It is even worse in internet recipes. The authors tend to go on and on about their feelings, family and personal stories before finally getting to the point how to actually cook the dish. I usually have to skip several paragraphs.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/recipe-filter/ahlc...
depends a lot on the commentary, though - i probably don't care about your feelings (sorry) or descriptive prose. on the other hand, when i'm looking up a recipe from another culture, i really value commentary on the background or history of the dish.
Part of the problem is that almost every food blogger is emulating the exact same character. It's the same harried but still whipping something creative together, educated but conspicuously mentions liking a glass of wine, love-my-kids-but-man-do-they-get-on-my-nerves persona. It's the 2010's white sitcom parent writ large.
I'd read a lot more of the prose on these blogs if they didn't all sound the same.
I know I read this somewhere, but can’t find the reference now. So, take this with a grain of salt or a starting point for your own research :)
I assume people are trying to be the next online cooking personality who gets to publish a book. I've seen a couple in shops with pictures of YouTube recipe demonstration people on the cover.
Also, more text is more "content" to mix adverts into.
I just assume that they associate recipes and foods with times and places and people (generally happily) and it's akin to "do you remember that time mother cooked weasel?" kind of conversations you'd have with people, except on a blog.
But a lot of the sites I've seen don't feel that way. They feel like they are desperately trying to feel that way though (the old "sincerity is key: once you can fake it you win" skit).
Ah, yes. Of course. This is the most plausible explanation IMO.
Acronym expanded for the benefit of anyone else who's browsing HN before coffee and would have taken a similarly embarrassing length of time to infer the likely meaning of this one, which I'd never seen before.
That's why I love King Arthur Flour's recipes (among others). Short intro, and then it gets right into how to get more consistency and quality out of the recipe or how to do variations on the recipe. It's not another long winded essay that boils down to "I cook this for my family."