Working on Recipe Titles
Can a good recipe title inspire and inform?
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We often talk about the time and effort required to develop, test, write, and edit recipes to make sure they are easy to follow and foolproof. Something we don’t discuss as much is how to entice people to cook those carefully crafted recipes in the first place. How do we spark a reader’s appetite or pique their interest enough to lure them into the kitchen to cook from our books? Of course, gorgeous photos help, and many cookbooks are chock-a-block with these, but images can only do so much. Much like the way a restaurant menu lists its dishes to help diners choose what to order, recipe titles can help cooks decide what to make. The most standard approach is to write recipe titles that are both appealing and descriptive. But titles can also provide context, history, and provenance. The best tempt and inform. The challenge is to communicate your message without being too lengthy or awkward. A lot rides on recipe titles, and getting them right can be tricky.
In this week’s re-run episode, Kate Leahy, Andrea Nguyen, Kristin Donnelly, and I geek out on all the technical aspects of recipe writing. We get into various styles and how they’ve evolved over the years, and we weigh in with our own experience.
What follows is a summary of the five stages I use when writing recipe titles for books:
Draft: When I first type up a recipe, I give it a name. In many cases, it’s just a simple placeholder, often a curt summary of the dish, so I have a way to categorize and remember the recipe. Sometimes it’s more whimsical or lyrical. Rarely do I land on the final title on the first try.
Edit, edit again, and edit some more. My first edit comes as I’m writing the headnote, trying to set a scene or a mood for the recipe. I often play around here, experimenting, taking risks, and then pulling back. Since word economy is paramount, this can feel a bit like a poetry exercise. (Check out Kristin Donnelly’s super helpful list of ideas for this stage listed below*.) Later, as the full manuscript comes together, I start checking recipe titles against one another to see how they cohere—or don’t. I think of this stage as a vibe check. Some authors successfully employ multiple title styles within one book, maybe alternating between lyrical and more straightforward language. Other authors aim for a more consistent voice. There’s really no one way, but be deliberate about whatever route you take.
Match the titles to the design. Once your manuscript goes to pages and you see the design layout, you often need to adjust recipe titles to fit. Are your titles so long that they feel squished onto the page? Or maybe there’s a word that runs onto a second line and needs to be cut? Or maybe a few appear too measly in comparison to others? Now’s the time to fix your titles so they elegantly flow into the design and are easy to read.
Edit again. Don’t forget to check your recipe titles again during the final stages of editing. Do they accurately represent the dish in its final form? Did you end up cutting an ingredient for space—or maybe the food stylists forgot to add something for the photo—and it happens to be something you listed in the title? That may sound far-fetched, but I promise it’s happened.
Cross-check against the TOC and the index. If your book lists recipe titles in the table of contents, either at the front of the book or at the start of the chapters (or both), be sure to cross-check your final titles against those lists. Not every author has the opportunity (or time) to review an index, but if you do, it’s also a good idea to review how your recipes are listed, imagining the search terms your readers might use. Is your Lemony Lentil Soup listed under lemon? Or is it, more helpfully, listed under soup and lentils? Obviously, it’s unreasonable to expect you’ll be able to review an entire index, but it’s worth giving it a look.
Other authors no doubt have very different approaches to writing recipe titles, and we’d love to hear from you about how you think about titles. In the meantime, here’s a helpful list to help you craft titles for your next project from Kristin Donnelly’s Write Better Recipes Boot Camp. (If you’re looking for more coaching on cookbook proposals and/or cookbook writing in general, check out Kristin’s website.)
Ideas for crafting better recipe titles:
Add appetizing adjectives (ex. Potato Salad with Pickly Things)
Include specific ingredients that bring a lot of flavor. (ex. Miso Molasses Baked Beans)
Credit the creator (ex. Nonna’s Minestrone, Ken’s Fried Rice)
Include the method in the title (ex. Red Wine-Braised)
Name after a widely appealing dish. (ex. Farro Carbonara, but use sparingly and with care and know your reference)
Speak to ease (ex. Low-Maintenance Grilled Chicken)
Romanticize the dish (ex. Sicilian Lifeguard Salad)
Use choice superlatives (use sparingly, and take care not to oversell; not every dish can be “the best ever”)
Links from the episode:
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Next week on EVCB:
Andrea takes the lead during an all-host chat where we tackle the issue of recipe headnotes. From the role of headnotes to how to write an effective one, we sample some favorites and share a few pet peeves. We hope you’ll tune in, and until then, keep on writing, reading, and cooking. ✍️📚🍳
Molly and the EVCB crew
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Yes it can! Inform, especially. Headnotes are just that: