When looking at recipes, it is important to note the form the author utilizes. The form can tell you a lot about a recipe such as the sequence of the text and the layout. The most basic and familiar form would be the introduction of the dish, a list of ingredients, and the instructions. The introduction to the dish serves as a way to let the audience know the details behind the dish. It may include what region the dish is from, how many it serves, and maybe even more. The instructions will simply tell the reader what to do with each ingredient and specific steps to making the dish. There are several recipes or recipe books that include pictures of the meal or even several pictures of how each step should be carried out. Now a days, with technology on the rise, many even include video tutorials. A great example of this would be Tasty videos, which is something that most millennials are familiar with. Every recipe also has a unique theme or topic. Some recipes may focus on vegetarian dishes or meals for healthy eaters. For example, the All Recipes website has a entire category for only vegetarian recipes. Others may focus on culture and food from around the globe.

Many people think of recipes simply as a set of rules, however there is so much more to a recipe than the ingredients and the instructions. Although this is the basic format of all recipes, many recipes serve a deeper purpose and are meant to tell a story to the reader. Some may wonder why authors write recipes. Well, there are many answers to this question. Some authors write recipes to serve a certain purpose or audience. Recipes can be written for several different kinds of audiences such as family and friends. Authors such as Leanne Brown write recipes to target a certain type of audience that may be on a strict budget. In her compilation of recipes titled Eat Well on $4/day Good and Cheap, she says that the “cookbook is a celebration of the many delicious meals available to those on even the most strict of budgets” (p.5). Some authors write recipes in order to shed light on a certain culture to allow the audience a glimpse of food from all over the world.

So what makes a good recipe? The answer varies from person to person and depends on the situation. I personally believe, however, that for a recipe to be good it should taste phenomenal and it should be easy to make. The instructions should be simple, yet effective and easy to follow. Some recipes contain instructions that are unclear and don’t give clear guidelines on what should be done. This is an attribute that may make a recipe “bad”. Another characteristic that I think makes recipes good is having an instructional video. Online recipes are becoming more and more common and this channel allows for the audience to receive a visual of how the dish is made.