Oh, how I wish that were meant as a joke! But maybe they meant to ask if it was a half recipe? Some things do take less time if smaller...

I mostly see things like they substituted honey for sugar and it came out weird. Like duh.

Am I being too critical about people who make a bunch of major substitutions/changes then dog the recipe because it did not turn out well? Or ever made the recipe at all, but give it 1 star because the cake is made with sugar, white flour, too many eggs, etc.. I love seeing honest reviews from people who make it as the recipe is written, if they make later improvements, that is great. Honestly, if you are criticizing a dessert for being unhealthy, why look at it in the 1st place. Get an apple... LOL, sorry, gotta rant

There be trolls...

Another general one that makes me laugh are complaints of too many ingredients or too many steps. Um... There are millions of other recipes if you don't like it...

Back when the website recipezaar.com was a thing, I posted several recipes. One of them was for a dip. The title was "Cream Cheese Olive Dip." It had 4 ingredients, creams cheese, black olives, green olive brine and grated onion.

One of the reviews it received stated that they hated olives so they left them out and used brie instead of cream cheese and it was AWFUL. So they essentially put brie and grated onions in a mixer and tried to eat it on chips. I had it taken down. I wondered that why if they hated olives they clicked on an olive dip recipe. People are dumb man.

Back when I used to share recipes with people in my life, I would tell them that if they altered it in any way, do NOT credit me with the recipe. This happened after someone got my spinach artichoke dip recipe, used fat free everything and presented it as my recipe. It was disgusting and I was offended. I know it was tacky but I did speak up and say that it was absolutely NOT my recipe, it was all her. She protested and said that she GOT the recipe from me, she just substituted fat free cream cheese, and skim milk instead of heavy cream, and low fat Monterey jack, but it was STILL the same recipe. No ma'am. Absolutely not. That's YOUR recipe. Another person put RAISINS in my potato salad recipe! RAISINS?!?!?!?!? And I think it is best to not discuss the person who asked for my sausage stuffed bread recipe, and made it with all that vegan garbage. Vegan "sausage", vegan "cheese". I wanted to smack her. Literally wanted to smack her right across the face for blaming that monstrosity on me. And yes, I am the person who will call you out for making MY recipe wrong and blaming it on me. I will NEVER understand people who eat something, think it is good enough o want to make it themselves, and then feel the need to alter it, and then be shocked when it tastes like junk.

As a rule, the only recipe reviews I look at are for baking, and only then it is to make sure that all the ratios are correct and that a large number of people had a good result. Because baking is a science, and I am not knowledgeable enough in baking to be able to look at a recipe and judge if it will work. For savory food, i can and I do not need to see what concoctions other people made and blamed it on the recipe author.

I agree fully with those who change a recipe and then pan the results. Sad.

Or, how about those who never actually made the recipe but felt obliged to pan the recipe anyway…on some personal principle.

Plllog, I tested recipes for a food magazine once upon a time. Part of the final criteria was: too many ingredients; and/or too expensive. I have several of those recipes in my file because they were/are good.

Oh, Kate, I totally get the part about whether it'll work in a magazine---or for an individual. And if that person just wants to chat and and say it looked good but was too long to try, no biggie, but if you want a traditional mole and don't want to use 25 ingredients, don't call the recipe bad because you're too lazy to make it! How cool, however, that you tested recipes. Have you read Ruth Reichl's book Save Me the Plums? Her description of the testing department at Gourmet is lyrical!

Amylou, I did not make your mac and cheese recipe, but it helped me keep it mac and cheese rather than wandering into pasta with mornay. It was excellent! But not your recipe. :)

What gets me is the recipes you find that you KNOW from being an experienced cook won't work....obviously made up but never tried.

I can pretty well read a recipe and tell you if it will be good.....but occasionally I will read something that sounds so outrageous that i have to try it...like the Blue cheese and peanutbutter cocktail spread. Surprisingly not as bad as it sounds.

Nancy6b, your comment is exactly what I've thought. AND also repeat what Amylou said "people are dumb man"! YES!

I also like(not) the dumb people that give a recipe or product for that matter, a one star and go on the give it a glowing review. I guess mistakes happen, but jeez, don't people check their work for mistakes?

Oof! Sounds awful! You were brave to try it, Linda.

"I can pretty well read a recipe and tell you if it will be good..."

Same here, or at least good for my own taste.

Recipe reviews can definitely be "interesting!" Not long ago someone told me a dip I suggested didn't work out well. It's a very simple combination of cream cheese, Kraft Old English cheese, green onion and canned diced green chiles. She used Velveeta instead of the Kraft Old English, left out the onion and used chopped broccoli in place of the chiles. Not sure what she expected.

chloebud, LOL. She thought broccoli and green chilies had the same flavor profile????? Well??????, I guess they were both green.

amylou321,RAISINS in my potato salad recipe!, barf!

To the vegans; If you are vegan, great, but don't look for vegan meat stuff.. Just skip meat anything. If you have to eat something that is just like beef, you are not vegan.

I tend to think of recipes as guidelines. Other than for baking, I never follow a recipe exactly. If I eat something I like and ask for the recipe, chances are I will follow it fairly closely. That being said, I would never pan a recipe that I did not follow exactly. It is rude.

On the flip side, because I tend to experiment I am often asked for my recipes. I will give recipes as requested but I also follow up to see how they liked the recipe. 9 times out of 10, they never make the recipe. The comments are usually along the lines "It's too much work". WTH

I once had a friend ask me how to cook Thanksgiving dinner. She had minimal cooking skills. I spent a considerable amount of time creating a plan for her that included shopping lists, prep timeline, recipes and detailed instructions only to find out she ended up ordering takeout.

I do find those subbed, then panned recipe reviews can be rather entertaining, and perhaps a little enlightening - as a warning to anyone contemplating doing something similar, that is.

I think it's easy to presume everyone shares one's own experience/knowledge, but of course, the truth is they do not.

And I'm imagining what PB & blue cheese would look like (let alone taste like) when combined, and it's not pretty 😄

"I guess they were both green."

LOL, could be...UGH!!!

I read recipes and reviews that sound good and reviews say they are delicious that I find are not so great and end up usually changing up the recipe. I had a cabinet full of saved recipes and threw them out several weeks ago, husband is kind of picky and I found I was wasting my time and cabinet space.

"I do find those subbed, then panned recipe reviews can be rather entertaining,"

Yes, completely!

No, Plllog, I haven't read Save Me the Plums, but I bet I can relate with most of what is her experience. 😄 And, you wouldn't believe what is done to perfectly good food to make it "camera ready" so it can stand the hot lights and waiting times.

Kate, I've read about some of those camera ready tricks. A couple I recall were shoe polish for grill marks, and spray deodorant on fruit to make it shiny. Also, maybe something about using mashed potatoes for ice cream...?

Mashed potatoes sub for ice cream on film sets. i don't know about magazines, but in advertising, the food has to be real. I think they can oil the fruit, and paint on juice or sauce for grill marks, but I'm not sure. One of the tricks they use for things like burgers is even if they have to use the real thing, in the quantity they're selling, they put all the goodies in the front.

Yes, Chloebud. That and more. One shouldn't expect the prepared food to look like the photo in the magazine.

Sorry we've gotten a bit off-topic, but I guess it can still apply.

For me, Youtube is a better place to search for recipes. I've found some odd ones (mostly from Germany, some from Japan) that have turned out remarkably well. They are usually very simple, and so I can make them just after watching them once or twice, but for some of them, I have to write down the ingredients, especially the ones I get from Brad Leone. I like everything of his that I've made, and I also like Michael Chiarello.

Hmmm, I thought it was if the ad is for the food, then it has to be real, but if it's just part of the scenery, then finessing it is O.K....?

You have to make the food look good for the camera. Food can sit a long time in the heat of the studeo for awhile. Also, 'shiny' photographs better.

Another thing they do is use a smaller pan for cakes and such which makes them appear taller than normal, fatter or bigger than what you will get. I dislike this a lot! I want to know what I will have once I make the food.

I've read long ago that they use a curling iron type rod to make the grill marks. I never thought of using a marker or paint. It must be fascinating being a food stylist.

Back to reviews.....I remember reading a slow cooker recipe and the one reviewer thought it was horrible that the lid of her slow cooker was dripping all this water into the food. No way must that be right! So she cracked the lid and finished cooking the meat and it was all fine. I laughed way too hard at that one.

I've heard of the workers actually painting stripes on burgers at fast food restaurants, but I think it must be an urban legend because the labor cost would be prohibitive, wouldn't it?

Re odd reviews, how about raves of ”best ever” for a pie that's sour cherries, sugar, cornstarch and a pinch of salt? Like isn't that kind of the definition of fruit pie? Adjust the sugar quantity to the relative sweetness of the fruit?

I thought you meant like salted boiling water type of review 😉

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/salted-water-for-boiling-105591

I LOVE Ruth Reichel. I'll have to read that

How'd you find that rob333? It's pretty great 😄

Rob333, Thanks for the link. I will have to read later, I keep spitting my drink out.

ROTFL! But...I do imagine some people don't know how much salt to use.

The Reichl book is a really good read.

This thread is making me laugh out loud. However, I’ll have to admit that I’ve changed a recipe and then reviewed. NONE OF THE REVIEWS WERE BAD. By the way, since i didn’t make the recipe as written, I characterize it as ”commenting” not reviewing. I cannot review unless I make it exactly as written. If my changes had not worked, I would have just kept my mouth shut. It would be my fault, not the fault of the recipe.

Once, I commented on a slow cooker recipe for ribs. When I got to the end of the slow cooking time, DH informed me that he was going to a basketball game that night. I found out that I could stop at that point and pick up the next day finishing the recipe and still have a good outcome. I thought others might want to know how to do it too. The blog editor thanked me for the comment and incorporated my method into the recipe. Boy, did that make me feel good!

Another time, same blog, a cookie bar recipe called for a small amount of flaked coconut in the bar base. I hate coconut. I omitted the coconut but adjusted the other bar ingredients to compensate. Since it turned out good, I posted a comment with my changes. This time the blog editor not only thanked me but said she too dislikes coconut flakes and was going to give my subs a try.

This reminds me of these sort of reviews: The shirt was nice and fit well. It is now my favorite shirt, but shipping was slow so I gave it one star. 🤯

How about those reviews where people give a three out of five because they haven’t opened the package or tried it yet. That’s like the slow delivery.

Louise, what kind of a thing are you thinking of that would be different? Super unconventional? You could try blackened Spam with Door County cherry and sriracha glaze.

I often like recipes with it or a lot of ingredients, or as one rather conventional friend calls it, “a lot going on.” Some Thai and Vietnamese recipes are like this.

Here’s a simple Ramen soup I made & maybe I didn’t know when to stop adding ingredients, but this on-the-fly soup was delicious with perhaps 15 ingredients.

I probably won’t be rushing off to try the blue cheese and peanut butter.

If you painstakingly write out a recipe for buttered Wonderbread, I bet you’d get a lot of variations in how people execute it.

😂 Totally true!

petalique, Recipe? Then we can make it and review with 15 different ingredients.

Y'know, I think TV chefs who come from restaurants have skewed our ideas about food. The most common temperature requested for beef was medium, for lamb and duck it was medium-well, and now everybody thinks they should request medium-rare because of TV, though the reason it's standard in restauants is that if it's over, it's still medium, and if the patron doesn't like how rare it is, they can heat it more (even though there's a loss of quality), whereas if you over-do medium or medium well it's unsellable.

Same with the 15 ingredients. Restaurant chefs on TV are shocked that multiple ingredient dishes are so delicious because they're trained to have very few ingredients that each hold up an individual flavor because that keeps down inventory management costs and takes so much less labor cost. So many deeply flavored traditional cuisines depend on melding a wide variety of flavors to get a unified and distinct (and nutrtious!) whole.

I'm pretty sure that link has been posted before here. I just can't forget it. It's so spot on true!