There’s a problem in how we think about recipes.
If you’ve ever tried to follow a recipe only to end up with something that doesn’t quite match the photo or, worse, fails outright, you know the frustration. Recipes are often unstructured lists of ingredients and steps that, depending on the author’s assumptions, can be wildly inconsistent. This inconsistency isn’t just annoying; it represents a fundamental flaw in how we think about, share, and interact with recipes.
At the heart of the issue lies a basic question: Should recipes have a standard? A part of me says, “Doesn’t that take the art out of cooking?” But the engineer in me insists that having no standard is what keeps cooking as a science from evolving. In an era where we can transmit data at the speed of light, our approach to recipes looks like it’s still in the Dark Ages. And the consequences are more profound than you might imagine.
Recipes: The Hidden Language
Think of a recipe as a kind of language. A language, by definition, needs some shared structure. Grammar, syntax, rules—all those things we take for granted when we speak or write. But recipes, those things we expect people to recreate as if by code, are missing these fundamentals. We might all speak the same culinary “language,” but with vastly different dialects. This means that sharing a recipe often turns into a kind of culinary game of telephone, where each version strays further from the original.
This is no small problem. We’re living in a time when software is capable of replicating the most intricate procedures, from orchestrating trading algorithms to diagnosing diseases. Yet recipes—something as simple as making a risotto—get lost in translation as soon as they cross the kitchen threshold. Why? Because without a standard, we lose the ability to scale, automate, or even reliably share what is arguably the world’s most universal human activity.
The Absurdity of No Standards
Imagine if there were no standards for other types of instructions. Imagine if every math formula, for example, were presented in a unique way depending on the author’s style and personal flair. Imagine if the software world allowed each programmer to define functions in a different syntax for each project. The result? Chaos. Unreadable code, unsolvable math, an end to collaboration and progress. Yet, we somehow tolerate this state of chaos in cooking.
There’s something almost absurd about it. We’ve created systems to ensure that an iPhone charger fits the port of every iPhone, and yet there’s no universal standard to ensure that your grandmother’s cake recipe will work in your kitchen, on your stove. And so, the real question is: Why have we come to accept this?
What a Standard Would Enable
The benefits of a recipe standard go beyond mere consistency. Imagine being able to take a recipe, plug it into any cooking app or device, and have it translate perfectly, down to the last gram of flour. A standard could enable smart devices to follow instructions accurately, from kitchen scales to ovens that adjust time and temperature automatically. Cooking, even at a home level, could become a precise science, allowing anyone to replicate complex dishes, from professional chefs to beginners.
A recipe standard would also allow us to map ingredients across cultures, translating flavors in ways that don’t lose the essence of a dish. A universal recipe structure could also promote inclusivity in cooking, making recipes accessible to a global audience by removing guesswork. How many recipes fail because of an implicit assumption about what “medium heat” means, or what size an “average” egg should be?
Innovation Thrives on Constraints
There’s a belief in the tech world that innovation often thrives on constraints. It’s when you have a framework—a standard—that you’re freed from the lowest-level choices, allowing you to explore the higher-level creative ones. When there’s a recipe standard, people can focus on what actually matters: the taste, the creativity, the art. Standards don’t stifle creativity; they elevate it. They enable people to create a shared foundation from which they can build better, more intricate ideas.
Imagine what recipes could become if we took the same approach to them that we’ve taken to music notation or software code. A musician today can write a piece that someone halfway across the world can reproduce with precision. Standards, rather than limiting the music’s potential, amplify its reach. Recipes, if given the same treatment, could achieve this level of universal accessibility and impact.
Embracing the Controversy
Of course, not everyone wants standardization. There’s a beauty, they argue, in the variability of recipes. In the quirks and idiosyncrasies that make each one unique. But we have to ask ourselves if this beauty is worth the trade-off. When so many people can’t recreate even basic dishes because of vague instructions, we should reconsider our allegiance to “quirkiness.” The insistence on variability seems more a vestige of a time when knowledge was passed orally and less of a principle worth preserving in the age of digital precision.
If anything, embracing a recipe standard could open up a whole new world for cooking. With the basics encoded and universally understood, chefs and home cooks alike would be free to push boundaries, try new things, and share their innovations in a format anyone could follow.
So, is it time we standardized recipes? Absolutely. It’s time to let recipes grow up. We owe it to ourselves to take something as fundamental as cooking and give it the clarity, the accessibility, and the scalability it deserves.
-Alexey