some people have a substitution problem

[honigfrosch]

I cooked something last week and, no joke, there was some nitwit in the comments talking about how she subbed beef for pork, left out the soy sauce, made any number of other changes, and then gave the recipe one star because it didn't taste good? YOU DIDN'T MAKE THE RECIPE, BRENDA. You made whatever other unholy concoction of ground beef and ditch water you described in your comment.

Context is pshaw_raven being a wiz in the kitchen.

Comments

[tei]

HA. Very true. I do tend to do this in that when I go looking for recipes it's usually more for a general idea of what ingredients and cooking methods might work together, and if I'm not making it for company I usually won't go out and buy ingredients I don't have for one recipe, especially if they're on the more expensive side. But like, I recognize that the reason certain foods are expensive is because they're high-quality or take a lot of time or effort to produce or move... and therefore, if someone is using a more expensive ingredient in a recipe, it's probably because it's better than the cheaper alternative. So it's fair to have your own priorities, but not really fair to then complain that you don't like where your own priorities got you...

[melannen]

Yes! I'm the one who makes the chili-ginger pork and noodle dish but leaves out the chili, uses the wrong kind of ginger, swaps the pork for chicken, uses rice instead of noodles and changes the cooking method - but I don't then rate the original recipe based on that!!

[definitely_not_an_alb]

A lot of people don't actually substitute, too. Like, 'I want something puttanesca-esque, but I'm out of sardelles, so I'll use oystersauce' is substitution, 'I left out the soy sauce and 2/3 of the spices and added rosemary instead' isn't. Like, this is just bad cooking! You read a recipe and didn't understand which part of it does what and how, and then you went and fucked it up! The original author isn't responsible for other's being bad cooks, though.

[rekishi]

....I just yesterday had someone on IRC say something very similar, it seems to be going around right now.

[honigfrosch]

Yeah, that's what I don't get - if you want to go overboard and ruin a dish, sure, but don't blame the poster of the original recipe!

[honigfrosch]

Yes! I totally get substituting one or two ingredients, especially if it's for financial or health reasons. But changing almost everything and then complain about the original recipe... that I don't understand.

[honigfrosch]

I assume it is the eternal bane of recipe comment sections everywhere. There's always someone.

[laurenthemself]

This drives me berserk!

[jeliza]

There is an amazing recipe for ice cubes with 1000+ comments riffing off this kind of behavior, good for a lot of giggles.

[krait]

Ha! That's great.

Tempted to leave a comment: Substituted vodka for the water. Waited for hours but they wouldn't freeze! 1/2 star, do not recommend.

[honigfrosch]

They added a picture of an ice cube sandwich *wheezes*
Thanks for the link, I needed to see that

[kate_nepveu]

Obligatory link: https://the-toast.net/2014/09/04/eighteen-kinds-people-comment-recipe-blog/

[silveradept]

I bet the cake of people saying "I did this recipe, and swapped in this thing, and it worked fine for me" because sometimes you want to make a thing, but you have allergies or don't have everything on hand, but the thing worked sounds much more like someone not understanding how the cooking works and lashing out that they can't just pick and choose what to use and what to do and it'll turn out delicious. If that's what someone wants, they need to learn how to cook without recipes.

[camwyn]

There's a book by David Joachim, The Food Substitutions Bible, which does a very good job of splitting out the reasons for various substitutions (for example, if you need to swap something for all purpose flour in a recipe that uses flour as a thickener, do this; if you are using flour in baking, do this other substitution instead; if it's a health issue, use these other substitutions). It makes a point of noting 'do not do this in X kind of recipe' or 'if you do this, you will need to remove half a cup of Y from the recipe to avoid screwing up the texture'. I got it from a bargain bin sale at a Borders that was closing down years ago. Very helpful.

But I still wouldn't complain when a heavily subbed recipe came out different from what the original made me expect, even using the book.