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Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

cooklang.org

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Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#21

Post by tharkun__ »

mcdonje wrote: post #10

Putting ingredients inline is interesting. I think I actually see the sense in it. As a reader, I want the ingredients list at the top, but as a writer, I'll think about ingredients as I write the instructions. So, doing it this way potentially saves on jumping back and forth between the instructions and the list, which almost feels like boilerplate. However, if you want to make shopping list annotations, then you're…

This seems like the fallacy of a lot of software development. Make the one time task of writing easier while making the many many multiple more times act of reading/comprehending/using harder.

Why?

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#22

Post by yodon »

duped wrote: post #15
lolinder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because measuring by volume isn't easier in 2023 than placing your mixing bowl on a kitchen scale and balancing everything to the mass of your butter and eggs. Eh, I've tried both and I have to disagree. Pouring milk or oil may be easier with the scale because you have very precise control over the flow rate, but for flour and other dry goods it's far easier to scoop, scrape, and dump a cup than it is to add a bit…

I just pour it right out of the container I store it in and don't have trouble with clumping. Life is easier and cleaner without packing flour.

> Weight vs volume measurements

This is as un-winnable a debate as vi vs emacs.

The world is full of both kinds of people. Any attempt on the part of the format to dictate one or the other approach will simply reduce the use of the format. As firmly convinced as you are of the rightness of your position, there is at least an equal number of equally committed champions of the other position, regardless of which position you hold.

Encouraging/facilitating the presentation software to accept data in either format and render it in either format will be the winning solution.

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#24

Post by light_hue_1 »

22c wrote: post #3

This is interesting though perhaps a bit over-engineered. I'd probably find myself less motivated to simply type something out to recipe.txt vs. manage all this but CookCLI does open up some interesting possibilities. The first thing that came to mind would be that it'd be cool if CookCLI could "halve" recipes automatically. Say you had a recipe for 12 muffins but you only wanted to make 6 or 4, it could automaticall…

> The first thing that came to mind would be that it'd be cool if CookCLI could "halve" recipes automatically. Say you had a recipe for 12 muffins but you only wanted to make 6 or 4, it could automatically divide those quantities and spit out a new recipe or shopping list.

The problem is that scaling recipes doesn't work this way, particularly for baking. Some ingredients don't scale linearly, cooking and mixing time doesn't scale linearly, etc. Savory items also have scaling issues, for example, some dishes include extra liquid that is lost to evaporation while cooking; you would likely not want to scale that up and would end up too much liquid at the end if you did. The opposite can be a problem too, don't scale down liquids in pressure cookers without thinking because you might end up without enough.

You would need a lot of extra metadata to be able to effectively scale recipes.

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#25

Post by kevinmchugh »

duped wrote: post #4

> Slowly add @milk{4%cup} [- TODO change units to litres -], keep mixing No! Handle units! @milk{4%cup} should be trivially convertible to liters and configured by the user. For harder conversions (volume to mass) keeping a list of ingredients and their densities (configurable of course) would be extremely useful. On that subject, being able to specify a recipe in terms of ratios and then automatically convert it to…

Baking is very suited to ratios, cooking less so. Bakers commonly talk about percent hydration, which is how much water there is compared to the flour.

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#26

Post by kevinmchugh »

lolinder wrote: post #12
duped wrote: post #4

> Slowly add @milk{4%cup} [- TODO change units to litres -], keep mixing No! Handle units! @milk{4%cup} should be trivially convertible to liters and configured by the user. For harder conversions (volume to mass) keeping a list of ingredients and their densities (configurable of course) would be extremely useful. On that subject, being able to specify a recipe in terms of ratios and then automatically convert it to…

> Because measuring by volume isn't easier in 2023 than placing your mixing bowl on a kitchen scale and balancing everything to the mass of your butter and eggs. Eh, I've tried both and I have to disagree. Pouring milk or oil may be easier with the scale because you have very precise control over the flow rate, but for flour and other dry goods it's far easier to scoop, scrape, and dump a cup than it is to add a bit…

I still use a spoon to scoop clumpy things or things I need a very small <5g amount of. It's no more dishes than if I'd used cups and tablespoons, typically less, and it's much easier than sifting, which is necessary to get consistent amounts of flour from cups

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#27

Post by CuriousCosmic »

lolinder wrote: post #12
duped wrote: post #4

> Slowly add @milk{4%cup} [- TODO change units to litres -], keep mixing No! Handle units! @milk{4%cup} should be trivially convertible to liters and configured by the user. For harder conversions (volume to mass) keeping a list of ingredients and their densities (configurable of course) would be extremely useful. On that subject, being able to specify a recipe in terms of ratios and then automatically convert it to…

> Because measuring by volume isn't easier in 2023 than placing your mixing bowl on a kitchen scale and balancing everything to the mass of your butter and eggs. Eh, I've tried both and I have to disagree. Pouring milk or oil may be easier with the scale because you have very precise control over the flow rate, but for flour and other dry goods it's far easier to scoop, scrape, and dump a cup than it is to add a bit…

Honestly I'm the opposite way. for liquids, volumetric measurement is pretty consistent.

However dry goods like flour are hard because so many little things affect the density of the scoop. Vs if I just put it on the scale and scoop it into a bowl/cup on a tared scale, I can get it most of the way there and then just spoon in/out little bits to get to the right mass.

For cooking I find it doesn't really matter but with baking where those ratios are so strict, mass measurements for dry goods is just so much more repeatable.

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#28

Post by guhidalg »

duped wrote: post #4

> Slowly add @milk{4%cup} [- TODO change units to litres -], keep mixing No! Handle units! @milk{4%cup} should be trivially convertible to liters and configured by the user. For harder conversions (volume to mass) keeping a list of ingredients and their densities (configurable of course) would be extremely useful. On that subject, being able to specify a recipe in terms of ratios and then automatically convert it to…

> For harder conversions (volume to mass) keeping a list of ingredients and their densities (configurable of course) would be extremely useful.

Actually the USDA maintains this information in the FoodCentral database. I built a recipe management website using this information, for example check out this page: https://letscooktime.com/Recipes/Details?id=09989dc1-ee98-4f...

I think Cooklang is neat but non-developers are never going to learn it to write recipes. CookTime (my website) allows you to write structured recipes using a GUI, and soon you'll be able to use AI to just enter in random text and images and import them as recipes.

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#29

Post by guhidalg »

mcdonje wrote: post #10

Putting ingredients inline is interesting. I think I actually see the sense in it. As a reader, I want the ingredients list at the top, but as a writer, I'll think about ingredients as I write the instructions. So, doing it this way potentially saves on jumping back and forth between the instructions and the list, which almost feels like boilerplate. However, if you want to make shopping list annotations, then you're…

Hello! My website CookTime handles recipes with sections (I call them components). Check out this macaron recipe: https://letscooktime.com/Recipes/Details?id=8a67c391-ddcc-4d...

The benefits are that you get distinct ingredient lists for each component but they get aggregated when you create a grocery list.

Check out the discussion from last year here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31201528

Re: Cooklang – Recipe Markup Language

#30

Post by guhidalg »

fn-mote wrote: post #9

Jumping ahead, I want a plugin that automatically applies "standard" volume to mass conversions for me. E.g. 1 C whole wheat flour is 5.5 oz (or 150 g). This is walking the line of laziness (why don't I just look them up myself), but it sounds great. Maybe I can combine the web server with a customized GNU units. I don't love the % either. Fun stuff, nice creation!

You can assume ingredients are mostly water and use 1kg = 1L for conversions, but a lot of ingredients violate this density assumption. You don't have to do the hard work to figure out the densities, the USDA already did it in the FoodCentral database. If you want a service that allows you create define recipes with both mass and volume indications, check out CookTime! Here's a rather complex macaron recipe from one of my friends: https://letscooktime.com/Recipes/Details?id=8a67c391-ddcc-4d...
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