Pod Insights The Sporkful The Joy Of Recipe Writing About this episode Why do some recipes just work while others are hit-or-miss? And is there a better way to write recipes overall? This week we look at what makes a great recipe.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean, whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. Start the day strong with Quaker Protein Products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker Protein Products give you a variety of ways
0:44 Dan Pashman? to reach your protein goals. Oatmeal, granola, bars, and rice snacks in flavors you already love, like maple and brown sugar and blueberries and cream. Quaker Protein helps fuel you to start whatever's next. Get your protein with Quaker. Available at a store near you.
1:01 Speaker 01 Recipes don't just appear. Like, well-written, well-tested recipes take so much work.
1:07 Dan Pashman? This is bestselling cookbook author Julia Tershen. She's also written for The New York Times and Bon Appetit, among others. She says a great recipe should feel effortless.
1:17 Speaker 01 So I studied poetry in college. And to me, like, a really well-written recipe is like a little bit like a really good poem, even if that sounds kind of cheesy. But it's like, seems simpler, but like, so much work went into it and so much taking out and editing. And it has to be really descriptive. And, you know, I think sometimes the simplest things take enormous amounts of work.
1:38 Dan Pashman? A really good recipe anticipates and answers every possible question a person could have, all in just a few paragraphs. It has really clear indicators. Those are the clues that tell you what to look for to move on to the next step, or when you know it's done. Claire Saffet, bestselling author of The Cookbook Dessert Person, says when she writes a recipe, she thinks a lot about that part.
1:58 Speaker 02 So I like to always give three or four visual indicators and even other kinds of indicators. Like, what is it? Is it going to smell like something? Is it going to feel like something? So with a cake, I often say, golden brown around the edges, golden on the top, springs back in the center when you touch it, and a cake tester comes out clean. So it like, might feel excessive, but like, all of those things are important and are telling you something.
2:21 Dan Pashman? Is there a specific... Indicator in a recipe that you have seen at some point in your career, it could be, maybe someone else wrote it and you were like, "That's really good. I wish I wrote that."
2:30 Speaker 02 One of my favorite indicators is, just because I love the words, a slowly dissolving ribbon. So when you mix eggs and sugar in a mixer and you whip them, it gets really, really light and thick. And the best indicator is when you lift up the whisk and the mixer falls back into the bowl, onto itself in a, quote, "slowly dissolving ribbon."
2:53 Dan Pashman? I do like that.
2:54 Speaker 02 That's a good one.
2:55 Dan Pashman? That could be like the title of your memoir.
2:57 Speaker 02 A slowly dissolving ribbon?
2:58 Dan Pashman? Yes.
2:58 Speaker 02 That's a good one. I've come up with so many memoir titles that have been taken. That's a good one.
3:04 Dan Pashman? There you go.
3:07 Dan Pashman? This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Hey, before we get to the show, are you a sports fan? Or at least a "food while sports are on" fan? Well, the Super Bowl is coming up and that's basically like a food and sports national holiday, okay? Or maybe you're getting ready for March Madness. Maybe you're excited for pitchers and catchers to report because you're more looking forward to ballpark eating as the weather warms up. Bottom line, I want to hear your questions, strong opinions, debates, disagreements, or hot takes about food and sports. This can be about watching sports on TV and what you're gonna eat, or attending sporting events. If you have a hot take, dispute, or disagreement relating to food and sports, I want to hear from you. Send me an email or voice memo to
3:52 Dan Pashman? [email protected] with your first name, location, and your question or take, and you might just hear yourself on an upcoming episode of The Sporkful. All right, let's get into it. Last week on the show, we asked the question, "Is your recipe lying to you?" We talked with experts and home cooks about the ways that recipes can feel deceiving. And after that episode aired, we heard from you, loud and clear. Ken wrote to us to say that he finds recipes for poached eggs highly deceptive. Lisa told us about a recipe for chili crisp that drastically underestimated the prep time. And Jen shared a story about her child who has issues with ADHD and has to factor in a lot more time than the recipe calls for in order to complete it. So, thank you all so much for writing in. We got so much great feedback on that episode. This week, though, we want to turn the tables.
4:37 Dan Pashman? And instead of looking at how recipes can go wrong, we want to explore the ways that great recipes are written. Later in the show, we'll hear the story of one of the best-selling cookbooks of all time, which uses a totally different recipe style from almost everyone else. But let's start with the classic types of recipes most of us know. There are so many recipes out there, right? If you've searched online for something like chocolate chip cookies, you know what I'm talking about. But recipes aren't all created equal.
5:03 Speaker 03 A lot of cookbooks seem really wonderful when you're flipping through and you're looking at the photos and reading all of these wonderful stories. But when you get down to cooking the recipes, that's when you can really separate a few out from the herd.
5:21 Dan Pashman? This is Chandra Ram. She's a cookbook author. Her most recent book is an Instant Pot Indian Cookbook, and she's the Associate Editorial Director for Food and Wine Magazine. For years, she judged cookbooks for the prestigious IACP Awards, the International Association of Culinary Professionals. As a judge, she read through dozens of cookbooks to select the semifinalists. Then she and the other judges tested a few representative recipes from each of those semifinalists. When doing that work, Chandra would follow the recipes as precisely as possible.
5:49 Speaker 03 I try to not multitask, which I think is the killer of, you know, attention and detail. So I pull all my ingredients out and make sure I've got them in front of me so I don't forget to say, add the baking powder to a cake recipe or, you know, add in a certain spice to a stew or a soup.
6:12 Dan Pashman? Chandra has a few different criteria that she uses to judge each recipe, and it goes beyond whether it works. For her, it's also about the style. Like Julia Tershen said at the beginning, "A good recipe is like a poem," and so it should have a voice.
6:26 Speaker 03 I personally, I really hate what I call like recipe robot speak. And that's those recipes that start, that say like, "In a bowl, add flour," or something. And I'm like, seriously? Like, who talks like that? So.
6:42 Dan Pashman? So how should I tell people to put the flour in the bowl that would be a way that you would find more compelling?
6:46 Speaker 03 Like you just did, put the flour in a bowl.
6:48 Dan Pashman? Oh, all right. So you like the conversational, like, hey, we're sitting here together, put some flour in a bowl, you dummy?
6:54 Speaker 03 I mean, maybe don't insult them, but.
6:58 Dan Pashman? Chandra says a recipe writer should also be thinking of who their audience is.
7:02 Speaker 03 I always think, like, I think about my husband, who is in software, is not a cook, but he does like to cook. But when he cooks, he follows every single point of every single recipe instruction. Whereas if I'm not in recipe testing mode, I might just be like, oh, OK, I kind of get it. And then I'll just cook myself.
7:21 Dan Pashman? Right.
7:22 Speaker 03 You know, or I think about my sister in law, Lindsay, who is a great cook and will do a certain amount of improv. But she wants to know what the cookbook writer had to say, like, what their intention was. And you just need to think like, OK, this is somebody cooking at home.
7:38 Dan Pashman? That's why Chandra likes recipes that have a lot of specifics.
7:42 Speaker 03 If you say a teaspoon of salt, does that mean table salt? Do you mean kosher salt?
7:47 Dan Pashman? That distinction matters because kosher salt has a coarser grain, chunkier chunks. So when you fill a teaspoon with it, there's more space between the pieces, more air within the teaspoon. So it's less actual salt versus a very fine grained table salt. Plus kosher salt is less salty ounce for ounce. So using the wrong kind of salt can really screw things up.
8:11 Speaker 03 People who are relying on that measurement, they need some, some help here. They need further information because I got to tell you, once you've put too much salt in something, it is almost impossible to save it.
8:23 Dan Pashman? What are some of your other recipe pet peeves?
8:25 Speaker 03 If something is chopped and it's going to be in like a salad or a relish or something, tell me exactly how to chop it. It helps to be able to look at the photos, but there aren't always photos with the recipes. And sometimes recipe instructions don't match a photo.
8:42 Dan Pashman? And you don't want a salad where like all the pieces are different sizes, so you don't get like proper ratios in each bite.
8:47 Speaker 03 Right. Or you wind up with pieces that are too big to eat in a salad. So now I've got to chop my salad while I'm eating it.
8:54 Dan Pashman? Quick sidebar, what are your thoughts on the Caesar salad served with whole leaves of romaine lettuce?
8:59 Speaker 03 Drives me up a wall. I really, I mean, I think it looks beautiful. I think it's wonderful for the Instagram. I think it's all of that, but I really hate extra large pieces of lettuce.
9:14 Dan Pashman? Yes.
9:15 Speaker 03 In recipes.
9:16 Dan Pashman? You should not need a knife to eat a salad.
9:19 Speaker 03 But it's, it's a thing when people are chopping, when they're cutting lettuce and they're cutting across the leaf, they forget that the wider you go towards the end of the leaf, that's too long a piece for someone to eat.
9:31 Dan Pashman? Yes.
9:31 Speaker 03 Now I've got lettuce covered with dressing and a piece of it just slopped on my chin.
9:36 Dan Pashman? Yes, and, and also because it tends to be like softer, more sort of wilted when you get to the end of the leaf, that bit flaps around more on the end of the fork. So it could be spraying dressing all over the place.
9:47 Speaker 03 I feel like you should be running for president specifically on this, this topic.
9:53 Dan Pashman? This is my platform.
9:57 Dan Pashman? So as Chandra said, when she judges a cookbook, she really has home cooks in mind, which is why she finds that cookbooks written by restaurant chefs often have blind spots.
10:07 Speaker 03 Those too often are written from the point of view of someone who has a full-time dishwasher and a full-time prep cook. And I noticed this when I was recipe testing this time around for IACP, that I was using more bowls and pans than I needed. But since I don't have a professional dishwasher working with me, that just meant I had more stuff that I got to clean at the end of the day. If the point of what we're doing is to create this food and create these recipes that bring happiness and feed people, trying to do it without creating the stress of a full sink of dishes would be great.
10:51 Dan Pashman? Another common recipe issue Chandra sees a lot, getting the ratios wrong between the different components of the meal. Like say you're making a salad with dressing, all in one recipe. You don't want the recipe to have you making a gallon of dressing for a salad that serves four people, right? Sure, you can stick the extra dressing in the fridge, but then it's taunting you every time you open the fridge, right? Until you finish it or more likely throw it out. So ratios, chopping dimensions, dirty dishes, there are so many different things to keep in mind when you're writing a recipe or judging one. Even Chandra sometimes makes mistakes in developing her own recipes.
11:30 Speaker 03 For my Indian book, for example, I had a friend testing a recipe for shrimp biryani. I had made this recipe probably seven or eight times. To get the timing right exactly, I had specific instructions. You're going to soak the rice for this long, then you're going to add everything together. And what I didn't realize was, because I was so deep in it, that other people were going to go to the grocery store and if they don't know a lot about rice, say, you know what? Instead of just white basmati, I can get brown basmati. Why don't I just go ahead and do that? And not realize that brown rice usually takes two to three times as long to cook as white rice. That was something when the person, my friend recipe testing, said, oh,
12:14 Speaker 03 I just don't understand what I did wrong. And I think a lot of home cooks will assume that they did something wrong. And I was, couldn't figure out why it took so long for her rice to cook. And I was like, what, you know, what brand? What was it? She was like, oh, it's just brown basmati. And I was like, oh, my God. We have to go through and indicate white, where we want white rice and brown, where we want brown rice on every single recipe. That was recipe testing that was a save. But unfortunately, it came at the expense of my friend Liz's dinner. Because by the time the rice cooked, the shrimp were like four times overcooked than what? I mean, they were like chewy little erasers. It was sad.
12:54 Dan Pashman? I asked Chandra, when you cook something and it doesn't come out well, how do you know when it's your fault and when it's the recipe? She said, look, if you're distracted, so you do something out of order or forget a step, that's on you. If you choose to make a substitution, that could throw things out of whack. But if you truly follow every step as well as you can, and it comes out bad, that's on the recipe. Because if it's a good recipe and you follow it, it will work. That's the definition of a good recipe. Who has the cookbooks that are consistently have the best recipes?
13:28 Speaker 03 I would say Dory Greenspan does just absolutely rock solid recipes. And I've experienced that with her baking and savory recipes.
13:38 Dan Pashman? What makes her recipes so good?
13:40 Speaker 03 First of all, they're incredibly well tested. There's a lot of instruction to them so that she has thought about what are all the questions someone will have here? She's eliminated unnecessary steps. And it's, I think that there's a certain amount of comfort that comes from knowing, okay, it's a Dory Greenspan recipe, so it will work.
14:06 Dan Pashman? And who out there, Chandra, is like, everyone's always buying these cookbooks, but you're like, I don't get it. These recipes, this person is not, their recipes are not up to snuff.
14:15 Speaker 03 You know, I will say, I haven't cooked one of her recipes in a very long time, but Martha Stewart used to burn me quite a bit. When I first got into cooking and I was working in catering and doing a lot of catering myself, I was cooking with her recipes and finding that they just, they didn't work, that there was an ingredient missing. So to everyone who had one of my disastrous meals in the 90s, in the early aughts, I apologize.
14:49 Dan Pashman? On their behalf, I accept your apology.
14:51 Speaker 03 Thank you. You're incredibly kind.
14:53 Dan Pashman? And you know what, Chandra, you just reminded me, I don't even remember what happened a few months ago, that I got it in my head that I was craving brownies. Super, I like brownies that are basically like fudge in the center.
15:03 Speaker 03 Amen.
15:04 Dan Pashman? A little crusty on the outside, a little crispy on the edges and fudge in the center. And I just Googled like fudgiest, most chocolatey brownies. And guess what the top recipe that came up was?
15:16 Speaker 03 What's that?
15:17 Dan Pashman? Martha Stewart. And I cooked those brownies and they were so freaking dry.
15:22 Speaker 03 Really?
15:22 Dan Pashman? I followed that recipe to a T. I went out and bought cocoa powder and the whole nine yards. My kids and I made them and they were not at all fudgy as promised.
15:31 Speaker 03 And then you said to yourself, I'm going to do an entire episode. About recipe testing as my vindication. But see, this is, this is why it's so important because you and your kids were doing a thing. And now your kids aren't going to have like the super awesome brownie memory. They're going to have the, oh, remember that time dad made us made those dry brownies?
15:53 Dan Pashman? Well, I told them it was Martha's fault.
15:55 Speaker 03 Well, I look forward to her going after you before me, so.
16:05 Dan Pashman? That's Chandra Ram, Associate Editorial Director at Food and Wine Magazine. Coming up, I talk with the husband and wife team who spent 10 years updating one of the most hallowed cookbooks of all time. And this book uses a totally different approach to recipe writing than almost every other cookbook out there. Stick around.
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18:45 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman and I have some very exciting news to share with you. Let me tell you, this past November, I got to go to Italy, got to go eat pasta there, got to retrace my steps from my research trip for my cookbook, but also got to go to some new places. How did I find these new places? Well, you see, I was on a tour. I teamed up with the folks at Culinary Backstreets, phenomenal food tour experts, and we did a pasta tour of Italy, eating spaghetti alla sasina in Bari as I did in my cookbook research trip, hanging out with Katie Parlet in Rome as I did, but also going to some new places that the Culinary Backstreets folks had inside Inzad. Sitting out by the Adriatic Sea and eating fresh focaccia. It was so fun, so delicious. I learned so much. Everyone had a blast. In fact, it was such a success that we're doing it again.
19:30 Dan Pashman? I am going back to Italy this November with Culinary Backstreets, and I would love for you to join me. We just opened up the spots, but space is limited, so get on it. Come eat pasta with me in Italy. For all the details, go to culinarybackstreets.com/sporkful. All right, back to the show.
19:50 Speaker 04 I owned Joy of Cooking. It was my first cookbook purchase ever.
19:53 Dan Pashman? This is Megan Scott.
19:55 Speaker 04 And I loved the book and I was talking to a coworker of mine about it. And he said, didn't you know that the guy whose family wrote Joy of Cooking works at that coffee shop down the street? And I thought he was messing with me. So I went down to that coffee shop after I got off work and asked the barista if he knew about it. And it happened to be John who was working. And he was like, yeah, that's my family. Kind of blushed.
20:16 Dan Pashman? The barista was John Becker. His great grandmother, Irma Rombauer, wrote the original Joy of Cooking. Eventually Irma's daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, took things over. And then her son, Ethan Becker, got in on the family business. And Ethan's son is John. So back at the coffee shop, John's working. Megan comes in, she realizes who he is.
20:38 Speaker 04 And I kind of freaked out. I was like, you know, that's really cool. And we just started talking and I eventually asked him out on a date.
20:45 Dan Pashman? A couple of years later, Megan and John got married. And now you're one of the people behind that iconic cookbook.
20:51 Speaker 04 I know, it's very weird.
20:53 Dan Pashman? In 2019, John and Megan published the ninth edition of Joy of Cooking, following in the footsteps of John's great grandmother, Irma Rombauer. Now, back in the 1920s, Irma was living a comfortable life with her husband and daughter Marion in St. Louis. But when the Great Depression hit, Irma and her husband lost almost everything. On top of that, Irma's husband had suffered from severe depression throughout his adult life. In 1930, he died of suicide. Irma had been a housewife, but now, without a husband or an income, she had to do something to support her family. Here's John Becker.
21:24 Speaker 05 And yeah, so with no professional training, she, just out of the blue, really, like, I think I'm gonna write a cookbook.
21:31 Dan Pashman? To people who knew Irma, this seemed like a strange choice. Because Irma didn't know how to type and she wasn't really known for her cooking.
21:38 Speaker 04 She had grown up in a household where they had a cook. And I believe that when she was married, they did have a cook for a while. The depression kind of changed that for a lot of families of her class. So I don't, I don't think Irma had a ton of experience cooking. It wasn't that she hated cooking, it just wasn't, it wasn't particularly her passion.
21:59 Dan Pashman? But Irma was passionate about throwing a good party.
22:02 Speaker 04 Irma really valued being, she was very social. And so she liked to throw parties or host coffee clashes and that kind of thing. And so she cooked, but it was more, she was more interested in getting in and out of the kitchen quickly and getting back to the party. She wasn't really interested in cooking for the sake of cooking.
22:20 Dan Pashman? Irma took $3,000, which is nearly $50,000 in today's money. That was about half of what she had to her name after her husband's death. She took that and used it to self-publish her cookbook, which she called "The Joy of Cooking." It hit stores in 1931, just shy of 400 pages long. And immediately it stood out because it had personality.
22:41 Speaker 04 You know, when she was writing that first edition, she was, I think, writing it from a place of not loving to cook for the sake of cooking. And she knew, I think, that a lot of her readers were kind of in the same boat. And so she had this really interesting style of, you know, she would tell stories or historical asides. She would crack jokes. And some of the early editions, there are like headnotes that say things like, "I wish I had something interesting to say about all these recipes. Why don't you try it for yourself and see how you like it?" Which is kind of very charming.
23:13 Dan Pashman? So the woman who wrote "Joy of Cooking" was not necessarily someone who found a lot of joy in cooking. It almost feels like she was trying to will the process to be fun for herself and her readers. And the recipes themselves reflect that era, a time when cooking was done more by feel, based on lessons passed down from mothers and grandmothers.
23:31 Speaker 04 They're a little skimpy on the instructions. So it might, they use terms like a warm oven or a hot oven. Or they'll tell you to make a roux without giving you any details about the quantities of ingredients you want to use or the process for making it. So you can really tell kind of the older recipes, the Irma recipes, by the ones that aren't quite as fleshed out as we would expect from a modern recipe.
23:56 Dan Pashman? And the selection of recipes looked different in that first edition. For instance, you'll find fewer recipes for chicken because it was more expensive than it is today in relative terms. Joy of Cooking appealed to reluctant cooks and inspired them to be more enthusiastic. The book was successful enough that five years later, Irma cut a deal with a publisher to put out a second edition, this one 200 pages longer. And this 1936 edition goes down in cookbook history, not just because it's the one that really launched an empire with more than 20 million total copies in print today, but because it introduced a whole new style of recipe writing.
24:32 Speaker 05 She never called it this, but others have called it the action method, where the ingredients and directives are actually mixed together as opposed to having an ingredient list up front.
24:43 Dan Pashman? So let's say you're making pancakes. If you picture a standard recipe, you see all the ingredients and measurements at the top, right? One cup flour, half a cup sugar, et cetera. Then there are the instructions below that say things like, mix the flour and the sugar. But they don't repeat the quantity, so you've got to go back up to the top for the measurements, which can be a little annoying. And the argument in favor of that approach is that you have all your ingredients together at the top, so you can see what you need, make your shopping list. With Irma's style, the action method, there are no ingredients at the top. It just starts right away with the instructions, with the ingredients and measurements included in the instructions. So for instance, that pancake recipe might start by saying, mix one cup of flour and a half cup of sugar.
25:27 Dan Pashman? Each ingredient measurement is in bold on its own line, so you can still quickly scan the recipe pretty easily to get your shopping list.
25:35 Speaker 05 We think it's a great recipe writing method, simply because like when you're in the kitchen and trying to multitask, or trying to just even just paying attention to like what color the onion should be, you don't necessarily have to go back and forth between the ingredient list and directions in order to kind of get your place.
25:49 Speaker 04 There were early kind of prototypes of that method that she was working with that that weren't quite right, but eventually came to the format that has been in the book since 36. It's interesting that, you know, a woman in her 50s who has never been like a huge cook, would come up with this really novel and kind of really intelligent way of of writing recipes that was totally new and different.
26:13 Dan Pashman? It certainly seems to make a lot of sense. Why do you think it hasn't been more widely adopted than it has been?
26:20 Speaker 05 You know, I wonder that often. I really do think that it's just a force of habit for recipe writers. I think it really does have to do with like the convenience it offers to people making grocery lists. And also, I mean, this is just kind of a pet theory, but I think it also has to do with the fact that, you know, a lot of early recipe writing was for professionals. And it's much easier to cost out a recipe or scale it when all of the ingredients are in one spot. I guess recipe writing industrial complexes geared towards this one, this one format.
26:53 Dan Pashman? Let me be a fly on the wall. Pretend right now that you guys are cooking dinner. You're following someone else's recipe, not written in the action method. I imagine pots and pans clanging, water being poured somewhere, and things are not easy to follow. Like, what are some of the common criticisms that the two of you are griping to each other about this other person's recipe?
27:12 Speaker 05 Honestly, probably the biggest complaint I have, it's just easy to leave things out. Like, you know, something in the ingredient list, sometimes it doesn't even make it down into the directives and basically isn't used by the recipe. I've seen that so many times.
27:24 Speaker 04 Or one of my least favorite things is when the recipe says, add the next six ingredients. You know, I realize it would be more space consuming to like list every single ingredient you need to add, but I really think it's important because, you know, it's writing not to be understood, but so that there's no way you can be misunderstood, is kind of how I approach recipe writing. And when you say something like, the next six ingredients, you're really opening the door to a lot of, a lot of problems there.
27:53 Dan Pashman? Totally. I don't know that I've ever even seen that, but that sounds very stupid to me.
28:00 Speaker 04 I don't think that is endorsed by, like, most people who write recipes really well for a living, don't do that. But it's something I see on blogs all the time.
28:08 Dan Pashman? But something I see in some high-end places, which is frankly similar, is it'll say, add the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and black pepper. And that is very irritating because that's six different ingredients. All the measurements for those different amounts are up at the top in a separate area. And now I have to go not just back and forth But back and forth and back and forth six times because I need to make sure that I don't accidentally miss one of those six things in that list. So I gotta get, okay. So I need the sugar. How much sugar was it? Quarter teaspoon. Okay, done. What's the next thing on the list here? The next thing is clove. Back to the top. How much clove? Okay, got it. Did we get the clove? By the time I get to number four on the list, I'm like, wait, did I add the clove? I don't remember now. That was 20 minutes ago.
28:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's kind of enough to make you dizzy.
28:56 Dan Pashman? Yes, yes.
29:00 Dan Pashman? You know, and it's kind of, I'm getting very irritated just thinking about this.
29:11 Dan Pashman? Irma Rambauer stuck with the action method of recipe writing through the third and fourth editions. Around this time, her daughter Marion started taking over more of the work. She was listed as a co-author on the book. Irma died in 1962, just before the fifth edition came out. But Marion kept the book and the action method going. In 1975, she published the sixth edition, which is the best-selling of them all. Bonaparte says it's considered by many to be the best, the truest to the book's vision. The essential joy.
29:40 Speaker 05 You know, I mean, the 1975 is really, we consider that like a really high benchmark. And it's definitely the one that kind of guided how we did this recent revision.
29:49 Dan Pashman? Why? What's special about that one?
29:52 Speaker 05 Irma really brought sort of a personal rapport to the book. And she really tried to connect with her readers. But, you know, even in 1951, it's easy to, it's kind of easy to recognize joy as still just a collection of recipes that was, you know, not necessarily as a reference book. And that's where Marion came in. You know, I think she really had the ambition for it to be the American version of the La Russ Gastronomique, just as a resource that home cooks could come to with whatever questions they may have about anything from, you know, basics on a cooking method to, you know, ingredients.
30:31 Speaker 04 Of those early editions, I think the 1975 edition to me feels the most timeless. Like it feels, there are people who still use that edition all the time now. And it doesn't feel, I mean, there are some parts of it where you can tell it's from the 70s, but it doesn't feel super dated. And I think that really helps people feel their mom used it, they're still using it. There's kind of a connection there.
30:55 Dan Pashman? John's dad, Ethan, got involved for the 97 and 2006 revisions. After that, John and Megan took over and began rewriting, testing, and adding recipes for the latest edition. They wanted their version to be a reference book for American cooks, just like Marion's 1975 version. And because the canon of American cooking is evolving and expanding, they added dishes like beef rendang and chana masala, among many others. They also included more vegetarian and vegan recipes, and ingredients that are now easier to find, like miso and gochujang. It took Megan and John nearly 10 years, but they finally published the ninth edition Joy of Cooking in 2019. And how many recipes did you add?
31:36 Speaker 05 Over 600.
31:38 Dan Pashman? And you also went back and tested every single one that was in there from the previous edition, is that right?
31:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah. And, you know, when we were doing that testing, we would research the recipe, like find out which edition it came from, like when it was added, and if there were any changes made over the years. So we kind of had the, we called them recipe genealogies. It was kind of our way of getting to know the book.
32:02 Dan Pashman? But the number of recipes that you guys tested, either retesting an old one or developing a new one, was about 2,400?
32:09 Speaker 05 Yeah, it was around that.
32:10 Dan Pashman? So that's 240 recipes per year over 10 years?
32:14 Speaker 05 Yeah. God, it sounds like nothing.
32:16 Dan Pashman? Well, I mean, there's 365 days in a year. I mean, if you're working five days a week, you're pretty much, you pretty much did a recipe every weekday for 10 years.
32:26 Speaker 05 Wow.
32:29 Speaker 05 It makes me feel...
32:30 Speaker 04 It makes me tired.
32:31 Speaker 05 Tired.
32:36 Dan Pashman? I'm curious to hear about, like, changes in the way that a specific recipe was written over the years.
32:41 Speaker 05 I remember tracing back pizza recipes in the book. And I think that the first thing that could be considered a pizza that was in the book was in 1943, and it was called vegetable shortcake. I thought that was really weird.
32:57 Dan Pashman? What about the recipe for chocolate chip cookies?
33:00 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
33:02 Dan Pashman? How has that one changed over the years?
33:05 Speaker 04 Well, it was in the book before the 40s, but in 1943, Irma wrote something like, "Oh, a special type of chocolate has been invented that makes, you know, making these cookies so much easier." And she was talking about chocolate chips because before that time, chocolate chips had, were not a thing. So you would take chocolate and chop it up and add it to your batter. And then they, you know, chocolate chips were invented, making it much easier to make chocolate chip cookies.
33:31 Dan Pashman? Right. She's like, "Extra, extra."
33:33 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:34 Dan Pashman? "Check out the latest in kitchen technology."
33:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's pretty interesting to think about that.
33:40 Dan Pashman? And so then in your lead in to the chocolate chip cookie recipe, you added more like the history of chocolate chip cookies. You write, "Chocolate chip cookies were invented in the 1930s by Ruth Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts." Does it tell us something about the, the way that we like our recipes today that you chose to add that in?
34:00 Speaker 04 People want more of a story for recipes. So yeah, we, we definitely wanted to tell more stories in the head notes and in just the, the text of the book because it does have such a long and storied history.
34:16 Dan Pashman? I like to imagine what Irma might have done to celebrate the release of the first Joy of Cooking back in 1931. My guess is she had a bunch of friends over for a casual soiree, tossed back a few cocktails, told some jokes. John and Megan, when they finished their version?
34:32 Speaker 05 Right after we turned in the manuscript, we were like, "Okay, let's make some notes on like what we failed to cover." And so then, you know, we'll, we'll be ready for the 100th anniversary edition.
34:55 Dan Pashman? That's Megan Scott and John Becker, keepers of the Joy of Cooking flame, or pilot light, and co-authors of the latest edition of the Joy of Cooking. They also have a podcast. It's called the Joy of Cooking Podcast. You can get it wherever you got this one. You can also subscribe to their newsletter at joyofcooking.substack.com. I should add, they're currently in the The earliest stages are planning for the Centennial Edition of Troy of Cooking, which will be published in 2031. No, it's not available for pre-sale yet, but I'm sure you're very excited. Next week on the show, we are live from Memphis. I chat live onstage with legendary Memphis restaurateur Karen Blockman Carrier. We'll talk about her time growing up in Memphis, getting her start in the New York restaurant scene in the 80s, then returning to Memphis, ending up cooking for Tom Cruise, among other movie stars,
35:39 Dan Pashman? and opening one-hit restaurant after another. Karen has so many great stories. You're gonna love this episode. That's next week. While you wait for that one, check out last week's show, Redigging to the Question: Is Your Recipe Lying to You? We talk with an intrepid journalist who exposed the dirty secret about caramelized onions, one recipe-writing legend, and a food writer and mom who's sick of feeling bad when a recipe turns out to be harder than she expected. Get that episode wherever you got this one. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by Genre and Era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast
36:21 Dan Pashman? app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer-
36:34 Speaker 02 Emma Morgenstern.
36:35 Dan Pashman? And senior producer- Andres O'Hara. It was edited by-
36:38 Speaker 02 Tracy Samuelson.
36:40 Dan Pashman? The show is mixed by- Andrea Kristin's daughter. And-
36:42 Speaker 06 Jared O'Connell.
36:43 Dan Pashman? Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producers are Nora Ritchie and Colin Anderson. Until next time, I'm Dan Paschke. And this is Leigh Ritchie from Atlanta, Georgia, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
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