Recipes are not out to get you

There’s an interesting little post over at eggbeater about recipes that resonated with me.

Rule #1: Recipes are guides.

Rule #2: A recipe is not out to get you.

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Rule #6: If a recipe does not work for you, you are allowed to give up on it and blame no one.

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Rule #8: See Rule #1.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Needless to say, I agree with both these, as well as most of the other 9 1/2 rules provided in the post. It sometimes amazes me when people treat recipes like immutable instructions, one-way documents that spell out an if x, then y sort of alchemy, where y is food. That works fine for Ikea furniture, but I would never want to eat a Hejka chair.

Cooking is just like folk music: a set of bits and bobs passed down from previous generations and combined with other odds and ends from our own to make something good. No two folk musicians will play a song the same way twice, nor should they. The words will change, the melodies will vary. Some times verses will be forgotten; others, new verses are invented on the fly. The song might go off the rails and that’s ok. Nothing bad will happen!

Recipes should not be chosen based on the pictures in the book, nor should they be treated as gospel. Get dirty. Make mistakes. Even better, look at the recipe when you go shopping for ingredients, but don’t take it with you, and refer to it as little as possible when you’re cooking. Think about what you want to make and then wing it. You might even learn something.

(Maybe keep the noodle place on speed dial though. Just in case.)

via Serious Eats