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It's definitely grown worse now, but I think that this originated from recipe sites that people actually used to follow, because the blogs were interesting and we got to know the writers, and what's changed is more that we're jumping to the first Google hit and we expect them just to grant us the information we wanted.

There is a difference between opening up a recipe site, like a favorite blog, or the New York Times (which does the same kind of spiel before its recipes), just to read and find out what interesting thing they have posted, vs doing a search for "pasta carbonara," clicking on the first link, and having to read a life-story.

I never mind opening up the recipe section of the New York Times and reading about what's so interesting about this recipe, and memorable times it was served. That's because I trust the article to be vaguely interesting, and reading it is a form of entertainment. There's a reason why no newspaper's recipe section has ever simply been: "Pasta Carbonara: 1 lb pasta. 2 oz Pancetta. 5 egg yolks. Cheese. Combine as directed below."

So I feel like the in-vogue hatred of these recipe site styles is more a reflection of how expectations on consuming and searching for recipes has changed, more than significant changes in how recipes have always worked.




I think it's also about different types of recipe collections.

There are cookbooks that are all recipes. This seems to be what the HN crowd is looking for when they search the internet.

There are cookbooks where each recipe is accompanied by a little story. These seem to sell well, judging by the number of them that appear on bookstore shelves.

And then there are cookbooks where all of the anecdotes are in the front of the book and the recipes are in the back. These are the ones I like because I can easily find what I'm looking for, but can still read the background about a recipe, if I choose. It's not right in front of me causing the actual recipe steps to continue on another page.

I think recipes and the internet don't mix, unless you're just looking up ingredients while shopping. It's one of the areas where a fat, old cookbook is always better, in my experience.

30 years from now, nobody is going to cherish grandma's dog-eared and tattered old iPad full of recipes.


I wouldn't mind the "recipe at the end" format if that were the actual case.

But it's not at the end. The actual structure of a modern recipe article is

1) Header

2) Blogpost

3) Click to read button

4) More blogpost, structured in a format that looks like an informal recipe - bulleted ingredients without quantities, discussion of steps.

5) Ad.

6) More blogpost

7) More ad that looks confusingly like a kind of recipe.

8) More blogpost

9) Nav that looks like the end of the blogpost.

10) More blogpost

11) Ad

12) Recipe ingredients

13) Ad

14) Recipe directions

15) 20 pages of chumbox, some of which structured in a way that kind of looks like a recipe at a glance.

Combined with some wonky JS that doesn't show the content until a half-second after I scroll it into view.

When I've got the recipe it feels like I've found Waldo.


And that's not the worst of it. Here's what I really hate:

- Search page and eventually find the recipe.

- Start making recipe. Up to my elbows in ingredients.

- Glance over to see the next ingredient I need, but there's now a pop-over I need to dismiss before I can see the recipe.

- Look for next ingredient, and it's scrolled off the screen because one or more adverts in the page have reloaded and have different sizes.

Most recipe sites have a nearly unusable UX.


You forgot the pop-up modal asking you to subscribe. Then you close that to get subjected to the bottom-floating one while you scroll.


>And then there are cookbooks where all of the anecdotes are in the front of the book and the recipes are in the back. These are the ones I like because I can easily find what I'm looking for, but can still read the background about a recipe, if I choose.

I inherited a series of Time Life cookbooks from my grandmother. They must have been printed in the 70s. Each of them essentially comes in two parts. A full size book with lots of pictures, introductions and visual guides and a small ring-bound booklet that's essentially all recipes. What I also find interesting about them is that many recipes are rather laborious and from scratch since they were written before having all that many kitchen appliances and pre-made ingredients.


There's also cookbooks that are almost more like a textbook, with technical cooking information followed by recipes (almost like textbook information followed by exercises).


There also might be an issue that recipes themselves can not be copyrighted. Article content and writing alongside the recipe can be copyrighted, but the recipe itself is not eligible for copyright protection at all. So if you're trying to make money off of a site, if it only had recipes, there is no protection whatsoever from someone setting up an identical copy and monetizing it themselves.


Many of the recipe sites are following a cargo cult-like methodology to SEO and only have stories before their recipes because of how they perceive Google's ranking algorithm will rank their content.




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