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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.