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The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

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Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#61

Post by Infernal »

8_hours_ago wrote: post #27
blahedo wrote: post #17

I can do them one better: my family has a meta -secret recipe. It didn't used to be secret, but it became secret through no effort or intent of our own. For a long time, decades at this point, my mom has been known for the brownies she brings to events (and, by extension, that my sister and I bring to events). People would rave about them and demand the secret, which my mom, my sister, and I would all freely give out…

My family’s “famous” chocolate cake recipe is from the side of the Hershey’s Cocoa container. It is way better than any other chocolate cake, even from baking cookbooks. I should write it down in case they ever change it...

Is this the one with the cup of boiling water that you pour into the batter right before it goes into the oven? I don't know why more people don't make that, it is my mom's (and of course mine now) go-to chocolate cake, and it is truly excellent.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#62

Post by neogodless »

zerocrates wrote: post #2

On 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…

Not a direct reply to you, but on the topic of the Toll House recipe, and on experimentation - I am lactose intolerant. I rely heavily on Smart Balance as one of few margarine products that doesn't contain dairy and actually behaves and tastes like butter. With the Toll House recipe (that I once believed was my mom's secret family recipe), I'm able to do a perfect 1-1 swap of butter/Smart Balance, and replace milk chocolate chips with Enjoy Life chocolate chips, and those are damn delicious cookies that won't upset your tummy.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#63

Post by neogodless »

goodcanadian wrote: post #6
zerocrates wrote: post #2

On 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.

Oooh - we have this. Where some of my family members refuse to include the salt, or prefer butter that melts like crazy, and they get harder, flatter versions of the cookies. My aunt (who married a chemist) pointed out how the salt actually means something, and I started including it again, and the cookies got so much better (in my opinion.)

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#64

Post by mikehollinger »

white-flame wrote: post #3

My 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.

I use the cooks illustrated chocolate chip recipe, which specifically says to mix wet and dry ingredients, then let it stand for a few minutes, and repeat a few times in a row.

Apparently someone in the test kitchen was sidetracked by something, stepped away, and when they returned to finish the mix, the resulting in a better cookie.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#65

Post by jcater »

gambiting wrote: post #49
wincy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I always hate reading recipes online. We finally spent like $50 and bought three of the most amazing cookbooks. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which explains how cooking works, Food Lab, and America’s Test Kitchen. I made a baked potato with a perfect inside and perfect crisp skin from the books, it involved like 4 steps of how to cook, like bathing them in a specific mixture of salt water, baking for 45 minutes,…

Interesting fact - recipies cannot be copyrighted. Pictures can, but the recipe itself cannot.

The list of ingredients can't. But the instructions/explanation and description might be (in addition to the pictures/illustrations, as you mentioned.)

https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#66

Post by e40 »

blahedo wrote: post #17

I can do them one better: my family has a meta -secret recipe. It didn't used to be secret, but it became secret through no effort or intent of our own. For a long time, decades at this point, my mom has been known for the brownies she brings to events (and, by extension, that my sister and I bring to events). People would rave about them and demand the secret, which my mom, my sister, and I would all freely give out…

they had changed the instructions of how to prepare them

Is the quantity now the only difference?

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#67

Post by todd8 »

My wife and I have a the simplest, silly "secret" recipe.

Many of her girlfriends don't work and some are really amazing cooks, but my wife who works full time doesn't feel like she has time to bake cookies or make three-bean salad or whatever. She simply knows the best places to pick those things up around town, transfers the food to plastic containers for transport, and labels it with a piece of tape that simply says something like "Paige's chocolate chip cookies".

Even though our friends by now have figured out the "secret" it still makes everyone happy. (Including me. I find cooking for others interesting, but I don't do it much anymore.)

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#68

Post by IgorPartola »

I remember reading an old parable about a woman who always cut off the ends of her meatloaf before serving it. At one point someone asked her why she did that, and she said that her mother had always done it that way. So she went to ask her mother, and got the same answer. The two of them went to the woman’s grandmother who said that the serving plate she cooked the meatloaf was too small, so she cut off the ends to make it fit. I have many doubts that this is true, but also I think it does illustrate a good point about how these things get started.

Most of my family’s “secret” recipes come from a big Soviet cookbook, but adapted for limited availability of products (cooking in Moscow where the book was published was always very different than cooking in Soviet Ukraine).

I actually wonder how many of the Blue Apron/HelloFresh recipes will wind up being “secret family recipes” in a few years.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#69

Post by programbreeding »

IgorPartola wrote: post #68

I remember reading an old parable about a woman who always cut off the ends of her meatloaf before serving it. At one point someone asked her why she did that, and she said that her mother had always done it that way. So she went to ask her mother, and got the same answer. The two of them went to the woman’s grandmother who said that the serving plate she cooked the meatloaf was too small, so she cut off the ends to…

Both of your comments fit in to my life. My wife's family has a ton of secret family recipes that were passed down from her Grandma who was born and raised in Pennsylvania. One day we're at a used book trade and I happened to come across a cookbook published in 1971 called Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book[0] and it had all of the "secret" recipes in there.

Fast forward almost 50 years and we've had Blue Apron for over a year. We always rate the recipes and keep the recipe cards for the ones we like the best. During weeks that we need more meals, those are the ones we make. They are starting to turn in to our secret family recipes. So you definitely aren't wrong.

[0] https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9780486226767

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#70

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gambiting wrote: post #49
wincy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I always hate reading recipes online. We finally spent like $50 and bought three of the most amazing cookbooks. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which explains how cooking works, Food Lab, and America’s Test Kitchen. I made a baked potato with a perfect inside and perfect crisp skin from the books, it involved like 4 steps of how to cook, like bathing them in a specific mixture of salt water, baking for 45 minutes,…

Interesting fact - recipies cannot be copyrighted. Pictures can, but the recipe itself cannot.

A recipe can't (in USA and UK, AFAIK) but the specific presentation of the recipe can. It's an extension of facts not falling within copyright.
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