Guide
How to record a family recipe that was never written down
Record the cook while they make the dish, and let them talk as they go. Don’t ask them to write it down, or to explain it at the kitchen table afterward. A recipe that lives in someone’s hands only fully exists while they’re making it, so that’s the moment to catch it.
All you need is a phone. These steps work with any voice recorder. After them, you’ll see how Pinch & Pour does the writing-up for you.
1. Pick the dish you’d most hate to lose
Start with one. Not everything they make, just the dish that would leave a gap at the table if nobody could make it again: the gravy, the dumplings, the pie crust only one person gets right.
Then pick a day they’re already making it. Holidays are the natural time: the dish is on the stove anyway, and the people who want the recipe are in the room.
2. Ask them to cook, not to teach
Tell them you’d like to record them making it, and that they don’t have to do anything differently. Someone who cooks by feel can freeze when asked for “the recipe,” because they’ve never thought of it as one. Asking them to cook the way they always do, and to talk while they do it, takes the pressure off.
3. Prop up the phone and press record first
Lean the phone against a mug or the backsplash near the stove: close enough to hear them, far enough from the splatter. Keep it out of their hands. Their hands have work to do.
Press record before anything goes in the pan. The beginning is what people often skip when they explain a dish later: which pan, how hot, what goes in first.
Keep the screen awake until you stop. A phone that locks itself, or that you switch to another app, can interrupt a recording made in the browser.
4. Ask the questions that turn feel into steps
They’ll say things like “until it looks right” or “a little of this.” Those are real instructions. Ask what they mean while it’s happening, when the answer is right in front of them:
- How do you know it’s ready?
- What should it look like, or smell like, right now?
- How much is “a little”?
- What would you never do to this dish?
- Who taught you to make it?
If you want amounts, catch them before they go in. Hold a measuring cup under their hand, or weigh the flour jar before and after. Only if they don’t mind, though. The cooking comes first.
The last question isn’t part of the recipe. Ask it anyway, while they’re at the stove.
5. Take a few photos as you go
A voice can’t show how dark the roux should get or how thick the batter looks when it’s right. Take a photo each time they stop to check something, and one of the pan or dish they always reach for. Use a second phone, so the one that’s recording stays on the recording.
6. Write it up in their words
Keep their phrasing. “Cook it until it smells toasty” tells the next cook more than a number of minutes. If you measured something, put the amount next to their words in brackets, not in place of them.
7. Read it back, then share it
Read the finished recipe to the cook, or hand it to them. They’ll spot the step that’s missing, or the amount that’s off. Then send it to everyone who has ever asked how they make it.