Family secret tho
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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It’s almost always because it’s heavy based on store bought semi-finished products.
My mom’s used to say all her recipes were secret family recipes, when in reality she just did what I do, add stuff you happen to have in the fridge/spice drawer until it tastes good.
I just made two 6kg batches of bolognese yesterday and they sure as heck don’t contain the same ingredients but both tastes great 😀
I always roll my eyes like bffr jessica i wanna make your brownies for myself at home so i can eat half the pan not to make a business out of it. 🙄🙄🙄
I hand out recipes like candy. My family’s, my husband’s…if someone loves something why can’t they have it? My fave recipe I got from another friend’s mom and I share that too.
I think people are worried if they give the recipe out then it will no longer be their’s to bring. Not true. All my friends have my fave recipes but I still get asked to bring them. And if someone else makes it too then more for everyone! I remember I made a pasta salad for work once and made copies of the recipe in a stack next to the bowl. The only recipe I won’t share is one that is not written down. 😅
I know someone like that who won’t share her pumpkin cookie recipe with someone else, so I just helped the other person find recipes online.
My recipes are so special I won’t even let anybody eat my food.
Probably because her secret cookie recipe is Nestle Toll House and her special cake batter is Betty Crocker.
It kinda makes sense when the family is involved in a lot of events where people bring food. So you are well known in the community for having that one amazing dish and it’s just that family that can nake it.
Then there is the fact that just saying it’s special makes it special. It could just be a boxed mix, but still tastes different because it’s been hyped as a secret.
It also could just be adding a spice or something, a lot of baked goods are pretty plain. Just adding another spice for a contrast and flavor makes a huge difference. I had a friend in college that added rosemary to brownies, it’s amazing. You can also upset the balance in a baked good though, and which causes people to fail and add to the legendary secret recipe.
Legit family recipes generally can’t be written down properly. I remember begging for my granny’s brown soda bread recipe before she died.
Half the measurements were 3/4 a handful of _, a double pinch of_, half a pinch of _, 4 small glasses of _, etc. basically impossible to recreate unless you had watched her making it.
This one got me :);)
Some family secrets are more classified than government files.
When I bring food to potlucks, I print out small cards with the recipe on it to put next to my dish. If someone wants the recipe they can just take it.
It’s because they know that it can be perfected and they will lose their secrets that it ain’t that good after all
Hey man, it’s special. Leave it alone.
🤣
I make soda, I’m not giving you my exact recipe but I will give you a good recipe.
My ex’s mom told me she’d give me the secret-family recipe to her sweet potato casserole when I was married to ex. We didn’t marry. I found the recipe on a ton of different websites years ago. I make it every year. 🤷🏻♀️
It’s 50% industrial from a jar and 50% fermented forgotten ingredients from the back of the fridge.
My mother would make chocolate chip cookies when I was a kid. The neighbor’s kid loved them too. He was a bit disappointed when he found my mother used the recipe on the bag of Toll House chocolate chips and it wasn’t some secret family recipe.
Go look at a few professional chefs recipes for common dishes, they’re all very similar to each other because they’re fundamentally sound. If your recipe hinges on an ingredient or two, you’re probably just throwing ingredients together.
If I’m making Mac and Cheese there might be small alterations to the Béchamel for the cheese sauce or the pasta for the macaroni, but it’s not going to be something like “half a pound of cream cheese and a packet of ramen seasoning”.
The recipe is a “secret” because it’s rude to tell someone not to overcook their pasta, season their food and practice knife skills for 100* hours.
It’s always Betty Crocker.
Grandma just cooked it enough that she memorized it and threw the cookbook away 25 years ago.
We all have to draw the line somewhere.
My grandmother and I were talking about this recently! We were at the store and I asked if she would bring me her lasagna recipe next time we were out, and she said ‘of course!’
A man overheard us and he talked about how he loved his mother’s lasagna, and when she died his sister refused to share.
We were both like… that’s crazy! Recipes are meant to be shared! Everyone should get to make good food! But lemme say this. The worst is those people who give you the recipe but deliberately wrong. Like, thanks, just wasted all this food when you could have said no!
The WORST is when family members keep the recipes secret from other family members.
Grandma’s home made lemon square recipe is lost because she never wrote it down and wouldn’t tell anyone how to make them.
My single most important rule of teaching recipes to others is to show them a “basic” recipe for practice, so that they can develop their own unique flavors on top of it. In other words, no strict instructions/ingredients but rather easy to source from locally available ingredients and a recipe to achieve almost the same end product.
Almost always because of this “cultural appropriation” BS, we try to dial back on food related creativity!
P.S.: yeah I have a beef with those Italian chefs who say smth along the lines of “only sicilian cherry tomatoes”, or “only italian olive oil” etc. like come on, do you want the world to appreciate your food or not?
Who needs recipes?
I tell everyone to “just go on YouTube. It has every family recipe!”