undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdataviz10006mo ago0 comments

My neighbor had 1940s Joy of Cooking, which in itself was probably one of the first every recipe, for the most part, just works cookbooks. Between rationing and more important not spoiling when sending cookies from the US to soldiers fighting on the front lines, many cookie recipes were without butter.

Outside of a story like that, there is no reason to include war in your recipe. Cooking is about nurturing and sustaining homeostasis. There is something fundamentally wrong about taking other people's suffering and making it about one self -- it is narcissistic which spoils like cookies made with butter after several weeks of travel.

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

Telemakhos6mo ago

Oh, it's worse than you think. It's not just "taking other people's suffering and making it about oneself." It's often purely SEO. Recipes get ranked higher when they are preceded by long, "engaging" introductions that nobody reads but that use keywords and address common questions (Like "can I substitute ingredients?). Often the longwinded introductions you see aren't the result of narcissism but of thoughtless SEO.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse