A good cook knows that recipes can be often treated as guidelines. However, many a bad cook has a similar line of thinking, just with a vastly different outcome. Now, knowing you are a bad cook is one thing, but a poor craftsperson will blame their tools, up to and including recipes.
The “I Didn’t Have Eggs” online community gathers the bewildering and somewhat infuriating online recipe reviews of people who for some ungodly reason decided to make terrible ingredient substitutions, then went online to rant about the recipe. So get comfortable, upvote the best (or worst) posts, and comment your thoughts below.
#1 This Guy Gets It
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#2 “4 Cups Of Apple Cider Vinegar To 2 Bottles Of Wine Was Absurd.” Yes It Was
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#3 Substitution Poetry!
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While many of these are humorous, except perhaps for the poster of the recipe, the amount of culinary ignorance on display can be a bit frightening if you have a dietary restriction for whatever reason. Some people just do not know that surprise, surprise, eggs are not vegan and will happily serve baked goods to vegans who would be none the wiser. This is, perhaps, why some people will simply refuse to eat anything they have not cooked themselves.
The same is just as true for religious dietary restrictions. While, for example, the prohibition on pork, found in Judaism and Islam is pretty well known, some might not understand the variety of products that come from a pig that isn’t just meat. Gelatin, for example, which incidentally is often also not vegan, to the despair of a vegan trying to make smores for the first time.
#4 No Mention Of Corn In A Mexican Crema Recipe
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#5 This Was On A Recipe For Peach Ice Cream
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#6 Oh Kimica ?learn To Understand Directions Please
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While it might seem strange to deviate from a recipe if you are going through the trouble of finding one in the first place, it’s important to remember that in the age of the internet, the recipe might be from an entirely different continent. US recipes will often mention certain name-brand products that one can’t find elsewhere. All cuisine is based on the best utilization of the products that are actually on hand, so any good cook will make substitutions regularly.
#7 Reading This One Activated My Flight Or Fight Response
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#8 I Haven’t Made It Yet ?
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#9 “The Recipe Is Bad Because I Undercooked It” Absolute Savage Response
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This is just as true if one has a dietary restriction. Vegans, for example, are no doubt used to regularly modifying recipes and often enjoy good food just as much as everyone else. And as “modern” as some might think it is, there have been vegan substitutions for some items for not just decades, but over a thousand years. For example, “mock duck,” an alternative to duck meat, has existed in China since the 7th century.
#10 Do You Even Know What A Potato Is? 1 Star!
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#11 Big Brain Baking
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#12 This Person Added An Unnecessary Egg And Got Mad The Cake Was Ruined
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If one considers tofu as a meat substitute and not just a foodstuff in its own right, then “vegan meat” dates back to around 200 BCE, giving it considerably more pedigree than entire recipes and national cuisines. And it’s not just limited to East Asian food, there are ancient Greek sources that describe mock anchovies made from boiled and shredded turnips, mixed with oil and salt.
#13 The Best Review Yet
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#14 I Found This Gem On A Caramel Ice Cream Recipe And I Am So Glad I Did
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#15 Recipe For A London Broil Marinade. There Indeed Is No Pepsi Or Coke
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In fact, while often overlooked, meat alternatives were also quite popular in Medieval Europe, as people who participated in Lent would abstain from meat, eggs, and dairy products. As one can imagine, there was not a vegan section at the grocery store, nor a grocery store in general, so people had to be clever about what they ate over lent, as just bread might get exhaustingly boring quite soon.
#16 Christopher Has Had Enough Of Reading About Other People’s Substitutions
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#17 Just Devastated That Mayonnaise Doesn’t Make Good Frosting. But I Still Ate It
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#18 Thanks For Your Life Story!
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Milk substitutes are perhaps just as old, though one needs to keep in mind that these aren’t one-to-one with dairy substitutes. One can’t exactly make cheese out of oat milk, for example. However, soy milk and coconut milk have been used in lieu of milk for around a thousand years in India, China, and Southeast Asia. So the “soy” part of an often derided “soy latte” is considerably older than the latte.
#19 On A Post For A Homemade Peach Cake
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#20 I Wish You Would Shut Up
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#21 Cindy Is Tired Of Your Questions
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Setting aside dietary restrictions, it’s important to always remember that before readily available refrigeration and containerization technology, in most places recipes and cuisine were built around availability, which is ultimately influenced by everything from geography, weather, and the season, as well as social class. So many world-class cuisines, as we know them today, were built of changes and substitutions. Imagine Italian cuisine before the tomato, or Central and Eastern Europe, before the potato, both of which had to be brought in from the Americas.
#22 Geoffrey Doesn’t Like Full English Breakfast
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#23 I’m Not Sure If This Counts But It Made Me Laugh
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#24 Yes, Cumin Beef Tastes Like Cumin
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This is all to say that substitution and improvisation is the cornerstone of nearly every delicious thing we have ever eaten. However, there is a fine line between genius and madness, one which is readily visible here. From horrifically misunderstanding basic instructions to a complete lack of knowledge about an ingredient, some of the options by these home cooks baffle the mind.
#25 So Tasty It Sent My Dog To The Hospital. Definitely The Recipe’s Fault. One Star
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#26 I’m Better At Traditional Chinese Cooking Than The Traditional Chinese Cook
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#27 Ritzchef Is All Of Us
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These posts are great, because they often also present the recipe itself, or at least excerpts from it, which allows us to gauge if there was something unclear or poorly written in the recipe itself. Spoiler alert, most of the examples here are so simple and clear, a child could follow them, just not, it seems, the average home cook/netizen.
#28 When Recipes On The Internet Should Know That You’re Prediabetic, And Should Reflect As Much
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#29 French Toast. With Tortilla. And Aquafaba. And Cumin
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#30 I Didn’t Follow The Directions
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Everyone makes mistakes, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Similarly, many of us have “bright” ideas that in reality turn out to be utter nonsense. Most of the time, a wise person will note the mistake and move on. These geniuses here, instead, decided to publicly share the nonsense that was going through their heads, no doubt in the belief that they are incredible cooks and could not have made a mistake. And if you want to see other “genius” cooks in action, look no further and check out our other article here.
#31 Why Do You Have This Much Free Time??
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#32 This Bourbon Chicken Recipe Review
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#33 Things Are Getting Tense In This Banana Bread Recipe’s Comments Section
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#34 Translation: It’s A Frittata, You Twit
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#35 I Think They Should Reread Their Review
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#36 Not The Recipe’s Fault
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#37 Didn’t Read Directions, Got Food Poisoning
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#38 What Happened Here Is Truly A Mystery
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#39 Cindy Is Not Happy About The Use Of Eggs In Baked Goods
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#40 Big Hot Oil Mess
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#41 What The F**k, Kim?
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#42 No Substitutions (As Far As We Know) But A Wild Ride
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#43 Can I Make The Sugar Spread Without Sugar?
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#44 Recipe Calls For 1 Teaspoon Of Red Chili Paste
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#45 Recipe Is Missing Peanut Butter
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#46 On A Recipe For Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting
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#47 Used Half The Water Required In The Recipe Because My Cake Pan Was Too Small And The Cake Was Dry For Some Reason – 2 Stars
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#48 Amber Doesn’t Bother To Read, And Gets Schooled By The Recipe’s Author
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#49 The *most* Pretentious Comment I’ve Seen (On A Simple American Style Alfredo Sauce)
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#50 Satire Saturday: I Didn’t Have The Shortening
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#51 Baking Soda, Baking Powder. Potato Potahto
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#52 Braggers Only
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#53 Found On A Recipe For Penne Alla Vodka
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#54 My Son Started A Fire! 1 Star
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#55 Amy Out There Fighting The Good Fight
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#56 This Recipe For Thanksgiving Stuffing
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#57 The Icing Of Theseus
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#58 *lemon* *pound* Cake Is Dense And Sour, And I Didn’t Cook It All The Way. Terrible Recipe. One Star
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#59 On A Recipe For “Less Sweet” Frosting
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#60 Real Estate Blog / Recipe Review
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#61 Real Mustard Has Mayo
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#62 It Turns Out That Nearly Doubling The Cook Time Yields Bad Results
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#63 On A Vegan Yorkshire Pudding Recipe
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#64 Jesus. Sugar In A Dessert?
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#65 Didn’t Use All The Flour, Turned Out Sticky
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#66 K
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#67 Found One! A Recipe For Bone Broth
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#68 The Sub Name Is Literally In This Review
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#69 Recipe For French Onion Soup. Called For Sherry, Not Cherries
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#70 No Eggs? No Problem
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#71 Made A Different Recipe. 4 Stars
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#72 Question On A Feijoada (Brazilian Bean Stew) Recipe
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#73 No Salt In My Seasoned Salt Plz
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#74 Used Crisco Instead Of Unsalted Butter 1 Star
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#75 On A Recipe For Fish Pie. Love That They Got Called Out On It!
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#76 Pie Is Not Cake
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#77 Using Tapioca Flour Then Complaining It’s Too Gummy
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#78 Miranda Isn’t Putting Up With Ryan’s Bs
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#79 Why’d You Rate It Then???
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#80 This Recipe Seems To Be A Forum For Mental Giants
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#81 3 Stars For Bad Grammar
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#82 Bottom Lip Is Tingly
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#83 At Least She Asked Before Making It
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#84 Not Sure What Recipe Jeff Was Reading
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#85 Because We All Know Cheddar Cheese Is The Superior Pairing With White Chocolate
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#86 Okay Mr. Jim Fancypants ?
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#87 All Red Sauces Is The Same, According To Donna M
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#88 “I Did Not Eat This Recipe. One Star.”
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#89 “The Texture Of This Cake Was Horrible. It’s Definitely Not Because Of The Extra Cup Of Moisture I Added”
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