Rao's Eye For the "Recipe?" Guy

 

I kind of rolled my eyes when I saw the lede for @tejalrao 's Recipe Guy piece. Spending some time w/ the article, I get it, I think - here are grafs 3 & 4. 

You could say that recipe guys represent a major area of growth for reply guys. And anyone can become a recipe guy: You just have to believe that every time you see an image of food, you’re also owed a recipe, then insist on it.

Cooks and recipe developers who share their food on social media can ignore it, or at least try to, but the nagging chorus of “recipe?!” is present, and it’s reshaping social content in real time.

This dynamic makes me think about a few aspects of online culture and intellectual property, and maybe a more enduring question about what a recipe is. 

Two of three of Rao's sources for the article are professionals, for whom social media is part of their marketing and branding. If you're posting pictures of stuff in progress for a forthcoming cookbook, demanding the recipe is asking for free shit, and a jerk move. IE, If Big Bud Press posted a pic of a prototype of a new garment, it would be twerpy to ask them to send you one for free, w/ the comment "Coverall?" Because recipes are made out of IP, and not handsome fabrics, and can in theory be reproduced, more or less effortlessly, by cutting and pasting, it can be hard for some people to understand why someone won't just give away their work. It's possibly easier to understand if you can see why it would not be cool to walk into your local bookstore, tear the buttermilk chicken recipe out of a copy of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and put it in your pocket. 

A second aspect of online culture Rao's piece brings up is the way that Instagram occludes the distinction between professional and amateur. The 'gram is an important marketing tool for some, and a way to share stuff in their lives for others. It's easy to treat amateurs like professionals, and vice versa. For instance, if you are a young woman and you share pictures of yourself at the beach, sketchy swimwear brands will be in your mentions with "Collab?" "Collab?" faster than you can say "ew." (I imagine the DMs get a lot worse.) I post pictures of stuff I cook on my gram pretty often, and on the infrequent occasions that it comes up, I am usually happy to help someone who wants try making whatever I posted. But the final source for Rao's article is an interesting hybrid case - Lucia Lee is a very skilled home cook with over 125k followers, but also has a day job as a school teacher, and as Rao's article details, some of her followers feel like they are entitled to eat whatever she cooks. That sucks. 

Beyond online culture, Rao's piece reiterates a truth I spent a fair amount of time exploring back in the day -- people are weird about recipes. One of several things that surprised me when I moved to the South, is how some folks treated recipes like -- once I would have said nuclear launch codes -- treasured property in themselves, often guarded as a secret. I remember a friend asking for a recipe for something I'd cooked, and clarifying that they would share one of their recipes in exchange. 

But here is the thing about recipes. If you have a recipe, you have the recipe. You sure don't have the meal on a plate in front of you. Sure, recipes are important, but technique, experience, ingredients, and equipment are equally important. You can have the greatest pizza dough recipe in the world, but if you have a crappy oven that does not go over 450, you will have crappy pizza. I have the Mei Mei cookbook. You should too. I can make decent dumplings if I follow their recipes, but they will never be as nice as the ones they make.

Anyway, 600 words later, my tl;dr summary would be don't be a jerk on the internet. And why is the Cod back musing on NYT cooking pieces like it's 2007? Who knows? 

I kind of rolled my eyes when I saw the lede for @tejalrao 's Recipe Guy piece. Spending some time w/ the article, I get it, I think - here are grafs 3 & 4. 

You could say that recipe guys represent a major area of growth for reply guys. And anyone can become a recipe guy: You just have to believe that every time you see an image of food, you’re also owed a recipe, then insist on it.

Cooks and recipe developers who share their food on social media can ignore it, or at least try to, but the nagging chorus of “recipe?!” is present, and it’s reshaping social content in real time.

This dynamic makes me think about a few aspects of online culture and intellectual property, and maybe a more enduring question about what a recipe is. 

Two of three of Rao's sources for the article are professionals, for whom social media is part of their marketing and branding. If you're posting pictures of stuff in progress for a forthcoming cookbook, demanding the recipe is asking for free shit, and a jerk move. IE, If Big Bud Press posted a pic of a prototype of a new garment, it would be twerpy to ask them to send you one for free, w/ the comment "Coverall?" Because recipes are made out of IP, and not handsome fabrics, and can in theory be reproduced, more or less effortlessly, by cutting and pasting, it can be hard for some people to understand why someone won't just give away their work. It's possibly easier to understand if you can see why it would not be cool to walk into your local bookstore, tear the buttermilk chicken recipe out of a copy of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and put it in your pocket. 

A second aspect of online culture Rao's piece brings up is the way that Instagram occludes the distinction between professional and amateur. The 'gram is an important marketing tool for some, and a way to share stuff in their lives for others. It's easy to treat amateurs like professionals, and vice versa. For instance, if you are a young woman and you share pictures of yourself at the beach, sketchy swimwear brands will be in your mentions with "Collab?" "Collab?" faster than you can say "ew." (I imagine the DMs get a lot worse.) I post pictures of stuff I cook on my gram pretty often, and on the infrequent occasions that it comes up, I am usually happy to help someone who wants try making whatever I posted. But the final source for Rao's article is an interesting hybrid case - Lucia Lee is a very skilled home cook with over 125k followers, but also has a day job as a school teacher, and as Rao's article details, some of her followers feel like they are entitled to eat whatever she cooks. That sucks. 

Beyond online culture, Rao's piece reiterates a truth I spent a fair amount of time exploring back in the day -- people are weird about recipes. One of several things that surprised me when I moved to the South, is how some folks treated recipes like -- once I would have said nuclear launch codes -- treasured property in themselves, often guarded as a secret. I remember a friend asking for a recipe for something I'd cooked, and clarifying that they would share one of their recipes in exchange. 

But here is the thing about recipes. If you have a recipe, you have the recipe. You sure don't have the meal on a plate in front of you. Sure, recipes are important, but technique, experience, ingredients, and equipment are equally important. You can have the greatest pizza dough recipe in the world, but if you have a crappy oven that does not go over 450, you will have crappy pizza. I have the Mei Mei cookbook. You should too. I can make decent dumplings if I follow their recipes, but they will never be as nice as the ones they make.

Anyway, 600 words later, my tl;dr summary would be don't be a jerk on the internet. And why is the Cod back musing on NYT cooking pieces like it's 2007? Who knows?