[SkyBelow]

Does it pose an actual problem?

When I search for recipes, I type in the food I want + recipe and then open the top 5 or so links. I quick scan for a list of ingredients. If I don't easily spot on in a few seconds I move on. I'll do this until I have a couple different lists of ingredients for making the item. This ends up taking less than a minute or two. That just isn't a significant portion of time compared to how long I'll spend comparing different recipes to find a common theme to follow.

Maybe it is because I never follow a single recipe but instead combine the common themes from a couple that the whole life story before the recipe shtick isn't something that bothers me.

[onion2k]

This ends up taking less than a minute or two.

For you to open 5 websites, dismiss the cookie permission request on each one, dismiss the notifications request, scroll down to find the ingredients list, dismiss the scrolling activated newsletter signup, read the ingredients list, and click the 'next page' button to see the instructions to work out what you can tweak, all in an average of 24s per site is very impressive.

[SkyBelow]

I just tried it. Went to the top seven sites for chicken tikka masala. Exited one for not loading, had to mute another tab with an annoying video, but got to the recipe in 6 of them in under two minutes. No popups (though I do have an ad blocker that may have prevented them).

>read the ingredients list, and click the 'next page' button to see the instructions to work out what you can tweak

That wasn't included. I was talking about scanning to verify there was an ingredient list. I pointed that out when I said:

>That just isn't a significant portion of time compared to how long I'll spend comparing different recipes to find a common theme to follow.

[Freak_NL]

Or just get thrown out completely because you are from the EU.

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

No, no problem here. I need some backstory, heavy on cutesy metadiscourse, before I'm in the proper mood to learn about Tbsp's and oven temperature.

[interestica]

You dismiss the challenges of finding a single recipe by mentioning you find several and combine them? That completely defeats the purpose of a recipe. You're literally creating your own recipe at that stage.

[SkyBelow]

Finding several to combine should be harder than finding any single one of those represented among the several.

As far as the purpose of a recipe, it still informs me of the ingredients and amounts so I can make a reasonable approximation. Say I want to cook chili, something that there seems to be innumerable recipes for. And say I want to add beans to mine, though my personal recipe doesn't normally include beans. So how many beans should I add? And what kind of beans should I add? Well if I check the top 5 recipes for chili with beans and see that 4 of them use kidney beans and that they tend to use 1 cup per pound of meat average, I can now modify my own recipe in a more informed fashion. This also works for cooking something when I don't know where to begin.