Today’s topic seems odd for Irreal. Even tagging it as “Tech” seems odd but bear with me. If you’re like me and have a hard time following most recipes, today’s post has a solution. It’s all about a new format for recipe cards. A lot of the reason many of us nerds have a difficult time with cooking is the standard recipe card. We want it to be like a program we’d write but it isn’t really like that. You can make the case that the list of ingredients that typically start the standard recipe card is the data declaration and the (dense) text that follows are the commands but that remains unconvincing, at least to me.
The format recommended at the above link was invented by software engineer Michael Chu. He brings an engineer’s sensibilities to the problem. Take a look at the sample recipe cards at the link. Notice how the whole process just jumps out at you. It’s immediately clear what you do with what and in what order.
The only problem with the system is that it’s been completely ignored by the people who write recipes. There are a couple of solutions. First, Chu maintains a site, cookingforengineers.com, that uses the system.
Second, @juanbuis, whose tweet started the rediscovery of Chu’s system, built a site that accepts a standard recipe and spits out one in Chu’s format. The minions generally discourage me from entering the bunker’s kitchen so I haven’t tried it but it seems useful.
Take a look at that first link and I think you’ll agree that it’s a worthy topic for Irreal and deserves the “Tech” tag.