Anyway, I digress. Sorry!
In the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of winter I decided that I needed a simple project to help me through to the spring.
Something that I would enjoy doing and was also worthwhile doing. I enjoy cooking and reading recipe books, I enjoy maps as well. So I thought that I would attempt to cook my way alphabetically around the world and map as I go along.s
Which is what lead me to try and cook seswaa, a simple slow boiled beef recipe from Botswana in southern Africa.
I happen to know a man from Botswana and told him that I was thinking about cooking seswaa and he got animated (well slightly!) animated. He mentioned that it was usually shredded or pounded and served with pap.
This blog post is not going to have a recipe for seswaa, there are plenty of those about if you are interested.
Instead it is more of a reflection on other things that come into my head as I cook and draw.
One thing that comes into my head is how infuriating the recipes are that at the top of Google search results.
As someone who is trying to get pages and products found through SEO it seems to me that lots of these recipe writers and bloggers are having to try and write to try and please Google rather than someone who is looking for a recipe. Maybe they have Yoast on their website and are looking to have two green lights?
Anyway, the point is that scrolling way down a page through paragraph and paragraph of loosely related thoughts about the recipe just so I can reach the actual recipe isn’t something I enjoy doing it. Maybe other people do, it’s just not for me.
There are so many pages out there that are clearly being written for Google crawl bots or whatever rather than users. The question is whether I am now doing the same? Am I trying to get some love from Google with this blog post?
My whole life is being forced into a box prescribed by creepy technology giants and their algorithms.
And I don’t like it.
Something else I am aiming to do with the cook around the world thing is to paint some simple food maps as I go along, like this one of Botswana.
I have it for sale over here in my shop if you’re interested.