The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
atlasobscura.com
The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
1–10 of 166 posts
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#2On the "fudge guy" who was using the recipe from the marshmallow container, or the Toll House cookies winning 2 of the top spots: there's a lot more to good results than just the recipe. Equipment, skill, the idiosyncratic ways you don't follow the recipe or fill in where it's underspecified... Don't necessarily give in to the temptation to ascribe the phenomenon merely to irrationality or sentiment.
Plus, it must be said, the Toll House recipe is pretty darn good. Not what I use myself but sometimes the classics are classics for a reason.
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#3My mom made the best pie crust anybody who ate it ever tasted. Her recipe came from a Crisco label.
One of the steps specifically said to slowly stir a liquid into the mix with a fork. Everybody else who attempted the recipe used a spoon and didn't get anywhere near the proper texture. So her difference was simply that others wouldn't follow the directions exactly.
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#4This might be biased because a "secret recipe" doesn't hold very much of its secret in the ingredients or instructions (all chocolate chip cookie recipes are quite similar) but the little tricks.
Adding a bit of something, or the timings of certain steps might be undocumented and make the secret recipe better than the famous one.
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#5The recipe is the easy part. The execution and getting the right ingredients is all important.
Granma X was awesome not because of the recipe but because she practiced her whole life making it.
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#6On the "fudge guy" who was using the recipe from the marshmallow container, or the Toll House cookies winning 2 of the top spots: there's a lot more to good results than just the recipe. Equipment, skill, the idiosyncratic ways you don't follow the recipe or fill in where it's underspecified... Don't necessarily give in to the temptation to ascribe the phenomenon merely to irrationality or sentiment. Plus, it must be…
Indeed, my mother (unsurprisingly) uses exactly the same recipe as my grandmother did for chocolate chip cookies (I suspect it also came from the side of a chocolate chip bag). The cookies turned out very differently, however, depending on who made them.
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#7On the "fudge guy" who was using the recipe from the marshmallow container, or the Toll House cookies winning 2 of the top spots: there's a lot more to good results than just the recipe. Equipment, skill, the idiosyncratic ways you don't follow the recipe or fill in where it's underspecified... Don't necessarily give in to the temptation to ascribe the phenomenon merely to irrationality or sentiment. Plus, it must be…
Oddly enough, the toll house recipe was our secret family recipe. It was traded for a lifetime supply of chocolate (and the publicity of inventing a beloved staple).
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#8This brings back some great memories. My mom made fantastic home made jams. All through my childhood family members and friends would clamor for her jams she made at Christmas.
This year I finally got her to give me her recipe....it was basically the recipe on the packet of Sure Jell :-/ She did note that the important part was to by fresh fruits for the jam and not frozen so I guess there was that. Regardless it was a huge let down to know the secret was the recipe on the box of pectin that was $.50 each.
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#9I don't know if any of the things my grandmother has made were once from a recipe, but a few years back I spent some time with a digital camcorder recording her making them. Since she eyeballs most of it... it's really hard to imagine having properly captured this any other way.
Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’
#10Alternative hypothesis: most 'secret family recipes' are in fact original. However, the average SFR never get passed around, because it produces average-tasting stuff.
The recipe on food labels come from companies that know the product inside-out, have incentive to help you optimize the taste/effort tradeoff, and maybe have spent time and money on research. They tastes better, so they're the ones people remember.
tl;dr: people remember a disproportionately high number of plagiarized recipes because those are the good ones.