For this project I decided to flex my illustration skills to try and get a friend to make one of my favorite simple dishes. Dal, an Indian staple in many homes, is a dish that's easy to make but hard to master.
I took the recipe that I usually worked with and broke it down step by step with little written instruction. I then got a friend to volunteer and the only instructions I provided them with was that I would bring the ingredients and a recipe.
I got to her house with everything she would need to make the dish and then sent her the picture.
Immediately I noticed that she made some assumptions that I took for granted. Such as washing the lentils until the water ran clear - which I did not make clear in the image at all. Also assuming that there was more than just 1 stem of cilantro. I think had I handed this recipe to an exact rule following the robot, it would not have turned out well.
We hit a snag at the step where I instructed to put the spices into a separate cup. My friend ended up adding all the spices to the pot itself which meant that they got a little too burnt. She wondered why it was burning and then realized that it was meant to be put in a separate cup to be used later. To counter this she added more spices later on in the process.
When it was all complete, we did a little taste test and it was good! The taste was different then when I usually make it most probably due to the more burnt flavor and other seasoning factors but was tasty nonetheless.
At the end of the cooking experience I asked her the following questions
The experience for her was a little stressful when the recipe was going as planned but ultimately she still had fun doing it. She mentioned how it was fun to not have to read, She appreciated the increased focus on using images as an instruction medium but my drawings were bad 🤪 Some of it was chalked up to a confusing symbol methodology, one example being that the clock and heat dial were very similar. At a certain point she did take more liberties with the meal itself and didn’t follow the instructions exactly. The other part too was that I as an observer along with 2 other people in the space created a distraction.
In hindsight I think I would’ve done a few things differently. I would’ve definitely made it more compartmentalized so you knew what instruction matched up to what set. I would’ve prepped the dish again and noted down all the things I did that I didn’t do the first time around
Be very explicit with timing, this might take a little bit more work to try and represent that pictorially.
The experience however was novel which she felt made it more memorable.
Overall I think it was a huge tasty success and thank you MK for volunteering!