This is very silly. I like it. I kinda compare this to an XKCD "what if" question about cooking. "What if i dont have eggs, but I have a chicken?" And so on...
Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
21–30 of 78 posts
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#22This is a cool concept but this is so meta - it looks like my browser history recursed on itself lol
Haha, sorry about that! Didn't mean to subvert everyone's back button. I am just learning React and I think I pushed the history too often in the page.
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#23I love this: https://recursive.recipes/recipe/refried-beans?amount=10&tim...
Totally absurd, but fun to play with.
I do find sometimes it says it'll be cheaper to buy it, but in several cases I'm positive it's not, or the price of the product in store vs from the recipe isn't directly comparable.
The example of refried beans is complicated. If you buy a can of refried beans, it won't be as high quality as the recipe provided. The recipe is rich in butter and onions. A can will likely have lard or vegetable oil in it, and very little onion (likely powdered). It also claims it's cheaper to buy the can, but it's because initially the recipe suggests buying cans of beans. If you use dried beans, you're probably spending about the same amount but getting far nicer refried beans.
Anyway, it's a fun project, and the things I noticed aren't really problems and are easy enough to negotiate in the interface. I had fun with it.
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#24I made this for fun with React and Go, its open-source if you want to hack it yourself. [1] I was inspired by the book "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" by Jennifer Reese. I tried to continue the idea to see how much money+time it costs to continually substitute an ingredient for the recipe of that ingredient. Sorry for the ads - I use them to make back the $ spent on the domain :). I just toned them down. Please let…
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
Not having read the book, I'm guessing it mostly breaks along the lines of perishability? E.g. bread lasts a few weeks, butter lasts a year.
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#25That was fun!
I know I'm nitpicking here but I see that some elements have not been broken down ( ex : cocoa powder in cookies) even on absurdly longer time scale. Regardless, good work.
Intuitively, it can serve as a good resource to understand food composition for cooked items.
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#26I made this for fun with React and Go, its open-source if you want to hack it yourself. [1] I was inspired by the book "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" by Jennifer Reese. I tried to continue the idea to see how much money+time it costs to continually substitute an ingredient for the recipe of that ingredient. Sorry for the ads - I use them to make back the $ spent on the domain :). I just toned them down. Please let…
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter Not having read the book, I'm guessing it mostly breaks along the lines of perishability? E.g. bread lasts a few weeks, butter lasts a year.
Perishability is a factor. Other factors are start-up cost (e.g. chickens require building a coop), time, and preferred taste (some things just taste better from a store and some are better homemade).
The book is more of a fun read. There's some funny anecdotes about trying to raise bees and chickens.
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#27I always wanted to have something like this for math proofs. Like, when you’re reading a complicated derivation, where the author glosses over the details, you could click on the given step and see why it’s true. Then repeat it arbitrarily deep.
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#28I would think the ingredients could be processed in parallel.
For example, the Chocolate Chip Cookies recipes quotes a total of 9 years 29 weeks to make everything, but really the longest lead item is the vanilla beans @ 4 years. So really it's a 4 year process isn't it?
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#29Very nice! Suggestions: don't break the back-button; and make it somehow clearer that one can expand the recipes. As others I was also confused about "buy cookies in the store".
Thanks. I realized I was pushing the history on every React render(). I've fixed that now.
The "buy cookies in the store" basically means that there is not enough time to make them so you should buy them (its a bit tongue in cheek). You can increase the time by using the slider or clicking on the cookies so you can get the actual directions. Also, if you hover your mouse over the "Chocolate Chip Cookies" ingredient you can see how much money you save (or lose!) by making them from scratch.
Re: Show HN: Recursive Recipes – directions to make food from scratch
#30I would think the ingredients could be processed in parallel. For example, the Chocolate Chip Cookies recipes quotes a total of 9 years 29 weeks to make everything, but really the longest lead item is the vanilla beans @ 4 years. So really it's a 4 year process isn't it?
This works for "passive" time but not for active time, i.e. you can do other things while the vanilla beans are infusing, but you can't churn butter and also grind wheat. So the site would have to differentiate between the two categories of time.