So, the Internet is changing a lot of things gradually as well as quickly. One thing I thought of today is the death of family recipes. I don't really expect them all to die, but I could believe a trend of people moving away from learning traditional family recipes and to the top hits from Google.
Instead of having different species of a recipe evolving in isolation with generational mutation and a little bit of interfamily crossover, people can now find that canonical First Hit for "Pumpkin Pie". Information becomes so trivially distributed now. I suppose it was somewhat similar with popular cookbooks that might have been had in one out of three homes.
At least we don't easily all implement the same recipe the same way. There's still a lot of room for variation. And it doesn't have to spread just locally now, it too can spread globally. It still seems, though, a little sad that what once would have acted as a thread through generations of a family now loses that claim to legacy.
But then again, perhaps most children who learn how to cook will continue to obtain instruction first from their parents, and cooking as a family activity will blunt the invasive power of globalised recipes.
You've combined food, evolution, and internet! XD Tastey!
ReplyDeleteIt may be rare, and usually doesn't involve the memorization that comes with making the same recipe repeatedly with grandma, BUT the internet does sometimes facilitate the storage and transmission of these family secrets. Emailing a relative, "How do you make that thing you always make?" or finding long lost family recipes in the archives of the internet which can birth them anew to the world and create a sense of connection with a generation or family one barely/never knew.
Yah, but it's all interconnected and diluted by the new, convenient competition :( The complaint is about going out to these groups that you don't really know at all, rather than fostering family traditions.
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