A lot of cooking is in technique, if you don’t know the back story how are you going to know that it needs to be a crisp autumn morning overlooking a dewy meadow or the recipe won’t work?!
People who love the personal stories that separate you from the recipe confuse me. Please just tell me what I need from the store to produce the photo of the food.
Here's the most welcome news: you can trim out ALL of that fluffery by keying in the following into the recipe's URL - put your cursor to the LEFT of the http, and key https://cooked.wiki Don't forget the 'dot.' It will trim out the crap and leave the ingredients list and instructions!
And then it’s always a site full of so many ads and garbage, you came for the pizza recipe to walk away with making a lemon pound cake and cream cheese chicken.
I welcome these stories. They bring me back to those precious nights with Linda where she taught me to make tartiflette and a passionate connection with another person.
Thank you. Start with the reciple and if I really LIKE the recipe, maybe i'll learn about the history of wheat germ, and what happened that one time when you forgot to add the cream cheese.
For SEO and advertising spaces. It sucks, but it's part of the business model that gets you free recipes instead of requiring you to buy and maintain recipe books.
You aren't Italian, are you? Recipes are tied to who first gave you the recipe even if dead for 40 years you must still say oh, this, this recipe was Aunt Linda's and I remember the day she gave me the recipe. She knew I like prunes and always loved her prune Danish.
And if the recipe is a video, I do not need to see you carefully slicing all four onions, peeling all four carrots and then chopping them. Give me a hint and move on!
But the recipe providers want to create longer documents so that they can insert ads and because that supposedly improves their search rankings in fulfillment of Google’s mysterious wishes.
And for God sake, just put a link in your comments on your video of the recipe! I don't wanna visit your fucking blog, I don't want to Google similar recipes! Don't make me hate you, on Thanksgiving!😂
Not in my experience. Made an amazing banana bread, pancakes, green bean casserole, foccacia. Sometimes it does make mistakes but if you cook enough they’re easy enough to catch, you just have to tell it to double check itself.
Not *every* one, and none of them would *need* it at all if they gave me the damn blueberry muffin recipe right off the get-go instead of a sappy story about how their aunt Linda got the clap that one time and needed a new comfort food or some shit lmao.
" My husband says this is the best dish he's ever had"... And I care about your husband because? where is the recipe? I'm going back to my cookbooks more and more these days.
damn maybe buy a recipe book then? the ppl providing those recipes rely on advertising to actually get paid for their content that ur accessing for free
You don't but they have to include all that expository slop for search engine optimization. Google favors the pages that do so heavily in results that it's business suicide not to.
That might be a contributing factor, I lack the expertise to say. But the SEO optimization concerns are very, very real. The short and to-the-point page does not get served over the flowery bullshit one.
You're correct. I did article writing as a freelancer for a little bit and one of the big requirements was to use the "search terms" at least 5-7 times. Since Google pulls search terms from the both the title and the content. The more you mention the word that is being searched, the better.
And, if you go to print and the whole blog comes up, hopefully, you have the option to customize the page numbers you want printed. There have been times that when I want to print the recipe, the whole 15-25 pages appears in the print preview. Love that custom choice--just pages 7-9, please.
If there is no jump to recipe. I go elsewhere. A few actual good ones are Mely Martinez bit of ads now but recipes are good. Nora Cooks are good for vegan baking.
That depends on the information. If it’s someone’s intellectual property like a recipe or a story, why should you get it for free? Why should we get news for free. Reporters and everyone else has to work to bring that to you. Don’t be so entitled.
But “reading” is using content for your pleasure that someone worked to freqte. Before this phone thing, you bought the paper, a book, a magazine. If you stood by the newsstand reading the paper the clerk what call you out-and tell you to go to the library. That’s free.
"SHUT UP ABOUT THE WEATHER, I JUST WANT YOU TO BAG MY GROCERIES" I yell at the cashier. So much more efficient to just get rid of that pesky 'human element'. I wish it was all cold AI and robots, no more stories, please!
Click Print, even if you're not connected tp a printer, then choose print-friendly format, and you get a simplified version without ads (I screenshot that)
Sometimes there isn't but I'll do Control F and type in something like "cup" or "stir" or whatever word might be in the actual recipe to find it. It works 80% of the time.
This is all about how Google selects pages, some weird thing that makes them not put the recipe at the top. If they do put it at the top, we don't see it in search.
Google is not making things better.
I read that it’s easier to steal recipes without consequences when they are presented without the “personal story” component. No clue if it is accurate or not but 🤷♀️.
get the paprika app! It imports just the recipe from the link. And it’s on sale for black friday, one time fee, maybe 2.99, 5.99 regular. I’ve used it for years and love it.
I’ve made my peace with the stories…I get it, SEO & whatnot. I will NEVER make peace with the way so many recipe blogs these days have a video window that pops up over the text. If I wanted a video recipe, I would go to YouTube. I came here specifically for a written recipe…stop covering it up.
I can help.
Download AnyList.
Google your recipe.
Find the most liked one.
Share with AnyList.
It will import the recipe and instructions in an easy to read format.
#NotSponsored
There may be other apps that do this, I just happen to like this one.
Or my screen goes to sleep while I’m gathering the ingredients, then when I unlock the screen, the page is blank then refreshes back to the beginning. 😤
The reason you found the recipe on a search engine is because of the story lol. I guarantee they don’t want to write all of that either but SEO is a tough game.
Maybe they also just want to put something of themself into the transaction? Why not get to know the person and context where the recipe comes from? Otherwise buy a cookbook.
I do this too and some nefarious sites - thankfully only a precious few - make it so some of their ads survive into the Print Preview screen. That's when I'll just print it to a pdf.
At least some recipes have added the little "I'm Cooking Here!" slider! I hate it when my phone times out while I'm scurrying around the kitchen. I have to (fingerprint if possible w/sticky fingers?!) scroll past the story (+6 videos) multiple times to get back to the ingredients/measurements list!
But that's the best part!!! OK, I'm a girl, but I love finding receipes written in grandmother's hand or telling my kids how I made gravy the first time (1c flour to 1c milk, yikes). We need more stories. We need more traditions. We need more glue to hold us together.
The long story before every recipe is because the google search algorithm favors recipes with stories beforehand. So the jump-to-recipe is just a way for the author to game the algo and not infuriate the reader.
And now I’m infuriated thinking about it!
That’s fine. It’s the ones that run 30 seconds or even a minute. That’s wasting my time, just like ones who start the video with a minute or two of inane blahblahblah before getting around to the recipe. I back out of those immediately. I’m not rewarding that crap by adding a view to their count.
Y'all, copy the URL. Type "cooked.wiki/" then paste the URL after the slash. This will generate a version of the recipe without the storytelling, plus options for adjusting proportions and switching between imperial and metric.
Plus if you click on a step, it highlights the items from the ingredients list associated with that step. And it formats so that the list and the steps are visible at the same time.
But it was made every Christmas by Gram Gram and it's the only dish that makes the party for the author!! 😜 Have some compassion for their story! Lol 😅 how do we make the recipe with 'love' if they dont teach us how they 'love' people first!? 😂
Yassss! I don’t want to read a drawn out boring novella, just give me the sweet potato casserole recipe. Put the boring stuff after the recipe at least, yeesh.
Or a darn story that was promised in the thumbnail that I selected. Eight pages of roughly 1/2 a paragraph (and ads galore) tell me nothing I did not know before.
Yes, I get click-bait. I still am curious.
Tbh, it's because of search engine optimization. There has to be a certain amount of characters or google won't show the post in the top results. Trust me, it's annoying for the creators too.
That makes sense. Although it would be good if pages put the recipe first, and all the text needed to satisfy the search engine afterwards, which presumably would work just as well. No need for a jump to recipe button then. Could instead have a "jump to tedious backstory" button if desired
Yeah, I agree. But I think it's also how most of the platforms are designed (for example Wordpress). Unless of course you know how to design and code your own page. Or have enough money to hire someone to do that.
For recipes, no. Recipes aren't copyrightable because they are considered "ideas". There might be some exceptions to the rule (cookbooks?), but I'm not sure. It's all very confusing 🫣🫠
The basic idea is that facts and simple instructions aren't copyright-worthy but collecting / editing facts is. So you should be able to strip the creativity out and copy facts. Then add your own shaggy-kitchen-dog stories, you own a new cookbook.
In practice? 🤷 I guess the lawyers get paid.
Would it help if Aunt Linda was the sole survivor of a coked-up chainsaw wielding bear who butchered her entire family. You know it was that poor woman's sole comfort food, as she lived on the rest of her bleak existence somewhere in New Jersey.
OMG!! I feel the same. Used to think I was lacking by not writing more than a short paragraph about the recipe. Now I value how simply posting the recipe and a couple of photos is enough!!
"Skip to recipe" but for real... people who don't blog don't understand what it takes for your article to come up in a search. There is a reason for all that blather.
Recipe sites should move away from relying on google as it comes further and further away from finding content to advertising content so consider using social media for reach maybe even bluesky
It's upsetting to see people demand free labor and then also demand that the creators of the products divorce themselves of it.
You have to scroll for 30 seconds and close a couple of ads to ensure that someone can continue to make this product for you- so what? Talk about ungrateful, right?!
The number of times I’ve skipped away from them and found verbatim descriptions of the ingredients and technique without the family biography is innumerable (or at the very least more than I can remember).
Exactly. For years now, I've explained it's an SEO necessity without which all hope of offsetting recipe testing ingredient costs vanishes into invisibility.
Others have explained this as well.
I've concluded ppl who still complain about it are stupid and/or total exploitative shitheads.
Never has there been a justification for not putting the recipe right at the beginning. The rest of the blog could come after. (I say all this with a little silliness. I of course am never actually inconvenienced except by the cursed who put it in the middle).
No, we get it. We also think they can put the recipe FIRST—the SEO will still work, the people who care about the backstory will still read it, and the rest of us can just make the stroganoff.
Unfortunately the majority of recipe sites on the top search results at this point are ripped off AI-driven plagiarism. I miss a quaint story ahead of a unique recipe because they are almost impossible to surface these days.
I don’t know how you can reasonably expect to properly prepare a recipe without knowing back in 1953, the poster’s cousin Mary Bell’s Aunt Ethel’s third cousin twice removed mother’s dog ate her Home Economics homework which was how the original recipe was lost forever.
Same here. My husband is an engineer/sales. I ask a question that can be answered in 3 words or less and I get 10 minute mansplaining and never actually answers the question. He wonders why I never ask him questions anymore. It’s easier to go to YouTube
My hubby gets miffed when I interrupt his dissertations. He is really smart so it amazes me that after 33 years he has learned to just answer the question 🤣
I love him dearly. The most honest man I’ve known. Been married 25 years. Trust and understanding are embedded here. He is an exceptional father & was very respected amongst his peers within the USDOJ. My cockatoo in our yard. Elliott named my husband “Up-Up” - he calls out: Up-Up! And rings a bell.
Wow. I mean, wow. That is the hill you're dying on?
Just spend some cash & get a recipe book instead of interacting with someone's home made blog where they talk about their family and their love of good food. Sheesh!
This is how I justify my bookcase stuffed with cookbooks. Even sillier - if the cookbook has great pictures and stories, I’ll read it at bedtime. Joan Nathan, Nigella Lawson, Jacques Pépin, America’s Test Kitchen are some of my favorites for “good sleep hygiene” 🤣
They do it to stuff in more ad revenue.
I use an app called Paprika. You have to pay 3$ for it, but it will automatically grab the recipe and save it for you when you paste the link into the app. https://www.paprikaapp.com/
𝐂𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐌𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 (App) does the same thing, and it’s free. 😁 There is a pay version that has more features, but I have had the free version for quite a while and it works fine for my purposes.
I paid for Paprika but actually use Copy Me That instead now, I like that it's web accessible and friendlier for sharing recipes with friends. https://www.copymethat.com/
If there isn't a "jump to recipe" button, I don't bother. Speaking of which, there is a "jump to recipe" button 95% of the time. YOU.NEED.BETTER.RECIPE.GROUPS.
This actually started because ppl can’t copyright recipes unless there’s a blurb in front of it that makes it there own! Now it’s unfortunately become common practice😔
Why do people feel the need to copyright recipes. Food is meant to be shared and appreciated, not hoarded and monetized. We have enough of that in the world already.
It was a wintery Thursday night and I was looking through my pantry for that jar of bererey I bought after finding a recipe by Marcus Samuellson when suddenly....
Comments
I feel like I won the lottery if they put a "jump to recipe" button.
I’m right there with you!!
Me, like a moth to a flame
THE. MOUNTAINS. IS. NECESSARY. TO. APPRECIATING. THE. DISH.
Signed,
Great-grandmother's
walnut cake
Lordy, it isn’t hard, and most of these food bloggers don’t HAVE cookbooks.
Cause just get to the recipe we don’t need all that
These are rehashed recipes that are likely copy and pasted from other sources.
I have no problem paying for things, but the passive ad-revenue method of doing that is trash.
Completely obscuring the process of reading the thing: article or recipe.
Before SEO, before adsense.
People actually *like* sharing things you know.
Ice cold take, 0/5.
Google is not making things better.
Download AnyList.
Google your recipe.
Find the most liked one.
Share with AnyList.
It will import the recipe and instructions in an easy to read format.
#NotSponsored
There may be other apps that do this, I just happen to like this one.
https://images.app.goo.gl/nczpq5X4XUNMUKa76
thank. you. for. your. attention. to. this. matter.
And now I’m infuriated thinking about it!
Just copy the recipe link inside.
Yes, I get click-bait. I still am curious.
https://www.justtherecipe.com/
Eliminate the need to pay for web hosting and bills and this won’t be a problem.
Shit’s ridicules.
In practice? 🤷 I guess the lawyers get paid.
You have to scroll for 30 seconds and close a couple of ads to ensure that someone can continue to make this product for you- so what? Talk about ungrateful, right?!
Really...why complain about a free recipe?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Others have explained this as well.
I've concluded ppl who still complain about it are stupid and/or total exploitative shitheads.
Me sneaking out while he’s talking:
Just spend some cash & get a recipe book instead of interacting with someone's home made blog where they talk about their family and their love of good food. Sheesh!
I use an app called Paprika. You have to pay 3$ for it, but it will automatically grab the recipe and save it for you when you paste the link into the app.
https://www.paprikaapp.com/
https://www.copymethat.com/