The thing that really gets me is that I am a confident cook - so I am likely to know when it's the recipe and when it's me having a bad day. People who are new to cooking are likely to blame themsleves instead of a dodgy recipe and that's just not fair.
Many years ago I was helping out on a cookbook shoot - which the author hadn't deigned to attend. We were trying to make one of the dishes to photograph and it just didn't work. I called him and he said "Oh, that one never worked for me either". I never saw the completed book so I don't know if they published it anyway.
Goodness, I could write far too much on this subject. And I'm sure I've been involved with the publishing of at least one of those mistakes you list above! I was forever drawn into the world of editorial error and away from diligent design. One of the biggest recipe mistakes in my time in publishing was discovered on one of the books that had the highest standards of editing, proofing etc and sold the most: a ratio for a brine that rendered the resulting pork joint utterly inedible. We had a week of replying to so many irate emails and phone calls! And definitely agree that restaurant chefs find the transition to domestic recipe uniquely difficult. Our very best editor would sometimes put in four or five times as much work as an author in order to make the instructions logical and legible (not to mention lyrical). I can think of many books where the editor should really receive a co-author credit (I can think of just as many where the editor would probably want to put a lot of distance between themselves and the book!). Some of the most difficult moments I spent in publishing were fighting an author's case and, contrarily, fighting for more time/resources for an editor to save an author's work.
Thank you. So many cookbook authors seem incapable of thinking like inexperienced cooks, and far too many recipes I've encountered are sloppily written or downright wrong. I do think this is why Ina Garten has been so successful, since her recipes are well explained and reliable. Even she, though, took several years to realize that the brand of kosher salt she uses (Diamond Crystal)is half as salty as Morton's, another popular brand. Viewers and readers complained in droves that her recipes are too salty!
I reviewed cookbooks for a couple of years - did maybe 20 or so and cooked between 4 and 10 dishes from each. So variable in the level of attention given to the workability of the recipe! I hate to name and shame, but I’ll shout out Ed Smith as being incredibly clear and having recipes that *do* simply work. Tim Anderson’s recipes likewise. Mezcla looks as if it’ll be a bit slapdash because it’s light on instruction but it’s really accessible for a newby cook I think.
I got rid of several cookbooks by one particularly well known chef because not one of the recipes I tried actually gave me the desired results. I decided to waste no further time or ingredients on them.
And then there are the times when things go spectacularly well. I've got a recipe cut (I think) from the Waitrose Food magazine for boeuf bourgignon. It uses ox cheek, and takes about a week from start to finish, it needs no highly skilled techniques, you just do what it says and you end up with an absolutely fabulous dish. Utterly dinner-party friendly, and for me the best BB I've ever eaten. Not because of my stupendous skills (ahem), but because I followed the recipe. Almost anybody could replicate it.
I'm away from home right now - I'll try to remember to dig it out and see if I can find a link to it online.
Yes, I've had disasters, and I think that afterwards, as well as castigating the writer, I find myself castigating myself, thinking "come on, why did you ever think that would work?" Like a recipe I tried once where you cooked individual cheese soufflés, turned them out, rolled them in breadcrumbs, and fried them. Soufflé-like they definitely did not remain.
Or a recipe for lemon rice from a cookbook published by a well known up-market London Indian restaurant which called for 750g of rice for 4 servings, and a 3:1 water:rice ratio, initially “part cooked” for 12-15 minutes.
Apparently after 12-15 minutes of cooking 750g of rice in 2.25l of water it should have been "just cooked but still a bit firm" and I should have drained it well and spread it out so the grains remained separate.
Just wrong in so many ways.
"Just cooked but still a bit firm"? Nope, it was a sticky, almost solid mess.
"Drain well"? Nothing left to drain, and the theoretical time not yet up.
"Spread out so the rice grains remain separate"? Not a chance - it was more of a stuck-together mass than the glutinous rice in Chinese and Thai cuisine, and the grains were no longer distinct. And even if I could have spread it out as directed, I can't begin to think where I would have found enough space.
There was about 4l of the stuff – enough to fill 10 normal cereal bowls. Serves 4?
I blame myself for not thinking how it compared to the part-cooked rice I’ve done countless times for Madhur Jaffrey’s biryani recipe (5 minutes, not 12-15), but I also blame the chef and publisher for getting it so catastrophically wrong.
With a modicum of skill and experience one should be able to spot pitfalls in recipes, but I feel sorry for inexperienced cooks who do what it says and end up failing, through no fault of theirs.
And it’s not just cookbooks – I’ve seen mad cooking instructions on supermarket packaging, for example (and I kid you not) to fry tuna steaks for 3-5 minutes each side.
I would say that there’s one particular cook book writer with such a poor reputation for recipe writing that a section of the internet spent some months trialling dozens of them and rating them from 0 to 5 with accompanying photos and descriptions of the output. It’s hilarious to read but also saddening that people like this continue to be published (7 books in this case).
My husband recently had an awful result trying to make a cake with a layer of lemon custard in the middle. I felt so cross on his behalf, as he's a very confident cook, but not a baker - this kind of thing won't help! It was from a cook (in the Guardian's Feast in fact) whose savoury recipes and writing I usually love, but feel she is just not experienced in properly testing out a baking recipe. The online comments bore out bad experiences from others. I do wonder if the pressure to knock out one or more recipes a week is too much, even for a seasoned cook.
The thing that really gets me is that I am a confident cook - so I am likely to know when it's the recipe and when it's me having a bad day. People who are new to cooking are likely to blame themsleves instead of a dodgy recipe and that's just not fair.
Many years ago I was helping out on a cookbook shoot - which the author hadn't deigned to attend. We were trying to make one of the dishes to photograph and it just didn't work. I called him and he said "Oh, that one never worked for me either". I never saw the completed book so I don't know if they published it anyway.
Goodness, I could write far too much on this subject. And I'm sure I've been involved with the publishing of at least one of those mistakes you list above! I was forever drawn into the world of editorial error and away from diligent design. One of the biggest recipe mistakes in my time in publishing was discovered on one of the books that had the highest standards of editing, proofing etc and sold the most: a ratio for a brine that rendered the resulting pork joint utterly inedible. We had a week of replying to so many irate emails and phone calls! And definitely agree that restaurant chefs find the transition to domestic recipe uniquely difficult. Our very best editor would sometimes put in four or five times as much work as an author in order to make the instructions logical and legible (not to mention lyrical). I can think of many books where the editor should really receive a co-author credit (I can think of just as many where the editor would probably want to put a lot of distance between themselves and the book!). Some of the most difficult moments I spent in publishing were fighting an author's case and, contrarily, fighting for more time/resources for an editor to save an author's work.
Thank you. So many cookbook authors seem incapable of thinking like inexperienced cooks, and far too many recipes I've encountered are sloppily written or downright wrong. I do think this is why Ina Garten has been so successful, since her recipes are well explained and reliable. Even she, though, took several years to realize that the brand of kosher salt she uses (Diamond Crystal)is half as salty as Morton's, another popular brand. Viewers and readers complained in droves that her recipes are too salty!
I reviewed cookbooks for a couple of years - did maybe 20 or so and cooked between 4 and 10 dishes from each. So variable in the level of attention given to the workability of the recipe! I hate to name and shame, but I’ll shout out Ed Smith as being incredibly clear and having recipes that *do* simply work. Tim Anderson’s recipes likewise. Mezcla looks as if it’ll be a bit slapdash because it’s light on instruction but it’s really accessible for a newby cook I think.
I got rid of several cookbooks by one particularly well known chef because not one of the recipes I tried actually gave me the desired results. I decided to waste no further time or ingredients on them.
And then there are the times when things go spectacularly well. I've got a recipe cut (I think) from the Waitrose Food magazine for boeuf bourgignon. It uses ox cheek, and takes about a week from start to finish, it needs no highly skilled techniques, you just do what it says and you end up with an absolutely fabulous dish. Utterly dinner-party friendly, and for me the best BB I've ever eaten. Not because of my stupendous skills (ahem), but because I followed the recipe. Almost anybody could replicate it.
I'm away from home right now - I'll try to remember to dig it out and see if I can find a link to it online.
Re Matt Inwood’s “make the instructions logical and legible” I read once of a recipe writer who would have in the instructions things like
“Now drain the stock you started making 5 hours earlier”.
Yes, I've had disasters, and I think that afterwards, as well as castigating the writer, I find myself castigating myself, thinking "come on, why did you ever think that would work?" Like a recipe I tried once where you cooked individual cheese soufflés, turned them out, rolled them in breadcrumbs, and fried them. Soufflé-like they definitely did not remain.
Or a recipe for lemon rice from a cookbook published by a well known up-market London Indian restaurant which called for 750g of rice for 4 servings, and a 3:1 water:rice ratio, initially “part cooked” for 12-15 minutes.
Apparently after 12-15 minutes of cooking 750g of rice in 2.25l of water it should have been "just cooked but still a bit firm" and I should have drained it well and spread it out so the grains remained separate.
Just wrong in so many ways.
"Just cooked but still a bit firm"? Nope, it was a sticky, almost solid mess.
"Drain well"? Nothing left to drain, and the theoretical time not yet up.
"Spread out so the rice grains remain separate"? Not a chance - it was more of a stuck-together mass than the glutinous rice in Chinese and Thai cuisine, and the grains were no longer distinct. And even if I could have spread it out as directed, I can't begin to think where I would have found enough space.
There was about 4l of the stuff – enough to fill 10 normal cereal bowls. Serves 4?
I blame myself for not thinking how it compared to the part-cooked rice I’ve done countless times for Madhur Jaffrey’s biryani recipe (5 minutes, not 12-15), but I also blame the chef and publisher for getting it so catastrophically wrong.
With a modicum of skill and experience one should be able to spot pitfalls in recipes, but I feel sorry for inexperienced cooks who do what it says and end up failing, through no fault of theirs.
And it’s not just cookbooks – I’ve seen mad cooking instructions on supermarket packaging, for example (and I kid you not) to fry tuna steaks for 3-5 minutes each side.
I would say that there’s one particular cook book writer with such a poor reputation for recipe writing that a section of the internet spent some months trialling dozens of them and rating them from 0 to 5 with accompanying photos and descriptions of the output. It’s hilarious to read but also saddening that people like this continue to be published (7 books in this case).
P.S. I hope you've seen that Anissa has just started her 'Belly Dancer In The Kitchen' Substack...
My husband recently had an awful result trying to make a cake with a layer of lemon custard in the middle. I felt so cross on his behalf, as he's a very confident cook, but not a baker - this kind of thing won't help! It was from a cook (in the Guardian's Feast in fact) whose savoury recipes and writing I usually love, but feel she is just not experienced in properly testing out a baking recipe. The online comments bore out bad experiences from others. I do wonder if the pressure to knock out one or more recipes a week is too much, even for a seasoned cook.