Why Do Online Recipes Insist on Telling a Life Story Before Getting to the Ingredients?

You’re standing in the kitchen, stomach rumbling, searching for the perfect quick recipe. Perhaps a simple pasta sauce or a foolproof way to cook chicken. You type it into Google, find a promising link, and click.

And then… the saga begins.

Instead of immediately seeing a list of ingredients and clear instructions, you are greeted with a 1,500-word emotional odyssey about how Grandma used to make this dish during the Great Depression, how it reminds the author of childhood summers in Tuscany (despite being from Birmingham), and how this particular recipe changed their perspective on love, family, and personal growth.

You scroll. And scroll. And scroll.

At one point, you think you’ve made it to the actual recipe, only to find a second, more introspective anecdote about the time they burned this dish while going through a difficult breakup, but then learned an important lesson about self-worth and resilience.

Finally, at the very bottom—after your stomach has already started digesting itself—the recipe appears.

By this point, you are angry, lightheaded, and debating whether it would be quicker to just eat a plain slice of bread.

But why? Why do food bloggers do this to us?

The Search Engine Conspiracy

The sad truth is that food bloggers aren’t doing this to personally torment you (though it does feel like it). They’re feeding the almighty Google algorithm, which rewards long-form content that includes keywords, stories, and personal connections—even if that means writing the culinary equivalent of War and Peace just to justify a three-step guacamole recipe.

• Short recipe = bad for SEO.
• Rambling memoir about the transformative power of cinnamon = great for SEO.

Google thinks long content = valuable content. You, a human being with a growling stomach, think long content = a crime against efficiency.

So food bloggers stuff their pages with stories, background, history, and unnecessary personal growth narratives to trick search engines into ranking their recipe above the dozens of identical ones.

The Emotional Blackmail of Recipe Writing

Another reason for the epic backstory before buttering toast phenomenon is emotional manipulation. Food bloggers are desperate for engagement, because engagement means ad revenue, sponsorships, and a validation of their life choices.

They don’t just want you to read their recipe—they want you to connect with their journey. They want you to care.

That’s why every “quick and easy soup” tutorial starts with something like this:

“This soup isn’t just soup. It’s a hug in a bowl. My grandmother, a fiercely independent woman who fled her war-torn country with nothing but a wooden spoon and a dream, taught me this recipe while telling stories of resilience and hope. As she stirred the pot, she would whisper life lessons about patience, kindness, and the importance of good broth. It’s more than a meal—it’s a legacy.”

Meanwhile, you just want to know how much garlic to chop.

By the time you get to the actual recipe, you feel guilty for skimming past Grandma’s harrowing past—so you scroll back up, out of obligation, and skim through some of the story.

And guess what? That’s exactly what the food blogger wanted. The more time you spend on their page, the better their website performs.

The Minefield of Pop-Ups, Ads, and Videos You Can’t Escape

If the tragic love story disguised as a pancake recipe isn’t enough to test your patience, let’s not forget the digital assault course of:

1. Auto-playing videos—usually a smiling person saying “Hey guys! Welcome back to my channel!” before you can frantically hit mute.
2. Aggressive pop-ups demanding that you subscribe to a weekly email newsletter about casseroles.
3. More ads than actual text, including one that takes four seconds to load, forcing the page to shift just as you’re about to tap the ingredients list—meaning you now accidentally click on an advert for a car insurance quote instead.

By the time you finally reach the recipe, you’ve been bombarded with so much content that you’ve forgotten why you even wanted to cook in the first place.

The “Jump to Recipe” Button: A Lifeline or a Cruel Joke?

Some bloggers, aware of public frustration, have started including a “Jump to Recipe” button at the top of the page.

At first glance, this seems like an act of mercy—an admission that they know you do not care about their journey of self-discovery through artisanal bread-making.

But beware.

Sometimes, this button is fake.

It looks real, it promises salvation, but instead of taking you directly to the recipe, it just scrolls you down slightly before another pop-up appears asking if you’d like to buy their eBook on “The Secrets of Perfectly Moist Brownies.”

By the time you actually reach the recipe, you are emotionally compromised, physically weakened, and starting to wonder if humans were even meant to cook food in the first place.

The Final Betrayal: The Recipe Itself

After surviving the pop-ups, the sob story, and the labyrinth of ads, you finally reach the recipe, expecting clear, concise instructions.

And yet…

• Step 1: “Now, before we begin, let’s talk about why organic tomatoes are superior.” (No. No, we will not.)
• Step 2: “Be sure to use fresh herbs for maximum flavour.” (I have dried parsley and no time for judgment, Susan.)
• Step 3: “Cook for an unspecified amount of time until it ‘feels right.’” (What does that mean?!?)

After all that build-up, the recipe itself is either annoyingly vague or demands obscure ingredients you will never own (saffron threads? fresh lemongrass? essence of unicorn?).

And that’s when you close the tab and decide to just make a sandwich instead.

A Plea to Food Bloggers

Dear food bloggers, we get it. You have bills to pay, SEO rankings to climb, and personal brand empires to build. But please, for the love of butter, let us find the recipe without having to read about your spiritual awakening via banana bread.

A simple compromise:

1. Put the recipe at the top.
2. Let people scroll down if they want to read about how this meal changed your life.
3. Keep the ads to a minimum—no one should feel like they’re escaping from a digital warzone just to find out how to make soup.

Until then, we will continue to suffer, scrolling through emotional memoirs disguised as recipes, trapped in a never-ending cycle of hunger, frustration, and existential despair.

Because sometimes, all we really want is a list of ingredients and a simple “throw it in the oven at 180°C for 30 minutes.”

And yet, here we are.

Grandmama’s No-Nonsense Cheese on Toast

My dear Grandmama was a woman of few words. She didn’t believe in unnecessary chit-chat, and if you asked her for a recipe, she’d simply say, “Butter the bread, lad. The rest is common sense.” She lived through wars, rationing, and the great margarine scandal of 1972. She didn’t waste time, and neither will we.

Here’s her legendary, life-changing, soul-rejuvenating recipe for cheese on toast—may she forgive me for writing even this much about it.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of bread (preferably from a loaf, but in desperate times, whatever you’ve got)
• A hunk of cheese (cheddar is best, but anything that melts and isn’t blue will do)
• A knob of butter (optional, unless Grandmama is watching)
• A pinch of salt and a highly optional dash of Worcestershire sauce (if you’re feeling extravagant)

Method:

1. Toast the bread lightly. Grandmama always said “untoasted bread is just cheese resting on sadness.”
2. Butter the toasted side (optional, but she’d raise an eyebrow if you didn’t).
3. Pile on the cheese—thick enough that it just about counts as a meal.
4. Grill until bubbling and slightly burnt at the edges. If it doesn’t have at least one crispy dark bit, you’ve failed.
5. Optional flourish: A few drops of Worcestershire sauce or a sprinkle of salt, assuming you’re not living under Grandmama’s strict “you don’t need that” regime.
6. Eat immediately. Regret nothing.

There. No essays, no pop-ups, no tragic flashbacks to childhood meals in candlelit kitchens. Just cheese on toast, as Grandmama intended.