A love letter to the language of recipes
"thwap"
It has – once again – been a while! This wasn’t an intentional hiatus, but probably reflects the fact that I have been spreading myself too thin. Work has been particularly writing-heavy recently, which has left less bandwidth for thinking and finding pleasure in words outside of it.
I’ve been making a more conscious effort to follow new recipes this year, and besides the enjoyment of the cooking and the eating, I’ve also found myself enjoying - not for the first time - the texts of the recipes themselves. Walking the line between creative and technical writing, they hold traces of the person writing them, what they value, and what assumptions they hold. Any writing is as much about what is left out as what is kept in, and we feel this particularly keenly in a text that invites us to act on the physical world.
Here is a collection (a collage, if you will), of elements from recipes I’ve known and liked. I would love to hear about any others you have encountered too.
‘The dough will be quite stiff; if you're using a mixer it will "thwap" the sides of the bowl, and hold its shape (without spreading at all) when you stop the mixer.’ – Bagels, King Arthur Baking.
That ‘thwap’ did more than any other instruction to help me get my bagels where I wanted them. I’d been struggling with the consistency of the dough every time I tried to make them, and somehow, knowing what to listen out for as they mixed turned out to be exactly what I needed to improve my technique for this particularly pesky bread.
Timings and instructions about appearance from other recipes didn’t help, and it turns out that tuning into how the dough sounded made all the difference.
A well-written recipe must work, but a beautifully-written instruction can also give pause for thought, do something unexpected with language. By doing so, it can clarify a process to help the reader identify a specific moment, a shift in what they are working with, and produce better results.
When we cook, we draw on past experiences to know when something is done. The more we make bread, the more we learn the different stages of gluten development as we knead, and we can come to recognise when a dough is ready. The challenge of a well-written recipe is to bypass that experience, or make up for its absence, to allow anyone to follow it.
‘Barely cover leeks with water, leaving them, as we often say, bobbing in the water like crocodiles submerged at the river’s edge.’ – Leeks Vinaigrette, Gabrielle Hamilton, The New York Times Cooking.
Sometimes recipes offer more imaginative images than would be required for mere instructions. This is where recipe writing steps away from technical writing. What we are reading needs to instruct, but we are not looking at an instruction manual.
‘Slice the potatoes to about the thickness of a pound coin’ – Diana Henry, A Bird in the Hand.
Here, the specificity of a pound coin simultaneously situates Henry in a specific place and time (you wouldn’t find that instruction in the eurozone or across the Atlantic), and serves a technical purpose.
Being guided by a recipe is more than just helpful, it can be incredibly reassuring. In a world of uncertainty, there is a comfort in being told just how thick to slice your potatoes.
‘Weigh … Slice … Fold … Cut’. More often than not, recipes are composed of strings of sentences starting with verbs in the imperative (which the linguist in me wants to remind you is not a tense but a mood). I’m reminded of that scene in Fleabag, which culminates in the exasperated ‘I just want someone to tell me what to do’.
‘Kneel’, replies the hot priest.
‘No one likes to have their hand held too tightly, or to have a set of instructions barked at them.’ Nigel Slater, A Cook’s Book
The flip side of the need for a recipe to guide us is Nigel Slater’s concern that a recipe should not be too prescriptive or preachy. There is something reassuring about a recipe that leaves room for manoeuvre, that says ‘you’ve got this, it’ll be fine’.
‘base patted down … apples – sliced on top …dot with butter and then sprinkle with sugar + cinnamon … Oven No 4. For ¾ -1 hour.’
More cryptic recipes, the ones that assume you already know pretty much what to do, bring their own kind of comfort. The above comes from one of my most treasured recipes, a family classic of spicy apple bars handwritten in a notebook by my mum, probably dictated by her mum.
I took a photo of these handwritten instructions a few years ago and always refer back to this photo, rather than writing the recipe up anywhere else. In its brevity, it feels like a secret code that functions more as an aide-memoire than a standalone guide.
‘Let the flavours get to know one another’ – Nigel Slater, on a tv series I half-remember from when I was a teen.
I cannot even remember if he actually said those words, and if he did, whether it was just once, or a kind of refrain. But it has become a reference for my parents and me. It is cosy, nicer than telling us to marinade, and so perfectly expresses why some foods (bolognese, stews, curries) are better the next day than the day they are made. More than anything, it is a lesson in letting the recipe writer’s personality shine through in their words.
When my parents and I repeat that back to one another, what we’re really saying is ‘Nigel Slater is lovely, isn’t he?’.
Baker’s dozen
13 good things from the past several weeks:
Made rhubarb crumble. Ate it with Bird’s custard.
A couple of things I have contributed to are finally live and public: some articles in Horizon magazine about EU projects countering climate change and protecting the environment (including one in my beloved Mallorca), and profiles of nine finalists of the European Sustainable Energy Awards (which you are ALL invited to vote in should you so wish!).
Spent four utterly perfect days exploring Asturias. My first time in Northern Spain, and I couldn’t have asked for better hosts or more delicious food, or a more perfect travel companion.
Read Leaving the Atocha Station, which was just as brilliant as everyone told me it would be, and I’m a Fan, which was also brilliantly unsettling.
Went back to the UK for a long weekend to see my grandparents then celebrate my Dad’s birthday - managed to pack in Norwich, fish and chips, fresh pasta, Sussex, puttanesca, roast beef, chocolate cake, pecan pie, a walk, asparagus, tennis, and back bacon into just four days.
Zoned out watching the canned fish files on YouTube: calmly chaotic and well worth a watch.
I finally got around to watching The Night Manager, several years late. It’s a good intriguey-escapism-thriller, if that’s your thing (otherwise worth it for oggling at Tom Hiddleston and beautiful beautiful Mallorca).
No relation, other than the very similar name, but I also watched The Night Agent which was gripping.
One of the very first friends I made at uni came to Brussels for less than 24 hours and still managed to enjoy more sunshine than we’ve had in the rest of this spring put together.
Drinking coffee my parents brought back from Puerto Rico: a much-needed dose of sunshine in this never-ending not-quite spring.
Made it to the Serres de Laeken for the very first time: got rained on a silly amount, but made up for it with matching raincoats and a very good brunch discovery afterwards at the Phare du Kanal.
Started watching Only Murders in the Building. Fun!
Went swimming and had a lane all to myself.
Beautiful, thoughtful writing making me want to read more recipes rather than simply cook what is around - less lonesome perhaps and more social? The 'e' in 'spicey' bothers me to this day Lizzie!