Isn't this how recipes - outside of friends and family - have worked forever?
Celebrity chefs are the minority. People normally just Google "air fryer fried okra" and click on one of the first three.
A meandering SEO tale doesn't prove this person cook, it proves they know how to game Google.
Looking back at some of the gelatin casseroles of the 60s, of course, casts doubt on some of that reliability.
You're making my point - they were gatekeepers because they were discoverable and promoted. That's what gave them credibility. Just as showing in search results does now.
People didn't pick cookbooks because they had the most aimless stories that hid the actual recipe.
a) tell if it looks like something you'd enjoy
b) tell if it turned out right after it's done.
None of the recipes on this site have any pictures, which I think will hold it back.
If you run the magazine Food & Wine and you just publish random recipes that you found for free in church-ladies' xeroxed recipe pamphlet, you're going to lose your readership pretty fast.
Of course, some magazines applied more standards than others, and so that's when the reader learns to trust the recipe in Food & Wine (or whatever, I'm not recommending them) over Reader's Digest.
The most convincing theory I heard was that the gelatin obsession was about status since it required refrigeration. Hosting a party where you served the latest, most elaborate gelatin dish said something about you.
It's not that recipes with meandering SEO tales necessarily have better recipes. It's that recipes without any explanation usually suck. If you pick something with a meandering SEO tale, it _might_ not be terrible. Possibly not terrible is better than definitely terrible.
I'd argue that recipes themselves are why a lot of people's cooking sucks. The recipes tell you what how much and how long but fail to account for the basics of seasoning, preparation and tool selection.
If people apply a formal or acquired training to recipes they'd usually vary a lot from person to person much less the original recipe
Recipes are easy to find, especially now with the internet.
It does have a section on recipes, but a solid half or more of the book is on technique, why certain ways work and others don’t, etc.
Lots of stuff that I imagine one would pick up by working in a kitchen or going to school for it, but could take a long time to figure out on your own.
0: https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Fat-Acid-Heat-Mastering/dp/14767...
[0] (Of course you don't have to read and quote books, and a lot of good chefs didn't as well, but that is just one factor for me to decide how much experience you have/how trustworthy you are. Just showing some recipes don't tell me that much.)