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The recipe my aunt scribbled on a napkin turned out better than any online guide
My aunt handed me this crumpled napkin with chicken wing temps and times at a cookout last July, and I finally tried it last night. They came out perfect with zero preheating or flipping, which my usual apps always say to do. How do you handle family recipes that skip all the standard steps?
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kellys7828d ago
My aunt's banana bread recipe doesn't even list a temperature... just says "bake until done and the house smells right." I've made it probably 50 times now and it comes out perfect every time, but when I tried to write it down for my cousin she looked at me like I was crazy. The napkin thing is real though, I still have my grandma's cranberry sauce instructions written on a torn piece of paper bag with a grease stain on it. She said to "cook it until it talks to you" which means when it starts bubbling and popping. Sometimes those handwritten notes have been passed down so many times they skip all the obvious parts because the person who wrote it just assumed you'd know the basics. I think that's the beauty of family recipes, they expect you to have some common sense and trust your instincts.
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the_nathan28d ago
@kellys78 my grandma's cornbread recipe just said "bake 'til brown" and it worked every time.
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susan64928d ago
Oh gosh, that napkin story cracked me up! I actually just read this article last week about how a lot of old family recipes were never properly written down back in the day because folks cooked by feel and instinct. The writer talked about how her great-grandma's pie crust recipe just said "add flour until it feels right" and how that's basically impossible to share with anyone who didn't grow up watching her do it. My own mom's chili recipe is the same way - she wrote "a pinch of this and a handful of that" on a sticky note and I swear it tastes completely different every time I try to make it, but hers always comes out amazing. There's something special about those vague instructions though, like you're being trusted to figure it out yourself.
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sarah_patel2528d ago
My mom's instructions for her potato salad literally say "add the stuff until it looks right" and I've been making it for ten years and still can't get it exactly like hers. She swears she didn't leave anything out but I've watched her dump random spices into the bowl without measuring. My aunt once tried to follow the recipe card and ended up with something that looked like soup. I think some people just have a gift for eyeballing quantities and the rest of us are stuck guessing.
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