There Is Nothing Wrong With All the Recipes.
Food writing is a personality-driven genre and it has been around for a while. It’s not uncommon for recipe makers, screenwriters, and broadcasters to develop cult followers and productions, and whoever wrote the recipe can be a big factor in choosing what you cook for dinner.
That’s okay, and it makes sense – recipe authors usually get famous because their recipes are good, but that could be a limitation: Cooking the same viral dish as everyone else can build a sense of community, but it also takes the excitement of discovery out of the equation. Focusing on one person’s recipes can also prevent you from trying other people’s recipes, and in some cases entire cultures. (This is especially true if you prefer white.)
The faceless, aggressively unbranded food product is not “popular” at the moment, but it does have its merits. First, you can really evaluate a recipe in a truly objective way, since you have no emotional attachment to its creator. The process seems less valuable and more impersonal when there is no risk of “disappointing” your imaginary culinary best friend.
What I’m saying is that faceless (or nearly faceless) content has its advantages. He allows you to separate your feelings from food and admits that sometimes it’s good, not the best. Here are some of my favorite recipe resources that have little to no branding. I would say that I will “become”, but I am not sure who exactly I will become.
All recipes
Allrecipes is not a sexy site, but it is a useful site. Stripped of heavily stylized branding, these are really all recipes. As far as I know, there is only one famous person in them – Chef John, who is very good, but his content is not promoted more than the rest. (He has a lot of recipes on his website, but they are not forced upon you through banner images.)
The recipes on Allrecipes are available, almost selfish, plentiful and good. I have used this site as a starting point when trying new dishes and have never been disappointed in any of them. ( Peg’s Amish white bread is a favorite.)
“The pleasure of cooking “
The Pleasure of Cooking is a timeless icon, and while two very real people are editing the contents of the giant tome, you probably don’t know what they look like. Filled with recipes and completely devoid of photographs (there are a few illustrations), the book looks somewhat retro, although a completely revamped version was only released last year. (The photographs, as editors once told me, actually date the cookbook. If you don’t believe me, check out the cookbooks of the 90s.)
The book is filled with a wide variety of recipes and techniques – from sous vide temperature tables to squirrel skinning techniques – as well as recipes from different cultures and cuisines (always with proper indication of the origin of the dish). You can prepare a new recipe from Joy every day for many months, without necessarily knowing that they all come from the same place. I think this is good.
Ready recipes
Many “family” recipes were first found on the back of a mixture, a can of condensed milk, or a bottle of sauce. In fact, I’m sure you can name at least one recipe that you think was original content created by your grandmother or aunt, only to find it printed on a box of cake mix or a package of chocolate chips. This was the case with my family’s corn casserole , which was (obviously) created by the folks at Jiffy to sell brighter blue boxes. Tollhouse Cookies, Philadelphia Cheesecake Bars, Carnation Lemon Bars and Libby Pumpkin Pie are just a few of the great examples of this genre. Some recipes – such as Rice Krispies Treats and Chex Mix – are so strong in the spirit of the times that we forget they were created by the brand to sell more cereals. I am not saying that you should cook whole food from the back of the boxes, but be careful; you never know what treasures you will find.
There is something wonderful about the relationship and trust that a recipe writer builds with his audience, but it can be helpful to move from your favorites to less fashionable, personal territory as a kind of cleanser for the palate. You may or may not find a new favorite recipe or cuisine. If something really catastrophic happens, you can always return to your pet. They won’t even know that you are gone.