Why Simple Recipes are Better
the diminishing marginal returns of cooking
We are pummeled daily with recipes from every kind of media. How do we identify the good from the bad in a world saturated with garbage? This article will:
- Determine what makes a recipe worthwhile
- Argue why exerting less effort makes sense for home cooks
Recipes should not be evaluated on taste alone. Let’s say you love McDonald’s fries. What if they raised the price from $2 to $20? Would you still buy them? Part of the reason you buy those fries is because of their fantastic value. Good value is something with a high output to input ratio. Like everything else, recipes need to be evaluated, weighing both taste (output) and effort (input) required.
Recipes that taste great relative to the effort required become beloved staples. This also explains the success of convenience foods & the Whole Foods hot bar. These foods require 0 effort and taste fine. Home cooking doesn’t stand a chance, which likely explains why it’s dying off. To survive, recipes should strive to minimize inputs while maximizing output. Input is measured by time, physical effort, # of ingredients, and clean up. Output is measured by taste and presentation. When we graph the relationship between input and output, we can see why additional effort is optional or pointless.
figure 1. Culinary Diminishing Marginal Returns
Figures 1 makes a case for simpler recipes. It shows why adding steps and ingredients becomes less critical after a certain point. That point is represented by broccoli. Before you reach broccoli, every additional unit of input you put into a recipe significantly improves the outcome. This stage is referred to as increasing marginal returns. In human terms, added effort = big payoff.
The state between broccoli and artichoke is diminishing marginal returns. This is where additional units of input still make a positive difference, but not as impactful as pre-broccoli inputs. Busy home cooks should not aim for the artichoke- that stage is often more effort than it’s worth. They should aim to land between broccoli and artichoke, preferably closer to broccoli.
If you pass artichoke, this is where things start going downhill. These are decreasing marginal returns. Additional units of input are actually hurting the outcome. This is easily conceptualized. Think over-cooking (too much time), or too salty (too much of an ingredient). Let’s look at a specific example with one input (time in minutes), and one output (taste).
figure 2&3. Oatmeal and Banana Bread Examples
Figure 2 charts the relationship between cooking time and taste of steel-cut oatmeal. The first 30 minutes of cooking make the biggest difference. Between 15 and 30 minutes, the oatmeal goes from hard and chewy to almost tender. That 15 minutes afforded a significant change. The 15 minutes after?
Between 30 and 45 minutes, the oatmeal goes from 80% to completely tender. This is still a positive change, but not nearly as important as from 15-30. Some people may not even find the additional 15 between 30-45 minutes worth it, given how little the outcome changes.
After 60 minutes? At 60 minutes of low and slow simmering, you’ve reached restaurant-quality oats. However, if you continued to cook the oats for another 30 minutes, you’d probably end up with gloppy hotel buffet oats. No texture and slimy. The goal is to stop somewhere between broccoli and artichoke.
Figure 3 shows another example with # of ingredients and banana bread outcome that I’ll let you examine yourself.
So back to the title of this essay. Simple recipes are better because you’re more likely to make them. Most recipes overzealously add unnecessary ingredients and steps that result in only incremental changes to the final outcome. It doesn’t take a lot for a recipe to go from bad to great (broccoli).
I don’t think home cooks should have to strive for artichoke results. Most people think cooking is tedious. Yet, they’re following recipes telling them to exert way more effort than necessary. That 10/10 outcome can be left to restaurants or special occasions. For everyday meals, it’s perfectly acceptable to settle. I would prefer you cook 50 good meals a year over 5 perfect ones.
Final Thoughts
Why did I write this, and why does this matter? I want to encourage people to cook more & not squander their time. Making the most out of our limited resources is responsible living. There’s an entire field of social science examining how to use earth’s finite resources efficiently to satisfy our unlimited desires.
The argument in this article is written based off the assumption that you view cooking as tedious. If you enjoy spending hours in the kitchen, go ahead and aim for artichoke.
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