Just about anyone who’s ever looked up a recipe has noticed a familiar problem: massive walls of bullshit introductory text, pictures, and stories before you get to the actual recipe. Now a CNN article says that you are devaluing women’s work and their culture if you do this:
I quit reading CNN articles several years ago. Now I remember why.
That’s… not what the article says?
Not directly, but that’s what it’s implying.
Isn’t it sexist to assume all cooking articles are written by women?
Sounds like the typical mismatch of priorities between writer vs reader. Just because a write wants to write something in particular doesn’t mean there’s an audience for it. And just because a reader wants to read something in particular doesn’t mean there’s a producer for it. Neither is right or wrong. So it goes.
Just what I was thinking. Who here doesn’t have a copy of La Technique ? Anyway, there are plenty of recipe books and websites (contrasted to cooking blogs) so that is not a new idea either.
Just so everyone is clear, the article is not about people scrolling down to look at the recipe. The article is about a website set up specifically to just grab the recipe without anything else.
That’s what I mean, these websites have been around for decades. Often there was nothing else.
That’s an effect of copyright law. A recipe cannot be protected by copyright, while any accompany story is. Thus, the scraping of recipes. Not saying it’s right, but that’s why they do it, because if they took the whole article it would be an infringement.
The author might not be saying the work of women are being devalued but some experts are. I can see where the article is coming from. A lot of us might not think about it, but food is a fairly important cultural touchstone and most of us have some fond personal memories related to it. Maybe you remember mom making chicken soup and pouring you some 7-UP when you were sick, maybe dad barbecued something awesome every 4th of July, or maybe you spent a whole summer following the McRib from city to city. When my mother makes cream puffs for me it’s not just delicious it takes me back to my childhood.
I enjoy watching programs where the chef talks about the dish or the host takes us to where the ingredients are grown, talks to people who have been making it for years, and gives us the cultural context of the food. But when I’m looking for a recipe online I’m not usually interested in any of that. It’s not that I don’t value it. It’s just not a priority at that time.
It sort of does say that.
My wife and I have been griping about the 2-3 pages of fluff history, funny stories, deep cultural significance, or whatever before the actual recipe is published.
I mean, if we’re trying to make a recipe with what we have on hand, we’re trying to look at the ingredient list to see if what we have fits, not wade through 3 pages of the author’s ruminations about the significance of sauerkraut to homeless Alsatians between 1947-1948. Or if it’s a recipe for something extremely common like chili, we don’t need 2 pages of commentary about how her little sister would only eat her chili without beans, but with corn stirred in.
Sometimes it’s interesting, but a lot of the time it’s not. Readers should have the option to read it or not, depending on their level of interest. Just because someone wants to make bean popsicles, that doesn’t obligate them to read a page or two about how significant they are to the author, or whether or not they’re significant in Chinese cuisine. For all anyone knows, it may be a Chinese person just looking up the recipe for the ratio of beans to sugar or something like that. They certainly don’t need the backstory in that case.
Video game cheats/tips websites do the exact same thing.
“How do I best the third boss in Dragon Fire?”
“Dragon Fire is one of the most popular Dating Sim/American football hybrids on the market. Invented in 1993 which was the summer I first got a job and become the economy fully boomed I was happy…”
Solution is easy - put the recipe first. On top.
Then add the fluff story.
I’m very much not a fan of copyright, but this is BS. Someone puts the work in to publish a recipe, and a leech website scrapes off the work and resells it as if they’ve done something of value.
So you’re mansplaining the article for us?
Or do it how Serious Eats does it- put the explanation/fluff in one story, and link to the actual recipe, and vice-versa.
I have a browser extension called Recipe Filter I learned about here on the Dope that pops up a window with just the recipe when you visit a site. I see nothing wrong with that. I’m also not going to get all upset about the stealing of recipes which were very likely not originated by the web site’s author, or may be flat out copies of another recipe.
Yeah. I’m not sure what the history is, but recipes (the list of ingredients and directions on combining them) are protected by patent and not copyright. Probably because a recipe is a process (and thus patentable) and not an artistic work (protected by copyright). The problem is the criteria to patent are more stringent than copyright and it’s more expensive. Not a great option for most people.
Copyright cite: What Does Copyright Protect? (FAQ) | U.S. Copyright Office
(Bonus: it also answer the age-old question “How do I protect my sighting of Elvis?”.)
Patent cite: https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/newsletter/inventors-eye/can-recipes-be-patented
I only read recipe articles that come up when I research specific recipes.
I hit ‘print’, save it to a pdf, and that’s that.
I’m neither sexist nor culturally insensitive; I just don’t enjoy most of the on and on and on of many cooking articles. They don’t force me to read them, I don’t force them to sit next to Dorothy Gilmore for home movies night re: ‘Ballroom Dancing’.
This POV that I evidently have to sounds so stupid, it must be Cucker Tarlson. ( No, I won’t click the link to see if I’m right. No I won’t listen to a single sentence of Alt-Right Blather attempting to lamely justify that stupid of a POV. )
Talk about a tempest in a teacup dutch oven. Sometimes I like to read the long story and look at the pictures. Sometimes I skip right to the recipe, which if I like it, I add to Pepperplate.
Tell me again why anyone is making a big deal out of this? Because trump is no longer tweeting every 5 minutes, we now have to manufacture stuff to be pissed off about??