

Ask HN: Why aren't recipes written as timelines? - andrewstuart

Recipes would be a whole lot easier to follow if their notation was in timeline form.<p>Why instead are they written as narrative?
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jessexoc
[http://www.cookingforengineers.com/](http://www.cookingforengineers.com/) has
an interesting condensed recipe card format:
[http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/89/Cheesecake-
Plai...](http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/89/Cheesecake-Plain-New-
York-Style/trn)

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cpbotha
Gracipe was made by two students from my Data Vis course at the TU Delft:
[http://www.gracipe.com/](http://www.gracipe.com/) (it only started during my
course, their app is far more extensive now)

They parse and show recipes as icon-oriented graphical timelines.

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Mikhail_Edoshin
There is a style that writes recipes as a list of steps and lists ingredients
for each; AFAIK it's a common format in Germany and it's also used in the
original "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book. Otherwise recipes came
from handwritten notes. Quite often the general process is known by heart,
described elsewhere, or deducible, but the exact formula have to be written
down. It's also convenient to have the list of products (and maybe equipment)
in one place so you can make a shopping list. And the paper medium can only
have a single representation, so it has to be a compromise :) But electronic
recipes should be more fluid.

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socceroos
Just off the top of my head, being narrative gives greater scope for the cook
to put their stamp on the recipe.

Like the Bible, much of the 'recipe' is open to interpretation - there is the
recipe-maker's original intentions and then there is everyone's personal take
on it.

In timeline form I believe there would be the propensity to see the recipe as
a formula rather than a guide open for modification and exploration.

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tertius
I use a service called cooksmarts.com (weekly recipes so you only have to shop
and cook, very little planning) and they use an optimized timeline. I.e.
everyone takes a different amount of time to do certain things so there is
room for mistakes.

That's my best guess for why recipes don't have a timelines. You're also
probably cooking more than one thing at a time I.e. entree, sides, desert etc.
If each of those had their own timelines you'd be screwed.

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J_Darnley
Because no cooking equipment can deliver energy at a known precise rate. That
means you cannot say "t=0 start frying meat. t=300s add liquid" because you
might cook the meat faster or slower depending on equipment and what shape and
size the meat was cut into.

Most recipes I have read are written as a less precise timeline though with
exact times traded for estimates relative to the previous step or "until done"

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cypher_glyph
I imagine after you detail the events on a timeline according to the recipe,
you'd likely end up with a colorful list of instructions and little else -
some events would also be quite detailed and - in many recipes - optional. I'd
much rather see a recipe depicted in a mechanical 'exploded view' format
though - but maybe that's just me.

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hayksaakian
Recipes are usually written chronolically

So you mean timeline the visual sense?

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Ocamen
Tradition, probably

