Are there real recipes?

Some time ago, after posting a recipe on my recipe blog (i think it was tiramisu with strawberries, if i remember well), i got a comment from a lady saying that this wasn’t the “real” recipe. She said she had worked as a chef for many years and the “real” tiramisu recipe is different.

I keep using the commas because I also spend time in the kitchen (it might be the only ‘woman’ thing I enjoy) and I never heard of a recipe that wasn’t.. real.
Yes, there are original recipes, such as, let’s say, fries. Everyone knows you peel and cut the potatoes and you fry them in oil. But noone said you can’t add and egg, cheese, a drop of milk to make them more moist or pepper, you can fry them in butter instead of oil and I think that’s about all the changes I ever made when preparing fries. Those extra ingredients don’t make those potatoes “less fries”, they are just improved, so to say, they just taste a bit different but in the end…. they are still fries.

What I’d like to point out is that, in my opinion, there are no REAL recipes. Classical recipes, yes, but adding and ingredient or omitting one doesn’t mean you ruined the recipe for good. Alright, sometimes it does, but I am talking about small changes that don’t affect the final result as much as forgetting to add cheese in a cheesecake.

I can’t even remember how many times I used baking powder instead of baking soda for cakes, water instead of milk for pancakes or bananas instead of apples for pie filling.

In conclusion, don’t be afraid if you feel like cooking something but as it turns out, some ingredients are missing from your kitchen. Simply replace them with something similar or, if you think you won’t end up throwing everything away, simplify your recipe and don’t add anything and just cook your meals with what you find.

Most recipes were discovered by mistake so don’t panic if a recipe sounds different that what you are used to. It doesn’t hurt to try out something new from time to time. It might even be fun.