Right? I mean it’s a national newspaper at this point. To think it is still and exclusively written with the NYC readership in mind is amusing to me.
The Washington Post does this very well. Almost every major ingredient as well as hard to find ones will have a possible substitution at the end.
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Now we’re getting into newspapaper circulation nitty gritty. There was always a readership outside the local area, but digital subscription is what vastly expanded that. It was not common to have a physical NYT delivered before that unless someone had ties to the region, and even then, often just the Sunday paper.
Cooking used to be in the paper on Wednesday iirc, not a day many people not local would be getting a paper. That transitioned in the digital age to the “What to Cook” newsletter on Wednesdays even before Cooking went the pay route.
So the audience has expanded away. Which may well explain the change in quality of the recipes, to adapt to that.
Survey bias – all the people who already know what it is aren’t commenting, on the other hand
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The people who already know are commenting on the recipe as written, or answering the queries of those who don’t know. It’s certainly only a handful who say they’re not familiar, I was just pointing out that they exist among the comentariat.
Sure, but there’s always going to be someone who isn’t familiar with an international ingredient. It shouldn’t vastly alter the direction and quality of what’s put out. Unless we’re converging to the LCD.
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I was responding to a specific point Amandarama made, but I’m certainly in agreement with you on that.
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It’s funny that anyone would think it’s okay for quality to suffer because readership broadened – I don’t think that’s the case for the rest of the paper, so I’m not sure why it’s a justification for the cooking section, lol.
Can you imagine if the rest of the paper went to LCD because readership went national & international? It’s the opposite – readership goes national & international because of quality, quality doesn’t get intentionally downgraded because readership broadened.
(I’m back to attributing it to the age of social media and what can go viral in the most dumbed-down way. A favorites collection every week, sometimes two, is good clickbait.)
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Well, obviously (I hope) I was not suggesting that when I pointed out that they’re writing for a national audience in response to your exchange with Amandarama about the ease of finding ingredients in NYC.
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Back when I was in college — decades ago, in California — I made a point of buying the NYT on Wednesdays for the cooking coverage (not even a standalone section, still part of the Living section), and also on Fridays for the arts coverage, as well as buying it for the national and international coverage (I was a politics major). There were NYT boxes as well as those for local papers on most college campuses.
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Oh I know, I was just musing aloud, not responding specifically.
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College campuses (well some of them) are
a great resource. Also public libraries.
We got a subscription at college our senior year at student pricing bec my roommate is from the area (and then used it to look for apartments, hahaha). Her mom used to send us the Sunday times before that.
Re Cooking — fortunately the repository still has all the old recipes, as many of us have been cooking and reporting from!
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This sounds quite wonderful for when (if) the temps finally go down.
And this. Bc I def needed another chicken recipe in my recipe box 
Also, this is calling my name. But I adore salmon almost any which way.
Ooohhh! They had me at Patatas Bravas. Cheesy, paprika-y and limey? Yup, this is right up my alley! Thanks for posting!
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Oh, happy to! There’s so much more where that came from… like these:
I’ll stop here 
For now.
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Not a fan of eggplant, and I lost my miso when my electrical power went to 20% for 5 days last summer and haven’t yet replaced it (need to do that as that miso-mascarpone pasta sounds good as well!)
There are TOO MANY RECIPES out there! LOL
Is 510 too many? Asking for a really good friend…
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I’m one of those people who gets the NYT print edition delivered daily, and lives far from NYC, and has for ages. I really need to rethink this though, for a variety of reasons. But it is actually not uncommon. Fewer and fewer places have a hometown newspaper with the national scope, etc.
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