Recipe for a bad recipe – Utterance

In 1991, Roald Dahl and his wife Felicity published the cookbook I Roald Dahl’s kitchen. Among other things, it contains the recipe for Roald’s oxtail soup. The soup was certainly delicious, but Roald was not particularly good at writing recipes. Here’s an excerpt: Fifteen minutes before it’s all finished, you should pick up a lot of medium-sized onions. See what you have of dried herbs and make a wise choice. Take the ones you and your guests like best. Maybe rosemary, basil and a few different things. Put in quite a lot. Three minutes before it’s all done, you add water and what you should have of frozen vegetables. I prefer beans, corn and peas. How much you use of the different things is up to you. If the recipe had been written by someone other than Roald Dahl, it probably wouldn’t have passed. For the professional cook, the recipe may be liberatingly vague, but for the average home cook it is annoyingly imprecise. The editor would send the text back to the author full of red lines and with the word Precise! written in the margin. Democratic and problematic Fewer and fewer recipes are quality assured by an editor. Social media and recipe platforms such as Sulten and Kulina give any person interested in food with access to the internet – including me – the opportunity to spread their recipes. It is democratic and nice. There are many recipes out there that deserve a wider audience. The only problem is that many of those who write the recipes cannot write, and they have no editor to help them. It’s a good recipe for bad recipes. Fry until they begin to release their pouch. Beat the butter and icing sugar completely white in the baking machine until fluffy. These are two of several clever formulations I come across on one of the aforementioned platforms. Fortunately, most errors are harmless. The reader understands that we are talking about a liquid substance, a liquid and not a bag, and that it is the butter and icing sugar that should become airy, not the baking machine. But a poorly written recipe can quickly become annoying, for example if it leads to the steak becoming dry or the cake collapsing in front of the birthday child’s eyes. In the worst case, it could be a health hazard. As a recipe developer, I try to avoid thinking that I can give food poisoning to an entire family with an ambiguous sentence. Photo: Ole Kristian Samuelsen A subject that cannot be studied Recipe writing is like all other writing: Difficult. In just a few words, the author must provide sufficient information, on everything from ingredients and techniques to flavors and textures, for an uninformed reader to be able to recreate the dish in his own kitchen. It makes certain demands on the writer. At least it should. Unfortunately, this subject cannot be taught at a university. I have scoured UiO’s website without finding a single individual subject that can provide a basic introduction to practical recipe writing (but the mysterious subject Oil fictions and other energy stories are offered with the greatest of course). Avoid the Super Chefs So what’s a poor home cook with an urge to publish to do? The boring answer is: Write more. Recipe writing is like any other writing, you won’t get better if you don’t practice. I cringe when I look back at the first recipes I published, and that’s a good sign. It means I’ve gotten better. The funny answer is: Go to the bookstore and buy cookbooks, read recipes written by people who really know the subject (I’m not referring to myself). Avoid the best sellers on display, they are rarely the best written. Most good restaurant chefs are more precise with the knife than they are with the pen, as good chefs should be. I recommend the books of British food writer Nigel Slater. No one has described a perfectly whipped mayonnaise more precisely or more poetically: The mixture should stand – in thick, shiny peaks; it should wobble when shaken, almost like a jelly. And finally, I would like to say: if you are lucky enough to find Roald Dahl’s cookbook, you should buy it too. Not because of the recipes, but because of the good stories. After all, cooking is about more than recipes.



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