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Subscribing to r/baking has been enlightening. The people who write those pages of text you have to skip over to read their recipes actually think they're addi
by notatoad 7y ago
Subscribing to r/baking has been enlightening. The people who write those pages of text you have to skip over to read their recipes actually think they're adding value and that the readers of their recipe blogs are there for the stories as much as for the recipes.
Maybe they're right and some people do love the stories, but they're definitely not just there for SEO anymore. At the very most cynical interpretation, scrolling through the story is the "cost" of the recipe - the blogger gets an ego boost thinking thousands of people want to read all about their life, and the readers get a recipe.
- TAForObvReasons 7y agoMany essays-before-recipes summarize the experimentation process, what worked and what didn't, why an unconventional ingredient is used, why no stock is used when traditional recipes call for it. Without the context, many recipes just seem wrong and some real gems would be passed over
- MereInterest 7y agoWhen those are the case, I really like it. Things like The Food Lab are joys to read, because they go into the detail of why ingredients are present and what variations/substitutions preserve the flavor of the dish. But those are few and far between. Most of the time, the filler consists of stories and anecdotes about the childhood memories that the recipe invokes, followed by the exact same recipe as is on a dozen other sites.