I won’t name the book, because this is a very narrow rant, and I haven’t read much more of it than the one recipe. Maybe the rest is crystal clear. Maybe, but doubtful. We’ll see. Bah. Sourdough humbug.