Two ingredients nobody photographs, because they look like nothing at all — and without which most of the world's kitchens would never have existed. The name is the whole idea.
Roots & Rye came out of an irritation. The recipes that look best online are rarely the ones you cook a second time. They are built for a photograph, not for a Tuesday evening. They leave out the places where things go wrong. And they pretend every ingredient is equally good all year round — which is simply not true.
This site attempts the opposite. Dishes that still work the third time. Ingredients that are actually worth buying in the month in question. And instructions that name the point where it can tip over, because that is where it tipped over during testing.
No recipe goes online that has not been on the table at least twice. The second time it gets cooked strictly from the written instructions, not from memory. That is exactly when the gaps show up.
One oven, two pans, one pot, a stick blender. If something needs more, you find out beforehand. There is no recipe here that requires buying a machine first.
Under "notes" you find what can go wrong and why. That is the part that helps most while cooking — and the part missing from most recipe sites, because it looks untidy.
Most recipe sites are organised by course: starter, main, dessert. That is the logic of a menu, not of a kitchen. In a kitchen, the first thing that decides anything is availability — and that changes twelve times a year.
So this site is sorted by month. Arrive in October and you find pumpkin and cabbage. Arrive in May and you find none of it. That is not an instruction, it is simply the state in which ingredients need the least help: seasonal vegetables are cheaper, they travelled shorter distances, and they get by with far less assistance from the spice drawer.
The months given here follow outdoor growing in Central Europe. In other climates the dates shift — the logic behind them holds everywhere: cook with whatever ripened near you, not with whatever a recipe from another season demands.
Roots and rye — what is left once you strip out everything fashionable. Both grow where little else wants to. Both keep through winter. And both are the foundation of a great deal more than they look like.
Honesty is part of the idea, so: the images here come about in two ways. Wherever the actual result matters — the roasted edges on the cabbage, the texture of a dough, the colour of a crust — you see what genuinely came out of my kitchen. For mood and overview shots I also work with digitally generated imagery.
The principle behind it is simple: a recipe has to deliver what the picture promises. Whatever a dish must prove does not get illustrated — everything else may be.
Nikolas Thiele
Writes down what worked — and what did not, the first time around.
Question about a recipe, spotted a mistake, or interested in working together? Write to roots.rye.hello@gmail.com — recipe questions are the ones I answer most gladly, because they show me where the instructions are still unclear.
Every Sunday, one dish that suits the week — made with whatever is in season.
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