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I love the tabulated recipes shown on cookingforengineers.com [1]. Ever since I first saw this, whenever I get a recipe, from anywhere, I convert it by hand to

by leobg 5y ago

I love the tabulated recipes shown on cookingforengineers.com [1]. Ever since I first saw this, whenever I get a recipe, from anywhere, I convert it by hand to this format. Perhaps you can automate that process? That would be rad! [1] http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/108/Banana-Nut-Bread http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/108/Banana-Nut-Bre...

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
This site still holds up better than most today. Imagine if we had how-tos and tutorials like this instead of a youtube video for everything.
- WhyCause 5y ago
  I get so frustrated nowadays looking for origami instructions; everything seems to be a video when all I want are the diagrams that used to get posted.
  - bbkane 5y ago
    I buy origami books. It's a great way to leave the computer for a bit and of course they're readable outside, don't have ads... I recommend John Montroll's origami books.
    - WhyCause 5y ago
      Oh, don't get me wrong, I've got a bunch of books (including quite of few of Montroll's) that I've collected over the years. I just the old man who hates seeing interesting creations being posted on /r/origami, only to find a video instead of diagrams when I click through.
chrisgat 5y ago
Oh wow, thank you for sharing this! That tabulated view is almost exactly what I've been looking for when baking. I had an idea along the same lines, but a slightly more visual approach where portions are represented by illustration that quickly give you a sense of the size of the portion as well.
dom_hutton 5y ago
Recipes are basically flame graphs, but for food.
- kirse 5y ago
  Interesting, I always translate recipes into a mental GANTT chart and use multiple timers because I like everything to be finished at the same time.
savingGrace 5y ago
Please excuse my ignorance, can you explain how I'm supposed to read those? Top-to bottom first? I studied the pizza one and onion rings and while I could create the items from the format, I feel as though I don't fully understand it.
- high_priest 5y ago
  Read it in whatever order, just make sure to do all the things inside one enclosure, before moving onto a bigger one.
- lelandbatey 5y ago
  I'd say those tabulated views at the bottom of each recipe page should be read like this: 1. Read and do all the "full-width" items at the top first as preparation 2. The remaining items in the tabulated recipe should be read as a combination dependency graph and Gantt chart. E.g. mashing ripe bananas can be done in parallel with melting the butter and beating the eggs, but all three must be completed in order to move onto the step of "mashing until smooth" all those ingredients together with the vanilla extract ingredient. This way of reading is more of a "left to right" approach.
ubercore 5y ago
Wow that's really interesting, thanks for sharing. I find it wildly unintuitive but it's nice to be pushed into a different way of thinking about recipes!
dunham 5y ago
I also like the modernist cuisine format, example here: https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/silky-smooth-macaroni-and-cheese/
- zem 5y ago
  ugh, that's a neat format but they have ruined it by having the actual recipe be a blurry picture of text!
- eevilspock 5y ago
  I can't stomach using anything by Nathan Myhrvold
  - Wistar 5y ago
    You are missing out.
caspar 5y ago
You may be interested in this analysis on various recipe formats, along with the proposed "RxOL" notation for explicitly expressing recipes as such a tree based structure[0]. Personally I find RxOL hard to read & edit though, so I have been thinking about whether it would be doable able to infer such tree structures from CookLang's more readable recipe format[1][2]. Ingredients and times are already marked, so surely verbs & follow up mentions of ingredients can be extracted from the text without further annotation? Haven't tried doing it yet though. [0] http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/CompCook.html http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/CompCook.html [1] https://cooklang.org/ https://cooklang.org/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997309
- leobg 5y ago
  You’re right. It’s like a Lisp for cooking: Just like with a Lisp, the benefit is that you always see at first glance what is the noun and what is the verb. With other recipes, you have to read through an entire “step“ instruction in order to parse that information.
freetinker 5y ago
A trip down memory lane. Thanks for the pleasant reminder that it's still around, and pretty much unchanged. A hidden gem. Some of the comments on the site from ~2005 are so quaint ("Great site. Am linking to you!", etc.). Makes me feel like I'm in a quaint old-world town: proud of its anachronisms that morph into charm and wisdom with the passage of time.

by leobg 5y ago

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

This site still holds up better than most today. Imagine if we had how-tos and tutorials like this instead of a youtube video for everything.

WhyCause 5y ago
I get so frustrated nowadays looking for origami instructions; everything seems to be a video when all I want are the diagrams that used to get posted.
- bbkane 5y ago
  I buy origami books. It's a great way to leave the computer for a bit and of course they're readable outside, don't have ads... I recommend John Montroll's origami books.
  - WhyCause 5y ago
    Oh, don't get me wrong, I've got a bunch of books (including quite of few of Montroll's) that I've collected over the years. I just the old man who hates seeing interesting creations being posted on /r/origami, only to find a video instead of diagrams when I click through.

chrisgat 5y ago

Oh wow, thank you for sharing this! That tabulated view is almost exactly what I've been looking for when baking. I had an idea along the same lines, but a slightly more visual approach where portions are represented by illustration that quickly give you a sense of the size of the portion as well.

dom_hutton 5y ago

Recipes are basically flame graphs, but for food.

kirse 5y ago
Interesting, I always translate recipes into a mental GANTT chart and use multiple timers because I like everything to be finished at the same time.

savingGrace 5y ago

Please excuse my ignorance, can you explain how I'm supposed to read those? Top-to bottom first? I studied the pizza one and onion rings and while I could create the items from the format, I feel as though I don't fully understand it.

high_priest 5y ago
Read it in whatever order, just make sure to do all the things inside one enclosure, before moving onto a bigger one.
lelandbatey 5y ago
I'd say those tabulated views at the bottom of each recipe page should be read like this: 1. Read and do all the "full-width" items at the top first as preparation 2. The remaining items in the tabulated recipe should be read as a combination dependency graph and Gantt chart. E.g. mashing ripe bananas can be done in parallel with melting the butter and beating the eggs, but all three must be completed in order to move onto the step of "mashing until smooth" all those ingredients together with the vanilla extract ingredient. This way of reading is more of a "left to right" approach.

ubercore 5y ago

Wow that's really interesting, thanks for sharing. I find it wildly unintuitive but it's nice to be pushed into a different way of thinking about recipes!

dunham 5y ago

I also like the modernist cuisine format, example here: https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/silky-smooth-macaroni-and-cheese/

zem 5y ago
ugh, that's a neat format but they have ruined it by having the actual recipe be a blurry picture of text!
eevilspock 5y ago
I can't stomach using anything by Nathan Myhrvold
- Wistar 5y ago
  You are missing out.

caspar 5y ago

You may be interested in this analysis on various recipe formats, along with the proposed "RxOL" notation for explicitly expressing recipes as such a tree based structure[0]. Personally I find RxOL hard to read & edit though, so I have been thinking about whether it would be doable able to infer such tree structures from CookLang's more readable recipe format[1][2]. Ingredients and times are already marked, so surely verbs & follow up mentions of ingredients can be extracted from the text without further annotation? Haven't tried doing it yet though. [0] http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/CompCook.html http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/CompCook.html [1] https://cooklang.org/ https://cooklang.org/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997309

leobg 5y ago
You’re right. It’s like a Lisp for cooking: Just like with a Lisp, the benefit is that you always see at first glance what is the noun and what is the verb. With other recipes, you have to read through an entire “step“ instruction in order to parse that information.

freetinker 5y ago

A trip down memory lane. Thanks for the pleasant reminder that it's still around, and pretty much unchanged. A hidden gem. Some of the comments on the site from ~2005 are so quaint ("Great site. Am linking to you!", etc.). Makes me feel like I'm in a quaint old-world town: proud of its anachronisms that morph into charm and wisdom with the passage of time.