NailBat
Well-Known Member
It sounds like a silly question. A stupid question even. A recipe is just instructions for making a meal. Except it really isn't, and pretending that it is causes a lot of the problems people have with cooking.
If you think recipes are instructions, its easy to then believe that there is a "right" way to cook things, and if you don't follow the rules you don't deserve to say you made that dish. I'm sure nobody here believes that, but this is an extremely widespread view, and who knows how many people have been scared away from even trying to cook because of people like this? If you think recipes are "just instructions", then if a recipe doesn't turn out well, you may assume that you just "can't cook" because isn't cooking as simple as following directions? And on that same note, I've heard a great many people say that they don't even believe they have cooking skill at all, because all they do is follow recipes.
I think most people, after a certain point, start to treat recipes more as starting points, inspiration, or reference. They may choose to follow it exactly, but chances are they'll make slight adjustments, a bit more of this, a bit less of that. So are recipes suggestions? Well, that's more about how they're used, not really what they are.
The modern printed recipe, with its ingredients and amounts laid out separately from its step by step instructions, is a fairly new idea. If you look at some old recipes, they read more like prose, often leaving out key details that are simply assumed to be known. You'll see this same kind of style, though, in recipes that aren't meant for the general public. I'll bet many of you have family recipes written on index cards that may seem hopelessly vague to an outsider, but are clear to those who have grown up with the dish. Some might not even have amounts, because the people making them have been doing it so long that they don't even know exactly how much to use. They just use what feels right.
When you think about it, humanity has been cooking long before it's been writing, so a majority of cooking knowledge in history did not come from reading recipes. Even today, can you really say you "learned" cooking just by reading recipes? Probably not - more likely you learned by trying things out yourself, but more importantly, from watching others cook. Today, that could mean watching Youtube, but throughout history that meant watching someone else cook.
This brings us to what a recipe actually is - it's a description of what somebody was doing in the kitchen that resulted in a meal. Imagine you are tasked with recording a recipe that a chef has simply memorized. You have a notepad and a pen, and you're told to write things down as they're happening. Would you write down every time the chef picked up a spoon, or record the angle of the pan's handle, or trace their steps through the kitchen? No, you'd be aware those are not important to the description of what's happening. But it's not so clear what is important information, and what is simply details that can be assumed. If you knew how to sear meat, you could just write that the chef "browned the chicken", even though the act of browning is made up of many parts that a beginner probably wouldn't know. If you watched Jacque Pepin make an omelette without knowing much about cooking, you'd probably just write that he seems to simply be stirring eggs in a pan. You wouldn't pick up on the nuances of his technique.
All recipes are descriptions, but what details are included and what aren't depends heavily on the author and the audience. If you specified every last detail, some enthusiastic beginners might appreciate the guidance but many would be put off by the seeming complexity. Don't specify enough details, and advanced cooks will intuitively know how to fill in the blanks but beginners will be lost. It's not even easy for a recipe author to tell what's obvious to their readers - its the "Curse of Knowledge", when you know something, it becomes almost impossible to understand what its like to NOT know that thing. This results in a ton of "Easy" recipes that are only easy to the author, who already has an arsenal of cooking knowledge at their disposal.
"Recipes as descriptions" is also a means of telling your progression as a cook. If you're a beginner who hasn't yet learned techniques and flavor pairings, you'd only be able to describe a recipe by listing out the exact ingredients and exact steps. As you pick up techniques, however, you can start to say "Oh, that's just X", and describe several steps and ingredients with a single term. Once you build up your cooking vocabulary, its quite easy to look at a recipe and describe it in just a few words. There's a chance you could miss an important detail, but in cooking many roads often lead to the same destination.
If you think recipes are instructions, its easy to then believe that there is a "right" way to cook things, and if you don't follow the rules you don't deserve to say you made that dish. I'm sure nobody here believes that, but this is an extremely widespread view, and who knows how many people have been scared away from even trying to cook because of people like this? If you think recipes are "just instructions", then if a recipe doesn't turn out well, you may assume that you just "can't cook" because isn't cooking as simple as following directions? And on that same note, I've heard a great many people say that they don't even believe they have cooking skill at all, because all they do is follow recipes.
I think most people, after a certain point, start to treat recipes more as starting points, inspiration, or reference. They may choose to follow it exactly, but chances are they'll make slight adjustments, a bit more of this, a bit less of that. So are recipes suggestions? Well, that's more about how they're used, not really what they are.
The modern printed recipe, with its ingredients and amounts laid out separately from its step by step instructions, is a fairly new idea. If you look at some old recipes, they read more like prose, often leaving out key details that are simply assumed to be known. You'll see this same kind of style, though, in recipes that aren't meant for the general public. I'll bet many of you have family recipes written on index cards that may seem hopelessly vague to an outsider, but are clear to those who have grown up with the dish. Some might not even have amounts, because the people making them have been doing it so long that they don't even know exactly how much to use. They just use what feels right.
When you think about it, humanity has been cooking long before it's been writing, so a majority of cooking knowledge in history did not come from reading recipes. Even today, can you really say you "learned" cooking just by reading recipes? Probably not - more likely you learned by trying things out yourself, but more importantly, from watching others cook. Today, that could mean watching Youtube, but throughout history that meant watching someone else cook.
This brings us to what a recipe actually is - it's a description of what somebody was doing in the kitchen that resulted in a meal. Imagine you are tasked with recording a recipe that a chef has simply memorized. You have a notepad and a pen, and you're told to write things down as they're happening. Would you write down every time the chef picked up a spoon, or record the angle of the pan's handle, or trace their steps through the kitchen? No, you'd be aware those are not important to the description of what's happening. But it's not so clear what is important information, and what is simply details that can be assumed. If you knew how to sear meat, you could just write that the chef "browned the chicken", even though the act of browning is made up of many parts that a beginner probably wouldn't know. If you watched Jacque Pepin make an omelette without knowing much about cooking, you'd probably just write that he seems to simply be stirring eggs in a pan. You wouldn't pick up on the nuances of his technique.
All recipes are descriptions, but what details are included and what aren't depends heavily on the author and the audience. If you specified every last detail, some enthusiastic beginners might appreciate the guidance but many would be put off by the seeming complexity. Don't specify enough details, and advanced cooks will intuitively know how to fill in the blanks but beginners will be lost. It's not even easy for a recipe author to tell what's obvious to their readers - its the "Curse of Knowledge", when you know something, it becomes almost impossible to understand what its like to NOT know that thing. This results in a ton of "Easy" recipes that are only easy to the author, who already has an arsenal of cooking knowledge at their disposal.
"Recipes as descriptions" is also a means of telling your progression as a cook. If you're a beginner who hasn't yet learned techniques and flavor pairings, you'd only be able to describe a recipe by listing out the exact ingredients and exact steps. As you pick up techniques, however, you can start to say "Oh, that's just X", and describe several steps and ingredients with a single term. Once you build up your cooking vocabulary, its quite easy to look at a recipe and describe it in just a few words. There's a chance you could miss an important detail, but in cooking many roads often lead to the same destination.
