“I don’t use recipes!” is an annoying brag!

[Lordoftheflyingpan]

AIBU in finding it really annoying and unbearably smug when someone says “I don’t use recipes, I just make up my own”?

It can occur any time the filthy word “recipe” is mentioned, but as an example:
A: This salad is really nice!
B: Thanks, it’s a Jamie Oliver recipe.
A: Oh, I don’t use recipes. I just make it up according to what I like.

I’m aware this is super petty, but if Mumsnet isn’t the place to put petty gripes then I don’t know where is.

YABU - it’s fine! Get over it/yourself.
YANBU - ugh, yes, so smug and annoying.

@Gwenhwyfar

"My experience is that people who are good at cooking use recipes, and people who aren't (like me) don't and just wing it."

I'm bad at cooking so I have to follow a recipe. I wouldn't know what to do otherwise.
Even when following recipes I sometimes have to google the instructions in the recipes because they're not clear enough.

Fair enough, so it's more like people who are good at cooking or who want to be good (or at least better) at cooking use recipes, the ones like me who aren't any good and don't particularly care just wing it. 😆

"@DottyHarmer I doubt it very much that any cookery book my granny had (if there were any back in her day and whether they could afford it or not)"

Is your granny from pre-history or something?

"the ones like me who aren't any good and don't particularly care just wing it. 😆"

To wing it, you have to know how to cook to begin with so you must be following basic recipes to some extent eg put the hob on, chop the veg and put it in...

When I hear this I always assume all of their meals taste exactly the same

I definitely enjoy adapting recipes, but if I want to make something totally new, or a classic I want to replicate, I will at least refer to the recipe quite heavily. Otherwise I'm not making that dish!

@Gwenhwyfar

"Like Cottage pie, spaghetti bolognese, fish pie, roast dinners etc are all pretty basic and don't require recipes"

Of course they do. An apple and an orange in a bowl is not cottage pie, is it? People who make cottage pie are following some kind of recipe, even if just from memory.

My point was that if you're making the same basic recipes every single weak then you probably don't need to read a recipe. Though if your idea of cooking is sticking some fruit in a bowl, maybe you do.

I knew someone who adapted every single dish until they were all ratatouille! Bolognese, curries, soups... all ratatouille

@Gwenhwyfar

"the ones like me who aren't any good and don't particularly care just wing it. 😆"

To wing it, you have to know how to cook to begin with so you must be following basic recipes to some extent eg put the hob on, chop the veg and put it in...

I think it depends on how you define following a recipe. It's being able to butter some bread following a recipe? Knowing how to put pasta in bolling water? Combining said pasta with a tinned sauce?

If you get really pedantic about it then maybe, but I don't imagine most people would really think of any of those as following a recipe. I can't imagine a book filled with those "recipes" would sell too well 😂

There’s a big difference in not using a recipe because you have enough experience/skill/taste to make something that suits the palette of those you are cooking for, and not using a recipe out of principle or because you have limited ingredients. Everyone follows a recipe when they start cooking. When we have something new my DH asks if I followed a recipe or made it up as sometimes it can be hit or miss!

I never saw a recipe book in either of my nains house. Never. It was all in memory. Very basic food. Food cook with what they had.

@Sweetlikejollof I thought when you said "I’m very amused by the idea that saying ‘I don’t use recipes’ is interpreted as smugness or pretension by some people" you were implying that it was all in the OP's head. I apologise if that's not what you meant.

The post by @TheHaka illustrates that, at least sometimes, people certainly ARE being smug and pretentious about not using recipes, and look down on those who do.

@Xiaoxiong I was more remarking on cultural differences, as that interpretation genuinely wouldn’t have occurred to me prior to this thread.

And, yes, pp was being a pretentious tit for no reason.

If you get really pedantic about it then maybe, but I don't imagine most people would really think of any of those as following a recipe. I can't imagine a book filled with those "recipes" would sell too well 😂

You would be wrong. Delia Smith complete how to cook (complete with pictures on basics such as boiling an egg) has sold, and is still selling, millions of copies around the world.

I wouldn't say I have particularly basic tastes. This week we've hadChinese bbq pork with satay noodles, seafood paella, souvlaki, Margarita gnocchi, crispy chicken with creamy polenta etc.

I can't say that they were entirely authentic and I would have looked up techniques at one point (like how to cook a paella) but mostly I use my experiences eating at restaurants, ideas from recipe books, TV, tiktok/fb/instagram, watching my mum cook etc. But I wouldn't follow a recipe just for a normal dinner or lunch or salad.

I will follow a written down recipe for baking though.

I can’t honestly imagine ever giving a shit about how someone else cooks. I don’t use recipes very often - not a brag at all; I’m just not really one for planning things in advance. I use recipes for baking but not for meals in general. I don’t understand why that would bother you.

@newnameforthis76

I can’t honestly imagine ever giving a shit about how someone else cooks. I don’t use recipes very often - not a brag at all; I’m just not really one for planning things in advance. I use recipes for baking but not for meals in general. I don’t understand why that would bother you.

I think what a lot of posters are saying is that at one point it must have been a recipe but I don't know, I'm not sure that's true. I made a chicken pie the other day, I've never looked at a chicken pie recipe. I did use ready made pastry though and made a creamy sauce based on my knowledge of how to make a bechamel (which maybe at one point I looked up a recipe for?).

My DP and I fight about this a little. I'm the no-recipe wanker, he feels he has to follow a recipe to the letter even when its something very simple and sees any attempt to short-cut / substitute as potentially ruining it. I do think once you've got a basic understanding of cooking and flavours you can adapt most things without laboriously following a recipe. I don't think I've ever made a point of bragging about this though ;0 sometimes friends ask what I've cooked and for the "recipe" and I've obliged but I assumed they are being polite rather than that they really wanted to follow and replicate it

I'd never thought about the recipe vs no-recipe thing before, but this thread really has proved the OP's point. Some right smug twats on here.

I don't do specific timings either. I can give a ballpark figure and if the packaging on frozen stuff is handy I'll try to follow that. Drives OH bonkers.

I'm not sure you could make a bechamel sauce without at some point looking at a recipe. I couldn't anyway.

At some point in one's life I mean.

This thread is a bit infuriating to read as many people are talking at cross-purposes.

I imagine very few people use recipes every time they cook. I also imagine very few people never use recipes at all. In the middle, bobbing around, is the majority of people who have a range of things they cook often enough that they don't need any guidance at all but will use recipes for inspiration/information.

I do think people who never ever use recipes are either very good instinctive cooks who are able to try new things with a lot of confidence that they understand flavours and unfamiliar methods, or people who eat very little new food and have a very set repertoire. I'm not sure either is that common in the general cooking population.

If you cook something enough you don't need a recipe

If you want to discover a new recipe you look it up

Some of its instinctive, some of its new

Each cook has their own easy thing to do and difficult thing to master

But bragging is always twatish 😀

I use recipes sometimes, when I want to try something new, and I read recipes for inspiration, other times I don't use recipes and its not because the recipe is in my head from doing it many times before, I really just make it up as I go along because I can't remember how I've done it before. It genuinely upsets me that I can't remember how I made a meat sauce once that was so good, because I just made it up as I went along and never thought to write it down afterwards. Nothing to be smug about, I'm just disorganised and lazy.

I say it on here because lots of people seem to stress themselves out about meal planning.

I've never got on with meal planning. I just take 4-5 vegetables that go together out of the fridge/freezer/cupboard and sling them together with meat in the oven/wok/slow cooker.

Some turn out better than others. Some combos are worth remembering. But we always get fed, and all the meat and veg get used up before they go off without thinking about it too much.

Sometimes I use a recipe, but mostly I just want to eat.

I would think if you never used a recipe you were probably a very boring cook. Obviously if you cook a lot you have certain dishes/recipes you just know from memory and other meals you put together based on what you think will work. But most people, surely, who like eating will sometimes follow a recipe, even if it's just for guidance? I like trying new things so I'm a sucker for the seasonal recipes on supermarket sites, for instance, and I often look up recipes for inspiration if I've got a leftover ingredient I need to look up (like half a jar of olives or half a pack of feta).