This week, fresh from the task of providing basic instruction on recipe-writing at a two-day writer's retreat in the UK (for the low-down, see Gilly Smith's Substack, Cooking the Books), I looked back on a correspondence with Barbara Gibbs Ostmann when she was editing a new edition of her masterwork, “The Recipe Writer’s Handbook”.
Our conclusion, in a nutshell, was that the simple answer to the question "what makes a good recipe?", is: (1) Ingredients in order of use; (2) quantities, including some indication of how many the dish will feed; (3) method delivered with honesty, clarity and brevity.
The above may be obvious, but making the list certainly concentrates the mind on the primary duty of the recipe-writer: to be of use to the cook. And the cook, when recipe-writing, will do well to watch what’s being done - hence the choux-pastry recipe, my choice for the demonstration at the retreat.
The rest - atmosphere, romance, helpful asides, the small details which give the cook confidence the writer is speaking from personal experience - make the difference between a cookbook - compedium of recipes - that earns its place on the kitchen shelf rather on the coffee-table, and one which - however beautiful the photographs or fashionable the chef - will soon be set aside.
In short, recipes must be useful. To be useful, the writer must first consider the audience. A recipe presented, say, on the back of a butter-pack is not intended to serve to the same purpose as, say, a recipe that complements a lyrical account of a Provençale market by MFK Fisher - though a high level of communication-skills is required by both. A butter-pack recipe needs to be precise - every word must do its job without the need for regional authenticity or personal anecdote. Mrs. Fisher's writing is discursive - formal recipes are few - and depends upon her ability to draw the reader into her own experience.
The middle-ground, the space that most of us recipe-writers inhabit, is dictated by the need to make every word count. As with poetry, every phrase must earn its keep, particularly when required to write to length as a journalist. I write to 570 words in my regular patch as resident food-writer on the UK's The Oldie magazine - a challenge that means, when recommending a new book, I often have to distill someone else's recipe into its essential elements (with apologies to the author, naturally).
What’s useful in a recipe is as vulnerable to change as everything else that affects our daily lives. When downloading from the net, what matters is ease of use, accuracy in quantities and timing, method in recognisable steps. Which is not what you're looking for, say, in the lyrical writings of Laurie Colwin or Ruth Reichel or the wonderful newcomer (to me at least) Ella Risbridger.
Which is not to overlook the mistress of all atmospheric food-writing, Elizabeth David. Mrs. D, writing on Mediterranean cooking for a middle-class British audience in the 1950's, many of whom still employed domestic servants, delivers short recipes that offer little guidance to the inexperienced cook. Her strength, the reason for her enduring popularity, lies not only in a natural ability as a writer but also in the circumstances in which the first books were written.
At a time when post-war rationing was still in force in the UK and her audience had little knowledge of anything but home-grown raw materials, there was a need to explain such things as the taste and texture of olive oil, the subtlety of roast garlic, the flavour of a lemon - a requirement which dictated her writing-style and contributes to the durability of her work. Meanwhile in the US, M.F.K. Fisher performed a similar service for her American audiences with work sometimes credited as reminding her influential readership what would be lost if European culture vanished.
When all is said and done, proof of the pudding will always be in the eating. If the primary responsibility of the recipe-writer is to make food taste good, it's the ability to deliver that makes a great recipe-writer. And a great recipe-writer cannot help but write good recipes - anything else would be a betrayal of trust.
That said, I'm as capable as the next man of omitting to list an ingredient mentioned in the text - hopefully, nothing structural. And anyway, nothing gives a reader as much pleasure as spotting the occasional mistake - and the reward for the writer is that you've actually read (or even cooked!) the recipe.
Don’t underestimate a recipe, says Giulia Scarpaleggia (Letter from Tuscany (substack); “The Art of Cucina Povere” (just published)): a recipe is a blend of poetry, science, and political activism....If writing recipes is like writing poetry, we can finally legitimize that food writing— and recipe writing!—is not a minor genre; food writing is literature.
Campaigner Olia Hercules (Mamushka, Kaukasus, Summer Kitchens) has good reason to agree: “A recipe is resistance, political activism, and cultural memory....Despite my strong Ukrainian identity, I have always cherished and taken pride in the cultural diversity that we were so lucky to enjoy in Ukraine. My paternal grandmother is Siberian, my mother has Jewish and Bessarabian (Moldovan) roots, my father was born in Uzbekistan and we have Armenian relatives and Ossetian friends.”
A good recipe is one that not only encourages the reader to cook but delivers on what is promised. A well-written recipe takes you by the hand and says - don't worry, it'll all be okay, this is what you're looking for, this is what happens when you chop or slice or apply heat, and if it goes wrong this is how to fix it. And when you've finished, this is what it should look and tastelike, this is what to eat it with. But above all, take joy what you do.
p.s. For my fruit and veg prints, go to https://www.elisabethluard.org/shop-1
p.p.s. This week’s extra for paid-subscribers is a few more good things to do with choux-pastry.
Lots of really good tips here for would-be cookery writers. However, I must confess to enjoying my rambles through the work of Ambrose Heath ... no photos, barely anything weighed ‘some butter’ or ‘a great deal of butter’ ... 80+ cook books full of good advice and inspiration! My next Substack piece ....
I was thoroughly enjoying this newsletter, and there I spot my name! Thank you for the mention, Elisabeth! (And I know we’ve been working on the same project for a video podcast! How exciting!!)