I have a question for you: What is a recipe?
(a) a set of rules for preparing a food dish that states the ingredients to be used, along with how to use them
(b) suggested ingredients along with guidance on process, for creating a food dish
I was pondering this question last night as I scribbled all over a recipe, noting the herbs, vegetables and pulses I’d swapped in to a suppertime dish so that in the future I could remember what I’d used, and reflect on how the textures and flavours had worked together.
So I looked up the definition of a ‘recipe’:
“A set of instructions for preparing a particular dish, including a list of the ingredients required” (Google).
Reading this definition led me to question: what is the purpose of a recipe? And: does the way in which we perceive recipes make a contribution to the sustainability of how we eat?
Undoubtedly we utilise recipes in different ways and on different occasions according to, for example, our desire to go off-piste or stick to the rules, which could reflect a love of being creative cooking or a desire to simply ‘get food on the table’ (and I know for me it’s sometimes the former and sometimes the latter); our confidence with adaptation, which may depend upon how familiar with are with a recipe’s genre; our time - for meal planning and ingredient shopping as well as cooking; along with a host of other factors, not least the extent to which we think the recipe requires strict adherence to the rules in order to ‘work’. So clearly there are many dimensions at play in terms of how we, for any particular meal, follow a recipe.
There are no shortage of recipe books and blogs (my blog included, I recognise!) all offering different formulae for creating dishes by following a set of rules for pairing and manipulating ingredients. Yet does the way we interpret the purpose of a recipe play a role in the sustainability of our cooking and eating habits?
Let’s take the dictionary definition of a recipe above, which includes the words ‘instruction’ and ‘required’. Instructions can be carried out as intended or not but sound pretty directive, and ‘required’ has a fairly emphatic tone to it. This seems to sum up how, I think, many of us tend to perceive recipes: there to be strictly followed (point (a) above) rather than a draft idea to be interpreted creatively (point (b)). And for good reason, because clearly if we don’t follow the recipe strictly, we’re not going to end up with an exact replication of what the recipe writer intended. But for me two questions stem from this:
1. Does the recipe always turn out exactly as shown (perhaps this is just me ….)?
2. Do we really want to follow it strictly, and can taking a more flexible approach to recipes increase the sustainability as well as creativity of our cooking?
Let’s take a look at factors that contribute to the sustainability of a recipe, which in turn influences the sustainability of our eating habits. These might include:
Are seasonal ingredients used, especially in relation to fresh produce. Are the fresh ingredients that are listed grouped together seasonally within individual recipes (eg blackberries and apples in autumn; elderflower and strawberries in summer)?
Is it possible to acquire the ingredients locally (which clearly depends upon the location of intended readership) or for example are bananas paired with wild garlic (ok, ok, so I haven’t ever seen a recipe that does, but you get my point …)?
To what extend is a ‘zero waste’ approach taken to the dish ie encouraging the use of the whole of plants (where edible) for example using potato skins, carrot tops or broccoli stalks within a recipe?
And …
Are we encouraged to get creative with the recipe and treat it as flexible? Which can have the effects of: using up what we already have at home to prevent older items going to waste; reducing the need to buy particular items just for the quantities required within recipe, the remainder of which might then rot (meat or vegetables?) or sit in our cupboards unused again for years (spices?) which increases the financial and environmental costs of what we eat.
Consider this:
We throw about 10.2 million tonnes of food waste in the UK each year, most of which comes from within our homes, creating in excess of 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (Which).
In an era where there are cook books, blogs, social media posts and apps aplenty (which is great testimony to the revival of interest in preparing meals from scratch) can we be doing more to promote a zero waste / use up / cook seasonally approach to the food we eat through the recipes that are shared?
As someone who (very embryonically) shares simple recipes through my work and blog (and just to be clear, I make no claim to any formal food training or expert knowledge, other than a lot of time spent and love for playing in the kitchen) I realise how exciting it is to create a recipe that feels truly unique in the pairing or processes that it describes. That excitement fuels the creative drive, develops new directions in what and how we eat and is most certainly not to be criticised; but equally can the excitement of the ‘new’ manifest not only in the set of rules embodied within a recipe, but also in the joy of it’s realisation in a myriad of different ways within people’s homes, according to their taste preferences, time, budget, the contents of their fridge and the fresh food that are in season at that time?
How can we actively encourage and support the notion of a recipe as draft form, and encourage a more sustainable approach to interpreting it within home kitchens? I was lucky enough to chat about this topic with chef Jamie Park of Frog by Adam Handling earlier in the year, who commented, “If you’re trying to create a signature restaurant dish then absolutely, you need to stick to a recipe; but there is a sense that people are almost afraid to start moving away [from the strictures of a recipe]. Recipes need to be seen as guidelines.”
Taste testing with Jamie Park & James Strawbridge, Chateau Takeover. Image - John Hersey.
At the risk of suggesting that recipes should be so full of adaptations and variations that they become vague and unmanageable, there are some brilliant examples of flexibility emerging within the recipe-sharing sphere within books, blogs and apps; some of these techniques that are being used by some of my foodie sustainability heroes include:
Referencing ‘flexi swaps’ (ie other foods that could be swapped in for different ingredients to eat up what you have at home, or swap in a seasonal ingredient) and indicating parts of foods that can be eaten and are normally discarded, as Melissa Hemsely does in her brilliant book ‘Eat Green’, in which she also dedicates sections of the introduction to topics of food waste and seasonal eating.
Offering encouragement to take recipes as a starting point then adapt them, as James Strawbridge does in his book ‘The Artisan Kitchen’, writing in the introduction “[I’ve] offered possibilities for you to experiment with … start by mastering the basics, then practice the classics, and finally let your flair and creativity come out to play”.
Framing a recipe book around the seasons, so it’s easy to select recipes according to the fresh produce that is likely to be available locally. There is, rather wonderfully, a surge in interest in seasonal eating and books such as Tommy Banks’ ‘Roots’ locate all of their recipes within a specific season to celebrate the produce and encourage use of locally grown food.
Creating physical space for creativity within recipes, whether space around the recipes to be scribbled on (surely I’m not the only one?) and I was insanely excited to see that the Deliciously Ella app has a ‘notes’ section connected with each recipe so you can mark down your amendments to refer back to.
It may not be going to change the world on its own, but perhaps swapping in a locally grown autumn raspberry in place of an imported strawberry when interpreting a recipe in October, or finishing up a packet of oregano instead of placing a food order or making a trip simply to buy some Za’atar for one particular recipe (I do realise this may be sacrilege-speak to some!) could form part of a cultural shift that helps to reduce the environmental footprint of what we eat.
Has anyone else bought store cupboard ingredients, as specified in a recipe, that are used once then linger for a couple of years?
And so it seems to me that recipes can play a part in the sustainability of how we eat - through how recipes are framed (the message that sits alongside them in cook books, blogs, social media etc) as well as the manner in which they are written - set in stone, or with notes, swap-ins and adaptations encouraged within the structure of the recipe. We can still hold onto the uniqueness of the recipe as it is presented, and acknowledge that some recipes are more ‘adaptable’ than others, but also celebrate the joy of the many unique manifestations of the recipe as it is interpreted flexibly in different homes.
After all, nothing’s really ‘new’. Food for thought …