I Just Want the Guac Recipe!
It is 4:00 PM and guests will be arriving any second. I am frantically going through my phone to find my most popular appetizer recipe.
“Where is that buffalo chicken dip recipe?”
With a little time and cursing, I find the blog that had my recipe in it, but I am now facing another obstacle. This recipe is nested in a sea of narrative. Jessica swears this recipe got her through her pregnancy. I am sure Jessica has an interesting anecdote about why she loves her recipe, but I really do not care. I begin to wonder why are narratives used in cooking blogs and are they necessary? Do they help make a connection with the reader and help people within the cooking community bond?
The Much-Debated Narrative
The kitchen is a sanctuary for many people. In my family it is where we celebrate, comfort each other, mourn, connect, and let ourselves be a little vulnerable. The narratives in food blogs are more than white space fillers. They are an art form that helps connect the writer to the reader.
In the early day of food blogging, cooking bloggers would share their recipes and some of their lives through a memoir-style narrative. Cooking blogs remind me of the way my mom and her friends would trade recipes and exchange stories as my siblings, friends, and I were causing havoc in the background. As mobile devices became the way for us to get information in a fast-paced world, cooking narratives became an annoyance. The dismay and borderline hostility over narratives in cooking blogs is fascinating but understandable.
On Kitchen Treaty, Kare authored an article called Why I Don’t “Just Get to the Recipe” and surveyed her readers and found that they “were evenly split between wanting to read a story vs. just wanting to get to the recipe.”. She does go on to admit that sometimes she is guilty of just wanting the freaking recipe too. One point that Kare makes is that readers that want to read the narratives tend to subscribe to the email.
I Promise It’s Not to Annoy You
With many people having a clear disdain towards narratives in cooking blogs why do people even bother to include them?
Actress Mindy Kaling Tweeted about her aggravation over food blog narrations and it went over as well as you can imagine in the food blogging community, but she had a point.
Why do we need to know that Rob’s husband cooked this risotto on the first date or how preparing the baked ziti can relate to preparing for a baby? What does sewing a button on a teddy bear have to do with making tamales? I know most people want to mock them, but the narrative has multiple purposes.
Make it Unique
Food blogging is a saturated field on the web. Narratives help make blogger’s pages standout and give them personality. If I were to go to Simply Recipe I can expect a story on why the writer made this recipe or why the recipe is a staple in the family. Cooking Comically will give a narrative in the form of a comic and you will always remember it (the recipes are easy, check it out. No, I did not get paid to type that). Narratives can make a blog stand out and sometimes they feel like a labor of love. Anyone can just post a recipe, but it does take talent to write a piece that will bring your followers back every week.
Connects a Community
With so many dietary needs and styles of cooking, a narrative can help the blogger share what it was like to transition to a different diet. Cadry Nelson of Cadry’s Kitchen writes a vegan blog and used her narrative as a way to document how she converted to veganism.
I am by no means a vegan (eating a steak sandwich while typing this), but transitioning to a different diet is a process with its own unique challenges. Nelson used her blog to give information to those who considered veganism. Her narratives also helped her connect to other vegans as she explained in an interview on Mashable.
Every Foodie Can Use Tips
Not every narrative is meant to act as a memoir. Some narratives let the reader in on tips and secrets on preparing a dish. This can be particularly beneficial to people who are not savvy in the kitchen or are trying a new cooking style. Did you know that you can improve the texture of your kale by massaging it in lemon juice, brushing oil on your baked potato halfway through cooking to make the skin crunchy or that whole wheat flour can provide a nutty taste to your zucchini bread? If you already knew this then you might be an amazing chef, but most would not know this and would miss out on these tips if they skipped the narrative.
Your Bloggers Got to Eat
Most blogs are free to look at but are not free to create. Bloggers must pay for plug-ins to keep the site safe from hackers, the host, editing subscriptions, and the list (and bills) can pile on from there. Some blogs are sponsored and require the blogger to write about specific content. Ads also help bring in the money. This means that the longer the narrative, the more space for ads, and that means more money.
Try to be Patient or Just Buy a Cookbook
We live in a weird time where things are fast-paced but frozen at the same time. I know a “skip to recipe” button is not always available and that would be a simple fix because sometimes you are getting close to that hangry stage and you do not want the extra fluff. Sometimes you need to sit back and respect the craft. I am one of those people who just wants the recipe, but during the early days of the pandemic, the cooking blog narratives were a nice calm. They taught me some great tips to enhance my cooking skills, had words of comfort, and made me feel connected to another person, chef to chef.
I enjoyed your post. Firstly, you kept it visually interesting with the header colors and the addition of pictures. (Your inclusion of Todd, Ramona’s evil ex, made me giggle.) I like that you admit to being a “skip to recipe” type, but you can still see the purpose and usefulness some people find in the preamble to a recipe post. You certainly gave me pause to consider an issue I’d heard others complain about from time to time, but never really considered myself.
I enjoyed writing this blog because it did force me to examine why the narratives have a purpose. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes they are useless, but they do have a bigger purpose. I think the Pioneer Woman got it right when she added the “skip” button.
Nice post!
I appreciate how you zoom in on the purpose of the narrative in a recipe. Sometimes we get so focused while we are in the kitchen that we tend to forget that a recipe means something deeper to someone than just cooking the dish.
When it comes to me and narrative in a recipe, I am 50/50. I honestly think that it depends on my mood or how frantically (like in your opening) I am trying to scramble to put something together. Sometimes those ads tucked away in a recipe can drive me crazy!
I will admit that sometimes I want that “skip to recipe” button. However, when time is on my side, I will read a narrative. Some of those stories can really pull at your heartstrings.
This was amazing. I’m one of the impatient recipe seekers, and I had never considered the community of food blogging. You’ve convinced me of its worth. I appreciate how broad a range you were able to cover with such a specific topic. I will definitely have to check out Cooking Comically.
On to the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 large avocado,
1 lime,
1 ounce of diced Serrano Pepper
1 ounce of diced tomato
1 ounce of diced onion
1 tablespoon of garlic salt
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Directions:
1. Quarter the lime.
2. In your mixing bowl, mix oil, the juice from half the lime, and garlic salt.
3. The mix in the onion, pepper, and tomato. Mix thoroughly.
4. Mix in the avocado, add about a quarter of the avocado at a time.
5. Use a spoon and fork to mash the avocado to your desired consistency.
It needs cilantro and a jalapeno. 🙂
Awww! I missed the perfect opportunity to troll you guys, but you have avenged me! Lol!
The way you designed the most was great and made reading all the better. It different colors for the headers help with transitions between sections. While I agree with all your points I still hate the narrative with food blogs!
Your blog was well-written, exemplifying the ideal of the narrative. I apply your idea to my posts of photographs more and more and I find that people connect with it. You might add that narratives can be simply a line or two to put the guac or the photo in context. Because we are a story-telling people, it is a natural compulsion that sometimes as you felt you want to skip and sometimes provides a calm.
I think the narratives are what help create an identity for a blog. I really do have a love/hate relationship with them.
You have definitely given me reason to read some of those narratives on food blogs. I am a skip to recipe person by nature, but I am rethinking some of that. I do use crochet blogs, and I read those because they always have some helpful information that may not be in the actual pattern. Thanks for reminding me to slow down!
I loved your post! I am the type of person who would look up every recipe when cooking. I love looking up different types of recipes and try to make it as it is. I think during the pandemic we all had an addition to our skills. And for me it has to be my cooking skills. I think food blogs really makes you think deeply about specific type of recipe. When we cook, we just want to get it done as fast as we could. Also, I really like how you have different colors of heading it helps me transition between sections. I think I should consider doing that in my post!
You would probably enjoy Jamie Oliver’s cooking show on Hulu. It is worth checking out. He had to adapt his show as lockdowns and the reality of the pandemic took over.
OK I admit it, I am a skip to the recipe person. I enjoyed reading your blog and I’m going to try the recipe that’s listed. The images and the use of different colors made the blog a lot more interesting. Thanks for sharing
Ever since I saw this pitch at the beginning of the semester I knew I needed to read what you came up with, and I am definitely not disappointed. Your title is extremely captivating, and very humorous. You also kept that light-hearted humor throughout the article. I have to say, though, with all of the information you provided…I still just want the dang recipe. Maybe I need to follow your advice, and just buy the cookbook after all. Also, your ability to format in WordPress is very impressive. It felt like I was looking at an actual article, and not just a pre-format WordPress post. Great job!!