Cute! I have a lot of handwritten notes. I've been waiting for a competent "paper scan to SVG" workflow to be developed so I can digitalize them properly. I think your project would also greatly benefit from something like that
Ahh - the dependency graph recipe card. These are excellent. I've imagined something like this forever. Always annoyed that recipes put ingredients in a giant undifferentiated list and then give an instruction like "mix the dry ingredients in a deep bowl".
For a while I expected there could be a good return on a good implementation of this, but now as soon as a strong interface itself is created it seems easy to copy.
I used to want this kind of recipe card, but I've cooked so much that's no longer the case (I actually forgot all about the idea until reading this comment). I can usually look at the list of ingredients, and imagine what needs to be done. If it's an unusual or unfamiliar cuisine I will read the method, but after that point the list of ingredients suffice. If I read a recipe somewhere and want to cook it later, I will just write the ingredients on a post-it (usually in cooking order) and maybe 1-2 brief comments.
I imagine in domains you are skilled at you'd also prefer high level instructions than a step-by-step tutorial.
I agree that doesn't help the beginner, or someone who doesn't cook regularly, or someone cooking something new and I think most recipe writers are just following the established structure without thinking about what they and others really need.
Feels like one might be able to get an llm to convert an annoying to read recipe into a mermaid dependency graph following this example. Might be worth a try!
FWIW though most recipes are basically ~10 steps long so a simple list suffice.
Still it could be an interesting experiment as I imagine that precisely recipes that are less sequential are (on average, with as challenging steps, e.g. excluding making caramel which has a high chance of burning) perceived as more complex.
Nice ideas, it just misses amounts. And of course there may be nuances of technique missing, e.g. low or high heat. So it might work best as a recap and starting point "how to vary m favourite recipe".
That's a very cool site! I enjoyed the hand-drawn graphs.
Your tables remind me of recipes in Modernist Cuisine. They all have ingredients grouped by the procedures together with weight, sometimes volume, and ratio.
I love this! I bet you could make a successful recipe book based on this concept, with large schematics that a cook can read from a distance while working in the kitchen.
This is cool - I tried automating different recipe formats/visualizations at https://www.gobsmacked.io. I was thinking of trying to do something similar to this next.
I really like these. I went through a phase a couple years ago where I got really into cooking new fancy recipes, and having to scroll around on recipe pages, or try and read my own chicken scratch notes or understand the context I was trying to imply when I wrote the notes weeks ago was a struggle.
Having everything more or less right there in front of your face seems really nice.
And I don't know why, but "Beans (green)" is really tickling my funny bone.
a lot of the schematics have avoidable edge crossings, that could improve intuitive readability enormously, theres entire subfields of graph theory that consideres rendering of graphs and planar embeddings.
This will perhaps be overkill for what you're trying to achieve, but there is Object Process Methodology (OPM)[1] which may be inspiration for modelling recipes. It looks similar to the methodology you're using, and as an example, expects the following type of modelling:
The advantage of OPM is alignment of graphical and textual representations.
The downside of such approach is you soon discover how many millions of objects may exist in recipes--unwashed carrot, washed carrot, orange carrot, purple carrot, yellow carrot, white carrot, peeled carrot, coarsely diced carrot, finely diced carrot, julienned carrot... and purple julienned carrot vs. yellow julienned carrot. And that's just basic preparation complexity well before any contemplation of cooking or plating up elements. To go further you then discover a lack of useful labels such as "mirepoix" or "soffrito", if for example, you wanted to substitute sweet potato in place of carrot in the recipe.
Then there is SysML 2[2] which is kind of like OPM if you ever wanted to write a recipe in 35,000 lines of code, including possibly all the complexity of mathematical modelling of the Maillard reaction for purple carrots vs. yellow carrots using either extra virgin olive oil or butter. Probably best suited for the largest food processing companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Modelez, etc and even then, inherent complexity of their food products rarely would reach the level of a fine dining dish prepared by a chef.
OPM looks like a great way to implement a free-style crafting system for a roguelike. I mean instead of having standard recipes that you have to assemble you could invent your own by putting together basic ingredients but then you need a way to know what comes out (and its effects I guess). I don't know if any existing games do that.
Nice! this reminds me of https://www.reddit.com/r/flowchartrecipes/ and the table view on the https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/87/Carrot-Pulp-Ca... pages.
I like it. Reminds me a bit of the table format on Cooking for Engineers (scroll to the bottom of the recipe): https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/19/Erics-Chocolat...
I was going to say the same! You can also check the recipe card here: https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/19/Erics-Chocolat...
Cute! I have a lot of handwritten notes. I've been waiting for a competent "paper scan to SVG" workflow to be developed so I can digitalize them properly. I think your project would also greatly benefit from something like that
Ahh - the dependency graph recipe card. These are excellent. I've imagined something like this forever. Always annoyed that recipes put ingredients in a giant undifferentiated list and then give an instruction like "mix the dry ingredients in a deep bowl".
For a while I expected there could be a good return on a good implementation of this, but now as soon as a strong interface itself is created it seems easy to copy.
I used to want this kind of recipe card, but I've cooked so much that's no longer the case (I actually forgot all about the idea until reading this comment). I can usually look at the list of ingredients, and imagine what needs to be done. If it's an unusual or unfamiliar cuisine I will read the method, but after that point the list of ingredients suffice. If I read a recipe somewhere and want to cook it later, I will just write the ingredients on a post-it (usually in cooking order) and maybe 1-2 brief comments.
I imagine in domains you are skilled at you'd also prefer high level instructions than a step-by-step tutorial.
I agree that doesn't help the beginner, or someone who doesn't cook regularly, or someone cooking something new and I think most recipe writers are just following the established structure without thinking about what they and others really need.
”To bake an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe.”
— Carl Sagan
Feels like one might be able to get an llm to convert an annoying to read recipe into a mermaid dependency graph following this example. Might be worth a try!
Just tried https://www.mlynn.org/tools/generate-diagram and it didn't work.
FWIW though most recipes are basically ~10 steps long so a simple list suffice.
Still it could be an interesting experiment as I imagine that precisely recipes that are less sequential are (on average, with as challenging steps, e.g. excluding making caramel which has a high chance of burning) perceived as more complex.
Nice ideas, it just misses amounts. And of course there may be nuances of technique missing, e.g. low or high heat. So it might work best as a recap and starting point "how to vary m favourite recipe".
That's a very cool site! I enjoyed the hand-drawn graphs.
Your tables remind me of recipes in Modernist Cuisine. They all have ingredients grouped by the procedures together with weight, sometimes volume, and ratio.
Example: https://modernistcuisine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Mac-...
I love this! I bet you could make a successful recipe book based on this concept, with large schematics that a cook can read from a distance while working in the kitchen.
This is cool - I tried automating different recipe formats/visualizations at https://www.gobsmacked.io. I was thinking of trying to do something similar to this next.
My friend did a similar thing https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1077776268/recipe-redes...
I really like these. I went through a phase a couple years ago where I got really into cooking new fancy recipes, and having to scroll around on recipe pages, or try and read my own chicken scratch notes or understand the context I was trying to imply when I wrote the notes weeks ago was a struggle. Having everything more or less right there in front of your face seems really nice.
And I don't know why, but "Beans (green)" is really tickling my funny bone.
These are amazing. It feels so clear to see a visual ”map” of the cooking process before you even start.
This would help coordinate two cooks to make prepping more independent.
I’m trying to figure out if an landscape Ipad, with interactive elements for extra details if needed, would be a good UI for this.
-
Edit: Showed it to my non-Engineer wife and she said ”this is horrible” after staring at it for 10 seconds. Maybe not for everyone…
a lot of the schematics have avoidable edge crossings, that could improve intuitive readability enormously, theres entire subfields of graph theory that consideres rendering of graphs and planar embeddings.
Great initiative ! So simple and yet it works (from those recipes listed I know, they are all working nicely).
Nice! I do similar but yours are much more sophisticated. I list the ingredients and then group them at the side with instructions.
My God what do you do to your feta?
I love it too, bookmarked and hopefully adopted! Did you write about it somewhere?
That's really neat and easy to parse, love it!
This will perhaps be overkill for what you're trying to achieve, but there is Object Process Methodology (OPM)[1] which may be inspiration for modelling recipes. It looks similar to the methodology you're using, and as an example, expects the following type of modelling:
"peeling carrot" (process) consumes "washed carrot" (object)
"peeling carrot" (process) yields "peeled carrot" (object)
"peeling carrot" (process) yields "carrot peel" (object)
"finely dicing carrot" (process) consumes "peeled carrot" (object)
"finely dicing carrot" (process) yields "finely diced carrot" (object)
"prepare mirepoix" (process) consumes "finely diced carrot" (object)
"prepare mirepoix" (process) consumes "finely diced celery" (object)
"prepare mirepoix" (process) consumes "finely diced onion" (object)
"prepare mirepoix" (process) consumes "butter" (object)
"prepare mirepoix" (process) yields "mirepoix" (object)
The advantage of OPM is alignment of graphical and textual representations.
The downside of such approach is you soon discover how many millions of objects may exist in recipes--unwashed carrot, washed carrot, orange carrot, purple carrot, yellow carrot, white carrot, peeled carrot, coarsely diced carrot, finely diced carrot, julienned carrot... and purple julienned carrot vs. yellow julienned carrot. And that's just basic preparation complexity well before any contemplation of cooking or plating up elements. To go further you then discover a lack of useful labels such as "mirepoix" or "soffrito", if for example, you wanted to substitute sweet potato in place of carrot in the recipe.
Then there is SysML 2[2] which is kind of like OPM if you ever wanted to write a recipe in 35,000 lines of code, including possibly all the complexity of mathematical modelling of the Maillard reaction for purple carrots vs. yellow carrots using either extra virgin olive oil or butter. Probably best suited for the largest food processing companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Modelez, etc and even then, inherent complexity of their food products rarely would reach the level of a fine dining dish prepared by a chef.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Process_Methodology
[2] https://www.omg.org/spec/SysML/2.0/Language/PDF
OPM looks like a great way to implement a free-style crafting system for a roguelike. I mean instead of having standard recipes that you have to assemble you could invent your own by putting together basic ingredients but then you need a way to know what comes out (and its effects I guess). I don't know if any existing games do that.
Dang this is the best way to represent a recipe I've ever seen. I love it
It's amazing how much more readable this format is. I love it.
This is really really awesome
Recipes-as-JSON?
I'd prefer it if you minimized the crossing paths :-)
Now this I love. It respects the craft of cooking and the human element, while giving instructions in an easy to grok and straightforward way.
Great job!
That is brilliant. Going to try some of yours then maybe transcribe my own favourites into the same format. You've struck on a great idea here.