If you’ve ever spent any time on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram in the last year, you’ve probably been exposed to reels. Reels are videos that generally run 30 seconds to a minute long, run by content creators who are there to provide any form of entertainment. Food is a very popular category when it comes to reels, primarily with aspiring chefs (or established chefs) who create visual recipes to follow. Here’s how these recipe reels are changing the way we cook in the modern era.
A Recipe Revolution
Before recipes were written down, they were simply passed down orally. Eventually they were written into recipe books, before making their way to online recipes. But now, reels are here and they’ve completely revolutionized the way we follow recipes.
What makes reels so effective is the way everything is simplified. They’re designed in such a way that even people who are afraid of cooking are empowered to try their hand at it after watching one reel.
This is true for a few reasons. One, the visual nature of watching the creator make the dish in real time (or reel time) is easier for some people to understand and follow. Two, the reels are so quick that people don’t feel like they have to commit so much of their time to read through a painstakingly long recipe.
Because ultimately, recipes really aren’t that complicated to make, and yet traditionally they’ve appeared daunting to those who don’t commonly make food. But reels flip that script, and highlight the simplicity of a recipe—allowing for newbie chefs to discover hidden cooking talents they never knew existed before.
